Chappaquiddick Speaks by Pinney Bill

Author:Pinney, Bill [Pinney, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stormy Weather Press
Published: 2017-11-07T16:00:00+00:00

24

The Relay

Every Chappaquiddick book has a timeline, and this one will, too. But in this chapter our timeline will concentrate on just one issue: the discrepancy between the time Kennedy said he plunged over the bridge; and the time he said he returned to Lawrence Cottage and notified Gargan and Markham that there had been a terrible accident.

I f you remember, when Kennedy finally stumbled back to Lawrence Cottage he testified that he remained out of sight near the Valiant and called out to LaRosa to find Gargan. When Gargan arrived, Kennedy asked him to find Markham. Malcolm Reybold calls this exchange of messages between Kennedy, LaRosa, Gargan, and Markham the relay.

Let’s continue with that term. The relay represents the time Kennedy first returned to Lawrence Cottage and informed Gargan and Markham that there had been an accident. It sets that moment apart from any other time Kennedy might have returned to the cottage.

Huck Look’s observation

As we have noted, virtually everyone who has put forth a theory as to what must have happened that night has begun with the premise that any events of importance occurred after Huck Look saw the Oldsmobile around 12:40 a.m. The timeline of the witnesses at the party, which can often conflict with a favorite theory, is ignored. The assumption is made that these witnesses lied. Sherrill even suggests that the strange times cited by the witnesses were part of a calculated strategy by Kennedy’s lawyers to leave the public and the press with an impossible job of reconstruction. 153 Damore suggests that the testimony had been deliberately designed by Kennedy’s lawyers to support the senator’s accident time and to “overwhelm Huck Look’s anticipated testimony by a sheer weight of numbers.” 154

A good example of the havoc wrought by the witnesses’ testimony can be found in Nelson’s new book, Chappaquiddick Tragedy: Kennedy’s Second Passenger Revealed . This book supports the second-passenger theory. As any intelligent writer would, Nelson struggles to explain the witnesses’ timeline, and to imagine how it might fit into his hypothesis. Maybe it could be this. Maybe that. In the end, Nelson all-but throws up his hands and admits defeat.

What every new author comes to realize is that the timeline of the guests won’t fit any of the usual theories. But viewed through the lens of a staged accident, and armed with the knowledge of Carol’s sighting, the ambiguity disappears. It turns out Kennedy, Gargan, and Markham were lying about the timeline, while the other guests were not.

Staged accident timeline

The staged-accident timeline goes like this.

The accident occurred on Dike Road around 11:20 p.m. Kennedy jogged back to Lawrence Cottage, arriving there around 11:30 (the relay ). Gargan and Markham raced toward the ferry in the Valiant to pick up Rosemary Keough and Charles Tretter, passing Carol on the way back to the accident on Dike Road at 11:35. After freeing the Oldsmobile from the accident site, the group returned to Lawrence Cottage with both cars, with Mary Jo in the Oldsmobile’s trunk, arriving there at around 11:55.

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