Biographer reveals deadly incident was a 'favorite topic of humor'
What a man! Something tells me we don't know the half of it! Wonder what Mary Jo had to say to him on Judgment Day. The diver who recovered her body said the floor of the upside down car was badly scratched indicating that Mary Jo desperately tried to escape her watery tomb.
I once had a conversation with former congressman Bob Dornan who said that a number of years after Chappaquiddick he interviewed Mary Jo's parents. Members of the Kennedy clan met with Mary Jo's mother Gwen. Rose was there, the long suffering matriarch and a priest, I believe Bob said a monsignor, and they pressured the mother not to put poor Rose through the agony of an autopsy. She had been through so much already with the assassination of two sons. The "lobbying" of Mary Jo's poor mom, which probably saved Teddy's career, convinced her to "do her Christian duty" and sacrifice finding out the truth (Was Mary Jo pregnant? Did she die from asphyxiation or drowning? etc.) and choose silence. No doubt concern for her own daughter's reputation played a part in the decision. Nevertheless, it was a crass act. It reminds me of all the bishops who bullied Catholic parents of abused children not to create scandal by revealing the truth. Dornan said Mary Jo's dad regretted not going to the meeting with his wife. As time went on and they watched the antics of the drunken womanizer who killed their daughter, I imagine their regret deepened.
I know someone who once caused the death of another in an icy crash on a winter morning when she was driving her children to school. There was no culpability there, just a tragic accident. She spent the rest of her life remembering and regretting it, despite being completely blameless. The fact that Ted Kennedy could joke about killing a young woman is consistent with the man who could cheerfully vote for legislation to stab a baby in the neck and suck out his brains.
I've prayed for Ted Kennedy, but have little confidence those prayers will do him any good. If not, perhaps the Blessed Mother used them for poor Mary Jo who had time to repent for her sins while she struggled for breath in the back seat of Kennedy's car.
What Happened on Chappaquiddick Island with Senator Edward Kennedy
Remembering Mary Jo
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