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From: Jasper
Date: 2/5/03
Time: 8:55:58 PM
Remote Name: 66.72.163.216
Rose,
Fuhrman’s account of what happened is so full of inaccuracies, especially where time and the golf clubs are concerned, that you can’t trust any of it to lead you to the right conclusion. Logical, yes. Correct, not necessarily. The melting ice cream analogy and times you quoted jumped out at me, too. I missed the Mickey Sherman call to Fuhrman.
Fuhrman makes a big issue out of the name “Ann Skakel” (Michael’s mother) being on the missing handle of the club. That’s irrelevant. The head of the club was left on the murder scene. It said “Toney Penna.” It was a woman’s club and it was rare. The only people in Belle Haven who had Toney Penna clubs were the Skakels. Anne Skakel bought them. Julia got them when she died. Everybody in the house used them to smack balls around the yard and the older males in the family were known for using them as walking sticks (page 117-18).
Ken Littleton said that “Thomas and Michael killed chipmunks and squirrels with golf clubs” (page 117). If any of the male Skakels feared that the handle would lead back to him, he would have taken the head of the club, too, because he would have known that it was just as incriminating. If someone planted the head of the club on the scene he would have done so for the same reason. That’s only one of the reason I believe that the killer planted the head.
By the time Martha’s body was discovered the killer had time to think though the implications of leaving the handle in the body. If he didn’t wear gloves his fingerprints could have been on it. If he did wear gloves the fingerprints could have belonged to someone with a solid alibi. He may have also feared that it was too obvious a clue and might look like a frame-up. Taking the handle with Ann Skakel’s name on it would further implicate Thomas or Michael. I don’t think Michael had anything to do with it. I don’t think he could conceive of anyone in his family having anything to do with the murders until the police started questioning them. For the same reason, I can’t see him or anyone in his family disposing of the handle.
The killer knew where the body was. Getting to it and disposing of the handle after the police arrived was another matter. He might not have thought of it until then. There was nothing to keep him from watching from a nearby hiding place in the woods and seizing the opportunity when he saw it. To the extent that the police suspected a Skakel and had to do a little work to narrow it down to Thomas, they wouldn’t suspect him.
The police did not suspect Ken Littleton for almost a year. –Jaspe