Reuters Overdose Kills Witness in Kennedy Kin Murder Trial ROCHESTER, N.Y. (Reuters) -- A key prosecution witness in the murder
trial of Kennedy family relative Michael Skakel has died of a drug
overdose, police said on Wednesday.
An officer reached by telephone at the Rochester, New York, police
department confirmed that Gregory Coleman -- who had testified that he
heard Skakel twice confess to killing his teen-age neighbor Martha Moxley
25 years ago -- had died of a drug overdose. The officer declined to give
further details.
Skakel attorney Mickey Sherman also said that he had heard of Coleman's
death.
``I wasn't shocked, but I was certainly surprised,'' Sherman said. ``He
was a very nice young man who obviously had a drug problem going back very
many years.''
``But you know he lost a battle with drugs,'' he added.
Prosecutors in the case could not be reached for comment.
Earlier this year, Coleman admitted at a hearing to determine whether
Skakel should be tried in Moxley's death that he had used heroin just
before giving his testimony to the grand jury that indicted Skakel.
Skakel is a nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the widow of assassinated
U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
A Connecticut judge ruled in April that there was enough evidence for
Skakel to stand trial for allegedly killing Moxley. A hearing on pretrial
motions is scheduled for Wednesday.
Coleman said he took heroin at a hotel when about to appear before
Judge George Thim of the Bridgeport, Connecticut, Superior Court. It was
an 18-month investigation by Thim that led to Skakel's indictment in
January 2000 for Moxley's murder.
Coleman testified more recently at a pretrial hearing held to decide
whether Skakel should be tried as an adult for the crime he allegedly
committed as a juvenile. Coleman said he heard Skakel confess twice to
Moxley's murder when the two men were attending the Elan School, a
substance-abuse treatment center in Poland Springs, Maine, from 1978 to
1980.
Sherman said that he did not place much weight on Coleman's testimony
because of his drug habit. ``I never thought that he was that valuable a
witness, given the nature of what he said,'' Sherman commented.
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August 8, 2001
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