Martha Moxley Was Killed in 1975. Now, Suspect Michael Skakel Speaks Out for First Time After Conviction Was Overturned By KC Baker

The now-infamous murder of wealthy Connecticut teenager Martha Moxley has gripped the state and the nation for 50 years.

The brutal Oct. 30, 1975 slaying of the popular 15-year-old in Belle Haven — an exclusive enclave of affluent Greenwich, Conn. — was the focus of films and books including “A Wealth of Evil” by Timothy Dumas and “A Season in Purgatory” by the late author Dominick Dunne.

The case garnered intense interest, not just because a beautiful young girl was killed in one of the wealthiest parts of the country, but because the main suspect, Michael Skakel, is related to one of the most famous families in the nation — the Kennedys. 

Now, for the first time, Skakel, 65, is speaking publicly about the Moxley murder which has plagued him for decades.

The exclusive interview is part of NBC News Studios’ 12-episode podcast, “Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder,” which debuts Tuesday, Nov. 4.

“Um, my name is Michael Skakel and why am I being interviewed?” Skakel can be heard asking journalist Andrew Goldman in the trailer for the new podcast, NBC News reports. “I mean, that’s kind of a big question, isn’t it?”

Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow — the late Ethel Kennedy — lived across the street from Moxley at the time of her killing in 1975. She was beaten to death with a golf club in her yard the night before Halloween, when Skakel was also 15.

Police initially suspected others, including Skakel’s brother Thomas, who was allegedly the last person to see Moxley alive, CBS News reported.

Despite that, in 2002, Skakel was the one found guilty of killing Moxley and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

In 2013, Skakel was released from prison after a Superior Court judge vacated the sentence, ruling that his lawyer failed to adequately represent him at trial. Skakel was freed after posting a $1.2 million bond.

In 2016, state prosecutors appealed that decision and the Connecticut Supreme Court voted to reinstate the conviction.

Two years later, after more legal wrangling, the Connecticut Supreme Court voted narrowly to overturn his conviction, ruling that Skakel’s right to a fair trial was compromised by ineffective legal representation.

In 2020, state prosecutors dropped the case, saying they would not retry Skakel because they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he killed Moxley.

NBC’s Goldman is the ghost writer of the 2016 bestseller “Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade in Prison for a Murder He Didn’t Commit,” by one of Skakel’s cousins, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In the course of the new 12-episode podcast, the journalist goes in-depth on the Moxley murder and what was going on in Skakel’s life before and after he was accused of killing her.

From the outside, Skakel’s childhood seemed idyllic. But behind the walls of the Tudor mansion where he lived with his parents and six siblings, he said he was abused by their father, Rushton Skakel — a wildly successful businessman and serious alcoholic.

He recalled being beaten after his father caught him looking at Playboy magazines when he was 9.

“I just never knew when it was going to happen,” Skakel says of his father’s alleged beatings in the podcast, NBC News reports. “I didn’t know why it happened.”

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Police zeroed in on Skakel as a suspect when he admitted that he climbed a tree near Moxley’s house and threw pebbles at it, masturbating when she didn’t come to her window.

Moxley’s bludgeoned body was found under that same tree the next morning.

Andrew Pugh, a friend and neighbor of Skakel’s, testified that Skakel had ”an attraction, an infatuation” with Moxley, according to The New York Times in 2000.

Skakel has maintained his innocence from the beginning.

Moxley’s mother and brother previously told PEOPLE they believe Skakel is guilty.