Kennedy had come to Martha's Vineyard for the Edgartown Yacht Club regatta. On the evening of July 18, he attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island - a small island connected to the larger island by a two-car ferry. The gathering was a reunion for the 'boiler room girls,' young women who had worked on Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign. Robert had been assassinated just a year before. The mood was reportedly subdued. Around 11:15 PM, Kennedy left the party with Mary Jo Kopechne. He claimed to be driving her to the ferry. Instead, he turned onto a dirt road leading to Dike Bridge, a narrow wooden bridge with no guardrails that crossed a tidal inlet.

Kennedy's Oldsmobile went off the bridge and landed upside down in the water. Kennedy escaped through an open window. Kopechne did not. Kennedy later said he dove repeatedly trying to rescue her, that the current was too strong, that he was in shock. He walked back to the party cottage and returned to the bridge with two friends, who also failed to rescue Kopechne. Then, instead of reporting the accident, Kennedy returned to his hotel in Edgartown. He later said he expected someone else would report it, that he was hoping it was all a dream. The next morning, two fishermen spotted the car. Kopechne's body was found inside. Kennedy reported the accident only after learning the body had been discovered.

The official account raised more questions than it answered. Why was Kennedy on that road if he was heading for the ferry? Why didn't he report the accident immediately? Could Kopechne have been saved if help had been called? A diver who recovered her body believed she had survived in an air pocket for some time. Why was there no autopsy? Why did Kennedy's influential family seem to manage every aspect of the investigation? The theories multiplied: Kennedy was drunk, Kennedy was having an affair, Kennedy was covering up something worse than negligence. Kennedy's televised statement a week later, in which he asked Massachusetts voters whether he should resign, was seen as manipulative rather than contrite. They told him to stay. But his national ambitions were finished.

Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended sentence. He won reelection to the Senate in 1970 and served until his death in 2009, becoming the 'Lion of the Senate' and one of the most effective legislators in American history. But he never became president. When he ran in 1980, Chappaquiddick followed him. When asked about it in a television interview, he couldn't give a coherent answer. The incident had revealed something about his character - recklessness, privilege, the assumption that rules didn't apply to Kennedys - that voters couldn't forget. Mary Jo Kopechne was buried in Pennsylvania. She would have been in her eighties today.

Chappaquiddick is a small island off the eastern shore of Martha's Vineyard, accessible by a two-car ferry from Edgartown. The ferry ride takes approximately two minutes. Dike Bridge has been replaced; the current bridge is wider and has guardrails. A small memorial to Kopechne, placed by an admirer, has appeared at the site periodically over the years. The island is largely residential and has no commercial facilities. Visitors come for beaches and privacy - and, inevitably, to see the bridge. The experience is strange: a beautiful, peaceful place forever associated with a young woman's death and a senator's disgrace. Martha's Vineyard is reached by ferry from Woods Hole on Cape Cod or by small plane to Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVY). The island is a summer resort for the wealthy; Kennedy connections run deep.