Murder of Kitty Genovese

Kitty Genovese
from the New York Times article: "Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police"
Born	Catherine Susan Genovese July 7, 1935(1935-07-07) Brooklyn,[1] New York, USA
Died	March 13, 1964(1964-03-13) (aged 28) Kew Gardens, NY,[2] USA 40°42′33.98″N 73°49′48.76″W / 40.7094389°N 73.8302111°W / 40.7094389; -73.8302111
Cause of death	Murder by stabbing
Resting place	Lakeview Cemetery New Canaan, Connecticut 41°08′34″N 73°29′01″W / 41.14278°N 73.48361°W / 41.14278; -73.48361
Nationality	American
Employer	Ev's Eleventh Hour Club Hollis, New York, USA
Known for	New York Times article about her murder
Title	Manager

Catherine Susan "Kitty" Genovese (July 7, 1935^[1] – March 13, 1964), was a New York City woman who was stabbed to death near her home in the Kew Gardens section of Queens, New York on March 13, 1964.^[3]

The circumstances of her murder and the lack of reaction of numerous neighbors were reported by a newspaper article published two weeks later;^[4] the common portrayal of neighbors being fully aware but completely nonresponsive has since been criticized as inaccurate.^[5] Nonetheless, it prompted investigation into the social psychological phenomenon that has become known as the bystander effect or "Genovese syndrome"^[6] and especially diffusion of responsibility.

Life

Born in New York City, the daughter of Rachel (née Petrolli) and Vincent Andronelle Genovese, she was the eldest of five children in a lower-middle class Italian American family and was raised in Brooklyn. After her mother witnessed a murder in the city, the family moved to Connecticut in 1954. Genovese, nineteen at the time and a recent graduate of Prospect Heights High School in Brooklyn, chose to remain in the city, where she had lived for nine years. At the time of her death, she was working as a bar manager at Ev's Eleventh Hour Sports Bar on Jamaica Avenue and 193rd Street in Hollis, Queens. Genovese, a lesbian, shared her Kew Gardens, Queens, apartment with her partner, Mary Ann Zielonko.^[7][8]

Attack

The events of Genovese's death are subject to dispute. Certain accounts suggest that her cries for help were heard and ignored by numerous residents at the apartment. Other accounts, as detailed below, suggest that residents did not hear her pleas or did provide assistance or both. The exact details of what happened are unknown.

Genovese had driven home from her job working as a bar manager early in the morning of March 13, 1964. Arriving home at about 3:15 a.m. she parked in the Long Island Rail Road parking lot about 100 feet (30 m) from her apartment's door, located in an alley way at the rear of the building. As she walked towards the building she was approached by Winston Moseley.^[2] Frightened, Genovese began to run across the parking lot and towards the front of her building located on Austin Street trying to make it up to the corner towards the major thoroughfare of Lefferts Boulevard. However, Moseley, who ran after her, quickly overtook her and stabbed her twice in the back. Genovese screamed, "Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!" Her cry was heard by several neighbors but, on a cold night with the windows closed, only a few of them recognized the sound as a cry for help. When Robert Mozer, one of the neighbors, shouted at the attacker, "Let that girl alone!" Moseley ran away and Genovese slowly made her way toward the rear entrance of her apartment building.^[9] She was seriously injured, but now out of view of those few who may have had reason to believe she was in need of help.

Records of the earliest calls to police are unclear and were certainly not given a high priority by the police. One witness said his father called police after the initial attack and reported that a woman was "beat up, but got up and was staggering around."^[10]

Other witnesses observed Moseley enter his car and drove away only to return ten minutes later. In his car, he changed to a wide-brimmed hat to shadow his face. He systematically searched the parking lot, train station, and an apartment complex. Eventually, he found Genovese who was lying, barely conscious, in a hallway at the back of the building where a locked doorway had prevented her from entering the building.^[11] Out of view of the street and of those who may have heard or seen any sign of the original attack, he proceeded to further attack her, stabbing her several more times. Knife wounds in her hands suggested that she attempted to defend herself from him. While she lay dying, he raped her. He stole about $49 from her and left her in the hallway. The attacks spanned approximately half an hour.

A few minutes after the final attack a witness, Karl Ross, called the police. Police arrived within minutes of Ross' call. Genovese was taken away by ambulance at 4:15 am and died en route to the hospital. Later investigation by police and prosecutors revealed that approximately a dozen (but almost certainly not the 38 cited in the Times article) individuals nearby had heard or observed portions of the attack, though none saw or were aware of the entire incident.^[4] Only one witness, Joseph Fink, was aware she was stabbed in the first attack, and only Karl Ross was aware of it in the second attack. Many were entirely unaware that an assault or homicide was in progress; some thought that what they saw or heard was a lovers' quarrel or a drunken brawl or a group of friends leaving the bar when Moseley first approached Genovese.^{[citation needed]}

Perpetrator

Winston Moseley (born March 2, 1935), an African-American business machine operator and family man^[8], was later apprehended in connection with burglary charges. He confessed not only to the murder of Kitty Genovese, but also to two other murders, both involving sexual assaults. Subsequent psychiatric examinations suggested that Moseley was a necrophile.

Moseley gave a confession to the police in which he detailed the attack, corroborating the physical evidence at the scene. His motive for the attack was simply "to kill a woman." Moseley preferred to kill women because, he said, "they were easier and didn't fight back".^[12] Moseley stated that he got up that night around 2:00 a.m., leaving his wife asleep at home, and drove around to find a victim. He spied Genovese and followed her to the parking lot.

Moseley also testified at his own trial where he further described the attack (along with two other murders and numerous attacks), leaving no question that he was the killer.^[12]

He was convicted of murder. On Monday, June 15, 1964, when the death sentence was announced by the jury foreman "The [court]room erupted into loud spontaneous applause and cheers." When calm had returned, the judge added, "I don't believe in capital punishment, but when I see this monster, I wouldn't hesitate to pull the switch myself!"^[12] On June 1, 1967, the New York Court of Appeals found that Moseley should have been able to argue that he was "medically insane" at the sentencing hearing when the trial court found that he had been legally sane, and the initial death sentence was reduced to an indeterminate sentence/lifetime imprisonment.

In 1968, during a trip to a Buffalo, New York, hospital for surgery on a self-inflicted injury, Moseley overpowered a guard and beat him up to the point that his eyes were bloody. He then took a bat and swung it at the closest person to him and took five hostages, raping one of them in front of her husband—actions for which Moseley would later blame his parents^[13]—before he was recaptured after a two-day manhunt.^[12] He also participated in the 1971 Attica Prison riots.^[14] In the late 1970s Moseley obtained a B.A. in Sociology in prison.^[12]

Moseley's first parole hearing in 1984 included his defense that "For a victim outside, it's a one-time or one-hour or one-minute affair, but for the person who's caught, it's forever."^[13] Moseley remains in prison after being denied parole a fifteenth time in November 2011.^[15][16] Moseley's next parole hearing is scheduled for November 2013.^[17]

Public reaction

Many saw the story of Genovese's murder as an example of the callousness or apathy supposedly prevalent in New York among other larger cities in the United States or humanity in general. Much of this framing of the event came in reaction to an investigative article^[18] in The New York Times written by Martin Gansberg and published on March 27, two weeks after the murder. The article bore the headline "Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police." The public view of the story crystallized around a quote from the article by an unidentified neighbor who saw part of the attack but deliberated, before finally getting another neighbor to call the police, saying "I didn't want to get involved."

Science-fiction author and cultural provacateur Harlan Ellison, in articles published in 1970 and 1971 in the Los Angeles Free Press and in Rolling Stone, referred to the witnesses as "thirty-six motherfuckers"^[19] and stating that they "stood by and watched" Genovese "get knifed to death right in front of them, and wouldn't make a move"^[20] and that "thirty-eight people watched" Genovese "get knifed to death in a New York street".^[21] In an article in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (June 1988), later reprinted in his book Harlan Ellison's Watching, Ellison referred to the murder as "witnessed by thirty-eight neighbors," citing reports he claimed to have read that one man turned up his radio so that he would not hear Genovese's screams. Ellison says that the reports attributed the "get involved" quote to nearly all of the thirty-eight who supposedly witnessed the attack.

While Genovese's neighbors were vilified by the articles, "thirty-eight onlookers who did nothing" is a misconception. The New York Times article begins:

For more than half an hour thirty-eight respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.

The lead is dramatic but factually inaccurate. A 2007 study found much of the purported facts about the murder to be unfounded. ^[22] The study found "no evidence for the presence of 38 witnesses, or that witnesses observed the murder, or that witnesses remained inactive."^[23]

None of the witnesses observed the attacks in their entirety. Because of the layout of the complex and the fact that the attacks took place in different locations, no witness saw the entire sequence of events. Most only heard portions of the incident without realizing its seriousness, a few saw only small portions of the initial assault, and no witnesses directly saw the final attack and rape, in an exterior hallway, which resulted in Genovese's death.^[1] Additionally, after the initial attack punctured her lungs, leading to her eventual death from asphyxiation, it is unlikely that she was able to scream at any volume.^[24]

Nevertheless, media attention to the Genovese murder led to reform of the NYPD's telephone reporting system; the system in place at the time of the assault was often hostile to callers, inefficient and directed individuals to the incorrect department. The intense press coverage also led to serious investigation of the bystander effect by psychologists and sociologists. In addition, some communities organized Neighborhood Watch programs and the equivalent for apartment buildings to aid people in distress.

Psychological research prompted by the murder

The lack of reaction of numerous neighbors watching the scene prompted research into diffusion of responsibility and the bystander effect. Social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané started this line of research, showing that contrary to common expectations, larger numbers of bystanders decrease the likelihood that someone will step forward and help a victim. The reasons include the fact that onlookers see that others are not helping either, that onlookers believe others will know better how to help, and that onlookers feel uncertain about helping while others are watching. The Kitty Genovese case thus became a classic feature of social psychology textbooks.

In September 2007, the American Psychologist published an examination of the factual basis of coverage of the Kitty Genovese murder in psychology textbooks. The three authors concluded that the story is more parable than fact, largely because of inaccurate newspaper coverage at the time of the incident.^[9] According to the authors, "despite this absence of evidence, the story continues to inhabit our introductory social psychology textbooks (and thus the minds of future social psychologists)." One interpretation of the parable is that the drama and ease of teaching the exaggerated story makes it easier for professors to capture student attention and interest.

Feminist psychologist Frances Cherry has suggested the interpretation of the murder as an issue of bystander intervention is incomplete^[25]. She has pointed to additional research such as that of Borofsky^[26] and Shotland^[27] demonstrating that people, especially at that time, were unlikely to intervene if they believed a man was attacking his wife or girlfriend. She has suggested the issue might be better understood in terms of male/female power relations.

Aftermath

Genovese was buried in a family grave at Lakeview Cemetery in New Canaan, Connecticut.^[28]

According to The New York Times, in an article dated December 28, 1974, ten years after the murder, 25-year-old Sandra Zahler was beaten to death early Christmas morning in an apartment of the building that overlooked the site of the Genovese attack. Neighbours again said they heard screams and "fierce struggles" but did nothing.^[29]

Moseley returned for another parole hearing Thursday, March 13, 2008, the 44th anniversary of Ms. Genovese's murder. The previous week, Moseley had turned 72 years old, and had still shown little remorse for murdering Genovese.^[13] Parole was denied. Being denied parole again in November 2011,^[15][16] he will be eligible for parole next in November 2013.^[13][17] Genovese's brother, Vincent, was unaware of the 2008 hearing until he was contacted by Daily News reporters.^[13] Vincent Genovese has reportedly never "recovered from the horror" of his sister's murder.^[13] "This brings back what happened to her", Vincent had said; "the whole family remembers".

In popular culture

The story of the witnesses who did nothing "is taught in every introduction to psychology textbook in the United States and Britain, and in many other countries... and has been made popularly known through television programs and books,"^[8] and even a song.

• Abe Rosenthal's 1964 book Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case.^[30]
• In 1966, folk singer Phil Ochs was inspired by Kitty Genovese's murder to write the 1967 song "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends". This song related five different situations that should demand action on the part of the narrator, but in each case the narrator concluded that "I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends".^[31][32]
• In 1975, an American TV movie Death Scream, starring Raul Julia, was based on the murder.^[33]
• Genovese's murder was a pivotal event in the 1986/87 graphic novel Watchmen. Protagonist Rorschach originally becomes a masked vigilante because of the case.^[8][34]
• A 1996 Law & Order episode, "Remand", was loosely based on the Kitty Genovese murder.^[35]
• The 1999 crime thriller film The Boondock Saints has a priest mention the incident as an example of good men doing nothing.
• In his 2000 best-selling book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell refers to the case and the "bystander effect" as evidence of contextual cues for human responses.^[8]
• The History Channel produced a documentary on the murder as episode 15.2 of their History's Mysteries series.^[36][37]
• The 2009 novel, "Good Neighbors" by Ryan David Jahn was based on the murder.^[38][39]
• The folk punk band Andrew Jackson Jihad mentions Genovese in their song "Big Bird".

See also

• Civil courage
• Volunteer's dilemma
• Death of Wang Yue

References

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Demay, Joseph. "Kitty Genovese" (in English). A Picture History of Kew Gardens, NY. Archived from the original on 2007-02-23. http://web.archive.org/web/20070223065725/http://www.oldkewgardens.com/ss-nytimes-3-6.html. Retrieved 2007-03-12. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Kenneth T. Jackson: The Encyclopedia of New York City: The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P. 458.
3. ^ "Queens Woman Is Stabbed to Death in Front of Home". New York Times. 1964-03-14. p. 26. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10611FB395415738DDDAD0994DB405B848AF1D3. Retrieved 2007-07-05. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Jim Rasenberger "Nightmare on Austin Street" American Heritage, Oct. 2006.
5. ^ Dubner & Levitt, Superfreakonomics, William Morrow; First Edition edition (October 20, 2009)
6. ^ Dowd, Maureen (1984-03-12). "20 years after the murder of Kitty Genovese, The question remains: Why?". New York Times. p. B1. http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F2091EF8395D0C718DDDAA0894DC484D81. Retrieved 2007-07-05. 
7. ^ Remembering Kitty Genovese, SoundPortraits, 13 March 2004
8. ^ ^{a b c d e} Carrie Rentschler, The Physiognomic Turn, International Journal of Communication 4 (2010), Feature 231-236.
9. ^ ^{a b} Manning, R.; Levine, M; Collins, A. (September 2007). "The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: The parable of the 38 witnesses". American Psychologist 62 (6): 555–562. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.62.6.555. PMID 17874896. 
10. ^ Rosenthal, A.M. (1964). Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21527-3. 
11. ^ On This Day: NYC Woman Killed as Neighbors Look On
12. ^ ^{a b c d e} Court TV's Crime Library story on Kitty Genovese
13. ^ ^{a b c d e f} McShane, Larry (March 10, 2008). "Deny parole to '64 Kitty Genovese horror killer, says victim's brother". New York Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/queens/2008/03/10/2008-03-10_deny_parole_to_64_kitty_genovese_horror_.html. Retrieved 2008-03-10. 
14. ^ Barry, Dan (2006-05-26). "Once Again, A Killer Makes His Pitch". New York Times. p. b1. http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/25/nyregion/25about.html?n=Top/News/U.S./Columns/This%20Land. Retrieved 2008-03-28. 
15. ^ ^{a b} "Genovese murderer denied parole again". Queens Chronicle. November 10, 2011. http://www.qchron.com/news/queenswide/genovese-murderer-denied-parole-again/article_9e1cb892-5637-5713-9c33-db14de0d6b99.html. Retrieved November 14, 2011. 
16. ^ ^{a b} "No parole again for killer of NYC's Kitty Genovese". Wall Street Journal. Associated Press. November 8, 2011. http://online.wsj.com/article/APd8f45780415a49f2bf55af75f377a50c.html. Retrieved November 14, 2011. 
17. ^ ^{a b} Moseley's prison records, accessible with DIN=64A0102 or by name
18. ^ Martin Gansberg, "Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police," New York Times, 27 March 1964.
19. ^ Harlan Ellison, "62: 1 May 70" in The Other Glass Teat (Ace, 1983), p. 61)
20. ^ Harlan Ellison, "92: 8 January 71" in The Other Glass Teat (Ace, 1983), p. 333)
21. ^ Harlan Ellison, "100: 26 March 71" in The Other Glass Teat (Ace, 1983), p. 383).
22. ^ Jarrett, Christian (October 23, 2007). "The truth behind the story of Kitty Genovese and the bystander effect". http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2007/10/truth-behind-story-of-kitty-genovese.html. Retrieved November 14, 2011. 
23. ^ Manning, Mark; Levine; Collins, Alan (September 2008). "The Kitty Genovese Murder and the Social Psychology of Helping: the parable of the 38 witnesses". American Psychologist (American Psychological Association) 62 (6): 555. http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk/people/uploads/MarkLevine20070604T095238.pdf. Retrieved November 14, 2011. 
24. ^ "The Witnesses That Didn't". On The Media. 2009-03-27. http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/03/27/05. Retrieved 2009-04-07. "BROOKE GLADSTONE: Wasn't she screaming during the second attack? JOSEPH DE MAY: The wounds that she apparently suffered during the first attack, the two to four stabs in the back, caused her lungs to be punctured, and the testimony given at trial is that she died not from bleeding to death but from asphyxiation. The air from her lungs leaked into her thoracic cavity, compressing the lungs, making it impossible for her to breathe. I am not a doctor, but as a layman my question is, if someone suffers that type of lung damage, are they even physically capable of screaming for a solid half hour?" 
25. ^ Cherry, F. (1995) The Stubborn Particulars of Social Psychology: Essays on the research process, London, Routledge.
26. ^ Borofsky, G.; Stollak, G.; Messe, L. (1971). "Bystander reactions to physical assault: Sex differences in reactions to physical assault". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 7: 313–18. 
27. ^ Shotland, R. L.; Straw, M. K. (1976). "Bystander response to an assault: when a man attacks a woman". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34: 990–9. 
28. ^ Find a Grave
29. ^ Robert D. McFadden, "A Model's Dying Screams Are Ignored At the Site of Kitty Genovese's Murder", New York Times 27 December 1974, retrieved 7 March 2007.
30. ^ On 1 Foot, Jewish Texts for Social Justice, which uses a quotation from pages 28–29 as an example.
31. ^ Unterberger, Richie (2003). Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock. San Francisco: Backbeat Books. p. 94. ISBN 0-87930-743-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=aw6kSkR3eXgC&pg=PA94. 
32. ^ Schumacher, Michael (1996). There But for Fortune: The Life of Phil Ochs. New York: Hyperion. p. 156. ISBN 0-7868-6084-7. 
33. ^ Marill, Alvin H. Movies Made For Television, Da Capo Press, Inc., reprint by arrangement with Arlington House Publishers, New York, NY, 1980.
34. ^ Jamie A Hughes, "Who Watches the Watchmen?": Ideology and "Real World" Superheroes, The Journal of Popular Culture, Volume 39, Issue 4, pages 546–557, August 2006
35. ^ True stories of Law and Order.
36. ^ IMDB Silent Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Murder (TV episode #15.2)
37. ^ History's Mysteries - Silent Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Murder
38. ^ Interview with Ryan David Jahn
39. ^ Crimesquad.com Book review of Acts of Violence, by David Jahn

Further reading

• Rosenthal, A.M. (1964). Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21527-3. 

External links

• Winston Moseley's confession
• Joseph De May Jr., "Kitty Genovese: What you think you know about the case might not be true." A reinvestigation by a member of the Richmond Hill Historical Society, this comes in two versions:
  • Single page that analyzes and argues with Gansberg's article, with links to other material.
  • This and thirteen subsequent pages constitute a version that is more visually attractive. (Although billed as shorter, it too is comprehensive.)
• Phil Ochs' "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" lyrics
• Jim Rasenberger, "Kitty 40 Years Later," The New York Times (8 February 2004) (On the Middlesex County College Web Site)
• "Kitty Genovese, Revised" The Wilson Quarterly (Winter 2007)
• Find a Grave Kitty Genovese on Find a Grave
• John Darley. Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility
• Remembering Kitty Genovese Includes interview with Mary Ann Zielonko and crime scene photograph.
• Picture History of Kew Gardens, NY

Persondata
Name	Genovese, Kitty
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	July 7, 1935
Place of birth	Brooklyn, New York, USA
Date of death	March 13, 1964
Place of death	Kew Gardens, NY, USA