NORWALK, Conn. — A former resident of a Maine treatment center testified Thursday that Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel confessed to killing Martha Moxley in an emotional, two-hour discussion the classmates had in 1978 or 1979.

"'I did it,'" prosecution witness John Higgins said Skakel eventually concluded.

The statement, according to Higgins, came at the end of a long, heart-to-heart talk which he characterized as a "blood-letting." He said Skakel, whom he barely knew, sat with him on a porch outside a dormitory at Elan School in Poland Springs, Maine, one night and talked about the unsolved murder of his 15-year-old neighbor in 1975.

Martha Moxley

Higgins, who lives in Illinois, said Skakel told him he remembered being in his garage, going through golf clubs and then running through the woods and looking up at pine trees. He said Skakel, who was 18 or 19 years old when the statements were allegedly made, said the next thing he remembered was waking up at home.

Over the period of two hours, according to Higgins' testimony, Skakel went from "I don't know what happened" to "I may have done it," to "I must have done it," and finally, declaring, "I did it."

"Michael was sobbing and crying. It was a really emotional thing," said Higgins, the prosecution's 26th witness during the first seven days of the trial.

The testimony of Higgins and other Elan students are at the heart of the prosecution's circumstantial case again Michael Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy. Defense lawyer Mickey Sherman tried to blunt the damage of Higgins' testimony by getting the witness to concede, after much wrangling over it, that he lied when prosecution investigator Frank Garr first called him six years ago.

"Did you tell Frank Garr, 'Believe me, if I had a confession from him I'd give it to you?" Sherman asked.

"Yes, I did," Higgins replied. "I was definitely withholding information."

"Were you lying?" Sherman asked.

"I was definitely withholding information," the witness repeated.

"What's the difference between lying and withholding information?" the defense lawyer pressed.

"There isn't any. I was lying," Higgins finally admitted.

Higgins explained that he did not want to get involved in the case and considered it a "pain in the ass" to have to testify. Sherman tried to shake his credibility, stressing in his questions that Higgins never contacted authorities; they had to find him.

"How do we know if you are lying right now?" Sherman asked.

"The only one who knows is sitting there," Higgins said, pointing to the defendant.

Higgins testimony capped a day that saw five witnesses take the stand, including a retired Greenwich police detective who first heard about an alleged Elan admission by Skakel in 1990.

Richard Haug was interviewing former Elan student Dorothy Rogers about a fire she allegedly set that gutted her parent's home in Greenwich. During the interview, Rogers told Haug that she met Skakel at an Elan dance in 1978 and that he claimed he was drunk on the night of the murder and could have committed the crime.

Rogers, who is currently incarcerated in North Carolina on unspecified misdemeanor charges, testified that she and Skakel were making "small talk" and the subject of the murder came up. "He never said he did it," Rogers testified. "He said, 'I think I possibly did it. I'm not sure.' "

On cross-examination, Rogers testified that Skakel was confronted in a group therapy and did not confess. She said someone stood up and asked, "How does it feel to be someone who beat a girl to death with a golf club?"

"He still didn't admit to doing it," Rogers said.

Sherman pressed Haug, the police detective who took Rogers' statement in 1980, what police did with the information. Haug said he was not assigned to the Moxley case and was unaware what, if anything, detectives investigating Martha's killing did as a result of Rogers' claim.  

Another former Elan resident, Charles "Chuck" Seigan of Illinois, testified that Skakel said during group therapy sessions in 1978 that he did not know if he killed Martha Moxley.

Seigan said that typically when Skakel was confronted he either became annoyed or was brought to tears.  

"He'd shake his head and when asked if he did it, he said he didn't know," Seigan told Skakel's 12-member jury.

Skakel landed at Elan — which employed controversial techniques to get residents like him, who had alcohol or drug problems, to confront their demons — after a drunken driving incident in the Catskills in March 1978.  

Seigan described for jurors how things worked at the center, which was run by a charismatic man named Joe Ricci who insisted on discipline. A minor infraction brought a "haircut," or terse reprimand. Not following rules could bring a "shootdown," or loss in rank and privilege and the highly structured facility. Staff even encouraged a behavior-modification method called "cowboy asskicking," when residents would physically assault the violator to get him to conform.  

Elan had only four "cardinal rules" — no sex, no drugs, no violence and no running away — according to Seigan's testimony. Skakel ran away during the summer of 1978 and upon his return faced the dreaded "general meetings."  

According to Seigan, when staff members began shouting "General meeting!" residents would drop whatever they were doing and run to a dining hall and wait, hands folded on the tables before them, until Ricci appeared. When Skakel's general meeting for absconding was called, Ricci explained to residents that the then 18-year-old resident from Connecticut had been somehow involved in a murder case back home.  

Seigan said that it was after that Skakel was asked about the murder case and if he was involved during group therapy sessions. "He'd say, 'I don't know.' I never heard him say he did it.' "  

On cross-examination, Seigan said that the confrontations often stopped when Skakel answered that he did not know if he killed Martha. The defense wants the jury to speculate that Skakel only said he did not know if he was responsible in order to extricate himself from an unpleasant situation.  

Judge John Kavanewsky Jr. ruled Thursday morning that transcripts of another witness's pre-trial testimony can be admitted as evidence. Former Elan resident Gregory Coleman died of a heroin overdose last summer. Before he died, he testified that Skakel confessed that he killed Martha during a blackout.  

"I'm going to get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy," Skakel allegedly said, according to Coleman's prior trial testimony.  

Sherman argued that the testimony of Coleman, who offered several different versions of the alleged confession in 1999, 2000 and 2001, was too untrustworthy to be reliable. He also argued unsuccessfully that putting the transcript into evidence by having someone read it deprives Skakel of his right to confront the accuser. Kavanewsky said he will entertain defense motions to show Coleman contradicted his testimony by admitting other transcripts later during the trial.  

'Something Bad'  

Earlier Thursday, jurors heard testimony from a former Skakel family driver who testified that Michael Skakel tried to jump off a New York City bridge in 1977.  

Larry Zicarelli, who gave his two weeks' notice that day but was dismissed the following Monday, testified that Skakel had a double Scotch for lunch in Manhattan and was quite upset about something as they drove back to Greenwich.  

At one point, Skakel apologized to Zicarelli and said he respected him. "He said ... that he had done something very bad and he either had to kill himself or get out of the country," Zicarelli testified.  

Witness Larry Zicarelli testified Skakel said he did something "very bad."

Skakel never got more specific than that and never mentioned Martha Moxley, said Zicarelli, who testified despite the defense's objections that the story was vague, prejudicial and irrelevant.  

But Zicarelli said the story did not stop there.  

"We were driving home and we stopped for traffic on the Triborough Bridge. Michael opened the door and jumped out of the car and ran to the side of the bridge," Zicarelli said. "I pulled him off."  

Skakel got back in the car through one door and then exited another. He ran to the other side of the bridge but was then pulled back to the car by Zicarelli, according to testimony. Skakel resisted and Zicarelli punched him. Once back in the car, the ride resumed and Skakel quieted down again and was crying.  

Zicarelli said that when he asked Skakel why he wanted to kill himself or leave the country, Skakel told him that if he knew what Skakel had done he would never want to talk to him again.  

Sherman asked during cross-examination if he knew what Michael Skakel did that was so bad. Zicarelli said he did not know. Sherman than tried with a question to get a fact not in evidence before the jury.  

"Do you know if the night before Michael Skakel slept in his deceased mother's dress and felt bad about that?" Sherman asked.  

Ann Reynolds Skakel died of cancer in 1973 and Michael, 13, began drinking alcohol to excess. The defense is expected to present evidence later in an effort to argue to the jury that Skakel was messed up by alcohol and lingering guilt over the death of his mother when he made statements that seemed to implicate himself in Martha's murder.  

Zicarelli also testified that he did not tell police about the incident on the bridge or Skakel's statement that he had done "something very bad" until investigators called him in 1993.  

Zicarelli said he was sure the bridge incident occurred in the early summer of 1977 because of something that happened that August that many Americans still remember vividly.  

"It was the year Elvis died," Zicarelli said.