Her name was Mary Jo Kopechne. She was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on July 26, 1940. The date of her death cannot be so easily pinpointed. She died either in the final few minutes of July 18, or the first few of July 19, 1969, on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts.
Kopechne, Chappaquiddick, Kennedy – words as alliterative as they are forever bound together in the annals of American infamy. The Kennedy in question was Edward, the younger brother who seemed destined to enjoy the long political life so cruelly denied his siblings. And indeed Ted Kennedy would spend the better part of five decades in the Senate. But hopes of occupying the White House all but died that day in the cold water on that warm evening on Chappaquiddick, along with Mary Jo Kopechne.
Exactly what happened that night a half-century ago remains unclear. Ted Kennedy’s own account sheds some light on the tragedy but since elements of his story have proved to be misleading, it’s by no means authoritative. What we do know is that July 18 was the day on which Chappaquiddick played host to a party in honour of the Boiler Room Girls, the young women who’d worked so tirelessly on Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Those present at Lawrence Cottage included Mary Jo, Ted Kennedy, his fraternal cousin Joe Gargan, his attorney friend Paul Markham, three other adult males and about a half dozen female campaign workers.
Around 11.15pm, Kennedy and Kopechne left the party, the senator claiming that Mary Jo had asked him if he would be “kind enough to drop her back at her hotel” on the neighbouring island of Martha’s Vineyard. That Mary Jo left her purse at the party and told none of her friends she was leaving has caused some to call into question this version of events.
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