Final Defense Witness in Skakel Case

By Stephen M. Silverman

05/29/2002 at 02:42 PM EDT

Michael Sherman, the defense lawyer for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, 41, rested his case in a Connecticut courtroom Tuesday after calling last witness, a medical expert who bolstered Skakel's alibi that he was miles away from the murder site at the time of the killing, reports The New York Times. Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel Kennedy, is charged with bludgeoning Moxley to death with a golf club on Oct. 30, 1975, when they were 15-year-old neighbors in the upscale community of Greenwich, Conn. He is being tried as an adult and could face up to 15 years in prison, if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty. Dr. Joseph Jachimczyk of Houston, who was hired by Greenwich police in 1976 to help with the case, according to The Times, said he estimated the time of death based on the degree of rigor mortis in Moxley's body, reports of barking dogs in the area, the girl's curfew, the autopsy report and the contents of her stomach at the time of death. Prosecutors maintain that that the time of death could never be accurately determined. Upon cross-examination, Jachimczyk acknowledged the difficulty in estimating such a time and that his estimate could be off by an hour in either direction, noted the Associated Press. Skakel, who did not testify in his own defense, has said that he was visiting a cousin's house in another part of Greenwich at 10 p.m. on the fateful night.