Kitty Genovese
Catherine Susan "Kitty" Genovese (b. 7 July 1935 in Brooklyn, New York City; d. 13 March 1964 in Queens, New York City) was a bar manager who was murdered, then raped by the black criminal Winston Moseley (1935–2016). Moseley, a Remington Rand machine operator and father of three, was arrested five days later in connection with another crime. He was in the middle of stealing valuables from a stranger's apartment in Queens. While in police custody, Moseley confessed not only to the murder of Kitty Genovese, but also to two other murders, both of which involved rape. Subsequent psychiatric examinations indicated that Moseley was a necrophiliac.
Life
Kitty Genovese was born in New York, the eldest of five children of Italian-American parents Rachel (née Giordano) and Vincent Andronelle Genovese. Genovese was raised Catholic, living in a brownstone residence at 29 St. John's Place in Park Slope, a western Brooklyn neighborhood populated mainly by families of Italian and Irish heritage.
In her teenage years, Genovese attended the all-girl Prospect Heights High School, where she was recalled as being "self-assured beyond her years" and having a "sunny disposition". She thrived in her English and music classes and was elected “Class Cut-Up” among her graduating class of 712 students. In 1954, after her mother witnessed a murder, Genovese's family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, while Genovese, who had recently graduated from high school, remained in Brooklyn with her grandparents to prepare for her upcoming marriage.
In the late 1950s, Genovese moved to an apartment of her own in Brooklyn and began working as a bartender after she found her work as a secretary to be too unappealing. But in August of 1961, Genovese was arrested for bookmaking – she and her friend, Dee Guarnieri, had been taking bets on horse races from bar patrons and were fined $50, and she lost her job
Genovese’s extremely reliable and positive attitude was even reflected in her salary (she made roughly $750 a month, which is about $6,800 a month in 2019), and she was saving this money to fulfill her dream goal of opening her own Italian restaurant. Together with her roommate Mary Ann Zielonko, she found an apartment on the second floor of a two-story building next to the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) in Kew Gardens, Queens in 1963.
Marriage
Rocco Anthony Fazzolare, an army officer and engineer, dated Genovese while he was in college and she was in high school. And although the couple did marry on 31 October 1954, the marriage was soon annulled, and the two divorced in 1956.
Death
- Around 2:30 in the morning on March 13th, 1964, Genovese began to drive home to her Kew Gardens apartment, eager to get home to see her girlfriend on their first anniversary. At a traffic light on Hoover Avenue, Genovese was first spotted by Winston Moseley as he sat in his parked car. Moseley, a 28-year-old man who punched data cards for a business machine company, had left his wife and two sons asleep in their home in South Ozone Park, Queens, at around 1 a.m. He drove around for hours, with a sharp hunting knife in his pocket, looking for a victim. And just as he was about to give up, he spotted Genovese at around 3 a.m. (Skoller, 2008). Roughly 45 minutes from the time she departed the bar, Genovese arrived home and parked her car in the Kew Gardens LIRR parking lot, in an alleyway just feet from the front door to her building. In the few steps that it took her to walk toward the apartment complex, Moseley exited his vehicle, which was parked at a bus stop on Austin Street. Moseley approached Genovese with a hunting knife in his hand, and as she tried to run toward the front of the building, he quickly overtook her and stabbed her twice in the back (Skoller, 2008). Being three in the morning, the area was completely desolate – Franken’s Pharmacy and Interlude Coffeehouse were both closed and most people were asleep. However, Robert Mozer, one of Genovese’s neighbors, awoke and saw the struggle occurring down below and called out to “Leave that girl alone!” (Krajicek, 2019). Realizing that residents had awoken after Genovese screamed, “Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!” and in fear of being identified, Moseley quickly fled from the scene and back into his car. Genovese got to her feet, not having suffered any fatal wounds, and tried to make it to her building’s entrance. Finally, inside, she collapsed in the vestibule right before the stairs. Meanwhile, Moseley had driven away, covering his face with a wide-brimmed hat, but he returned 10 minutes later after having found Genovese lying barely conscious in a hallway at the back of the building. Now out of sight from any neighbors or people on the street, Moseley repeatedly stabbed Genovese before raping her and stealing $49 from her (Krajicek, 2019). Approximately 30 minutes after Moseley first approached Genovese, he fled from the scene, leaving an unconscious Genovese to be discovered by Sophia Farrar, her close friend, who held her in her arms until an ambulance arrived (Lemann, 2014). Records of the calls to the police are unclear, with multiple neighbors claiming to have called the police or called friends who called the police. It is reported that at 4:15 a.m. Genovese was picked up by an ambulance. The stab wounds she sustained proved to be fatal, and Genovese died before making it to Queens General Hospital. She was buried three days later in Lakeview Cemetery in New Canaan, Connecticut (Pelonero, 2016).[1]
Her brutal murder left the entire community devastated and after startling reports came out that 38 witnesses saw or heard the attack and failed to act, Genovese’s story gained widespread attention. The incident prompted inquiries into what became known as the bystander effect, or "Genovese syndrome", and the murder became a staple of U.S. psychology textbooks for the next four decades. In 2016, The New York Times called its own reporting "flawed", stating that the original story "grossly exaggerated the number of witnesses and what they had perceived".
Winston Moseley
Moseley (b. 2 March 1935 in Manhattan, New York) was arrested six days after the murder and sentenced to death for murder on 15 June 1964, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison on 1 June 1967. On 18 March 1968, Moseley escaped from prison while being transported back from Meyer Memorial Hospital in Buffalo, where he had undergone minor surgery for a self-inflicted injury. He hit the transporting correctional officer, stole his weapon and fled to a nearby vacant house owned by a Grand Island couple, Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Kulaga, where he stayed undetected for three days. On 21 March, the Kulagas went to check on the house, where they encountered Moseley, who held them hostage for more than an hour, binding and gagging Mr. Kulaga and raping Mrs. Kulaga. He then stole the couple's car and fled. Moseley traveled to Grand Island where, on March 22, he broke into another house and held a woman and her daughter hostage for two hours before releasing them unharmed. He surrendered to police shortly afterward, and was charged with escape and kidnapping, to which he pleaded guilty. Moseley was given two additional fifteen-year sentences to run concurrently with his life sentence.
In September 1971, Moseley participated in the Attica Prison riot. He became eligible for parole in 1984. Moseley returned for a parole hearing on 13 March 2008, the 44th anniversary of Genovese's murder. He continued to show little remorse for Genovese's murder and parole was again denied. Moseley was denied parole an eighteenth time in November 2015. The murdering rapist died in custody on 28 March 2016, aged 81, after being imprisoned for almost 52 years starting in 1964.[2]
Kitty Genovese syndrome
The bystander effect, or Kitty Genovese syndrome, is a social phenomenon according to which individuals witnessing an emergency are less likely to intervene if other witnesses are present. The likelihood of someone taking action decreases as the number of other bystanders grows. Researchers believe this is because being part of a crowd alters the sense of personal responsibility. This is reinforced by witnesses' need to behave in socially acceptable ways. They might be more reluctant to get involved if they believe the situation is ambiguous. A 1969 study found that 70 per cent of people would help a woman in distress if they were the only person present, but only 40 per cent intervened when other witnesses were there too.
