Forty years ago last month, Sen Kennedy drove his car off Dyke Bridge in Chappaquiddick after a day's sailing and hard drinking with a group of married friends and young women who had worked on his brother Robert's presidential campaign.
As the car turned over and sank in Pocha Pond, a tidal lagoon, its driver managed to swim to the surface, leaving his 28-year-old companion, Mary Jo Kopechne, to drown in the car. Sen Kennedy, then 37, left the scene of the accident and waited 10 hours to report it.
After a carefully choreographed televised speech in which he admitted his behaviour had been "indefensible" but denied it had been alcohol-fueled, a Massachusetts court let the scion of the state's most powerful family off with a two-month suspended sentence.
The "Chappaquiddick incident" obviously did bot end his senatorial career but arguably put paid to his presidential ambitions.
The bridge is still there - albeit a new one whose thick, rivet-reinforced wooden sides are a rather more substantial a barrier than the tiny lip over which the Kennedy Oldsmobile drove.
As scores of holidaymakers trundled across to the nature reserve beach beyond, a few paused on Thursday to take in its special significance.
Few indulged themselves in the reverential tributes pouring out on US television and nobody seemed to think Chappaquiddick should be forgotten.
"I'm a police officer and he most certainly did get away with murder. There's no other way to describe it," said Heather Franc, from Connecticut, who was holidaying on the island, off the east coast of the larger Martha's Vineyard, with two friends.
"They didn't try to get any help until the next day and he was never held accountable. Unfortunately, this will always be part of his legacy but it absolutely should be," said her friend, Cathy Peterson, a financial trader.
Steven Rubin, a software company executive, had wanted to bring his friends to see the bridge. Like most, they were surprised how short it was - no more than 15 yards - and how shallow the water. Barely seven feet deep, one can see the bottom clearly.
Like many, particularly Democrats, who argue that Sen Kennedy made up for his misdeeds in his hard-working political career, Mr Rubin said he separated the "wild man" of the early years from the "tremendous amount of seriousness" he displayed after Chappaquiddick.
"Any person's life is a full body of work and to take just one page is a bit unfair," said his friend, Melanie Callahan.
Ralph Chiumenti, an engineer who spends summers on Chappaquiddick, was launching his kayak next to the bridge. He had read all the books about the tragedy and mentioned the theory that Sen Kennedy shot off down the sandy track at speed after being seen parked suspiciously by a police officer.
He pointed out how someone driving very fast would not have noticed that the bridge is at a slight angle to the road. They would also have to be driving fast to land in the channel, he added.
He was in no doubt that Sen Kennedy got off very lightly that night. "I don't want to speak ill of the dead but this was a totally outrageous act," he said.
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