Lawyers for Michael Skakel are coming forward with what they say may be a new piece of evidence that could have an effect on resolution of the long-running case: a golf club handle, purportedly found 7 miles away from the place where Moxley, 15, was found dead.
The golf club handle was reportedly found at the residence of the Terrien family, where Michael Skakel and other young people were watching television on the night Moxley, a Greenwich High School sophomore, was killed. Skakel was watching a Monty Python movie with his cousin, James Terrien, that night.
Defense lawyer Stephan Seeger said he had been contacted late last year by a local attorney who had heard about the existence of the golf club handle. The attorney provided the names of three people who had come across the handle, which was purportedly turned over to Greenwich police in 1999, the year the investigation into Moxleys death was re-instituted.
They had formed the opinion that it had something to do with the murder. Thats why they brought it there (to police). They thought it was connected to the murder, Seeger said.
It was unclear why the golf club handle at the Terrien estate was viewed as being linked to the crime. Seeger is seeking to depose two people who had information about the handle: Philip Drake, now 91, a Terrien family lawyer, and the daughter of the Terriens property manager, Barbara Roome Waleski, 57, of Lancaster, Pa. The property manager, Peter Roome, died late last month at the age of 91.
Seeger said Roome and his daughter went to police headquarters in 1999 and turned over the golf club piece to Greenwich police. According to court papers filed by Seeger on Thursday, the handle has not been located, and any police report on the matter was not discovered, either.
