No, he’ll have to face Judgement. If you believe not in God’s Judgement, then the Judgement of history. And that is all any of us can hope for, I should say, either way.

It’s more plausible than “I tried to rescue her, then I went back to my hotel and went to sleep without notifying the authorities.” That’s a light-bendingly stupid story.

He did not admit to being a murderer; if it looked that way to some people, that was suspicion, but not conviction. His acknowledged responsibility for the death was negligent driving, which can happen to anyone: vide Laura Bush, or former governor Janklow of South Dakota. (Janklow did 100 days in jail and resigned his U.S. House seat; but then he wasn’t a Kennedy in Massachusetts).

If he had admitted to the true circumstances, it would have finished him. Drunkenness and casual adultery leading to a death through negligence – plus explicitly admitting to an attempted cover-up. Remember, this wasn’t the 1990s – it was 1969.

Chris, that cabin may have been “intact”; however, I can guarantee that the crew was turned into chunky salsa instantly on impact from 100,000 feet plus with no chute. They didn’t die nearly as slowly as Mary Jo.

I hope he gave his political advisors raises after that.

Much as I despised Kennedy, I don’t think he would have knowingly left a woman to drown or suffocate – if only because of the political fallout.

One other point: he did immense harm in his Senate career, but he also did a lot to enact deregulation of trucking and airlines.

She did not die at once, get knocked unconscious, or panic. She was found braced so that her head was in the air pocket, as she was probably knocked into the back seat by the crash as the car flipped entirely over.

In the Mythbusters Episode, Adam was able to get out after the car sank and all air pockets bubbled out. The water isnt that deep, and possibly the pressure never equalized at all. In any event, a daylight escape from a gently lowered car is far different than a pitch black, inverted, watery coffin.

And Adam ‘drowned’ in his first attempt. Mary Jo didn’t get an chance to try it again.

Kennedy says he dived down to rescue her, like every word he has said about the event I assume it is a lie. His handler took him back there from the party and he tried to get into the car while Ted did nothing. By then it was surely too late for Mary Jo.

If Kennedy had run to the nearest house which had its light on, possibly she could have been saved. And if Ted had trusted his handlers more, he could have gone there and brazened out it all, succeed or fail in rescuing her. If they could cover what he actually did, they could have covered up him acting responsibly after the accident.

The irony is his dog Splash would have tried to save Mary Jo.