Mary Jo KopechneMary Jo Kopechne was a schoolteacher, secretary, and political campaign worker, who was killed one night forty years ago, in an automobile accident on Chappaquiddick Island at Martha's Vineyard. The driver, a prominent United States senator, claimed to have made several attempts to save her, but did not report the accident until the next morning, when the car and the body were found. The senator pleaded guilty to "leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury." He received a two month suspended sentence. The Kopechne family has never commented publicly on the incident.
The senator went on to a distinguished career in politics, but for a failed attempt at nomination to run for the Presidency. He died early this morning, after a long battle with cancer. The woman who was never able to live as full or as long a life as he, and whose family received little if any justice, can finally rest in peace.
May God have mercy on that senator. May God have mercy on us all.
I was alive and well when this incident happened and as a result I lost all respect for Ted Kennedy. If he only would have timely reported the incident to the police, Mary Jo might have been saved. He did plead guilty to the offense as indicated in the article, and admitted that he was wrong in not reporting the incident to police. Earlier in his life he was expelled from Harvard for cheating. America should never forget Mary Jo Kopechne.
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