This past week was the 57th anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a young woman who somehow found herself in a car driven by a drunk who just happened to be the brother of a dead president.

Tragically, she has become an asterisk in the larger narrative of the so-called “Lion of the Senate,” Ted Kennedy.

Mary Jo drowned when Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile off the bridge into the water off of Chappaquiddick, trapping her in the passenger side.

While he was able to extricate himself from the crash, she died of asphyxiation. He later said he’d tried to save her by diving in numerous times with no success.

He then went back to the cottage he was renting, and told some friends what had happened. They allegedly went to the site of the crash and also tried to rescue Mary Jo, but couldn’t locate the body or the car.

The Lion of the Senate then went to bed and only reported the incident the next morning. By that point, Mary Jo had died.

Autopsies showed she was probably alive for five hours after the crash, struggling for air. It’s very likely if the police had been called when it happened, she could have survived.

But........

© The Saratogian