Martha Elizabeth Moxley (August 16, 1960 – October 30, 1975) was a 15-year-old American high school student from Greenwich, Connecticut, who was murdered in 1975.

[1] Michael Skakel, also aged 15 at the time, was convicted in 2002 of murdering Moxley and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

On the evening of October 30, 1975, Martha Moxley left with friends to participate in "mischief night", in which neighborhood youths would ring bells and pull pranks such as toilet papering houses.

Kenneth Littleton, who had started working as a live-in tutor for the Skakel family only hours before the murder, also became a prime suspect.

"[8][9] When William Kennedy Smith was tried (and acquitted) for rape in 1991, a rumor surfaced that he had been present at the Skakel house on the night of Moxley's death, with the clear insinuation that he might have been involved.

[10] The Sutton Associates, a private detective agency hired by Rushton Skakel in 1991, conducted its own investigation of the killing.

The Sutton report, later leaked to the media, revealed that both Thomas and Michael altered their stories about their activities the night of the murder.

Prosecutors took words from the book proposal and overlaid them on graphic images of Moxley's dead body in a computerized, multimedia presentation shown to jurors during closing arguments.

Though the jury heard the whole tape, during the closing arguments the prosecutor did not play the portion of the audiotape in which Skakel had said "jerking off", giving the impression that he was confessing to the murder.

In their brief responding to that appeal, the prosecution argued: The state engaged in appropriate and effective advocacy by using trial exhibits to highlight certain evidence and inferences.

[28] Skakel's cousin, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., later wrote that he was a "small sensitive child – the runt of the litter with a harsh and occasionally violent alcoholic father who both ignored and abused him."

[27] To avoid criminal charges, his family sent him to the Élan School in Poland, Maine, where he purportedly received treatment for alcoholism.

[17] In January 2003, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wrote a controversial article in The Atlantic Monthly, entitled "A Miscarriage of Justice," insisting that Skakel's indictment "was triggered by an inflamed media and that an innocent man is now in prison."

Kennedy argued there was more evidence suggesting that Kenneth Littleton, the Skakel family's live-in tutor, had killed Moxley.

Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on behalf of Skakel before the U.S. Supreme Court on July 12, 2006.

[32] In 2007, Skakel's new attorneys, Hope Seeley and Hubert Santos, filed petitions for a writ of habeas corpus and a motion for a new trial in the Connecticut trial court that had originally heard his case, based on a theory involving Gitano "Tony" Bryant, a cousin of Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant's and a former classmate of Skakel's at the private Brunswick School in Greenwich.

In a videotaped August 2003 interview with Vito Colucci, a private investigator hired by Skakel, Bryant said that, on the night of Moxley's murder, one of his friends had wanted to rape her.

[38] Sherman testified in defense of his actions, while continuing to maintain his belief in Skakel's innocence in the Moxley case.

[46] In his ruling, Bishop wrote that defense in such a case requires attention to detail, an energetic investigation and a coherent plan of defense, stating: On November 21, 2013, Skakel was released on a $1.2 million bond along with other conditions: he was to be monitored with a GPS device; could have no contact with Moxley's family; must periodically check in over the phone; and would not be allowed to leave the state of Connecticut unless granted permission, although he had since relocated to Westchester County, New York.

[49] In January 2018, prosecutors asked the Connecticut Supreme Court to revoke Skakel's bail and to return him to prison to resume serving his sentence.

In its 2003 premiere episode, "Look Again", the TV series Cold Case depicted a fictional version based on Moxley's murder.

The American Court TV (now TruTV) television series Mugshots featured the case in an episode titled "Michael Skakel - A Killing in Greenwich" which aired in 2003.

[53][54] In 2014, Connecticut-born rapper Apathy released a song titled "Martha Moxley (Rest in Peace)" featuring a sample from George Michael's "Careless Whisper".

[55][56] In September 2017, the rights to Kennedy's book Framed were optioned by FX Productions to develop a multi-part television series.

[57][58] In June 2019, Oxygen premiered a three-part documentary titled Murder and Justice: The Case of Martha Moxley, hosted by legal analyst and former prosecutor Laura Coates.