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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Tim Dumas

Aired June 09, 2002 - 11:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now we get an insider's view of the Skakel case. Journalist Tim Dumas was born and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut and wrote the book about the case called "A Wealth of Evil," and he joins us live this morning from New York.

So you grew up with the mysteries of this Martha Moxley case in Greenwich. Now that there is a verdict, does this bring a sense of relief or even closure for you given that that entire community had been haunted by this case for so many years, 27 years?

TIM DUMAS, AUTHOR, "A WEALTH OF EVIL": Yes. I think what happened was we went through whole decades where this thing was a mystery. We just didn't know who did it. We all had our suspicions and none of us could believe that this day would come when there was actually a trial let alone a guilty verdict. It really is a great surprise.

WHITFIELD: You had these suspicions, even though for so many years there have been whisperings from people throughout the community that Michael Skakel was bragging about getting away with murder, about knowing something about what happened with Martha Moxley, yet somehow people still felt that it couldn't be that he would be a prime suspect in this case?

DUMAS: Well, this business about Michael bragging about getting away with it happened up in a sequestered place up in Maine. So we in Greenwich never got wind of that. So, the prime suspect as far as we all were concerned was Michael's older brother Thomas Skakel.

WHITFIELD: So what were the suspicions as to what happened? What had people been talking about or what were they all kind of philosophizing about the possibility of how this death took place?

DUMAS: What we all did know was that Tommy routinely made, you know, plays for Martha, just tried to touch her and get close to her and that there was a rivalry between Tommy and Michael, but Tommy seemed to clearly have the upper hand in this rivalry, and we also knew that Tommy was the last person to see Martha alive as far as we knew. And so, that's really how the whole Tommy thing got off the ground and Michael was kind of a non person through most of this investigation.

WHITFIELD: So, was there a feeling though, whether it was Tommy or Michael whose name was being tossed around, it was a Skakel, it was a Kennedy cousin that even if they're to find any more physical evidence connecting either one of these two, that because they are of this political and very powerful family, that that were essentially untouchable?

DUMAS: Yes, and you know that's an ironic thing in the end. It's a shame for them because if they didn't have all this power and all this money to keep people at bay, maybe this thing would have been solved right away, in which case Michael would have served, what, three, four, maybe five years and he would have been out a free man and this would all be behind him today.

WHITFIELD: So you wrote about these mysteries. Did you see any real parallels in what you wrote and what was played out in the courtroom?

DUMAS: Yes. I think all of us who wrote about it, we were all on the Skakel family kind of from the beginning and one of the interesting courtroom dramas was sort of family against family. We had the Skakels milling about over here and the Moxleys over here and Mrs. Moxley is such a saint. She will even go up to some of the Skakels and say, sorry we have to meet under these circumstances. She's a wonderful person. But it was this sort of family against family thing that we saw in court and that was what we have been looking at for years.

WHITFIELD: So what was most enlightening once the courtroom drama played out that perhaps you found to be rather revealing that you were unable to write about, in terms of evidence because we all know that it was mostly circumstantial evidence? It really was only the golf club that belonged to Martha -- or that Michael's mother -- that seemed to be the only real physical evidence.

DUMAS: Yes, it really was a circumstantial case. One thing that I think really captured the imagination of the courtroom was the playing of Michael Skakel's own voice. These were tapes he had made for a ghost writer. He was planning to write a book and people talk about the authors in this thing and what role they had, you know. Dominick Dunne, Mark Fuhrman and me to some extent, but the real author who had the most to do with this conviction was Michael Skakel himself.

WHITFIELD: So now is there a feeling, whether it be among yourself or the town of Greenwich, that people can sort of move on, or are you still waiting for the next shoe to drop, given that in July the sentencing is scheduled?

DUMAS: This has been one of those cases where just when you think nothing could get more surprising, something else happens. So experience has taught me to wait for another shoe to drop.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much. Tim Dumas, thank you for joining us from New York, "A Wealth of Evil" is the book, and as a Greenwich native, it sounds as though you and a lot of other people are feeling some relief that this case possibly is now behind you. All right, thanks very much.

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