TED KENNEDY AND CHAPPAQUIDDICK...IS IT THE KENNEDY CURSE

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, guys, welcome back to my channel today.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
I have another true crime story for you guys, but
it's kind of like just a tragic event. So, as
you guys know, I love the Kennedy family.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
I don't know what.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
It is about the Kennedy's that fascinates me so much,
but their entire family history and who they were as
people intrigues me.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I don't know, I'm just fascinated by them.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I've done multiple videos about the Kennedy's, about JFK's.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Assassination, about the Kennedy family curse.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Many of them have died, There's been all these strange
accidents and incidents.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
As you guys probably know, John F.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Kennedy was assassinated, and so was his brother Bobby. But
even before that, their oldest brother died in a plane accident.
And when JFK died, Bobby was supposed to be the
next president. And when Bobby died, Ted Kennedy was supposed
to be the next president, and he probably would have
been if this whole event I'm about to tell you
about hadn't happened, but before we had started with that.

(00:59):
Today's video is kindly sponsored by Audible. If you've been
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(01:46):
to listen to if you find yourself interested in this
topic specifically, I wanted to recommend the book Chap Equittic
to you. This is Chop Equittic, Power, Privilege, and the
Ted Kennedy cover up by Leo D. More that will
go much more in depth into this story. Do you
want to check out Audible for yourself. Audible is kindly
offering my audience a free thirty day trial and this
makes your first audiobook free. If you want to take

(02:08):
advantage of that trial, go to audible dot com slash
Kendle ray that is a U d I b l
e dot com slash k E n d A l
l r a E. Or you can text Kendl ray
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we'll get you set up that way. So chap equittic
is an event that I actually didn't know that much about.

(02:30):
I always knew that there was this kind of sketchiness
around it, but I didn't know exactly how it went
down and didn't really have like an opinion formed.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
This whole story.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Did just come out as a movie, and I wanted
to see the movie before I made this.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
The hell happened, Teddy, It was an accident.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
I was driving. Story like this could dominate the headlines
for weeks.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
See, we got a body that body holds a lot
of secrets, supposed to be the difference between the guilt
and innocence.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
I saw it earlier.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
This week, and it was very, very interesting and well done,
but it was definitely their side of things, because there's
a lot of other kind of conspiracy angles to this
and a lot of just mystery that doesn't make any sense.
So I'm going to go ahead and get started. So
let's go back to nineteen sixty nine. Summer of nineteen
sixty nine. Bobby Kennedy had been shot about a year
earlier and assassinated, and the Kennedy family was still kind

(03:27):
of recovering. It was July eighteenth of nineteen sixty nine.
Ted Kennedy and a few other family friends and people
who had worked on the campaign decided to host kind
of a weekend party getaway for a bunch of people
that worked on Robert Kennedy's campaign before he was assassinated.
They called these girls the boiler room girls. That's where
they were working in campaign headquarters.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
This is Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, the
summer playground of rich socialites and politicians. Nearby is the
island of Chapaquiddic, few square miles of scrub and sand dune.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Ted Kennedy's personal driver arrived at the cottage first and
dropped off a bunch of drinks for everyone before going
to the airport to pick up Ted Kennedy himself and
bring him back to the party, where he then changed
into his swimsuit, and then his driver took him to
the beach where the rest of the others had already
started congregating for the celebration and probably partied a lot.
But then eighteen hours later, police found a vehicle registered

(04:27):
to Ted Kennedy that had driven off of the road
on this bridge and ended up in pretty shallow water
upside down.

Speaker 5 (04:35):
The car ended up upside down submerged in the fast
flowing cartage beneath the bridge.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
When they found the car, it took them a while
to get into it.

Speaker 6 (04:43):
I went on to several times to see if I could,
you know, take a look in, but.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Each time I did, the tide so it took me along.

Speaker 6 (04:50):
So I gave that thought up, and I boosted myself
up and sat on the car and waited for the
arrival of other help.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
But when they finally did open the car, they found
a dead woman's body inside.

Speaker 7 (05:04):
I was in dive gear ready to go, and proceeded
over to that piland there and went over to that
and went into the water from that side. As I
approached the rear of the automobile, which would face that way,
I saw two feet in the rear windows.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
Of the strength of the cuntrent, it took him another
five minutes to get her out of the car and
bring her up to the center.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
This woman was named Mary Joe could pick me and
she was one of the boiler room girls.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
So what happened. Mary Joe was only twenty eight years
old when she died.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Now it was so odd about this is that when
police found this car and identified it as belonging to
Ted Kennedy, Ted was just chilling back at his hotel.
He had never reported an accident or being involved in
an accident.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
He was actually just having brunch with some friends.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
He said that that night he was in the car
with Mary Joe because he was driving her to the ferry.
But he claims that he accidentally took a wrong turn,
got confused, ended up driving down a dirt road, and
then somehow drove the car off of a small bridge
into the water. Now it's very interesting about Kennedy's statements
here is that he said that he made an attempt

(06:07):
to save Mary Joe, that he remembers trying to help her,
but he can't remember.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
How he got out of the car.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Typically, when people experienced trauma, a car accident something like this,
they remember either all of it or none of it.
It's very rare to remember this part and that car.
That's really weird.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
It's odd that.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
He wouldn't remember how he got out of his car,
but he would remember trying to save her. That seems
like a very convenient thing to remember.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
But I did try to be a hero.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
So they were like, dude, why did this take you
ten hours to report it?

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Then?

Speaker 2 (06:41):
If it was just an accident, claims that the reason
it took him ten hours to report it is because
through the night he was in complete shock and was
trying to process the accident. And he claimed that the
next morning it just dawned on him that he was
in a car accident, and then he.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Reported to the police. So obviously, when something like this happens,
it's everywhere.

Speaker 6 (06:59):
On At midnight last Friday, Senator Edward M. Kennedy drove
a car off a narrow bridge and into a pond
on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. A young woman in the car
within was drowned Kennedy survived, but failed to report the
accident unil ten hours later.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
If it was something that involved the Kennedy's, it was
the biggest news in the world. My dad even remembers it,
and he was really young, he must have been like
seven or eight, and he remembers the whole thing happening
and like being concerned about the accident and watching his
mom being like really invested in what everything was going on.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
So a few days after.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Ted gave his statement, which was extremely vague, there were
no follow ups from him, no more information, no more statements.
And this really pissed off a lot of people, you know,
people who voted for Ted, They're like, you know, can
you at least give us some answers. Pissed off the
press because they're like, what the hell now we have
no leads, Like there's just no answers about what happened.

(07:55):
This girl died, and it was all like oooh, you know,
hush that shit up. And possibly one of the weirdest
things about this is that after this happened, there were
no more actions taken by the police.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
They basically just let it go.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
And that's what happens when you have a lot of
money and a lot of power, and you are part
of the Kennedy family, so obviously people were wondering, you know, Ted,
why did this take you ten hours?

Speaker 1 (08:15):
That's really weird. And they were also asking, why were
you out with this.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Twenty eight year old girl who's single when you're married
at that late at night by yourself. They were also
wondering if he was drinking. I mean, he just drove
straight off a bridge. Seems like something that could possibly
happen while under the influence. But if Ted Kennedy was
caught drinking and driving, that would be the end of
any chance that he had of becoming president.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
And the pressure was on dude.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Like the Kennedy family once they lost John Kennedy and
then Bobby Kennedy. I mean, he was the last hope
of the political dynasty continuing. He was the one that
was supposed to be president, and I don't think he
even really wanted to be part of it or to
be president. And it wasn't until four days after the
acts didn't happen that Ted showed his face in public.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
He didn't make.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Any statements, but he went to the funeral and he
was wearing this neck brace that my dad says he
can remember seeing him wear and thinking like, oh damn,
that must have been a bad accident.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
But the thing about the.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Neck brace is, first of all, it looks fake, Like
it totally looks fake.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
And there were reporters reporting that he was.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Craning his head around in his neck brace at the funeral,
like looking around. It just looked really really out of
place and odd, and people had seen him without it before.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
As soon as soon as the funeral.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Ended, Ted didn't make a single statement and went back
into hiding in the Kennedy home. So obviously there's kind
of a lot of pressure from the public on the
police to do something about this. I mean, can people
really get away with drunk driving or you know, whatever
he had done just because they're rich and famous or
their president or they were a famous family, Like how

(09:52):
does that work? So eventually the courts contacted him about
making some type of deal, and you know, this is
really how it goes for the really really wealthy, privileged
people of the world or famous people.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
You know, there's a different set of rules for them.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
He even had a doctor when chances are in the
movie they portrayed it like the doctor just made everything up.
But this doctor diagnosed him with a concussion and shock
and pretty much everything he needed to be diagnosed with
in order to make it look not as weird that
he just left the scene. I mean, if you are
rich and powerful, you can make a doctor say just
about anything about you. He pled guilty to leaving the

(10:27):
scene of an accident after knowing that someone was injured
in it. This was the least serious charge they could
give him for this entire situation, and the reason he
decided to do this plea is that if they went
to court over all this, he would have to like
show evidence in court and it could probably not go
so well for him. So doing the plea agreement was

(10:47):
the smartest option. But that is just where the lies began.
My friends Ted Kennedy decided to have a big televised
statement to America, hoping to gain back his voter's sympathy
and get re elected today.

Speaker 8 (11:01):
As I mentioned, I felt morally obligated to plead guilty
to the charge of leaving seeing of an accident. No
words in my part can possibly express terrible pain and
suffering I feel over this tragic incident. This last week
has been an agonizing one for me and for the
members of my family, and the grief we feel over

(11:22):
the loss of a wonderful friend will remain with us
the rest of our lives. These events, the publicity in
the window and whispers which have surrounded them, and my
admission of guilt this morning raises the question in my
mind of whether my standing among the people of my
state has been so impaired that I should resign my
seat in the United States Senate. If at any time

(11:44):
citizens of Massachusetts should lack confidence in their senator's character
or his ability, with or without justification, he could not,
in my opinion, adequately perform his duties and should not
continue in office. So I ask you tonight, people of Massachusetts,
to think this through with me. Faith this decision, I
think you're advice and opinion. I think your prayer the

(12:05):
decision that I will have finally to make on my own.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
However, when he did this TV interview, he added a completely.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
New part of the story that he had never said
before and had never told police. He said that he
had made a second attempt to save her, and that
he even brought some of his friends back to the
scene to help, which has been kind of like debated.
I'm not sure if that actually happened, but it seems
like it. It was probably Joey Gargin who he brought
to the scene, and Joey who was very very close

(12:35):
with Ted, and the whole Kennedy family has never spoken
to Ted since this happened.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Now, that to me says a lot.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
What's also really suspicious about this whole case is there
was never an autopsy done.

Speaker 5 (12:48):
Suspicions of a cover up were further increased by the
fact that there had been no autopsy on the body
of Mary Joe Kopecney. After all, it was a procedure
that should have followed automatically in any case where the
circumstances but death were unclear. Even the doctor responsible was
unable to provide a coherent explanation.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Did you request an AUTOPSI actually not of those exactly,
not in those exact words. Can you tell me the
exact words, doctor will I stated to the district attorneys
if the district attorney advised under the particular circumstances that
I would like it that I would like an autopsy,

(13:26):
could you restate that please. I'm sorry. I sent word
to the district attorney's office the particular circumstances out of
the case and asked if under these circumstances, if they fall,
an autopsy should be done. I would like to have
it done.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
This blows my mind, honestly, Like I can't believe that
they didn't do an autopsy. Maybe it's possible she didn't
even die from drowning. I mean, there's a lot of
people that think she's suffocated. The water was shallow enough
that she could like somewhat stand, and if you see
the movie, she had her head above water for a
good amount of time.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
At least that's what they think.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Very possible she ran out of the air that she
did have and just couldn't get out.

Speaker 9 (14:08):
I recently sat down with Georgetta Patowski, Mary Joe's cousin
and close confidante and the author of the book Our
Mary Joe. I know you have a lot of questions
about Ted Kennedy's role in all of this and just
what they were even doing in that car together in.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
The first place.

Speaker 9 (14:24):
Right, there's a suggestion that she didn't drown, that she suffocated,
and that she was alive for a long time in
that car. I wonder what you think about that.

Speaker 4 (14:34):
That's one of the hardest things we had to accept.
Her parents in particular, thought that she had died instantly,
and a few years after she died, they went up
there and spoke with John Ferrer, the scuba diver, and
he told them she could have lived up to three
hours in the air bubble in the car, and it
was like they had lost her all over again. Her
father in particular just grieved for it was awful. It

(14:58):
was awful, I can imagine.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Bizarre to me that they didn't do an autopsy. That
seems like some strings were pulled for sure, and even
the doctors couldn't even come up with a good excuse
for why they didn't do an autopsy.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Edmund Denise from the DA's office.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Decided that there needed to be more investigation into Mary
Joe Capigney's body, and six months later, after the investigation, Ted,
Kennedy and a few others went to the court to
give their final statements. Kennedy again said that around eleven fifteen,
he was tired and so was Mary Joe, so he
and her decided to take a ride on the ferry.

(15:32):
He basically ran through the whole story should have made
a right turn, but he made a left, ended up
on a different road, and then accidentally drove off the bridge,
and the judge basically did nothing. He concluded that Ted
really probably did make the mistake because it was dark
out and he didn't see where he was going. It
was an unfamiliar area for him, and the judge was
unable to resolve any other questions unanswered questions that people have,

(15:54):
so the whole thing was closed and everyone moved on.
They never put Ted Kennedy under any type of scrutiny
or pressure to give the answers that he wasn't giving,
and they let him testify in court first, meaning he
basically got to give a little speech, another little statement,
just like he had been doing before, and then didn't
have to say anything back throughout the trial when people

(16:17):
were asking all the good questions, and you know, he
didn't have to address any of that because he went
before anything was asked. Ted wasn't done there. He started
to change his story once again. He said that he
tried several times to save Mary Joe, but after failing
to do so alone, he decided to walk nearly a
mile back to the cottage where all his friends were
and This is kind of weird because it wasn't that

(16:39):
late at night, and chances are if he saw Ted Kennedy.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Walking alone at night, I mean, people would have seen them.
Out of his house. He passed a ton of houses
on the way back.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
It's just very unusual that no one just saw Ted
Kennedy walking soaking wet back to this cottage. He even
passed a fire station, which he easily could have gotten
help from. And the saddest thing about all of this
is that if it's true that Mary Joe, like the
car wasn't completely filled with water because it wasn't that deep.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
If it wasn't completely filled.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
With water, and there was like an area where she
was still breathing and she was just suffocating, the fact
that Ted never told anyone because he was afraid of
getting in trouble means he could have saved her life.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Again.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
He went back to the house, got some of his friends,
told them what happened and said they needed to come
with him to try to help. Apparently, they all drove
back to the scene together and tried to make a
rescue attempt, but they weren't unable to open the door.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Apparently they tried to save her for.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Another forty five minutes, but were unsuccessful. Finally gave up
and drove Kennedy back to the ferry landing so he
could get back to his hotel, and they told him
you better report this. According to Kennedy's new timeline, with
all of this, it would have taken at least two
hours and forty minutes total do everything.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
That he said he did. But the hotel manager actually testified.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
That he spoke with Kennedy in his office around two
twenty five am. Therefore, his timeline is only credible if
the accident happened before eleven forty five. And not only that,
there's a witness. There was a deputy sheriff named Hack
Look and he claimed to have seen the car that
was identified as Kennedy's with two people in and around
twelve forty five, and this completely goes against Ted's story.

(18:16):
Now this may not seem like a huge deal, but
it really is because if all of that's true and
the witness was right, that means there would be no
time for Kennedy to have brought his other two friends
to help the situation and made this second attempt to
save her. So they had pretty much discovered that that
was a big lie at that point. Now, amazing causing

(18:37):
someone's death and then trying to act like you were
this big hero who tried multiple times to save her.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
How about being a hero.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
By calling the police and getting someone with tools to
come get her out. Ted also said that he was
able to keep track of what time it was because
there was a clock in his car.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Now that was another straight up lie. There was no
clock in his car.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
So obviously since then people have tried to figure out
what really happened. There have been time of mock set ups,
you know, recreations of the scene, and some of these
experiments have shown major flaws in Kennedy's story. He remember
Ted said that he was able to get out a
car easily, but he doesn't remember exactly how he got out,
But when they tested it with actual trained scuba divers
with goggles and everything, it took them several minutes to

(19:18):
get out of the car.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
And not only that, but.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
There's actually a lot of people that believe that Ted
wasn't driving the car, that maybe he was too intoxicated
and asked Mary Joe to drive for him and she
was the one who crashed and not to mention the
morning that the accident happened, he was just challenge like
he had no reaction to everything that had happened him the.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Night before, and he actually went to the scene.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
He went rushing to the scene of the crime, the crash,
and once he got there, he realized how bad.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
It was and was like, I need to get the
fuck out of here.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
That's where he called his lawyer and his political aids
to help him cook up a nice excuse for all
of this and get him out of trouble, or as
some people would refer to as a fixer. Another strange
thing that happened that morning, Lane was called to pick
Kennedy up and the plane actually flew over the side
of the accident before Kennedy had even gotten to the accident.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
If he didn't know that this had happened, and.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
He had forgotten and hadn't reported to the police because
he forgot about it, why did he also call a
plane to get him the hell out of there. So
there's a couple different theories of what could have happened.
There's obviously the theory that it was just Ted driving
and he was drunk and he drove off. There's also
a theory that Mary Joe was driving, that he was
drunk and he wanted her to get in trouble with

(20:32):
anyone where to get a dy it would be better
if it was her. And then there's a theory that
he wasn't in the car at all, because that would
explain how he got out and she wasn't able to
because it's not like he would have gotten out of
a door and then shut it. It just doesn't make
any sense, So maybe he was never in the car
to begin with the time that Ted said he'd left

(20:54):
the party, it would have been an hour after the
cop claims to have seen them, and at that point
the car was only four hundred yards from the cottage
that everyone was partying at, so the sheriff started walking
towards their car, asking if they needed help.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
And they think that this is when Kennedy panicked.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
That he was worried he'd get caught driving drunk or
being with a young girl at night when he's married,
So they believe that he got the hell out of
there real fast, drove away, got out of the car,
and told Mary Joe to drive instead to take over.
He needed to get away from the car so that
it wouldn't be suspicious, and maybe because it was an

(21:30):
unfamiliar area, it was dark, and she was in such
a stressful situation altogether that she just drove off the road.
Because of the forward momentum when a car is going
into water, the passengers are going to go in a
different direction, but the car also will flip on its side,
which would cause the bodies to go to the.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Right side and get injured.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
So if she really was the passenger, she would have
been on the right side and would.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Have been way more injured.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
I mean, the glass from the window definitely would have
shown cuts on her body, and her body was found
in really good condition, no broken teeth, bruises, scratches, anything.
People think that because she was in such good condition,
chances are she was in the driver's seat when it happened.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
So if the crash happened and Ted didn't even know
about it.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
That could explain his relaxed attitude about everything and his
just weird behavior and not reporting it. Maybe he didn't
know the crash actually happened, but his legal team likely
looked over everything, and him taking the guilty plea even
if he wasn't driving, and just taking that minor charge.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
She was able to dodge a.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
Much more serious investigation that would have looked into everything
that went on that night. To keep everything secret, it
was good for him to claim responsibility in a weird way,
even possible. He was hooking up with Mary Joe in
that car when the police came up upon them, and
then he wanted to get out of there because not
only was he drunk, he was also cheating. I mean,
who really knows Mary Joe knows, and she's gone. He

(22:58):
still tried to become president unsuccessfully. However, he stayed in
politics until his death. I believe he passed away in
two thousand and nine.

Speaker 10 (23:06):
The word More Kennedy, a giant of American politics and
the Democratic Party and the patriarch of the Kennedy clan,
has died. He was seventy seven years old. It happened
just before midnight East Coast time at his home in
Hyanna'sport on Cape Cod.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
I think that's why they waited to make the movie.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
I think if they had tried to produce this movie
while he was still alive, he and his team would
have squashed the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
In terms of the movie.

Speaker 9 (23:33):
There's some discussion now that there was an effort to
suppress it, that some supporters of the family didn't want
it to come out. Does that surprise you.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
Well, yeah, there's always been a lot of suppression of
books and stories.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
It just to this day bothers me so much that
Ted kind of portrayed himself as a hero that I
tried to save her and blah blah blah, And it's
just kind of disgusting thinking that there could have been
so many lies involved in this poor girl, Like, oh
my god, first of all, she was gorgeous, and it's
just a really really sad and unfortunate thing that happened.
So I would love to hear from you guys. Do

(24:07):
you think this could be connected to the Kennedy curse.
Maybe this event is what kept him from ever becoming president.
But I want to know what you guys think. Be
sure to leave me a comment below. Be sure to
give this video a thumbs up if you liked it,
and I hope you're having a great day. I'll see
you next time.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
By