Freelance web designer Karen Kerby never lived in Greenwich, Conn. She did not go to school with Martha Moxley or Michael Skakel, the Kennedy-by-marriage scheduled to stand trial this spring for the brutal 1975 killing of Martha.

But Kerby reads everything she can about the famous murder case and then writes about it on her decidedly pro-defense Web site, campskakel.com.

"What happened to Martha Moxley was a tragedy and I know many people would like to see the murder solved," said Kerby, a California resident who holds a journalism degree from San Jose State University. "But I am of the opinion that based upon the information provided to the public, it is wrong to assume that Michael Skakel is responsible for the crime."

Most of what the public knows about the Moxley case comes from news reports, television movies and books published about the 26-year-old case. In fact, Kerby first became interested in the case after reading former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman's work, "Murder in Greenwich."

The defendant, Michael Skakel, denies any involvement.

The book, which clearly points the finger at the now 41-year-old Skakel as the killer, has been credited with jumpstarting a stalled and flawed police investigation that initially focused on at least three other suspects.

Kerby read "Murder in Greenwich" and initially bought into Fuhrman's conclusion that Skakel killed his attractive neighbor either because she spurned his advances or because he was jealous of her interest in his older brother.

But after reading another book on the case — "Greentown" by Greenwich native Timothy Dumas — and talking to her mother, Kerby reread the Fuhrman book and concluded that Skakel is being made a patsy by investigators anxious to close the books on a very old case.

"Michael seems to be the chief suspect based on public sentiment rather than evidence against him," Kerby wrote in an editorial on the Web site. "It is sad to think that appeasing the public and restoring the pristine image of Greenwich, Conn., should be set before one man's life and a murdered girl's peace."

During an interview, Kerby said campskakel.com started out as an Internet message board about the case. Harassed on a now-defunct message board maintained by the somewhat middle-of-the-road marthamoxley.com, Kerby said she gives Skakel's supporters and detractors freedom to express any view about the case or players.

The victim, Martha Moxley, was beaten and stabbed to death with the broken shaft of a golf club.

Some posters openly attack Kerby in the chat room and message board on her site. Others say that the death of witnesses and the passage of time might make it difficult for prosecutors to win a conviction.

Kerby's site also offers a room where former students of the Elan School, the Maine facility Skakel attended after a 1978 drunken driving arrest, can vent. It was at the Elan School, prosecutors say, that Skakel confessed to beating his 15-year-old neighbor to death with a golf club from his deceased mother's seat.

Skakel denies any involvement in Martha's death. At his arraignment in 2000 Skakel told Martha's mother, Dorthy Moxley, that police got "the wrong guy."

Moxley told Court TV that she has visited marthamoxley.com several times but has not stumbled across Kerby's Web site.

"I know there are several Web sites in my daughter's name. I haven't gotten onto some of the others. I'm not that good with the computer," Moxley said. "I think it is what the jury decides that's important."

Jury selection is scheduled to begin April 2 in Stamford, Conn. The prosecution is expected to call its first witness May 7.

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