deaths
July 18, 1969
Mary Jo Kopechne, American educator and secretary (born 1940)

Mary Jo Kopechne
Mary Jo Kopechne was an American secretary, and one of the campaign workers for U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, a close team known as the "Boiler Room Girls". In 1969, she asphyxiated when a car driven by U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy left a narrow road on Chappaquiddick Island and overturned into Poucha Pond after they had left a party. According to reports, Kennedy left the party at 11:15 p.m. Kopechne's body and the car were not reported until the next morning, approximately nine to ten hours later.