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by Val Ellicott
Staff Writer
By midnight on Good Friday, the crush of bodies at
Au Bar left barely enough room to drop a name.
The club, a mainstay of the Palm Beach social
scene, was so packed that a town fire official told bar managers to
unlock a second entrance door.
A familiar crowd jounced and jostled inside. Local
glitterati negotiated the small dance floor with status-conscious
socialites and working people willing to pay $7 a drink to party with
the style-setters.
Attention that night was focused on two
particularly radiant social lights -- U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy and
his son Patrick. Kennedy's nephew, William Kennedy Smith, joined them
at the club.
Sen. Kennedy held court at a table with a small
group of friends and acquaintances. Smith and Patrick Kennedy
circulated through the packed bar area and chatted with patrons.
At 3 a.m., the words "last call" began
thinning the crowd. Sen. Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy and Smith left Au
Bar and headed back to the Kennedy estate, La Guerida, about half an
hour later.
Patrick drove himself and the senator to the
Kennedy house in a white convertible, according to Michele Cassone, a
waitress at Testa's Restaurant who said she met Patrick at Au Bar
that night.
Smith returned to the estate with a 29-year-old
Jupiter woman. Later that day, she accused him of rape.
The woman told police Smith attacked her inside the
compound about 4 a.m. after the two walked on the beach, a source said.
The woman's account didn't emerge until a week
later, leaving plenty of room for speculation-- so lurid at times
that it tested the willingness of scandal-hardened Palm Beachers to
believe almost anything of anybody.
Rumor quickly overwhelmed fact.
Early hints that a Kennedy was a rape suspect sent
reporters into stampede mode. By Monday night, tabloid reporters were
flocking to Au Bar, cash in hand.
One reporter from The Star offered Ashley Murphy of
West Palm Beach $1,000 for the Jupiter woman's phone number and
address. Murphy was tempted.
"I could really use the money," she said.
`$500 FOR A NAME'
Another writer reportedly approached a nurse at
Humana Hospital, where the Jupiter woman received treatment for minor
injuries, and handed her his card. On the back he had written,
"$500 for the name."
By Tuesday, the supply of marketable information
had shrunk considerably. The woman's name was had for the asking. By
Wednesday, so were her address and phone number. The tabloids began
focusing on the most obvious target-- the woman herself, a single
mother and a regular at Au Bar and other Palm Beach night spots.
Letters promising sensitivity, respect, compassion
and money, lots and lots of money, filled her mailbox. Reporters took
turns fishing into the mailbox and reading the offers out loud. The
scene became progressively more bizarre. Tabloid writers sifted
through the woman' s garbage.
An enterprising grade-schooler sold chocolate bars
to the herd of reporters camped outside her house.
The bidding war-- including at least one rumored
offer of $250,000 -- drew no response.
Frustration with her silence and the minimal
information released by the Palm Beach police-- the time and place of
the alleged rape- - led to speculation that police officials were
going out of their way to protect the Kennedys.
DEPARTURE FROM ROUTINE
Police did not confirm that the Jupiter woman had
named Smith as her attacker until Friday, a day after The Palm Beach
Post, quoting an unnamed source, identified Smith as the suspect.
Other departures from police routine fueled
criticism of their handling of the case.
A book listing all police calls did not include
Saturday's entries when a reporter from The Palm Beach Post inspected
it Sunday afternoon.
The printout, which is usually updated every day at
7 a.m., turned up Monday morning. Police said someone had simply
forgotten to take it to the front desk Saturday.
In addition, the incident was not recorded on a
second log sheet used by department spokesman Craig Gunkel to prepare
news releases until 48 hours after it was reported. A detective
failed to submit details of the incident for the log, police said.
Wednesday, The Palm Beach Post, The Palm Beach
Daily News and a local television station sued Palm Beach police
chief Joseph Terlizzese, claiming he had violated Florida's public
records law. Judge Richard Oftedal ruled Friday that the police had
acted properly.
NO PLACE TO HIDE
With specific details about the alleged rape in
short supply, lewd speculation took over. Local radio talk show host
Jack Cole aired each new rumor, including a few that strained credulity.
"It's talk," Cole said. "We're not
reporting facts. We're just talking as people would in a bar."
People who spoke to the Jupiter woman shortly after
the alleged rape were emphatically not talking and slammed telephones
down on reporters. A few reportedly changed their phone numbers.
Reporters pressed harder on anyone with anything to
say. Cassone, the Testa's waitress, who was at the Kennedy compound
the night of the alleged incident, quickly ran out of places to hide.
"Oh, no," she said as she walked into the
Safari and Polo Club on Palm Beach Thursday night and saw several
reporters ready to pounce. "I can't even come here any more."
She spent about 11/2 hours at the compound talking
to Patrick Kennedy and Sen. Kennedy, Cassone said. She never saw
Smith or the Jupiter woman, whom she had seen earlier at Au Bar.
Cassone said she did see a naked woman run into the surf outside the
Kennedy compound.
She couldn't identify her.
SENATOR'S `RAUNCHY ROMP'
Sen. Kennedy appeared inside the mansion at one
point without any pants on, though he might have been wearing
underwear, Cassone said.
The New York Post described the encounter as a
"raunchy romp" in which "a near naked Ted Kennedy"
chased Cassone.
Brian Metzler, a friend of the Kennedy family, said
he talked with Smith for an hour at Au Bar.
Smith, usually boisterous and "rowdy,"
seemed exhausted, Metzler said. He talked of how much he looked
forward to the end of medical school.
"It wasn't at all like he was having a good
time," Metzler said. " It's almost like he was in a coma.
It was strange. He said he just wanted to leave and just crash."
Despite frantic fact-hunting by about 100
reporters, key questions about what happened at the Kennedy mansion
early March 30 remain unanswered.
A few people who reportedly know how Smith met the
woman at Au Bar aren't talking. No one has found out the extent of
the "minor injuries" the police say the woman suffered. And
it is unclear why she waited until midmorning to tell police she had
been raped.
There are other questions. How long did Smith
remain on Palm Beach after the alleged rape? Where did he go? Did the
police try to find him to question him that weekend?
Even information about Smith himself has been
difficult to come by, despite his connection to America's most famous
family. Smith's mother, Jean Kennedy, is one of President John F.
Kennedy's eight brothers and sisters. His father is Stephen Smith,
who ran the Kennedy family businesses and managed Kennedy political
campaigns until he died in August at 62.
`SHE'S A NEAT PERSON'
The woman who says Smith raped her, while not from
the same social order, is well off financially. She attended high
school in the Midwest, moving to an apartment on Royal Poinciana Way
on Palm Beach in August 1982, according to court records. She now
lives with her 2-year-old daughter in a house that her stepfather, a
wealthy businessman, owns in Jupiter.
Friends say the woman has enough family money to
support herself without working, but she has held several jobs in the
past seven years, including one at The Palm Beach Post. Since 1984,
the woman also has worked at a Central Florida law firm, a Methodist
church and Walt Disney World. She attended Rollins College and Palm
Beach Community College.
She was hired as a clerk in the newsroom of The
Palm Beach Post last year, leaving eight weeks later to care for her daughter.
*Kennedy Smith case table of contents
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