Kennedy-clan killer jailed

A Kennedy cousin has been sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment by a Connecticut judge, three months after he was convicted of murdering his neighbour on the lawn of her house in the affluent town of Greenwich when they were both 15 years old.

The nephew of Ethel Kennedy, widow of the late Robert F. Kennedy, Skakel, 41, was found guilty of murder in June of the 1975 slaying of Martha Moxley.

Moxley's body was found on the lawn of her parents' home, bludgeoned with a golf club that investigators matched to a set belonging to Skakel's late mother.

The evidence against Skakel was largely circumstantial, with no forensic evidence. There were no witnesses to the crime.

Skakel made a tearful plea to state Superior Court Judge John Kavenewsky, crying so hard at points his words were difficult to understand.

Gesturing to the Moxleys, he said: "I would love to tell them I did this so they can rest, but I can't do this. I cannot bear false witness."

Under the sentence, he could be eligible for parole in 2014.

He had faced a minimum possible sentence of 10 years to life and a maximum of 25 years to life.

Defence lawyers had hoped for leniency because of Skakel's age when the crime was committed.

Dorthy Moxley, who campaigned to bring her daughter's killer to justice, had hoped Skakel would spend his life behind bars. "Michael Skakel sentenced us to a life without Martha," she said during the sentencing hearing.

John Moxley also argued for a stiff sentence, recalling the tears his mother shed. "I've seen her cry more often and harder than any son should ever see their mother cry," he said.

At the start of the investigation in 1975, authorities focused on Skakel's older brother Thomas.

Michael Skakel became the prime suspect two decades later when authorities found discrepancies between his original statements to police and those he made later to private investigators.

He was arrested in 2000, and a state Supreme Court panel ruled he be tried as an adult.

- INDEPENDENT