True Crime with Kendall Rae - Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick… Is It the Kennedy Curse?

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

Ted Kennedy, like so many others in his family, was a well known US politician. And much like many of his family members, he seems to have been a victim of the “Kennedy family curse,” or some variation of it. After a car accident involving the death of one of his political advisors, Kennedy was essentially barred from any chance at Presidential duty. Shop my charity merch! https://milehighermerch.com/  All profits from this charity merch will be donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and my company is matching all donations up to $50,000 from now until the end of the year: https://give.missingkids.org/campaign... Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

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Have fun, avoid burnout, reach your goals. But you're not going to quit on your self today. You in? Start a body block today. Visit body.com for a free trial. That's B-O-D-I-D-C-O. Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Today I have another true crime story for you guys, but it's kind of like just a tragic event.

So as you guys know, I love the Kennedy family. I don't know what it is about the Kennedys that fascinates me so much, but their entire family history and who they were as people intrigues me. I don't know, I'm just fascinated by them. I've done multiple videos about the Kennedys about JFK's assassination,

about the Kennedy family curse. Many of them have died. There's been all these strange accidents and incidences. As you guys probably know, John F. Kennedy was assassinated and so was his brother Bobby. But even before that, their oldest brother died in a plane accident. And when JFK died, Bobby was supposed to be the next president. And when Bobby died, Ted Kennedy was supposed to be the next president. And he probably would have been, if this whole event I'm about to tell you about, hadn't happened. So, Chapacwittic is an event that I actually didn't know that much about. I always knew that there was this kind of sketchiness around it but I didn't know exactly how it

went down and didn't really have like an opinion formed. This whole story did just come out as a movie and I wanted to see the movie before I made this, and it was very, very interesting and well done, but it was definitely their side of things, because there's a lot of other kind of conspiracy angles to this and a lot of just mystery that doesn't make any sense. So I'm gonna go ahead and get started.

So let's go back to 1969, somewhere of 1969. Obey Kennedy had been shot about a year earlier and assassinated and the Kennedy family was still kind of recovering. But was July 18th of 1969. Ted Kennedy and a few other family friends and people who had worked on the campaign

decided to host kind of a weekend party getaway for a bunch of people that worked on Robert Kennedy's campaign before he was assassinated. They called these girls the boiler room girl. Is that where they were working in campaign headquarters? This is Martha's Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts, the summer playground of rich socialites and politicians. Nearby is the island of Chaffaquiddick, just a few square miles of scrub and sand.

And Kennedy's personal driver arrived at the cottage first and dropped off a bunch of drinks for everyone Before going to the airport to pick up Ted can be himself and bring him back to the party Where he then changed into his swimsuit and then his driver took him to the beach where the rest of the others had already started congregating for Celebration probably party to lot but then 18 hours later. Police found a vehicle registered to Ted Kennedy that had driven off of the road on this bridge and ended up in pretty shallow water upside down. The car ended up upside down, submerged in the fast flowing current beneath the bridge. When they found the car, it took them a while to get into it.

I went on to several times to see if I could, you know, take a look again, but each time I did, the tide sort of took me along. So I gave that thought up and I boosted myself up and sat on the car and waited for the arrival of the help. But when they finally did open the car, they found a dead woman's body inside. I was in dive gear, ready to go, and proceeded over to that pile in there. I went over to that and went into the water from that side. As I approached the rear of the automobile, which would face that way, I saw two feet in the rear window.

As of the strength of the current, it took him another five minutes to get her out of the car and bring her up to the center. This woman was named Mary Jo Kepickney, and she was one of the boy of her room girls. So what happened? Mary Jo was only 28 years old when she died. Now what was so odd about this is that when police found this car and identified it as belonging to Ted Kennedy, Ted was just chilling back at his hotel.

He had never reported an accident or being involved in an accident. He was actually just having brunch with some friends. He said that that night he was in the car with Mary Jo because he was driving her to the ferry, but he claims that he accidentally took a wrong turn. Got confused, ended up driving down a dirt road, and then somehow drove his car off of a small bridge into the water. Now it's very interesting about Kennedy's statements here is that he said that he made an attempt to save Mary Jo. That he remembers trying to help her, but he can't remember how he got out of the car,

typically when people experience trauma, a car accident, something like this, they remember either all of it or none of it. It's very rare to remember this part and that part, that's really weird. It's odd that he wouldn't remember how he got out of his car, but he would remember trying to save her.

That seems like a very convenient thing to remember, but I did try to be a hero, so they were like, dude, why did this take you 10 hours to report it then, if it was just an accident? He claims that the reason it took him 10 hours to report it is because through the night he was in complete shock and was trying to process the accident. And he claimed that the next morning it just dawned on him that he was in a car accident and then he reported to the police.

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At midnight last Friday, Senator Edward M. Kennedy drove a car of a narrow bridge and into a pond on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. A young woman in the car with him was drowned. Kennedy survived the fail to report the accident and will 10 hours later. If it was something that involved the Kennedys, it was the biggest news in the world. My dad even remembers then. He was really young. He must have been like seven or eight. And he remembers the whole thing happening and like being concerned about the accident and watching his mom being like really invested

in what everything was going on. So few days after Ted gave his statement which was extremely vague. There were no follow-ups from him, no more information, no more statements and this really pissed off a lot of people, people who voted for Ted they're like you know can you at least give us some answers pissed off the

press because they're like what the hell now we have no leads like we've there's just no answers about what happened this girl died and it was all like you know hush that shit up and possibly one of the weirdest things about this is that after this happened there were no more actions taken by the police they basically just let it go. And that's what happens when you have a lot of money and a lot of power and you are part of the Kennedy family. So obviously people were wondering, you know, Ted, why does take you 10 hours?

That's really weird. And they were also asking, why were you out with this 28 year old girl who's single when you're married at that late at night by yourself? They were also wondering if he was drinking. I mean, he just drove straight off a bridge, seems like something that could possibly happen while under the influence. But if Ted Kennedy was caught drinking and driving,

that would be the end of any chance that he had of becoming president. And the pressure was on, dude, like the Kennedy family. Once they lost John Kennedy and then Bobby Kennedy, I mean, he was the last hope of the political dynasty continuing. He was the one that was supposed to be president. And I don't think he even really wanted to be part of it

or to be president. And it wasn't until four days after the accident happened that Ted showed his face in public. He didn't make any statements, but he went to the funeral and he was wearing this neck brace. That my dad says he can remember seeing him wear and thinking, oh, damn, that must have been a bad accident. But the thing about the neck brace is, first of all,

it looks fake. Like, it totally looks fake and there were reporters reporting that he was craning his head around in his neck brace at the funeral, like looking around. It just looked really, really out of place and on and people had seen him without it before. As soon as the as soon as the funeral ended, Ted didn't make a single statement and went back into hiding in the Kennedy home. So obviously there's kind of a lot of pressure from the public on the police to do something about this. I mean, can people really get away with drunk driving or, you know, whatever he had done, just because they're rich and famous or they're president or they're

a famous family like, how does that work? So eventually, the courts contacted him about making some type of deal. And you know, this is really how it goes for the really, really wealthy privileged people of the world or famous people. You know, there's a different set of rules for them. He even had a doctor when chances are in the movie, they portrayed it like the doctor just made everything up. But this doctor diagnosed him with a concussion and shock and pretty much everything he needed to be diagnosed

with in order to make it look not as weird that he just left the scene. I mean, if you are rich and powerful, you can make a doctor to say just about anything about you. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident after knowing that someone was injured in it. This was the least serious charge they could give him for this entire situation. And the reason he decided to do this plea is that if they went to court overall this, he would have to like show evidence in court and it could probably not go so well for him. So doing the plea agreement was a smart-ass option.

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Try it out. Check out. Think it out. RRI co-op. All out. Visit RRI.com. But that is just where the lies begin, my friends. Ted Kennedy decided to have a big televised statement to America, hoping to gain back his voters' sympathy and get reelected. Today, as I mentioned, I felt morally obligated to plead guilty to the charge of leaving seeing of an accident. No words in my part can possibly express terrible pain and suffering.

I feel over this tragic incident. This last week has been an agonizing one for me and for the members of my family and the grief we feel over the loss of a wonderful friend who remained with us the rest of our lives. These events, the publicity, any window, and Christmas which is to round them. In my admission of guilt this morning raises the question in my mind of whether my standing among the people of my state has been so impaired that I should resign my seat in the United States Senate. If at any time citizens of Massachusetts should lack confidence in their son of his character or his ability, whether without justification If at any time, citizens of Massachusetts should lack confidence in this and it is character

or his ability, with or without justification, he could not, in my opinion, adequately perform his duties and should not continue in office. So I ask you tonight, people of Massachusetts, to think this through with me, facing this decision, I seek your advice and opinion, I seek your prayers. This is a decision that I will have finally to make on my own. However, when he did this TV interview, he added a completely new part of the story that he had never said before and never told police. He said that he had made a second attempt to save her, and that he even brought some of his friends back to the scene to help, which has been

kind of like debated. I'm not sure if that actually happened, but it seems like it. It was probably Joey Gargan, who he brought to the scene, and Joey, who was very, very close with Ted and the whole Kennedy family, has never spoken to Ted since this happened. Now that to me says a lot. What's also really suspicious about this whole case is there was never an autopsy done. Suspissions of a cover-up were further increased by the fact that there had been no autopsy on the body of Mary Jo Kepekny. After all, it was a procedure that should have followed automatically in any case where the circumstances of a death were unclear. Even the doctor responsible was unable to

provide a coherent explanation. Did you request an autopsy? Actually, I don't know exactly. Not in those exact words at all. Do you tell me the exact words, Dr. O? I stated to the district attorneys. Here to the district attorney advised. Under the particular circumstances that I would like an autopsy. Could you restate that please? I'm sorry. I sent word to the District Attorney's Office,

the particular circumstances of the case, and asked if under these circumstances, if they followed an autopsy, should be done, I would like to have it done. This blows my mind, honestly. Like, I can't believe that they didn't do an autopsy. Maybe it's possible she didn't even die from drowning. I mean, there's a lot of people that think she suffocated. The water was shallow enough that she could like,

somewhat stand. And if you see the movie, she had her head above water for a good amount of time, at least that's what they think. Very possible, she ran out of the air that she did have and just couldn't get out. I recently sat down with Georgia Patsoski, Mary Jo's cousin and close confidant and the author of the book, Our Mary Jo. I know you have a lot of questions

about Ted Kennedy's role in all of this and just what they were even doing in that car together in the first place, right? There's a suggestion that she didn't drown, that she suffocated and that she was alive for a long time in that car together in the first place, right? There's a suggestion that she didn't drown, that she suffocated, and that she was alive for a long time in that car. I wonder what you think about that. That's one of the hardest things we had to accept. Her parents, in particular, thought that she had died instantly.

And a few years after she died, they went up there and spoke with John Ferrer, the scuba diver. And he told them she could have lived up to three hours in the air bubble in the car. And it was like they had lost her all over again. Her father in particular just grieved for it was awful. It was awful. I can imagine. Just bizarre to me that they didn't do an autopsy.

That seems like some strains were pulled for sure. And even the doctors couldn't even come up with a good excuse for why they didn't do an autopsy. That seems like some strings were pulled for sure. And even the doctors couldn't even come up with a good excuse for why they didn't do an autopsy. Edmund Denise from the DA's office decided that there needed to be more investigation into Mary Jo Kapitny's body. And six months later, after the investigation, Ted Kennedy and a few others went to the court to give their final statements. to get their final statements. From joyful occasions to the unexpected, First Franklin Financial makes loans for living, offering fixed rates and flexible terms

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in North Carolina. Kennedy, again, said that around 1115 he was tired and so was Mary Jo so he and her decided to take a ride on the ferry. He basically ran through the whole story, should have made a right turn but he made a left and ended up on a different road and then accidentally drove off the bridge. And the judge basically did nothing. He concluded that Ted really probably did make the mistake because it was dark out and he didn't see where he was going. It was an unfamiliar area for him. And the judge was unable to resolve any other questions, unanswered questions that people

have. So the whole thing was closed and everyone moved on. They never put Ted Kennedy under any type of scrutiny or pressure to give the answers that he wasn't giving. And they let him testify in court first, meaning he basically got to give a little speech and other little statement, just like he had been doing before, and then didn't have to say anything back throughout the trial when people were asking all the good questions, and you know, he didn't have to address him that because he went before anything was asked. Ted wasn't done there, he started to change his story once again. He said that he tried several times to save Mary Jo, but after failing to do so alone, he decided to walk.

Nearly a mile back to the cottage where all his friends were. And this is kind of weird because it wasn't that late at night and chances are if you saw Ted Kennedy walking alone at night, I mean people would have seen them out of his house. He passed a ton of houses on the way back. It's just very unusual that no one just saw Ted Kennedy walking soaking wet back to this cottage. He even passed a fire station which he easily could have gotten help from. And the saddest thing about all of this is that if it's true that Mary Joe, like the car wasn't completely filled with water because it wasn't that deep. If it wasn't completely filled with water and there was like an area where she was still breathing and she was just suffocating. The fact that Ted never told anyone because he was afraid of getting in trouble means he could have saved her life.

Again, he went back to the house, got some of his friends, told them what happened and said they needed to come with him to try to help. Apparently they all drove back to the scene together and tried to make a rescue attempt, but they weren't unable to open the door. Apparently they tried to save her for another 45 minutes, but were unsuccessful. Finally, gave up and drove Kennedy back to the ferry landing so he could get back to his hotel.

And they told him, yeah, better report this. According to Kennedy's new timeline with all of this, it would have taken at least two hours and 40 minutes total to do everything that he said he did. But the hotel manager actually testified that he spoke with Kennedy in his office around 225 Am. Therefore his timeline is only credible if the accident happened before 1145. And not only that, there's a witness. There is a deputy sheriff named Hack Look. and he claimed to have seen the car that was identified as Kennedys with two people in and around 1245.

And this completely goes against Ted's story. Now this may not seem like a huge deal, but it really is because if all of that's true and the witness was right, that means there would be no time for Kennedy to have brought his other two friends to help the situation and made this second attempt to save her. So they had pretty much discovered that that was a big lie at that point. Now, amazing.

Causing someone's death and then trying to act like you were this big hero who tried multiple times to save her. How about being a hero by calling the police and getting someone with tools to come get her out? Ted also said that he was able to keep track of what time it was because there was a clock in his car. Now that was another straight up lie. There was no clock in his car. So obviously since then people have tried to figure out what really happened, there have been tons of mock set up, you know, recreations of the scene and some of these experiments have shown major flaws in Kennedy's story. He remembered Ted said that he was able to get out of the car easily, but he doesn't remember exactly how he got out.

But when they tested it with actual trained scuba divers with goggles and everything, it took them several minutes to get out of the car. And not only that, but there's actually a lot of people that believed that Ted wasn't driving the car. That maybe he was too intoxicated and asked Mary Jo to drive for him and she was the one who crashed. From joyful occasions to the unexpected, first Franklin financial makes loans for living, offering fixed rates and flexible terms on loans up to $15,000. The next time you're looking for some extra cash to help make ends meet, come see the friendly Franklin folks, or visit us at 1foc.com to learn more.

All in terms of APRs depend on meeting our underwriting and income criteria and may require collateral. First Franklin Financial Corporation is licensed by the Virginia State Corporation Commission CFI-215, Georgia Residential Mortgage Licency 5656, MMLS-NB141654, not available in North Carolina. And not to mention the morning that the accident happened, he was just chilling, like he had no reaction to everything that had happened to him the night before and he actually went to the scene,

he went rushing to the scene of the crime, the crash. And once he got there, he realized how bad it was and was like, I need to get the fuck out of here. That's where he called his lawyer and his political aides to help him cook up a nice excuse for all of this and get him out of trouble. Or as some people would refer to as a fixer. Another strange thing that happened was that morning,

Plane was called to pick Kennedy up. And the plane actually flew over the side of the accident before Kennedy had even gotten to the accident. If he didn't know that this has happened and he had forgotten and hadn't reported to the police because he forgot about it, why did he also call a plane to get him the hell out of there? So there's a couple different theories of what could have happened. There's obviously the theory that it was just Ted driving and he was drunk and he drove off. There's also a theory that Mary Joe was driving that he was drunk and he drove off. There's also a theory that Mary Joe was driving

that he was drunk and he wanted her to get in trouble with anyone more to get a dy, it would be better if it was her. And then there's a theory that he wasn't in the car at all because that would explain like how he got out and she wasn't able to because it's not like he would have gotten out of a door and then shut it. It just doesn't make any sense.

So maybe he was never in the car to begin with. The time that Ted said he left the party would have been an hour after the car claims to have seen them. And at that point, the car was only 400 guards from the cottage that everyone was partying at. So the sheriff started walking towards their car asking if they needed help. And they think that this is when Kennedy panicked,

that he was worried he'd get caught driving drunk or being with a young girl at night when he's married. So they believe that he got the hell out of there real fast, drove away, got out of the car and told Mary Jo to drive instead to take over. He needed to get away from the car so that it wouldn't be suspicious. And maybe because it was an unfamiliar area,

it was dark and she was in such a stressful situation all together that she just drove off the road. Because of the forward momentum, when a car is going into water, the passengers are going to go in a different direction. But the car also will flip on its side, which would cause the bodies to go to the right side and get injured.

So if she really was the passenger, she would have been on the right side and would have been way more injured. I mean, the glass from the window definitely would have shown cuts on her body. And her body was found in really good condition. No broken teeth, bruises, scratches, anything. People think that because she was in such good condition,

chances are she was in the driver's seat when it happened. So if the crash happened and Ted didn't even know about it, that could explain his, you know, relaxed attitude about everything and his just weird behavior, not reporting it. Maybe he didn't know the crash actually happened, but his legal team likely looked over everything and him taking the guilty plea, even if he wasn't driving, and just taking that minor charge, he was able to dodge a much more serious investigation that would have looked into everything that went on that night. To keep everything secret, it was good for him to claim responsibility in

a weird way. Even possible, he was hooking up with Mary Jo in that car when the police came up upon them. And then he wanted to get out of there because not only was he drunk, he was also cheating. I mean, who really knows? Mary Jo knows and she's gone. He still tried to become president unsuccessfully. However, he stayed in politics until his death. I believe he passed away in 2009.

Word more Kennedy, a giant of American politics and the Democratic Party, and the patriarch of the Kennedy clan has died. He was 77 years old. It happened just before midnight, East Coast time, at his home in Hianna's port on Cape Cod. I think that's why they waited to make the movie. I think if they had tried to produce this movie while he was still alive, he and his team would have squashed the whole thing.

In terms of the movie, there's some discussion now that there was an effort to suppress it, that some supporters of the family didn't want it to come out. Does that surprise you? Well, yeah, there's always been a lot of suppression of books and stories. It just to this day bothers me so much that Ted kind of portrayed himself as a hero that I tried to save her and blah blah blah and it's just kind of disgusting thinking that there could have been so many lies involved and this poor girl like oh my god, first of all,

she was gorgeous. And it's just a really, really sad and unfortunate thing that happened. So I would love to hear from you guys. Do you think this could be connected to the Kenbi curse? Maybe this event is what kept him from ever becoming president. fortunate thing that happened. So I would love to hear from you guys. Do you think this could be connected to the Kenobi curse? Maybe this event is what kept him from ever becoming president.

That is gonna be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you wanna watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray.

I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. From joyful occasions to the unexpected, first Franklin financial makes loans for living, offering fixed rates and flexible terms on loans up to $15,000. The next time you're looking for some extra cash to help make ends meet, come see the friendly Franklin folks, or visit us at 1ffc.com to learn more. All loans in APRs depend on meeting our underwriting and income criteria and may require collateral. First Franklin financial corporation is licensed by the Virginia State Corporation Commission CFI-215, Georgia Residential Mortgage Licency 5656, MMLS, and the 14165 Fort, not available in North Carolina.

may require collateral. First Franklin Financial Corporation is licensed by the Virginia State Corporation Commission CFI-215. Georgia Residential Mortgage Licency 5656, MMLS-1416-4, not available in North Carolina.