NORWALK, Conn. — Michael Skakel's defense to the charge he killed Martha Moxley in 1975 is as simple as they come.  

He claims not only that he didn't kill his teenage neighbor, but that it wasn't possible because he wasn't there. And anyone who says he confessed years ago, Skakel insists, is either lying or twisting the words of a teenager who was emotionally wrecked from alcohol abuse and his mother's early death.  

Before resting the defense case Tuesday, lawyer Mickey Sherman called 15 witnesses. All of them either provided Skakel with an alibi, tried to pinpoint the time of death or were intended to rebut claims made by the prosecution's 34 witnesses.  

A good portion of the defense's case was devoted to putting into context the bizarre Maine residential treatment center, Elan. It was there, that Skakel told several residents in 1978 that he could have blacked out and killed Martha Moxley but was unsure.  

Two witnesses claimed that Skakel actually admitted "I did it" and others testified that he was upset that Martha was intimate with his older brother, Thomas Skakel.  

Defense witnesses, however, painted Elan as a brutal place of harassment, intimidation and even physical assaults used to get residents to confront issues that staff members felt were impeding their development. A white woman was confronted about "acting black," for example. A boy who ran away was labeled a "chicken" and mad to wear a chicken costume until he admitted it.  

Skakel ran away from Elan in 1978 and faced a "general meeting" when he came back. At the meetings, Skakel was placed in a boxing ring and pummeled until he admitted he could not recall if he killed Martha Moxley. But it was during one-on-one conversations after the meetings that Skakel allegedly told classmates John Higgins and Gregory Coleman that he was guilty.  

The defense had other residents to testify that Higgins and Coleman were regarded as "untruthful."

Skakel's lawyers also called witnesses to testify that Skakel was across town at his cousin's house on 10 p.m. on the night of the killing — the time Greenwich police detectives believed Martha was killed when they applied for an arrest warrant for Thomas Skakel in 1976.  

A since-retired prosecutor refused to permit the arrest of Thomas Skakel, but the defense is trying to force Skakel's accusers to be stuck with 10 p.m. as the time of death. To do that, Sherman called as his last witness retired Houston medical examiner Dr. Joseph Jachimczyk.

In 1975, Jachimczyk took police up on their request that he try to narrow the time of death down from the official window of 9:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. Using photographs, the autopsy report and information supplied by police, Jachimczyk estimated the time of death at 10 p.m. and stuck to it in his testimony Tuesday.  

Sherman told reporters after resting Tuesday that he is optimistic, but not overly. He said that he believes that jurors got the message that the state's case is weak, based on circumstantial evidence assembled against his client after police aggressively pursued two other suspects.  

"I think there is a more than reasonable doubt here," Sherman said. "Any [juror] will be more than satisfied that Michael Skakel did not commit this crime."