Posted on 08/29/2009 3:09:07 PM PDT by ETL
Birth: Jul. 26, 1940
Death: Jul. 19, 1969
Teacher and Administrator, she is most remembered for her controversial death in an automobile accident with Senator Edward Kennedy; the resulting political scandal caused Kennedy to reverse his decision to run for the US Presidency. Born in Forty Fort, Pennsylvania, she was the only child of insurance salesman Joseph and Gwen Kopechne. After graduating from Caldwell College, New Jersey, she taught at Montgomery Catholic High School in Montgomery, Alabama, and then moved to Washington DC to work as a secretary for Florida Senator George Smathers. Shortly afterwards, she went to work as a secretary for New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy following his election in 1964. After Senator Robert F. Kennedy's death in 1968, she moved to Matt Reese Associates, a Washington DC firm that helped politicians establish campaign headquarters, and it was there she met Senator Edward Kennedy, Robert Kennedy's younger brother.
On the evening of July 18, 1969, she attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island, near Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, in honor of the "Boiler Room Girls," a name given to the six young women who had helped the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy during his presidential campaign, and who had closed up his files after his assassination in June 1968. All six of the women were single, and the six men in attendance were all married but present without their wives, and the attendees gathered for a late night party at the Lawrence Cottage, rented by Joe Gargan for the occasion.
Late that evening (the exact time is in dispute), Kennedy offered to drive Kopechne back to her hotel at the Katama Shores Motor Inn in Edgartown, and later claimed that he mistakenly took a wrong, right turn onto Dyke Road, a dirt road leading to a beach about a mile down the road, instead of turning left onto the paved Chappaquiddick Road leading to the ferryboat which they would need to use to go to Kopechne's motel.
A half-mile down Dyke Road, Kennedy drove off the side of the Dyke Bridge, and the car overturned into Poucha Pond. Kennedy got out of the overturned car, but Kopechne failed to exit the car and died. Kopechne's body was recovered later that morning; the diver reporting that Kopechne had positioned herself near the back seat wheel well where an air pocket had formed, and had apparently suffocated rather than drowned. Her parents ruled out an autopsy, so the cause of death was never officially determined.
Senator Kennedy later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury, for which he received a two-month suspended sentence and one year probation. Kopechne's death and Kennedy's failure to properly deal with the accident, along with numerous discrepancies in his account of what happened, damaged his reputation and is regarded by many as the major reason that he decided to cancel his run for the presidency in 1972 and subsequent years.
Kopechne's funeral was held on July 22, 1969, at St. Vincent's Roman Catholic Church in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, and she was buried in the parish cemetery there.
(bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson)
Burial:
Saint Vincents Cemetery
Larksville
Luzerne County
Pennsylvania, USA
The new family tombstone, erected after the death of Mary Jo's mother in December, 2007.
Added by: Geoff Wilson, 9/04/2008
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4569
Yes, I'd like to see that, too.
"By their fruits ye shall know them." (Matt.7:20)
I'd also like to point out the difference between "don't matter" -- sins always matter very much -- and "are forgiven." Only if the sins matter does the forgiveness mean anything. End of technical discussion of salvation. As for the faith part, no further comment until you can come up with some evidence that remotely resembles the faith he claimed as his own.
Every one of the Kennedy boys were conservative until Teddy. This is why so many catholic pro-lifers were registered democrats back in the day. It took quite awhile for them to figure out the democratic party was hijacked left off a bridge and further destroyed marxist left, by the long legged mack daddy.
How much money dod Mary Jo’s parents take?
How much shut-up money did Mary Jo’s parents take?
I wonder why she didn’t try to get out?
NO!!! Fat Ted did not get to the Pearly Gates. His destination was DOWN. The fires of a Devil's Hell awaited him. Everything he stood for, did, preached for, is against the Word of God and the Bible. His murder of MaryJo, his lifestyle, his homo approval, his gay marriage approval, etc., damned him to hell. He did not have an opportunity to view the Gates of Heaven.
Whoa....I heard the water was shallow but had no idea. Ted must have really been in 'shock' not to help Mary Jo. /s
What a POS.
In 1979 when he was trying to ramp up a run for President, his handlers escorted him to the Nostalgia Ristorante at Palumbo's, the famous political nightclub in the narrow streets of South Philadelphia's Little Italy where Frank Sinatra and Frank Rizzo used to hang out. Eight or ten neighborhood locals assembled on the corner across the street to catch a glimpse of him, and when he approached us to shake hands, several of us just automatically put out our hands just as a courteousy.
Ted Kennedy had a handshake like a dead fish, and a clinically depressed, deer-in-the-headlights facial expression. I will never forget locking eyes with him and seeing that vacant, almost fearful expression, and feeling that cold, limp, damp hand from a man so large. This was before my political awareness had fully kicked in, so I had met him with an open mind, but was completely astonished and repulsed by his demeanor.
As he turned to go, one of my neighbors, a small-time Italian-American bookie, yelled out, "He can't save one girl from drownin' — how da f**k is he gonna save da country?"
Teddy's handlers put their arms around his back and whisked him away. We all started snickering and chortling under our breaths, trying to suppress it to be polite; but I have to say, it was just spontaneous, not any kind of an organized demonstration whatsoever. Even in a mostly Democrat working-class South Philly neighborhood -- anywhere outside of Massachusetts -- people saw through this gargoyle who had been protected and propped up by the shamelessly corrupt media.
I certainly understand and share your anger at what he did, and how the Deceiver, the Father of Lies keeps giving him cover. Jesus himself angrily turned over the tables of the moneylenders who desecrated the temple.
But I also think it is important for believers to be able to separate that anger from bitterness, and give God the final judgment. We do not know if he cried out for mercy. They say that even if Hitler had done so, he could have been saved.
If we don't learn to separate ourselves from final judgment, leaving it in faith to God's final say for His purposes, it is we who will have a heart of unforgiveness when we show up at the Gates, and it is we who may be turned away. ("But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first."—Matt.19:30)
It is possible that God "allows" some evils in order to awaken us to our own need to grow morally and take actions, such as investigating the truth about candidates and all the other acts of service for unwed mothers, et cetera. Without sin, there would be no refining of our souls. Sin is a sort of carborundum and we are diamonds in the rough, in a manner of speaking.
Voted NO on defining unborn child as eligible for SCHIP healthcare program.
(Bill S.Amdt.4233 to S.Con.Res.70 ; 3/14/2008)
Voted NO on prohibiting minors crossing state lines for abortion.
(Bill S.Amdt.4335 to S.Con.Res.70 ; 3/13/2008)
Voted YES on expanding human experimentation to more embryonic stem cell lines.
(Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act; Bill S.5 & H.R.3 ; 4/11/2007)
Voted NO on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions.
(Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act; Bill S.403 7/25/2006)
Voted NO on criminal penalty for harming unborn child during the commission of other crime.
(Unborn Victims of Violence Act; Bill S.1019/HR.1997 ; 3/25/2004)
Voted NO on banning partial birth abortions.
(Bill S.3 ; 3/12/ 2003)
Voted NO on maintaining ban on abortions at Military Bases
(Bill S 2549 ; 6/20/2000)
Voted NO on banning partial birth abortions.
(Partial Birth Abortion Ban; Bill S. 1692 ; 10/21/1999)
Voted NO on banning human cloning.
(Motion to invoke cloture on motion S. 1601; Bill S. 1601 ; 2/11/ 1998)
And "women" ---women of a sort--- really appreciate it! (Don't know so much about the "little guys"...)
I believe there were two installments: $50k and $90K.
No autopsy.
Kennedys had this so painted over no one will ever know. Smoke and mirrors, obfuscation, red herrings.
Do you think local law enforcement was not in touch or impacted by the Kennedy family money and politics?
That’s cheap even in those days to hush up scandal and murder.
I don't know anything about the Kopechnes, other than that they were apparently unsophisticated nobodies from nowhere, and perhaps easily controlled by the Kennedy machine. Their only child obviously bought into the Kennedy myth, so they just might have consoled themselves, or been encouraged to believe, that they were honoring her memory.
The Moxleys (Martha Moxley, murdered by the nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, wife of Bobby), were just as wealthy as the Skakels, and it still took them millions of dollars and over 20 years to bring the killer, Michael Skakel, to justice.
Even if they had wanted to, exactly what resources did the Kopechnes have to use against the Kennedys?
If you want to assign blame in this travesty of justice, you're better off pointing fingers at the local and state officials who bowed and scraped to Teddy, and thus enabled him to walk away from Mary Jo's death.
You were doing fine until your last sentence.
The co-shoveling masshole is former Big Dig bigwig Matt Amorello. I was pleased to learn he has since fallen on hard times. As for money, he and his divorcing wife owed $132K to Capitol One, $9K to Target, and $16K to Citibank.
Why so? Police Chief Dominick Arena never asked Kennedy why he had not reported the accident for nine hours. The DA never pressed for an autopsy, and then did so halfheartedly, and was shot down. Judge Boyd blatantly interfered in examination of the witnesses and supression of information. The state court granted Kennedy's request to keep the inquest "private," and prohibit the publication of the inquest testimony until after the Grand Jury met, thus depriving the Grand Jury of that information.
And -- my favorite -- Judge Paquet brought a priest to sit beside him at the Grand Jury proceeding. "The Reverend Donald Cousa, pastor of St. Elizabeth Roman Catholic Church, stood up in full regalia and requested that 'prejudice was to be set aside and replaced by charity.'" After the cursory testimony of four minor witnesses, after a whole 40 minutes, the DA decided it was over. End of story. Move along -- nothing to see here. He's a Kennedy, ya' know.
I wonder what the response would have been here if the reverse had happened..he had died and she lived..
They were in fairly shallow water - he could have got her out after the accident.
Let me see if I have this straight. Ted Kennedy planned to have a weekend party (read 2 days) for the “boiler room girls” who he decided had been most helpful in RFK’s campaign. It just so happened that the 6 chosen were young, attractive and single. Hosting the party were Kennedy and 5 male friends, none of whom brought their wives and none of the girls brought a date. For 2 days and 2 nights 6 married men and 6 unmarried women were going to party with liquor flowing freely (it was a Kennedy party, after all).
Presupposing that at least one of these people had a scintilla of intelligence, and considering Kennedy’s reputation of having the morals and self-control of a three-balled tomcat, didn’t any of these women realize how compromising this whole situation must have looked? Or did they already know what to expect at the party and figured no one would find out?
Mary Jo should have been buried at Arlington, not the Swimmer.
If it hadn’t been for her, The Swimmer might have been President.
In a very bizarre (and very sad)way,one might say that she gave her life for her country.
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