2 Witnesses Say Skakel Confessed to 1975 Killing

On the first day of public testimony about the 1975 killing of 15-year-old Martha Moxley in Greenwich, two witnesses told a judge here today that Michael C. Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, confessed to the killing in the late 1970's while he was attending a school for troubled youths in Maine.

The witnesses were both former classmates of Mr. Skakel's at the Elan School in Poland Spring, Me. One of them, John D. Higgins, described a confused and tearful admission in which Mr. Skakel said he had only fragmented memories of the crime. The other witness, Gregory Coleman, said Mr. Skakel brazenly told him: ''I am going to get away with murder. I am a Kennedy.''

Mr. Skakel, now 39, is charged with murder as a juvenile because he was 15 at the time Miss Moxley, a neighbor, was found bludgeoned to death under a tree in her family's yard. Today's testimony came on the first day of a ''reasonable cause'' hearing in which Judge Maureen Dennis will decide whether Mr. Skakel should face a jury trial as an adult.

It will be a crucial determination. If convicted in State Superior Court as an adult, Mr. Skakel would face a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. If convicted as a juvenile, he could spend little or no time in jail.

The stress of the day showed. As Mr. Skakel left the courtroom for the lunch recess, he broke down in sobs.

Nevertheless, just before the recess, Mr. Skakel's lawyer, Michael Sherman, skillfully set about undermining the credibility of Mr. Higgins, the first witness to say he had heard Mr. Skakel confess. Under cross-examination, Mr. Higgins admitted that he had repeatedly lied to investigators and that his interest in the Moxley case had been renewed only after he learned of a large reward for information in the case.

Unlike a trial, today's proceeding lacked the dramatic opening statements from opposing lawyers eager to persuade a jury. Instead, the prosecutor, Jonathan C. Benedict, simply called his first witness, Sheila McGuire, a neighbor and friend of Miss Moxley's who discovered her body on Oct. 31, 1975. Then he introduced a Greenwich map as the first exhibit.

Still, there was the sense of a momentous event. After a quarter-century, the details of this sensational case, chronicled in numerous best-selling books of varied credibility, were finally being disclosed under oath in a court of law. Dorthy Moxley, Martha's mother, sat in the front row of the packed, tiny courtroom. Dozens of television crews lined the street outside.

Mr. Benedict's second witness was Thomas G. Keegan, the former chief of the Greenwich Police Department, who described how investigators searching the Moxley property found three pieces of a golf club that they determined to be the murder weapon. The club, a 6-iron, was later found to belong to a set owned by Rushton Skakel, the father of the defendant.

Under cross-examination, the former chief was quickly asked by Mr. Sherman about criticism of his department for ''botching'' the Moxley case. Mr. Keegan testified that golf clubs, according to reports of witnesses, were routinely left in the Skakel yard, but he immediately rejected the implication that someone had come along, picked up a club and killed the girl.

''The theory was that some transient came through the yard and bludgeoned the girl,'' he said. ''That doesn't hold water.'' The former chief testified that the handle of the golf club, which had the name Skakel on it, was never found. ''My conclusion is that the person who killed Martha was aware that name was on the club,'' he said.

But Mr. Sherman seemed to win a final point. ''In the course of your investigation, did you find any evidence that Michael Skakel killed Martha Moxley?'' he demanded. ''No, sir,'' the former chief replied.

The bulk of the day's testimony focused on the two former classmates from the Elan School who told Judge Dennis that they had heard the defendant confess.

Mr. Higgins said that he and Mr. Skakel had been working as ''night owls,'' making sure other students did not run away, and were sitting on the porch of a dormitory building when Mr. Skakel described his role in the killing. ''He related to me that he had been involved in the murder of someone or thought that he had been,'' Mr. Higgins testified. He said Mr. Skakel was ''sobbing, crying'' as he confessed.

Mr. Higgins testified that Mr. Skakel offered disjointed memories of the night of the killing, that he had been in his garage going through golf clubs, then was running through some woods, noticed a pine tree and then blacked out, only to wake up in his bed the next morning. ''He eventually said that he, in fact, did it,'' Mr. Higgins testified.

Mr. Sherman quickly attacked Mr. Higgins's credibility, forcing him to admit that he had lied repeatedly to Frank Garr, a lead investigator on the case. Mr. Higgins admitted telling Mr. Garr numerous times that he had never heard Mr. Skakel confess, and that he contacted Mr. Garr again only after learning that a $50,000 reward had been offered in the case.

At one point, Mr. Higgins became so frustrated with the questioning that he slammed shut a binder. At another point, Mr. Sherman goaded Mr. Higgins, questioning the veracity of one of his responses by twice asking him, ''Is that your final answer?''

In afternoon testimony, Mr. Coleman, the other former student at Elan, said Mr. Skakel recounted to him that he had made sexual advances to Miss Moxley, and that when she rebuffed him, he ''drove her head with a golf club.'' Mr. Coleman, a convicted felon, was brought to testify from prison in the Rochester area.

Outside the courtroom, Mr. Sherman said that Mr. Skakel had broken down with emotion after hearing his former classmates lie about him on the witness stand.

But John Moxley, Martha's brother, said he believed the witnesses. ''I think he knows what's coming,'' he said of Mr. Skakel. ''They weren't tears of joy. I think reality is starting to tumble down around him.''