He then drove back to the scene with his cousin, Joseph Gargan, and aide Paul Markham, who both tried in vain to reach Kopechne. ... but what really happened to Mary Jo Kopechne. Only three other senators have served longer. I’m not going to involve you. Email. This is the most haunting question of all. Get The True Story Before You See The Movie . He denied that he had been driving under the influence of alcohol and said there had not been any immoral conduct between him and Kopechne. By . Sam Dangremond is a Contributing Digital Editor at Town & Country, where he covers men's style, cocktails, travel, and the social scene. Both said they’d left to return to the cottage, fully confident that Kennedy would be safe the rest of the way. After Gargan and Markham failed to rescue Kopechne, Gargan implored Kennedy to report the incident. As a result, Mary Jo Kopechne remained underwater for some nine hours until her body was recovered the next morning. See our, Read a limited number of articles each month, You consent to the use of cookies and tracking by us and third parties to provide you with personalized ads, Unlimited access to washingtonpost.com on any device, Unlimited access to all Washington Post apps, No on-site advertising or third-party ad tracking. At his direction, close advisors had rented a cottage and invited a group of friends and campaign workers to a party on Chappaquiddick island after the race. But rather than report the accident to the police at that time, Kennedy returned to his hotel in Edgartown. She graduated from Marist College with a Bachelor of Arts in English and has been writing for Reader's Digest since 2017. However, given Kennedy had traveled to Edgartown for the Regatta every summer for thirty years, his claim that he “was unfamiliar with the road” is questionable. Mortician Eugene Frieh examined the body and found that it contained far less water than most drowning victims. Verder worden recensies ook geanalyseerd om de betrouwbaarheid te verifiëren. A new film examines the actions of Sen. Teddy Kennedy around his July 1969 car crash in which a young female staffer drowned. We will likely never have answers to all the questions raised about events of that night in July 1969 that sent a senator’s car careening off a bridge and Mary Jo Kopechne to a premature death. In it, he claimed that he wasn’t aware that he’d made a wrong turn until he was seconds away from hitting the bridge. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Feature writer. The body was moved from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, where Kopechne’s family lived, without undergoing an autopsy. Kennedy claimed to have told the two what had happened, and they all three drove back to the scene of the accident, again passing the fire house and the other lighted residences, without alerting anyone for help. Still feeling weak, he began to be dragged out to sea by the current, he claimed. Yet he continued on to the cottage. He would also have passed a fire station, where he could have pulled a “well-marked” alarm that would have alerted the whole Island. Equally puzzling is a claim Kennedy made in his second statement, which was televised across the nation on July 25. Voor het berekenen van de totale sterrenbeoordeling en de procentuele verdeling per ster gebruiken we geen gewoon gemiddelde. The scandal. The body position has been explained in recent books to refute she struggled consciously, then ultimately succumbed to drowning. Town & Country participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.

That February, Reader’s Digest commissioned reports and published a story that directly contradicted Kennedy’s sworn testimony. What Really Happened At Chappaquiddick? Assuring his friends that he would “take care of it,” Kennedy dove into the water and began swimming back toward Edgartown. Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue. Every item on this page was chosen by a Town & Country editor. After swimming to Edgartown, Kennedy arrived back at his hotel at around 2:00 in the morning, and he did not report the accident, as he’d promised his friends he would do. Here's what really happened, and what you need to know about Mary Jo Kopechne.