Today, Christine Watson finds herself guarding the memories of her childhood friend, Martha Moxley, with a sense of intimacy and protection.

For the past fifty years, Martha’s story has been thrust into the public eye, splashed across courtrooms, plastered in headlines, and dissected in books and documentaries. Her once vibrant and hopeful life has been overshadowed by the brutal nature of her death and the cloud of uncertainty that shrouded it.

As these narratives unfolded, Watson felt her personal recollections of Martha—their shared laughter, the charisma that made Martha the quintessential ‘It girl’ beloved by all—were overshadowed. She now cherishes those memories privately.

“At some point, the story stopped being about Martha,” Watson remarked to the Daily Mail. “Talking about her has taken those memories from me… It’s like losing her twice.”

In October 1975, 15-year-old Martha was tragically murdered in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was found brutally beaten with a golf club and left beneath a tree on her family’s property. The case languished unsolved until 2002, when Michael Skakel, a neighbor and friend with ties to the Kennedy family through marriage, was convicted.

Skakel spent more than a decade in prison before his conviction was overturned due to ineffective legal representation. Though released in 2013 and never retried, he has never been exonerated, and no one else has ever been charged.

Now, 50 years on, Skakel is back in the spotlight. He has sued Connecticut authorities, accusing them of framing him, and sat for his first interview in a new NBC News Studios podcast, again proclaiming his innocence.

Many of the claims in Skakel’s lawsuit echo arguments made years ago by one of his loudest supporters, his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who assisted in his defense and wrote a book insisting he had been wrongfully convicted, blaming two innocent black men instead.

For Watson and others who loved Martha, Skakel’s renewed attempts to cast himself as a victim have reopened old wounds.

Watson said she was furious when she learned of Skakel’s lawsuit, and remains ‘disgusted’ that RFK Jr inserted himself into the narrative of Martha’s life to defend his cousin.

‘[Skakel] just needs to shut the eff up, as does his cousin, RFK Jr, who has leeched onto this,’ she said.

‘It’s already hard to remember who Martha was away from all this… The Skakels have dominated the story for too long – and Martha deserves better.’

Watson grew up with Martha in Piedmont, California. They came from opposite sides of the town’s wealth divide, but Martha’s privilege never affected the way she treated others.

According to Watson, Martha was the most popular girl in school. She was friendly, kind, effortlessly charming, and would’ve been a shoo-in for cheer captain had her family not relocated to the East Coast in 1974, when her father was transferred to New York for work.

‘People were attracted to her like sunlight,’ Watson said. ‘Everyone gravitated towards her.’

After arriving in Greenwich, Martha settled in quickly. She was again designated the most popular girl in school and quickly attracted admirers.

Among them were the Skakel brothers, Tommy, 17, and Michael, 15, who lived across the street in the gated enclave of Belle Haven. Excerpts from Martha’s diary referenced the brothers repeatedly, detailing unwanted advances, irritating behavior and competition for her attention.

Just over a year after moving to Connecticut, Martha’s life was brought to a brutal end. On the eve of Halloween 1975, she left home to spend time with friends in the neighborhood and was last seen at the Skakel house.

Tommy offered police the last known sighting. He told investigators they had fooled around outside at 9.30 pm, before he went back inside to watch a movie with his live-in tutor – a story the tutor corroborated. He said he last saw Martha walking toward her home.

Somewhere during the 100-yard walk, she was beaten with a golf club with such force that the club snapped into pieces. The killer then drove the club’s broken shaft through her neck.

Martha’s body was hidden beneath a pine tree on her family’s property. She was found stripped from the waist down, but there was no evidence of sexual assault.

A time of death was never pinpointed, but police believe the murder happened between 9.30 pm and 5.30 am.

The murder weapon was traced to a set of golf clubs owned by the Skakel brothers’ late mother, but both boys denied any involvement.

The Skakel family came under scrutiny, but police never sought a search warrant for their home. The family eventually stopped cooperating, and the case went cold.

Watson said news of Martha’s death spread around her school like wildfire. She and many others struggled to understand who could ever harm Martha, and why.

Those questions would linger for decades.

A breakthrough came in 2000, when Michael Skakel was arrested and charged with her murder.

Much of the case against Skakel centered on evidence that emerged in the late 1990s, when excerpts from a private investigation commissioned by the Skakel family, known as the Sutton files, leaked to the press.

The files included interviews with former classmates from a Maine reform school who said Skakel confessed to killing Martha, bragging he would get away with it because of his Kennedy lineage – comments he’d later deny making.

Prosecutors also pointed to Skakel’s shifting alibi. In 1975, he told police he had been at a friend’s house watching a movie before returning home and going straight to bed.

But in later conversations with a private investigator hired by his family, Skakel said he had gone to Martha’s house that night to toss pebbles at her window. When she didn’t respond, he climbed a tree outside her home and masturbated.

Skakel was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 20 years to life. He continued to protest his innocence, telling Martha’s family during the trial that they had the ‘wrong guy.’

Fighting in Skakel’s corner was his cousin, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who publicly campaigned for his release, first in a 2003 Atlantic article, then in his 2016 book Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade in Prison for a Murder He Didn’t Commit.

In both, Kennedy cast himself as a lone truth-teller battling corrupt prosecutors, lazy journalists and what he called the ‘pitchfork brigade’. He claimed Skakel was framed as part of a conspiracy driven by his Kennedy associations.

Kennedy alleged the real perpetrators were two Black teenagers from New York. His accusation, built on hearsay from a third party, upended the lives of two innocent men who said they had never met Martha and were nowhere near Greenwich that night.

His supposed star witness, Gitano Bryant, a cousin of NBA star Kobe Bryant, refused to testify under oath and later told The New York Times his comments had been ‘blown out of proportion.’

‘I was there in Greenwich the night of the murder,’ Bryant said. ‘I didn’t see the murder take place. I don’t know who killed her.’

Critics called Kennedy’s theory baseless and racially charged, but he persisted. He also dedicated pages to discrediting the state’s witnesses as ‘felons [and] drug addicts’. Many had struggled with substance abuse, but so had both Kennedy and Skakel.

The anti-vaccine crusader and now–Health and Human Services Secretary has openly discussed his decade-long heroin addiction, which included an overdose and arrest in 1983. He later revealed that doctors once discovered a parasite had eaten part of his brain. By his own measures, neither he nor Skakel would qualify as trustworthy narrators.

After years of appeals, Skakel’s conviction was overturned in 2018 when Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled his trial lawyer had provided ineffective counsel. Prosecutors declined to retry him, citing the passage of time and lost witnesses.

Skakel faded from public view until 2024, when he filed a lawsuit against Connecticut authorities, accusing them of framing him. The suit echoed arguments long pushed by Kennedy.

In the suit, Skakel alleges police failed to properly investigate alternative suspects, including the two men named by Bryant and his brother Tommy. The state has not yet filed a response and the case remains ongoing.

Skakel is also speaking publicly for the first time in a new NBC News Studios podcast, Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder, which was released this week.

In clips from the show, Skakel claims he was a ‘good fall guy’ for investigators and insists he had ‘no idea’ about Martha’s death. He also discusses what he calls his abusive childhood and why he changed his alibi after 20 years.

‘I didn’t have the emotional or mental tools… I found out I had a learning disability,’ he said. ‘I was able to be more honest about my life.’

In a 2023 article for Air Mail, lawyer and author Jeffrey Toobin highlighted a theory raised by prosecutors about why Skakel may have changed his alibi after two decades.

‘This was important new information, since Skakel now put himself at the murder scene at the approximate time Moxley was killed,’ Toobin wrote.

Prosecutors had argued that by the 1990s, amid the proliferation of DNA testing, Skakel may have feared biological evidence could implicate him.

‘He had previously told friends he masturbated near Martha’s body,’ continued Toobin.

‘By 1992, Skakel might have worried that his DNA would be discovered on the clothing that she was wearing… Prosecutors later argued that Skakel came up with the tree story to explain his DNA at the scene, if it was ever found. (It was not.)’ 

Martha’s brother, John Moxley, criticized Skakel’s decision to sue investigators and appear on the NBC podcast in an interview with the Daily Mail last week.

‘It’s like Dumb and Dumber,’ he said. ‘Why would you want to keep your name in the papers? That doesn’t seem like the action of someone who wants a normal life.’

After Skakel’s release, Martha’s mother, Dorothy Moxley, said the decision did little to change her mind about what happened that night.

‘I’m sure Michael swung the golf club,’ she told Greenwich Time in 2013.

Watson said Skakel’s recent actions have left her furious.

‘I just saw red when I learned about that lawsuit. I haven’t been that angry in years,’ she said.

‘He should be ashamed… He’s only doing this because he will never make anything of himself, because he can’t make a career, so he wants free money.’

As for RFK Jr’s defense of Skakel, she added: ‘I think that brain worm ate him stupid.’

An attorney for Skakel did not return the Daily Mail’s calls and emails.

RFK Jr has also been contacted for comment.