After a quarter century, authorities say they have finally solved one of America's most intriguing whodunits, the 1975 murder of pretty, rich teen-ager Martha Moxley in this affluent New York suburb.
Because Skakel was only 15 at the time of the murder, the juvenile court system previously handled the matter, until a Connecticut judge transferred the case to adult court in a January 31 decision.
A nephew of Ethel Kennedy killed a teenaged neighbor in 1975 and fooled the police for years but eventually could no longer "keep a lid on it" and began telling people, a prosecutor charged as Michael Skakel's murder trial opened amid great fanfare.
Michael Skakel's older brother told police in 1975 that when he left Martha Moxley on the night before Halloween she was alive and well talking about capping off "Mischief Night" by throwing eggs and spraying shaving cream around Greenwich's affluent Belle Haven neighborhood.
The prosecution's 29th witness at Michael Skakel's murder trial, if you can call it that, died of a heroin overdose last year but his words live on in a court transcript read to jurors.
The first witness to testify for the defense said he was with Michael Skakel at the time police initially believed Martha Moxley was killed, giving the Kennedy cousin an alibi in the 26-year-old crime.
Twenty-four years after he allegedly told a reform school classmate, "I am going to get away with murder. I am a Kennedy," the 41-year-old nephew of Ethel Kennedy was convicted Friday of the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley.
Michael Skakel's courtroom demeanor was all wrong and his high-profile defense lawyer underestimated the ability of jurors to recognize a phony alibi when they saw one, four of the jurors who convicted the Kennedy cousin said in an interview with Court TV.
Before her name became synonymous with violence, scandal and the sins of the dissolute rich, Martha Moxley had a more benign role in Greenwich: She was the new girl in town.
Even before he was indicted for the murder of Martha Moxley, Michael Skakel thought he had lived a fascinating life. In June 1998, when he was just 37, Skakel tried to interest book publishers in an autobiography.
A look at the key locations in the Martha Moxley, including where the body was found and placement of houses.
In 1992, at the behest of a Skakel family attorney, a prestigious Long Island private investigative firm, Sutton Associates, began re-investigating the murder of Martha Moxley. The firm spent several years and reportedly over a million dollars poring over the case and re-interviewing witnesses.
Court TV chats online with woman who has been covering the case longer than just about anybody: reporter Jane Crawford, who was actually the very first reporter at the scene of the crime back in 1975.