US: Michael Skakel, a nephew of Ms Ethel Kennedy, widow of the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison yesterday for the murder 20 years ago of a teenage next-door neighbour.
Last June Skakel had been convicted of the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley in the affluent Connecticut town of Greenwich, where they both lived. Ms 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, who was 15 at the time of the murder, was largely circumstantial, with no forensic evidence and no witnesses to the crime. He made a tearful plea to state Superior Court Judge John Kavenewsky, crying so hard at points that 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 attorneys had hoped for leniency because of Skakel's age when the crime was committed.
Ms Dorothy 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.
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.
Skakel originally told police he and two of his brothers went out in the car, came home after 11 p.m. and went to bed. But he later admitted being at a pine tree under which Ms Moxley's body was found the next day. He was arrested in 2000. - (Reuters)