Revisiting Chappaquiddick After 35 Years Posted Jul 19, 2004Thirty-five years after the night of July 18, 1969, when Ted Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile sedan off the side of a wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick Island on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and left for dead Mary Jo Kopechne, the 28-year-old former secretary of his brother Robert F. Kennedy, in his submerged car, unanswered questions linger over the events of that fatal evening. Kennedy escaped the wreckage with a concussion and waited nine hours before reporting the incident to the police shortly after a young boy noticed the sunken car. Kennedy pleaded guilty to...