Chappaquiddick

Chappaquiddick

The “Chappaquiddick incident” refers to circumstances surrounding the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign worker for the assassinated U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York. On July 18, 1969, Ted Kennedy attended a party on Chappaquiddick, a small island connected via ferry to the town of Edgartown on the adjoining larger island of Martha’s Vineyard.

The party was a reunion for a group of six women, including Kopechne, known as the “boiler-room girls”,who had served in his brother Robert’s 1968 presidential campaign. Also present were Joseph Gargan (Ted Kennedy’s cousin), Paul Markham (a school friend of Gargan’s who would become United States Attorney for Massachusetts under the patronage of the Kennedys), Charles Tretter (an attorney), Raymond La Rosa and John Crimmins (Ted Kennedy’s part-time driver). Kennedy was also competing in the Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta, a sailing competition which was taking place over several days.

Kopechne’s dead body was discovered inside an overturned car belonging to Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts under water in a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. After the body was found, Kennedy gave a statement to police saying that on the previous night he had taken a wrong turn and accidentally driven his car off a bridge into the water. He pled guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury, and received a suspended sentence. The incident became a national scandal, and may have affected the Senator’s decision not to run for President in 1972.