Five Favorite Murders: Martha Moxley/LA Freeway Killers

Further Reading For Martha Moxley & LA Freeway Killers

The Mysterious Murder of Martha Moxley: Did the Political and Financial Power of the Kennedy/Skakel Families Trump the Truth?

Murder in Greenwich: Who Killed Martha Moxley?

William Bonin: The True Story of The Freeway Killer: Historical Serial Killers and Murderers

Episode: 5

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William George Bonin (January 8, 1947 – February 23, 1996), also known as the Freeway Killer, was an American serial killer and twice-paroled sex offender who committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of 21 boys and young men in a series of killings in 1979 and 1980 in southern California. Bonin is also suspected of committing a further 15 murders. Described by the prosecutor at his first trial as “the most arch-evil person who ever existed”, Bonin was convicted of 14 of the murders linked to the “Freeway Killer” in two separate trials in 1982 and 1983. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison on February 23, 1996.

Bonin became known as the “Freeway Killer” due to the fact that the majority of his victims’ bodies were discovered alongside numerous freeways in southern California. He shares this epithet with two separate and unrelated serial killers: Patrick Kearney and Randy Kraft.

Martha Elizabeth Moxley (August 16, 1960 – October 30, 1975) of Greenwich, Connecticut, was a 15-year-old American high school student who was murdered in 1975. She was last seen alive spending time at the home of the Skakel family, across the street from her home in Belle Haven. Michael Skakel, also 15 at the time, was convicted in 2002 of murdering Moxley and sentenced to 20 years to life. In 2013, he was granted a new trial by a Connecticut judge and released on $1.2 million bail. On December 30, 2016, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4–3 to reinstate Skakel’s conviction. The Connecticut Supreme Court vacated the conviction on May 4, 2018 and ordered a new trial.[

The case attracted worldwide publicity as Skakel is a nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the widow of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.