Andrew Goldman

The job and the house and the neighborhood were a big step up in the world for the Kansas native.

David and Dorothy Moxley's teenage kids, Martha and John, would live among the most privileged families in America.

That being said, at least for kids, Belhaven didn't feel all that stuffy.

Sheila's a mom of two grown kids.

I interviewed her on her day off in the Newtown Connecticut Public Library near her home.

Like her friend and neighbor Martha, Sheila was also 15 in 1975, one of a big Catholic brood of seven girls.

Like most Belhaven kids, Sheila and her sisters were basically free range.

By the club, Sheila means the Belhaven Club.

It sat within a mile of each of the 120 or so houses in Belhaven.

It offered sailing lessons, tennis, and a huge dining room overlooking the Sound.

Homeowners were nearly assured membership, but they did need to be sponsored.

At a cocktail party not long after moving in, the Moxleys met the recent widower who lived in the massive spread just around the corner on Otter Rock Drive with a swimming pool and tennis courts and countless rowdy kids.

Rush Skakel was his name.

He was a rotund man, jokey, friendly, goofy, the type to sometimes greet friends with belly bumps, and hardly gave off a corporate vibe, even though he was the chairman of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, one of the most valuable private companies in America.

Rush was remarkably solicitous to his new neighbor.

He seemed, and in fact was, the type to be a tad too eager to be liked by all.

Rush didn't hesitate to offer to sponsor David Moxley's membership of the club.

This gesture was typical.

Rush also invited the Moxleys to his family's private ski resort in Wyndham, New York, and almost certainly, based on his usual habits, suggested the family should join him on the company plane to go see the Atlanta Braves play.

Rush was a part owner of the team.