Andrew Goldman

Dominic Dunn in Vanity Fair described how Skakel's family, rich and Kennedy-connected by marriage, used its wealth and influence to evade justice for decades.

He reported that a detective agency the Skakel patriarch hired in hopes of clearing the family name had reinvestigated the case and determined Michael Skakel to be the likely killer.

In 1998, Mark Furman, made famous by the O.J.

Simpson trial, authored a popular book that renewed interest in the case.

Furman wrote that immediately after the murder, Skakel's father had apparently hatched a conspiracy of silence within the family, shipping his kids off to their ski retreat so they could get their story straight.

Then he warehoused his son Michael in a treatment center where investigators couldn't get to him.

In the end, it was the rich kid's big mouth that undid him.

Even Skakel's multi-million dollar gold-plated defense couldn't save him from justice.

When Skakel successfully appealed his conviction, Toobin wrote that Skakel had finally found a judge who believed his story.

His freedom, he wrote, was about his privilege, not his innocence.

I didn't grow up with money.

I never went to sleepaway camp, never learned to play tennis, golf, ski, or even go on a family vacation.

It's true.

I have lived in Westport, a really nice town in Connecticut, for the last decade.

But the ways of the country clubs and money elite remain a complete mystery to me.

I'm a stop-and-shop sale watcher living among a lot of if-you-have-to-ask-you-can't-afford-it types.

To understand this murder, I'd have to learn about how the other half lived in Tony Greenwich.

In the 70s, if you wanted to get rich, you worked in New York City.

Likewise, in the 70s, if you worked in the city, were rich, and had kids, you lived anywhere but New York City.

There were plenty of nice suburbs to stash your family, far from the crime-ridden, nearly bankrupt metropolis.