Andrew Goldman

Can you tell me your name, say my name is, and why I might be interviewing you?

I mean, that's kind of a big question, isn't it?

From NBC News Studios and Highly Replaceable Productions, this is Dead Certain, the Martha Moxley Program.

When I accepted the Skakel book gig, I did the first thing I do whenever I approach a story, a deep dive on the subject.

I read the three books that had been written about the case.

I went back and read a bunch of trial coverage from newspapers, as well as the work of two of my heroes in journalism writing for the most esteemed high-profile publications in America.

My research confirmed everything I thought I knew about the case, and worse.

Writing for The New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin reported that Skakel, driven mad from a romantic obsession, killed Moxley and incriminated himself by confessing to the crime repeatedly in the 27 years following the murder.

Toobin dismissed out of hand the idea that any of the others suspected of the crime over the years could have done it.

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.