Alaina Kelley

It wasn't the right thing to do.

To encourage him to call her mother.

Don't ever say that.

Now, two weeks later, on February 8th, Michael Skakel was arraigned on one count of second degree murder in juvenile court.

After reviewing the evidence and the circumstances surrounding the case, the juvenile court judge had the case transferred to the criminal division of the Superior Court, ending the period in which Skakel's name was withheld from any official documents.

Oh, because now he's an adult.

Now, the case was preceded by the usual round of pretrial hearings, but the prosecution was dealt a significant blow on August 7, 2001, when their star witness, former Elon student Gregory Coleman, was found dead from an apparent drug overdose.

Coleman was one of the two students who testified to the grand jury that Michael had confessed to killing Martha while at Elon, and his testimony was key to securing a conviction.

Fortunately, the judge allowed the prosecution to present Coleman's deposition at trial in lieu of his testimony.

But the lack of his presence was a major source of frustration, obviously.

Now, Skagel's trial began on May 7th, 2002 at the county courthouse in Norwalk.

As expected, the trial had drawn a ton of people, like a huge crowd of observers and journalists, many of whom were hoping for an appearance of like a rich and famous attendee at the trial.

Yeah.

And they weren't disappointed, I guess.

As early as the first day, many members of the Skakel and Kennedy families were in attendance to support Michael, including his cousins, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Shut up.

And Douglas Kennedy Jr.

Yeah, there's a Douglas.

There's so many of them.

I knew about RFK.