Michael Kennedy

Birth Name:

Michael LeMoyne Kennedy

Birth Date:

February 27, 1958

Birth Place:

Washington D. C.

Death Date:

December 31, 1997

Place of Death:

Copper Bowl Ski Run, Aspen Mountain, Aspen, Colorado

Age:

Cause of Death:

Blunt force trauma from skiing accident

Cemetery Name:

Holyhood Cemetery

Claim to Fame:

Historical Figure

Associates:

Michael LeMoyne Kennedy was born into a very public family as Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy's middle of 11 children. He graduated from Harvard in 1980 and then went to law school at the University of Virginia, where he earned a law degree in 1984. In 1988 he took over as chairman of Citizens Energy Corp., the nonprofit fuel company founded by his brother, Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, that discounts home heating fuel for the poor. He also chaired Citizens Conservation Corp., which provided energy consulting services to low-income, multi-family housing. Through Citizen's Energy subsidiaries, Kennedy also coordinated relief missions to West Africa in 1989 and 1992, founded the U.S.-Angola Chamber of Commerce and helped establish a Catholic university in that country. Kennedy also co-chaired the Walden Woods Project, an effort to preserve a forest near Walden Pond in Concord, and Stop Handgun Violence Inc., a group that works to raise awareness about handguns. All that work, however, was overshadowed when reports said he had a 3-year affair with his children's 14-year-old baby sitter. Robert F. Kennedy's 39-year-old son died on New Year’s Eve Day 1997, playing football while skiing Aspen Mountain’s Copper Bowl. It was a game that the Kennedy family had enjoyed for over three decades, and was considered daring, if not dangerous. This time, Kennedy was caught off-balance and too close to the treeline, lost an edge, and went into a tree head first. He had not been wearing a helmet. He was the second of Robert and Ethel Kennedy's sons to die young. In 1984 David Anthony Kennedy died of a drug overdose at age 24.

Interesting To Know

A Boston paper reported that Michael’s wife Victoria discovered Michael in bed with the teenage baby sitter in January 1995. Prosecutor Jeffrey Locke investigated what he said may have been a case of statutory rape against Michael, but decided not to press charges when the girl and her parents refused to cooperate with the investigation. Whispers of financial renumeration to the victim circulated for years after his death.

Michael Kennedy entered a clinic for treatment of sexual addiction in December 1996 and later began treatment for alcoholism. Shortly after the story became public he separated from his wife, Victoria Gifford Kennedy, the daughter of sports star and broadcaster Frank Gifford and step-daughter of Kathy Lee Gifford.

Ethel Kennedy’s maiden name is Skakel whose father was the was the founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation. Michael Skakel is the nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow, Ethel Kennedy and he was found guilty in 2002 of the 1975 bludgeoning death of Martha Moxley, who lived across the street from the Skakel family in wealthy Greenwich, Connecticut and whose body was found in her family’s backyard.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Holyhood Cemetery

584 Heath Street

Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, 02467

USA

North America

Map:

Map of Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts

Grave Location:

Cushing Knoll, Kennedy Family Plot

Grave Location Description

As you enter the cemetery, turn right and stay on Cross Or Western Avenue until it ends. Turn left and then a right on Carroll Avenue. Carroll Avenue turns into O’Connell Avenue and eventually ends right in front of the large Kennedy Memorial, visible on the corner.