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Decades later, the case was reopened and Michael Skakel was charged and convicted of the murder in 2002. He spent 11 years in prison before being granted a new trial in 2013. After several years of complicated legal proceedings, the state prosecutors decided not to go through through the trouble of retrying Skakel. He remains free on bail.
Later that year, Kennedy was skiing in Aspen with his extended family. They had been playing football while on skis and weren’t wearing helmets, ignoring the ski patrol members who told them to stop. Kennedy was killed when he hit a tree at speed.
Michael and his brother Tommy were both questioned at the time, and continuously changed their stories. Suspicion shifted from Tommy to Michael as Michael allegedly told police he had been peeping in his neighbors' windows and touching himself that night. No one was charged with the murder at that time but a cloud of suspicion hung over the family for years.
In 2019, Saoirse Kennedy Hill (left), daughter of Courtney Kennedy (right) and granddaughter of Robert. F. Kennedy, died of a drug overdose at the age of 22. She had been struggling with mental illness and addiction before her death. A cocktail of prescription drugs and alcohol was found in her system.
Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, son of Robert Kennedy, was the subject of a grave scandal in 1997 when news broke that he was having an affair with his children’s former babysitter, who was believed to have been several years underage when they started their relationship. He wasn’t prosecuted, but his wife left him and he was publicly disgraced.
In 2020, Maeve Kennedy McKean, another granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, drowned along with her eight-year-old son. The pair had been canoeing in the Chesapeake Bay, and ended up further out than they could handle. Their bodies weren’t recovered for several days.
In 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister Lauren Bessette took a fateful flight to attend a wedding. Kennedy Jr. was the one piloting the plane, and flight records show that he somehow lost control and crashed it into the Atlantic Ocean. There were no survivors.
The assassination of JFK was one of the most significant historical events in Western history. But the family’s suffering didn’t stop there. His brother, Robert Francis “Bobby” Kennedy, was also a significant figure in politics, serving as the US Attorney General. He was shot and killed in 1968. The man convicted for his murder was a young Palestinian man named Sirhan Sirhan, who allegedly acted in retaliation of Kennedy’s support of Israel.
Four years later, sister Kathleen Kennedy was traveling over France in a small plane during a storm. It crashed and killed Kathleen along with three other passengers. She was just 28 years old at the time.
Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Robert Kennedy, lost both of her parents in an airplane accident in 1955. George Skakel and Ann Brannack were traveling in a Corvair plane that crashed after running out of fuel. Ethel’s brother George also died in a plane crash in 1966.
A shocking number of Kennedys have died in plane crashes over the years, which is one of many reasons their family is believed to be cursed with bad luck. The first to go was Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the oldest brother, who was a pilot during World War II. He volunteered to fly in a dangerous secret mission in Nazi-occupied France alongside one other pilot in 1944. A mysterious explosion on board the plane resulted in their deaths. The cause was never determined.
In the 1940s, JFK was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Addison’s disease. The condition inhibits the production of steroids by the adrenal glands. Kennedy took a number of steroids to treat the illness, including anabolic steroids, and is believed to have abused them. Addison’s disease seriously diminishes the body’s ability to fight infections, and Kennedy nearly died from minor infections on multiple occasions, even during his presidency.
Drug addiction is another issue to plague the Kennedy family, as with many families that live under the pressure of public scrutiny. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. struggled with addiction for many years, having lost both his father and uncle to assassinations. Luckily, he sought treatment and survived. His brother David (pictured) wasn’t so lucky. David struggled with heroin addiction and died of an overdose in a hotel room in 1984 at the age of 28.
Kennedy Smith was acquitted of all charges. The verdict surprised many, considering that three other women testified on the stand that they had also been assaulted by him in the 1980s. William Kennedy Smith was one of many Kennedy men who seemed to make lucky escapes from dicey legal situations.
In 1957, she was sent to a psychiatric hospital and was given electro shock therapy. She later called it “the nightmare ride of my life.”
William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of JFK, was arrested in 1991. The 31-year-old doctor was accused of assaulting a woman at the Kennedy’s Palm Beach vacation home in Florida after a night of bar-hopping with his uncle, Ted Kennedy, and cousin Patrick Kennedy. They allegedly met the woman at a nightclub and took her and her friend back to the house where the alleged assault occurred.
Jackie Kennedy, later Jackie Onassis, was a private woman who rarely spoke about her first husband’s blatant affairs. In a letter to a friend written before they were even married, she commented, “He’s like my father in a way—loves the chase and is bored with the conquest—and once married needs proof he’s still attractive, so flirts with other women and resents you. I saw how that nearly killed Mummy,” she wrote.
Many accounts suggest that Black Jack and JFK bonded over their shared love of boozing and seducing women who weren’t their wives. It’s even rumored that they once ordered a call girl to their hotel room whom they “shared.”
Unfortunately for Jacqueline Bouvier, both her father and her future husband were two peas in a pod. John “Black Jack” Bouvier (right) was known for his love of drinking, gambling, and general debauchery. Needless to say, he and John F. Kennedy got on like a house on fire.
As she grew into a young woman, she was very attractive and her parents were concerned about her safety given her diminished mental capacity. She often became frustrated and threw tantrums, and eventually her parents took her to a psychiatric hospital for a prefrontal lobotomy. The doctor botched the surgery, and Rosemary was left unable to walk or talk at the age of 23. She was hidden away for the rest of her life.
Rosemary Kennedy was the eldest sister of President John F. Kennedy. She had learning difficulties and a low IQ, and was kept out of the spotlight, unlike the other members of the family. Some referred to her as “the missing Kennedy.”
Perhaps the most famous tragedies to strike the Kennedy family were the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy. JFK was shot by a sniper while passing through Dallas in a motorcade, accompanied by his wife. He was 46 years old and father to three young children.
Despite the numerous tragedies suffered by the Kennedy family, matriarch Rose Kennedy (the mother of JFK) forbade her relatives from discussing them. In fact, she made it a rule that no one was allowed to cry in her house. “It would be selfish and demoralizing to focus on our tragedies,” she once said. “There was a saying after Jack died, for the grandchildren, no crying in the house. If you cry, you'll be sent back to wherever you come from. I insisted that.”
Sources: (CNN) (The New York Times) (E!) (Psychology Today)
In 2002, Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel was convicted of murdering a young woman named Martha Moxley back in 1975. Both Skakel and Moxley were 15 years old at the time, and were neighbors in Greenwich, Connecticut. Moxley was found bludgeoned to death by a golf club in her own backyard on Halloween night.
In 1964, Ted Kennedy (of the infamous Chappaquiddick car accident) was also involved in a plane crash. He was taking a small chartered plane from Washington to Massachusetts with a few of his political colleagues. Kennedy managed to survive, but two other passengers were killed.
Kennedy then walked back to his hotel. He didn’t alert the police for 10 hours. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and causing personal injury. He was given a two-month suspended sentence, and managed to stay in the Senate for the next 40 years. The whole scandal was so infamous that the word Chappaquiddick is now synonymous with the incident.
In 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy was driving a young campaign worker named Mary Jo Kopechne home from a late-night party on the island of Chappaquiddick. Kennedy lost control of the car and crashed it into the water. He was able to escape and swim to safety, but Kopechne remained trapped and drowned.
In a statement read by her lawyer, the woman acknowledged the difficulties she faced in engaging in a high-profile trial of this nature against a man from a powerful family. "I pray that my decision to proceed was not in vain, and that in some small way I have contributed to a reasoned consideration of the critical issues this case has raised."
In 1961, he was under extreme pressure dealing with the Bay of Pigs and negotiating with the Soviet Union at the Vienna summit. At the same time, he was suffering from an infection that nearly killed him.
Several years down the line, Jackie was married to JFK and had suffered a devastating miscarriage followed by a stillbirth. She was suffering from depression, compounded by the fact that her husband was constantly unfaithful.
The Kennedy family tree is extensive, complex, and powerful. The first generation of 'celebrity' Kennedys was that of John F. Kennedy and his eight siblings, which included his brothers Robert and Ted who joined him in politics, and his sisters, Kathleen, Jean, and Rosemary.
John F. Kennedy was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 1947, and since then there hasn’t been more than a two-year period where a Kennedy wasn't holding office. The Kennedys are leaders, politicians, ambassadors, captains of industry, philanthropists, and environmental activists. At the same time, they’re seen as reckless philanderers, drug abusers, scandal-mongers, and, perhaps, the victims of a curse.
Click through the following gallery to see why the Kennedys have such a complicated reputation and why many believe them to be cursed.
Lesser-known stories of the Kennedy family
The scandals and misfortune of America’s most famous family
CELEBRITY Famous families
The Kennedy family tree is extensive, complex, and powerful. The first generation of 'celebrity' Kennedys was that of John F. Kennedy and his eight siblings, which included his brothers Robert and Ted who joined him in politics, and his sisters, Kathleen, Jean, and Rosemary.
John F. Kennedy was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 1947, and since then there hasn’t been more than a two-year period where a Kennedy wasn't holding office. The Kennedys are leaders, politicians, ambassadors, captains of industry, philanthropists, and environmental activists. At the same time, they’re seen as reckless philanderers, drug abusers, scandal-mongers, and, perhaps, the victims of a curse.
Click through the following gallery to see why the Kennedys have such a complicated reputation and why many believe them to be cursed.