NORWALK, Conn. — John Moxley, who was 18 years old when his sister Martha was murdered on her family's Greenwich estate in 1974, took a matter-of-fact tone two years ago when Martha's accused killer said after his arraignment, "You've got the wrong guy."

Moxley told defendant Michael Skakel coolly, "Well, we'll see in court."

Soon, everyone will.

Jury selection begins in this Fairfield County community on Tuesday, more than 26 years — some 9,600 days — after one of Martha's friends found her body concealed beneath a large pine tree on the Moxley family's three-acre property in the affluent Greenwich neighborhood of Belle Haven.

Skakel, the 41-year-old nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, faces 60 years in prison — which was considered life in prison when the crime was committed — if convicted of a single count of murder.

Much has transpired since Skakel, a portly defendant with graying hair, made the now-famous "wrong guy" remark to Martha's brother John and mother, Dorthy Moxley, on March 14, 2000.

Skakel was released on bail and unsuccessfully fought to have the case remain in juvenile court; if he had prevailed, the case would have been adjudicated by a judge, not a jury, and Skakel would have faced little if any jail time in the event he was convicted.

Skakel's high-profile defense lawyer, Mickey Sherman of Stamford, also moved to have the case dismissed on legal grounds. But Judge John Kavanewsky Jr., who will preside over Skakel's trial, ruled last year that the blurry line on the statute of limitations for murder during the 1970s was sufficiently clear; he rejected Sherman's argument that a 1976 clarification of the statute of limitation by Connecticut's legislature was proof that prosecutors had only until 1980 to file charges for a murder committed in 1975.

When testimony begins May 7, prosecutors are expected to present evidence that Skakel admitted to killing Martha with a golf club from his deceased mother's set. He allegedly confessed to fellow residents of a Maine reform school for wayward teens of means in the late 1970s. Skakel, a recovering alcoholic, was sent against his will to the Elan School in Poland Springs, Maine, after leading Windham, N.Y., police on a chase while intoxicated that ended with a car crash.

Prosecutor Jonathan Benedict is also expected to call witnesses who will testify that Skakel changed his initial story to police that he arrived home from his cousin's house about 10:30 p.m. on the night of the killing and went to bed soon after. A childhood friend who became reacquainted with Skakel in the early 1990s is expected to testify, as he did at Skakel's probable cause hearing last year, that Skakel told him that on the night of the murder he had been in a tree above the crime scene masturbating.

Sherman has said that he not only expects his client to be acquitted based on reasonable doubt, but that he expects the jury to conclude that Skakel did not commit the killing. The defense may benefit from the passage of so many years, Skakel's alibi that he was at his cousin's house, a dearth of physical evidence and the heroin overdose death last year of Elan School witness Gregory Coleman.

Sherman told CNN's Paula Zahn Monday morning that his client is innocent and is not protecting anyone.

"If he knew, he'd be the first person to rat out the person. He didn't do it and he doesn't know who did," Sherman said.

Nearly 70 media outlets, including Courttv.com, reserved seats in the 173-seat gallery for the proceedings. Kavanewsky rejected Court TV's application to broadcast the trial.

By statute, the defense and prosecution each get 18 peremptory challenges. Both sides have said they remain confident that the jury selection process will yield 12 jurors and four alternates who will remain impartial and unswayed by the fact that Skakel is related by marriage to America's best-known family, the Kennedys.