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| Date | July 18–19, 1969 |
|---|---|
| Location | Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 41°22′24.0″N 70°27′13.3″W / 41.373333°N 70.453694°W |
| Type | Automobile crash |
| Cause | Negligent operation by Ted Kennedy |
| Outcome | Ted Kennedy's driver's license suspended for 16 months |
| Deaths | Mary Jo Kopechne |
| Burial | July 22, 1969, Plymouth, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Inquiries |
|
| Inquest | January 1970, Edgartown |
| Convicted | Ted Kennedy |
| Charges |
|
| Verdict | Pleaded guilty |
| Convictions | Leaving the scene of an accident causing bodily injury |
| Sentence | Two months jail plus one year probation; suspended[4] |
The Chappaquiddick incident occurred on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, United States, sometime around midnight, between July 18 and 19, 1969,[5][6] when Mary Jo Kopechne died inside the car driven by United States Senator Ted Kennedy after he accidentally drove off a narrow bridge, causing it to overturn in Poucha Pond.[7][8][9][10]
Kennedy left a party on Chappaquiddick Island, off the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard, at 11:15 p.m. on July 18. He stated that his intent was to immediately take Kopechne to a ferry landing and return to a hotel in Edgartown, but that he made a wrong turn onto a dirt road leading to a one-lane bridge. After his car skidded off the bridge into the pond, Kennedy swam free and maintained that he tried to rescue Kopechne from the submerged car, but he could not. Kopechne's death could have happened any time between about 11:30 p.m. Friday and 1 a.m. Saturday, as an off-duty deputy sheriff stated he saw a car matching Kennedy's license plate at 12:40 a.m. Kennedy departed from the crash site and failed to report the incident to the police until after 10 a.m. on Saturday. In the meantime, a diver retrieved Kopechne's body from Kennedy's car shortly before 9 a.m. that same day.
At a court hearing on July 25, Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended jail sentence. In a televised statement, that same evening, Kennedy said that his conduct immediately after the crash had "made no sense to me at all" and that he regarded his failure to report the crash, immediately, as "indefensible.” A January 5, 1970, judicial inquest concluded that Kennedy and Kopechne had not intended to take the ferry and that Kennedy had intentionally turned toward the bridge, operating his vehicle negligently, if not recklessly, and at too high a speed for the hazard which the bridge posed in the dark. The judge stopped short of recommending charges, and a grand jury convened on April 6, returning no indictments. On May 27, a Registry of Motor Vehicles hearing resulted in Kennedy's driver's license being suspended for sixteen months, after the crash.
The Chappaquiddick incident became a national news item and influenced Kennedy's decision not to run for president in 1972 and 1976.[8][9][10] Later, it was said to have undermined his chances of ever becoming president.[11] Kennedy ultimately decided to enter the 1980 Democratic presidential primaries but earned only 37.6% of the vote, losing the nomination to incumbent U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
- ^ "Chappaquiddick's Echoes". The New Yorker. July 17, 1994. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
- ^ Wills, Garry (April 29, 1976). "The Real Reason Chappaquiddick Disqualifies Kennedy". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
- ^ Kelly, Michael (April 15, 2016). "Ted Kennedy on the Rocks". GQ. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
damore_193was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Ted escapes car plunge; woman dies". Eugene Register-Guard. Eugene, Oregon. Associated Press. July 19, 1969. p. 1A.
- ^ "Kennedy involved in fatality". Reading Eagle. Reading, Pennsylvania. UPI. July 20, 1969. p. 1.
- ^ "Charge to Be Filed Against Kennedy". Eugene Register-Guard. Eugene, Oregon. Associated Press. July 20, 1969. p. 1A.
- ^ a b Putzel, Michael; Pyle, Richard (February 22, 1976). "Chappaquiddick (part 1)". Lakeland Ledger. Lakeland, Florida. Associated Press. p. 1B.
- ^ a b Putzel, Michael; Pyle, Richard (February 29, 1976). "Chappaquiddick (part 2)". Lakeland Ledger. (Florida). Associated Press. p. 1B.
- ^ a b Jacoby, Jeff (July 24, 1994). "Unlike Kopechne, the questions have never died". The Day. New London, Connecticut. The Boston Globe. p. C9.
- ^ "Kennedy's Legacy: Chappaquiddick was the end of one Ted Kennedy and the beginning of another". Daily News. New York.
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