Wednesday, July 18, 2007
This Day in the History of Evil
On this day in 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) got away with manslaughter when he drove his mother's car off the Dike Bridge and into shallow Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island, due East of Martha's Vineyard, and killed Mary Jo Kopechne. Wait, it's worse. There is evidence from John Farrar, the rescue diver who recovered the body, and from the undertaker Eugene Frieh, who prepared the body for shipment for burial (there was no autopsy performed), that Ms. Kopechne was alive for a while after the plunge, perhaps two hours, breathing air trapped in the back of the car, and suffocated rather than drowned when the CO2 level in the air pocket got too high. The drawing is from the inquest which didn't result in even a finding of negligence. Valiant rescuer Kennedy walked back from the accident passing two houses with people in them and their lights on to the place where the party (six single women, six married men, plenty of alcohol) had taken place, but did not report the accident to police for at least 11 hours. Neither Ted Kennedy, the least of the Kennedy brothers, nor any of Kennedy's friends at the party thought twice, apparently, about leaving Ms. Kopechne in the water for that long. Prompt notification of the proper authorities might well have saved her. John Farrar thinks he could have rescued her if he had known of the accident shortly after it occurred.
A less rich man would have gone to prison. Kennedy has been reelected to the Senate at least 6 times since. Sometimes I despair at the lack of real Justice in America and the idiocy of the electorate.
Labels: American Injustice, Chappaquiddick
