So why
would Michael be sneaking around his own home?
Michael's motive is simple. We know he saw Martha
cavorting with his brother Tommy at the side of the
house. We know, as well, that Martha had previously
been involved romantically with Michael for some
time. She had changed the focus of her affections
from one brother to the other, in a very public, and,
for Michael, certainly humiliating way. Let's not
tip-toe around this issue. Imagine that your older
brother, who you detest, has seduced and effectively
stolen your girlfriend. Do you even have to be a
high-strung, cocaine and alcohol abusing, depressed
psychotic, to get absolutely enraged and lose
control? Clearly not. Consider in addition, however,
that Dr. Sue Wallington Quinlan, who examined Michael
on March 3, 1977, reported the following:
Projective testing suggested a severe
agitated depression, a sense of being overwhelmed by
a sense of evil and the futility of life. The
depression is possibly of psychotic proportions but
the protocol was too guarded to be certain. Mental
functioning is clearly fragile. Extent of pathology
is evident in borderline features: 1) intrusions of
personal concerns into intellectual functioning, 2)
primitive fantasy content, e.g. mutilated bodies,
masked, distorted figures, concerns about bodily
integrity and deformity, 3) inadequate capacity for
attachment to other people.
Now think about how he must have responded [^] the circumstances of October
30, 1975, as someone who Dr. Quinlan further
diagnosed as having impulse control that is only
marginally adequate. Was Michael able to control his
impulses that fateful night?
Given everything we know about the highly combative
rivalry between these two brothers, and Michael's
well-documented psychological problems, there can be
no doubt he was extremely upset about what was
transpiring. It is not at all unreasonable to assume
that he may have wanted to spy on his brother and
Martha, to monitor, first-hand, any betrayal. If we
accept what Tommy has told us about his sexual
encounter with Martha, they were carrying on
flagrantly, only 50 feet behind the Skakel residence,
in the middle of the rear lawn. Their indiscretion
was highly visible, should anyone have been even
remotely suspicious. Did Michael have reason to be
suspicious? Ample reason. Many people were aware,
even before the demonstrative sexual horseplay at the
side of the house, that Martha was interested in
Tommy.
If Michael did not go to the Terrien's [Terriens'],
could he have witnessed Tommy and Martha's sexual
encounter? Certainly.
Michael also claimed, when interviewed by Sutton
Associates, that he could not remember when he first
realized Martha was dead. To a fifteen year-old boy,
such a realization would certainly have been an
extreme shock--a frightening, unprecedented moment of
devastation. Not a moment, in short, one would ever
forget. Why would Michael forget? He wouldn't . But
how could he tell investigators if he realized she
was dead before he was supposed to know.
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