Her name was Mary Jo Kopechne. She was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on July 26, 1940. The date of her death cannot be so easily pinpointed. She died either in the final few minutes of July 18, or the first few of July 19, 1969, on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts.
Kopechne, Chappaquiddick, Kennedy - words as alliterative as they are forever bound together in the annals of American infamy. The Kennedy in question was Edward, the younger brother who seemed destined to enjoy the long political life so cruelly denied his siblings. And indeed Ted Kennedy would spend the better part of five decades in the Senate. But hopes of occupying the White House all but died that day in the cold water on that warm evening on Chappaquiddick, along with Mary Jo Kopechne.
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