Chappaquiddick: What To Know About Incident Before Seeing Movie

Chappaquiddick, the movie starring Jason Clarke as Sen. Ted Kennedy and Kate Mara as Mary Jo Kopechne, opened in theaters on Friday. The movie centers around the accident on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts that killed Kopechne when Kennedy drove the car the two were traveling in off Dike Bridge in July 1969.

Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a two-month suspended sentence. While he was reelected to the Senate in 1970, the incident is said to have kept him from running for president.

As the country's attention turns back to the events of July 1969, here what you need to know about Chappaquiddick:

Who Was Mary Jo Kopechne?

Kopechne, 28, was a former secretary to the senator's late brother, Robert F. Kennedy. On the night of the crash, Kennedy had left a party on Chappaquiddick Island with Kopechne and was driving with her to the ferry to return to Edgartown, according to a statement he gave police at the time. According to an article in The New York Times from the time of the incident, Kopechne had worked in politics since 1963. She worked for Sen. George Smathers, a Democrat from Florida, before she began working on Sen. Robert Kennedy's staff in 1964. She worked as a secretary to speechwriters and later as a legal secretary and adviser. Kopechne was invited to Cape Cod on the weekend of the crash where she was spending time with friends she had made on Kennedy's staff.

Where is Chappaquiddick Island?

The island is a part of Edgartown, Massachusetts, and is located on the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard. It's separated from the mainland of Edgartown. The island is accessible by ferry, where Kennedy said he was driving to on the night of the incident. Kennedy said in his police statement he was unfamiliar with the road he was driving on and turned right on Dike Road when he came upon the narrow, unmarked bridge and his car went off the side.

Crash Went Unreported For 8 Hours

Kennedy said that he was in shock after the car went off the narrow bridge and he did not immediately report it to police. He also said he did not have any recollection of how he got out of the car after it plunged into the water but that he repeatedly dove down to the car to see if Kopechne was still inside but that he was unsuccessful.

In his statement, Kennedy said he was driving to the ferry at around 11:15 p.m. on July 18. The Edgartown fire chief, A.M. Silva, is quoted in a New York Times article as saying that the accident happened around 12:50 a.m. A witness, Charles Look, also told police that he saw Kennedy's Oldsmobile around 12:40 a.m. at an intersection on the island's Main Street. Look said he was a person in the driver's seat, someone next to the driver and another person in the back seat though he wasn't sure about that. He also said the car's license plate number began with an L and has two 7s in it. The accident was first reported to police just after 8 a.m. on July 19 after onlookers saw the car in Poucha Pond. Kennedy finally reported the crash to police around 9 a.m.

The details surrounding what happened between the time of the accident and when it was reported to police remain unclear.

Charges

Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident on July 25, 1969 and was given a two-month suspended sentence. Dominick Arena, who was the Edgartown police chief at the time, said at the hearing that there was no evidence of negligence on Kennedy's part but that he had "ample opportunities to report the accident before he actually did."

Kennedy Statement

On July 25, 1969, the same day as his hearing, Kennedy made a televised appearance to speak to the people of Massachusetts about what happened on Chappaquiddick Island. In that appearance, Kennedy said there was no truth to "the widely circulated suspicions regarding immoral conduct that have been leveled at my behavior and hers regarding that evening."

You can watch the speech below:

Political Ramifications

The accident happened just two days before the historic moon landing and news stories about the historic day competed with stories about Chappaquiddick. President Nixon said he knew nothing about the accident when asked about it on the day of the moon landing but the scar of Chappaquiddick would ultimately stop Kennedy from seeking the presidency in 1972 and challenging Nixon. In April 1971, Nixon asked his staff to follow Kennedy and see what other scandals they could uncover.

You can see more about what Nixon thought of Kennedy via Boston.com.

Kennedy launched a presidential bid in 1980 but lost the Democratic nomination for president to Jimmy Carter. A 2009 article from Boston.com notes the following about Chappaquiddick and what effect it had on Kennedy's political career:

"Throughout this period, no one in his inner circle appears to have considered Chappaquiddick a serious threat; the echoes of what happened on Poucha Pond were quiet. It seemed like part of the distant past. But the judgment proved to be catastrophically wrong. The character issue would haunt Kennedy through his primary fight with President Carter and beyond."

Check out Patch's review of Chappaquiddick here and watch the trailer for the movie below:

Photo: Reporters question American Senator Edward Kennedy (center, with neck brace) and his wife Joan Kennedy (left, in white coat and dark glasses) as they walk across the tarmac after returning from the funeral of Mary Jo Kopechne, Hyannis, Massachusetts, July 22, 1969. Kopechne died when a car driven by Kennedy went over the side of a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island four days earlier. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Editor's Note: A previous version of this article mistakenly stated Joel Edgerton stars as Edward Kennedy. Patch regrets the error.