Chappaquiddick: Suspicions Renewed

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The transcript does not explain one of the case's most glaring inconsistencies: the discrepancy between the testimony of Christopher Look, a part-time deputy sheriff, and Kennedy over the probable time of the accident. Kennedy testified that he left the cottage with Mary Jo at approximately 11:15 p.m. on July 18, and did not stop his car before it ran off the bridge. Those at the party confirm Kennedy's departure time. But Look testified that while returning from work in Edgartown he saw a car fitting the description of Kennedy's stopped near the turn to Dike Road about 12:40 a.m., nearly half an hour after Kennedy said he had returned to the cottage on foot, and more than an hour after the Senator said that the accident had occurred. Spotting at least two passengers and thinking that they might be lost, Look said, he stopped his car and began to walk toward the halted vehicle, only to see it start down Dike Road toward the bridge. Look did not follow the car, but he did notice its license plate. He testified that it began with the letter L and had 7s as the first and last digits. Kennedy's license plate was L78207.

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Look could, of course, have been mistaken. But if he really did spot Kennedy's car, then the accident could not have occurred when Kennedy said it" did, and it is highly improbable that Kennedy and his friends would have had time for the rescue attempts they claimed to have made before Kennedy was seen in Edgartown. This would mean that Kennedy lied or erred about both the time of the accident and the events that followed it, and that those at the party were, at the very least, mistaken in their statements that he returned to the cottage at 12:15. One other possibility was that Kennedy and Mary Jo left the cottage at 11:15 but did not actually drive off until later. (See pictures of the lion of the senate, Ted Kennedy.)

The transcript told a great deal about Kennedy's state of mind at the time of the accident. In a televised act of contrition a week after Chappaquiddick, the Senator was uncertain as to the length of time he spent trying to rescue Mary Jo and vague as to how long it took him to make his way back to the cottage where his friends were partying. By the time of the inquest, his memory had improved considerably. His testimony vividly described his and Mary Jo's struggles to get out of the overturned car and his own seemingly miraculous escape: "I can remember the last sensation of being completely out of air and inhaling what must have been half a lungful of water and assuming that I was going to drown and that no one was going to be looking for us that night until the next morning, and then somehow I can remember coming up to the last energy of just pushing, pressing and coming up to the surface."

He was even more specific on what happened after he surfaced and caught his breath some 30 feet downstream from the car. According to his account, he dived down to the car seven or eight times during a 15-to 20-minute period, trying to reach Mary Jo, then spent another 15 or 20 minutes resting on the bank before starting down the road to the cottage.

Kennedy's companions placed his return to the cottage at 12:15 a.m. Gargan and Markham told almost identical stories of their return to the bridge with Kennedy, and their attempts to bring up Mary Jo. Gargan and Markham insisted that they advised Kennedy repeatedly to report the accident and summon help. By the time the trio reached the Chappaquiddick ferry landing, Kennedy seemed to agree. Believing somehow that a full explanation would send Mary Jo's girl friends down to the bridge in a fruitless—and dangerous —attempt to dive for her themselves, Kennedy instructed Markham and Gargan not to alarm them, said that he would take care of reporting the accident, then plunged alone into the channel and swam across to Edgartown. This despite the fact that the ferry could have been summoned by telephone. Gargan acknowledged that earlier in the day he had discussed post-midnight ferry service with the boat operators. Also, a sign giving instructions about the service was at the landing.

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