Book summary “Greentown”: summary

Introduction

You live in a world where extreme wealth and social status can seemingly insulate individuals from the consequences of violence. When a horrific crime shatters an affluent community, you expect the justice system to operate swiftly and impartially. Instead, you often discover how institutional deference and deep pockets can stall investigations for decades.

Timothy Dumas investigates the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut, examining how privilege created a culture of silence. An in-depth investigation into the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut, exposes the dark underbelly of wealth, institutional protection, and the long road to justice. You will see how local police failures and protective families allowed a killer to evade accountability for twenty-five years.

The book explores these themes through a structured narrative.

• You learn how the elite enclave of Belle Haven shaped the initial chaotic response to the crime.
• You examine the early suspects and the systemic missteps that compromised the investigation.
• You follow the decades of public silence and the eventual revival of the case through private pressure and media scrutiny.
• You trace the grand jury proceedings that finally led to an arrest.

How did wealth distort the early investigation? What role did elite private schools play in harboring secrets? How did relentless persistence finally pierce decades of silence?

1. Setting the Scene and the Crime

The affluent enclave of Belle Haven serves as the backdrop for the brutal Halloween night murder of Martha Moxley, whose death is met with immediate denial and flawed initial investigations.

Belle Haven Enclave

You enter Belle Haven through checkpoints and private police patrols. The isolated, wealthy peninsula features dense, sprawling mansions built on narrow plots reaching into Long Island Sound. Brochures from 1884 advertised the area as a premier residence park for New York society and captains of industry, boasting salubrious breezes and total immunity from malaria.

By 1975, the population of Greenwich stood at sixty thousand bodies, and the grand mansions of Belle Haven were fading beauties. Some of the oldest-looking houses were actually built in the 1920s, long after the neighborhood flowered in the 1880s at a starting elevation of one hundred and fifteen feet above tide-water.

The Night of the Murder

Martha Moxley thrives on constant motion and social leadership. Having attended five schools in five years across different states, she has lived in Greenwich for fifteen months since moving from the San Francisco Bay and quickly becomes a central figure among her peers.

On Mischief Night, Martha and her friend Sheila McGuire invent the Leaf-Smashing Dance, crushing colorful autumn leaves under their shoes as an ode to the season. The night before Halloween brings youthful pranks and an eerie atmosphere across the neighborhood. Special police officer Charles Morganti, who spent two and a half years serving in Vietnam, and local resident Robert Bjork experience an uncharacteristic feeling of dread. Dogs in the neighborhood react violently to unseen disturbances.

Charles Morganti spots a mob of twelve to fourteen kids near the Moxley house. Resident Steven Hartig hears noises from the end of Walsh Lane at eleven o'clock. Dorthy Moxley begins calling neighbors at two in the morning to locate Martha, leading patrolman Bill Oberdorster to receive the missing person call at police headquarters at 3:48 A.M. after Dorthy calls police on Halloween morning at 6:35 A.M. to confirm her daughter still has not returned from the Skakel residence, where Martha reportedly left at 9:30 P.M. to go home.

The Discovery

Martha Moxley is violently attacked, dragged across the lawn, and killed with a golf club on her family's property during the night. The killer strikes Martha with seven, eight, nine poorly directed blows to her skull, shatters the weapon from the force, and stabs her in the neck with the broken shaft before concealing her remains beneath a pine tree. Helen Ix listens on the phone to her German shepherd barking furiously outside while Dorthy Moxley remains indoors painting window frames and listening to distant commotion.

Sheila McGuire searches the neighborhood for the missing girl the morning after Mischief Night and steps onto the Moxley lawn near a tall silvery-blue pine tree. She initially mistakes the pinkish foam mattress and blue sleeping bag for left-behind camping gear before realizing she is looking at the body of her friend, who lies face down and naked from the waist down with severe wounds. Sheila runs back to the house to pound on the door and alert the adults.

Juvenile officers Millard Jones and Daniel Hickman arrive in Belle Haven after receiving an ominous call and find Martha's body rigid with postmortem lividity. Daniel Hickman checks his watch at 12:30 in the afternoon while standing over the body. Family doctor Richard Danehower inspects the body and observes a deep slicing chop near the crown of the head that penetrated the skull and exposed the brain's dura mater layer.

Marilyn Robertson, Jeanne Wold, and Jean Walker sit with Dorthy Moxley in her living room, offering flimsy consolations about fifteen-year-olds doing crazy things while phone calls come in from the Skakels. Martha's brother John is pulled out of high school football practice by coach Ornato and drives his Mustang from Greenwich High School back to Belle Haven, where Lou Robertson breaks the news on the front steps, prompting John to swing at Lou in a state of wild denial before rushing inside.

Sheila McGuire visits the Fuchses' house at 78 Mayo Avenue and tells Holly and Tori that Martha was only slightly hurt and is going to be fine, retreating into catatonic denial until her mother breaks the final truth. Peter Coomaraswamy, age 15 on the day of the incident, stands with Michael Skakel at the edge of the police lines where a reporter upsets Michael by asking an inappropriate question about a family tragedy as outsiders and reporters flood the exclusive neighborhood.

2. Early Suspects and Flawed Investigations

Local police mismanage the investigation through deference to wealthy families, while investigators focus on early suspects and conflicting timelines.

Evidence and Theories

Detectives found the metal head and two nine-inch sections of the shaft of a woman's six iron splotched with blood. The weapon was later traced to a set that belonged to the Skakel family, though the handle was initially unaccounted for. Police discovered the metal head and shaft sections on the Moxley lawn and side yard while kicking through the failing autumn light. The 147-member force of the Greenwich department faced a brutal crime scene that required specialized homicide expertise.

Investigators and locals quickly dismissed the theory that a stranger or drifter from the nearby highway committed the murder because Belle Haven's geography is too isolated and guarded. Resident Chris Gentri noted that nobody snuck in from the thruway, as the killer was someone who saw Martha that night and knew the neighborhood geography. Interstate 95 offered a convenient escape route in theory, but local streets remained too narrow and patrolled for an unfamiliar outsider.

John McCreight, an associate at Touche Ross who had joined in 1968 from the Apollo space program and made partner in a record four years, offered professional assistance to David Moxley. McCreight warned that local town police lacked the expertise to solve the murder. He called David Moxley on the night of the murder and later urged him to accept outside help, noting that local police only investigate minor local crimes like shoplifting.

Dr. Elliot Gross concluded that Martha Moxley died from a fractured skull and brain injuries resulting from being beaten at least a dozen times and stabbed once through the neck, while determining no rape had occurred despite pulled-down clothing. Officer Dan Hickman grew faint watching Dr. Gross turn Martha's body over on the slab during the autopsy at Greenwich Hospital. David Moxley turned forty-four on the day his daughter's body was recovered after a six-hour autopsy.

The Skakel Household

The Skakel household provided investigators with the timeline of Martha Moxley's last evening, placing her with several teenagers and visitors shortly before her disappearance. Julie Skakel and other family members detailed how a group went to dinner at the Belle Haven Club and returned home to watch television and play backgammon before visitors arrived and went for a ride in the family Lincoln. Julie Skakel told detectives about the dinner party at the Belle Haven Club, and Tommy Skakel recalled his interactions with Martha before she headed toward Walsh Lane. Ten people went to dinner at the Belle Haven Club, and Tommy Skakel joined the group at the car at nine-twenty.

Local resident William Edward Hammond became an early prime suspect due to his isolation, alcoholism, and a previous strange intrusion reported by a neighbor. Detectives Carroll and McGlynn searched Hammond's white colonial house at 48 Walsh Lane, took his clothes and hair strands, and escorted him to a squad car for questioning. Lab tests later revealed the stain on his corduroys was food rather than blood, and he had an alibi of watching television at home. Twenty-six-year-old William Edward Hammond wore a 17-34 shirt size among the clothing taken into evidence.

Police Deference

Local police exhibited lax investigative procedures and deference when dealing with the wealthy Skakel family compared to other suspects. Detectives Lunney and Brosko failed to secure a search warrant or thoroughly search the Skakel home for the missing golf clubs, accepting a family member's promise to look for them, driven by institutional deference toward the elite class. Police accepted a consent-to-search form from Rushton Skakel and family members to search for the Toney Penna four iron themselves instead of combing the house two years after Anne Reynolds Skakel had passed away.

Tommy Skakel's first polygraph test regarding the murder of Martha Moxley yielded inconclusive results due to his exhaustion and epilepsy medication. Detectives Jim Lunney and Ted Brosko drove Tommy Skakel to the Connecticut State Police Polygraph Unit in Bethany on November 3, 1975. The test measured blood pressure, respiration, and galvanic skin reflex, but the examiner could not classify his responses as truthful or deceptive.

Polygraph accuracy depends heavily on the examiner's subjective interpretation and can be affected by physical ailments, medications, or intentional pain. The machine measures involuntary physical responses rather than direct lies, and factors like nervousness, heart ailments, mental illness, or using a tack in one's shoe to inflict pain can distort the results. William Edward Hammond gave erratic responses while taking his polygraph test, potentially influenced by the Antabuse he took for alcoholism, tracing back to the 1895 invention of the first lie-detecting machine and its 1921 improvement by John Larsen.

Police and psychiatric theories linked Tommy Skakel's volatility to a severe head injury sustained years prior to the murder. In 1965, Tommy Skakel tumbled out of a limousine while wrestling in the back seat and cracked his skull on the pavement. He suffered from seizures and paroxysms of rage, mirroring criminological studies from 1986 examining head injuries to violent behavior and memory blackouts.

Rushton Skakel abruptly ended family cooperation with the police after learning that his son Tommy was a serious murder suspect. Rushton Skakel delivered a withdrawal letter to Chief Baran on January 22, 1976, after initially signing a record release authorization on January 16, 1976. He subsequently suffered chest pains requiring hospitalization while visiting the Ix house following agitation from school headmasters and hired criminal lawyer Emanuel Margolis.

An unemployed, heavy-drinking local named Francis Walsh provided a late circumstantial lead regarding a young man boasting about a planned murder with a golf club. Detective Joe McGlynn interviewed Francis Walsh, who subsequently passed a polygraph examination regarding his core claim. Sixty-four-year-old Francis Walsh told police at Mickey's Restaurant that a youth called Skakel claimed he was going to kill a girl in Belle Haven with a golf club, passing his polygraph test on February 17, 1976.

3. Decades of Silence and External Triggers

Years of silence and cover-ups are eventually challenged by national media attention, private investigators, and relentless police persistence.

The Palm Beach Catalyst

A high-profile legal scandal far away from Connecticut acted as the catalyst to awaken the dormant Moxley murder investigation after sixteen years. The 1991 Easter weekend rape allegation against William Kennedy Smith in Palm Beach stirred public memories of the Greenwich murder, drawing national media attention and prompting state prosecutor Donald Browne to order a full reinvestigation.

William Kennedy Smith was accused of raping a woman on the grounds of the Kennedy compound, drawing comparisons to the Moxley murder and bringing reporters like Leonard Levitt and journalists to look into the Skakel household connections.

Media Pressure

Journalist and novelist Dominick Dunne leveraged his best-selling fiction to thrust the Moxley case back into the national spotlight and gather new leads. By publishing a fictionalized novel closely mirroring the murder, Dunne used his celebrity platform to talk openly about the case, drawing criticism from local police but encouraging informants to bring hidden secrets directly to investigators.

Dominick Dunne published A Season in Purgatory in 1993, featuring a wealthy Irish Catholic clan and a murder victim, which became a bestseller and prompted readers to share secrets with him to pass on to detectives Frank Garr and Jack Solomon. Another City, Not My Own followed in 1997.

The private investigative firm hired by the Skakel family to clear their name ultimately backfired by inadvertently exposing altered stories from the brothers. Hired by Rushton Skakel through attorney Tom Sheridan, Sutton Associates initially focused on painting Ken Littleton as a serial killer, but their investigative interviews eventually led to modified accounts from Tommy and Michael Skakel that placed them closer to the crime.

Rushton Skakel hired Sutton Associates to clear his family name, but investigators Billy Krebs and Richard Murphy conducted interviews that eventually yielded new, conflicting narratives from Tommy and Michael Skakel. Four or five killings in Florida and Massachusetts matched to Littleton by private investigators.

Investigators subjected suspect Ken Littleton to intense psychological traps and polygraphs, convincing him that he had suffered a blackout and confessed. State investigator Jack Solomon orchestrated an elaborate ruse involving Littleton's estranged wife Mary Baker, who falsely claimed Littleton had confessed during a car hallucination, aiming to break his resistance during repeated polygraph sessions.

Jack Solomon and Mary Baker staged a recorded conversation at a Boston motel where Mary told Ken he had confessed in a blackout, followed by five days of intense polygraph examinations in Greenwich administered by Robert Brisentine in December 1992 after Ken Littleton and Mary Baker separated in 1989.

Frank Garr's Solo Investigation

Celebrity criminalist Henry Lee emphasized that forensic science cannot solve a case when the original crime scene evidence was mishandled or lost. Despite his revolutionary work on high-profile cases like the Helle Crafts woodchipper murder and his state-of-the-art laboratory, Lee noted that the Moxley case suffered from being handled in the forensic dark ages without proper immediate scene preservation.

Henry Lee was born near Shanghai in 1938, emigrated to the United States with Margaret Lee in 1965, and later built a new Connecticut forensics laboratory costing two million dollars with forty million dollars of equipment inside, where he and other doctors identified nine hundred fifty war dead in Bosnia.

Henry Lee explained to the author that without a properly secured initial crime scene, appropriate biological fluids, and missing physical evidence, even advanced laboratory equipment cannot conjure proof.

Journalist Len Levitt uncovered a major breakthrough when he obtained documentation revealing that Tommy and Michael Skakel had changed their alibi stories. Through sources connected to the Sutton Associates investigation, Levitt obtained documents showing that Tommy Skakel placed himself outside with Martha for a late-night tryst moments before the estimated murder time, while Michael placed himself near the house climbing trees.

On November 26, 1995, Len Levitt published a story detailing how Tommy Skakel claimed he and Martha engaged in a backyard masturbatory tryst and how Michael Skakel admitted to wandering the neighborhood near the Moxley estate late at night, shortly after Dorthy Moxley's dinner gathering at Belle Haven Club on November 3, 1995, exactly twenty years and four days after Martha's murder, and following Willis Krebs warning Tommy Skakel about Henry Lee's DNA testing on October 7, 1994.

Detective Frank Garr persevered as the sole remaining investigator on the Moxley case, facing public frustration and a lack of institutional support. After colleagues like Jack Solomon retired or moved on, Garr continued his relentless pursuit out of a windowless office in Bridgeport, maintaining that the killer knew exactly what he did and lived comfortably with it.

Frank Garr transitioned from the Greenwich police department to the state's attorney's office in 1994, operating like a Lone Ranger on the Moxley case while weathering skepticism from the public and criticism from rival detectives after spending nineteen years as a detective and twenty-eight years total on the Greenwich police force, following his service in the war in Vietnam in 1966.

Fairfield County state's attorney Donald Browne maintained extreme legal caution regarding grand juries but ultimately committed to prosecuting the case after retiring. Despite heavy criticism and public rumors for refusing to convene grand juries quickly following new disclosures, Browne defended his deliberate pace, citing the need for definitive scientific procedures before making an arrest.

Donald Browne surprised observers at the end of his tenure by announcing he would stay on as a special assistant state's attorney for the sole purpose of prosecuting the Martha Moxley homicide at sixty-four years of age and after twenty-four years on the job as state's attorney.

4. The Grand Jury and Arrest

A breakthrough grand jury investigation and disclosures from therapeutic schools finally provide the probable cause needed to arrest Michael Skakel.

The Investigative Grand Jury

Prosecutor Jonathan Benedict applied for a one-man investigative grand jury to break the long-stalled Martha Moxley murder case. Following the resignation of prosecutor Donald Browne, Jonathan Benedict took over and utilized a one-man grand jury presided over by Superior Court judge George N. Thim to compel testimony and determine whether to recommend Michael Skakel's arrest.

Judge George N. Thim listened to subpoenaed witnesses behind closed doors in Courtroom 3C over eighteen months and fifty-three witnesses.

Ken Littleton was granted transactional immunity after invoking his Fifth Amendment right, effectively removing him as a suspect in the murder. By asking the judge to order Littleton to testify under a court order, prosecutor Benedict triggered transactional immunity under Connecticut law, which meant Littleton could no longer be prosecuted for the murder even if he were the perpetrator, thereby declaring the state's belief in his innocence.

Ken Littleton asserted his Fifth Amendment right in Courtroom 3C before being ordered by Judge John Ronan to testify under transactional immunity.

Ken Littleton suffered a severe psychotic episode driven by paranoia and caffeine abuse, leading to a near-fatal suicide attempt. Overwhelmed by delusions that the Skakel family was coming to kill him and confusing neighborhood sprinkler and generator noises with poison gas, Littleton stabbed himself and slashed his wrists in his Boston apartment while burning address book pages.

On July 21, 1999, an ambulance rushed to Ken Littleton and Anne Drake's Beacon Hill apartment after Littleton stabbed himself in the chest four times and slashed his wrists.

Elan School Confessions

A tip phoned into Unsolved Mysteries directed investigators toward the Elan School, where Michael Skakel allegedly confessed to the murder. A caller named Phil Lawrence who had attended the Elan School reported that Michael Skakel had admitted to people during group therapy sessions that he killed Martha Moxley with a golf club while drunk.

On February 16, 1996, the television show Unsolved Mysteries aired a report on the Moxley murder, prompting the vital tip from Phil Lawrence regarding Elan.

The Elan School operated as a harsh, high-confrontation therapeutic facility where residents were intensely pressured and subjected to a culture of informants. Founded by Joe Ricci and Dr. Gerald Davidson, Elan utilized aggressive psychological breakdown tactics, general meetings, and physical confrontations like the boxing ring, where peers and staff pressured Michael Skakel until he broke down regarding the murder.

During a rigorous boxing ring session at Elan, after repeated questioning by peers, Michael Skakel broke down, cried, and stated he did not know what happened that night.

Defense attorney Mickey Sherman took on Michael Skakel's case as a firm true believer in his client's innocence. Despite his media-savvy persona and frequent television appearances, Sherman maintained an absolute conviction behind the scenes that Michael Skakel was innocent and that the state's case based on flimsy Elan confessions would not hold up.

Mickey Sherman was hired by Michael Skakel in July 1998, quickly becoming a vocal defender predicting the state would not find sufficient probable cause to arrest.

Rushton Skakel suffered from worsening dementia and erratic behavior as investigators pursued grand jury subpoenas against him. Medical files, psychiatric evaluations by Dr. Joseph Richman and Dr. Alvin Rosen, and testimony detailed Rushton's severe cognitive decline, memory loss, bizarre public behavior, and paranoia.

In October 1998, a competency hearing revealed that Rushton Skakel picked food off strangers' plates, growl like an animal, and slept with a loaded gun and a hunting knife.

The Arrest

Judge George N. Thim issued a finding of probable cause for an arrest in January 2000, leading to Michael Skakel's surrender. After eighteen months of grand jury proceedings, prosecutor Jonathan Benedict announced the findings, securing a warrant for a juvenile at the time of the murder, which culminated in Michael Skakel surrendering at Greenwich police headquarters.

On January 19, 2000, at the Bridgeport Holiday Inn, Jonathan Benedict announced the grand jury finding to the media.

Conclusion

The resolution of the Martha Moxley case demonstrates that institutional inertia and privilege cannot permanently suppress the search for truth when met with unwavering dedication. You can see how wealth and social standing create formidable barriers to accountability, yet persistence and public scrutiny can eventually penetrate elite protection.

When you face entrenched opposition or systemic denial, you must apply specific rules to pursue justice and uncover facts.

1. Record every detail and preserve physical evidence meticulously because early mistakes compound over decades.
2. Question official narratives when deference to power compromises the integrity of an investigation.
3. Leverage independent investigators and media attention to overcome local institutional silence.
4. Maintain relentless pressure across generations to ensure that delayed accountability does not become permanent impunity.

10 Key Ideas

1. Extreme wealth and social status in the affluent enclave of Belle Haven created a culture of institutional deference that stalled the Martha Moxley murder investigation for twenty-five years.
2. The brutal Halloween night murder of Martha Moxley was met with immediate denial and flawed initial police work, failing to secure the crime scene or properly search the Skakel household.
3. Local detectives mismanaged the case by accepting family promises instead of securing search warrants, while early suspects like William Edward Hammond were ultimately cleared by alibis and forensic tests.
4. The 1991 Easter weekend rape allegation against William Kennedy Smith in Palm Beach acted as a catalyst to revive the dormant Greenwich murder investigation.
5. Dominick Dunne leveraged his best-selling fiction to thrust the Moxley case back into the national spotlight, while private investigators inadvertently exposed altered stories from the Skakel brothers.
6. Journalist Len Levitt uncovered a major breakthrough by obtaining documents revealing that Tommy and Michael Skakel had changed their alibi stories.
7. Detective Frank Garr persevered as the sole remaining investigator on the Moxley case, maintaining a relentless pursuit out of a windowless office in Bridgeport.
8. Prosecutor Jonathan Benedict applied for a one-man investigative grand jury presided over by Superior Court judge George N. Thim to compel testimony and determine whether to recommend Michael Skakel's arrest.
9. A tip phoned into Unsolved Mysteries directed investigators toward the Elan School, where Michael Skakel allegedly confessed during group therapy sessions and aggressive boxing ring sessions that he killed Martha Moxley with a golf club while drunk.
10. Judge George N. Thim issued a finding of probable cause for an arrest in January 2000, leading to Michael Skakel's surrender and demonstrating that persistence and public scrutiny can eventually penetrate elite protection.