Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences

by Pelonero, Catherine

  —Heard a woman scream and say, “He’s got me, he’s got me. Please help me.” She saw nothing.

  Edward Bieniewicz, forty-one years old, was the building superintendent of the Mowbray. He and his wife, Anna, occupied a third-floor apartment with windows facing Austin Street. The couple had been awakened by the screams. Rushing to the window, Mr. Bieniewicz had yanked the venetian blinds so hard that they fell off. Spotting the man and the shrieking woman across the street, Bieniewicz opened his window to get a better look, nearly putting his head through the screen as he strained forward.

  He saw the man run, saw Kitty get off the ground. According to Bieniewicz, she staggered but didn’t say anything then. “I figured it was a lover’s quarrel, that her man had knocked her down. So my wife and I went back to bed.”

  THEN THERE WERE the people in the Tudor building.

  The floor of the hallway at 82-62 Austin Street was still wet with blood when Detective Charles Prestia arrived that morning. Like so many of his colleagues from neighboring commands, Prestia had been summoned to assist with the Kew Gardens homicide investigation. Ultimately there would be fifty-nine members of the NYPD involved in the investigation in some way. As Detective Prestia recalled, “It was an unusual crime. Not just for the area, but because of the predatory nature, a man stalking and stabbing a woman on the street the way he did.” One thing police could be certain of from the start: the perpetrator was an extremely violent and dangerous individual; fearless, even, in the way he relentlessly hunted his victim in view of so many potential witnesses. Neighbors had told police of opening their windows or turning on lights from the time of the first attack. As one who had opened his window described it, “I could see people with their heads out and hear windows going up and down all along the street.” Presumably the killer saw this as well. He had run away for a time yet he had not ultimately been thwarted from his objective. According to the persons who had watched him return and search, he had not even displayed any obvious signs of nervousness. No jerkiness in his motions, no anxious or wary looks over his shoulder. Relaxed, but certainly tenacious.

  The assailant had been absolutely determined to kill this woman, so much so that he was willing to risk the possibility of intervention or identification during the long period of time it took him to do so. Police had to consider the possibility that Kitty had known her killer, that the murderer had some strong, personal reason for wanting to cause her death.

  Detectives were hoping some of her closest neighbors, the ones in the Tudor building, might be able to shed some light on the life of Kitty Genovese, whether she had voiced any concerns, complained of anyone harassing her. With the exception of her roommate, Mary Ann Zielonko, however, it seemed that few of the neighbors knew Kitty well enough to be of much help in that regard. Though she was friendly with her neighbors, it seemed she was a very private person when it came to her personal life.

  Moreover, Kitty’s neighbors in the Tudor weren’t very helpful when it came to telling detectives what they saw or heard of the murder that had culminated in their own building.

  Greta Schwartz and Sophie Farrar had of course come to Kitty’s aid. Greta had not heard the attacks. Sophie had heard only the first screams on Austin Street but had not been able to see anyone when she looked out her window. Considering both women had actually gone outside to help as soon as they were made aware, it could reasonably be assumed they would have acted to save Kitty much earlier, had they known.

  Detective Robert Plover interviewed Sophie Farrar later that day in search of any information she might be able to add regarding either the crime or the victim. Sophie told the detective that she had known Kitty for about one year, when Kitty had moved into the apartment next to hers. Though Sophie knew Kitty fairly well, chatting with her often, she knew little of her personal life. She found Kitty and her girlfriends to be quiet and pleasant. Kitty apparently trusted both Sophie and the safety of the neighborhood; when she was not at home she left her door open at times so that Sophie could answer the phone for her.

  The detective inquired, did Sophie have any idea who or why someone may have wanted to harm Kitty? No, she did not. Sophie had heard no complaints or rumors. The names George and Paul meant nothing to her, and she could not recall ever hearing either of those names from Kitty or her friends, or in the neighborhood. Sophie added, in response to the detective’s question, that when she saw Karl Ross at the time Kitty was found in the hallway, he did not look like he had been drinking. They had put this question to her in response to Karl’s claim that he had had a few drinks in the time leading up to the attack on Kitty, offering this as the reason he had not seen or heard a thing prior to Kitty ending up in his hallway. It also explained, at least in his mind, his reluctance to call police.

  Of the two apartments at 82-62, Karl Ross lived in the front unit with windows overlooking Austin Street. Fleeing her attacker, Kitty would have run screaming right past his second-floor windows, her screams loud enough to wake people on upper floors of the Mowbray and the West Virginia on the other side of the parking lot. She fell in front of the bookstore, 82-64 Austin, only a few feet away. Then came her labored backtrack, passing under his windows once again, around the side of the building, into the rear hallway at the bottom of his stairs.

  His handcuffed excursion to the 102nd precinct had sobered Ross enough to tell the police that the first thing he had done in response to Kitty’s cries was to phone a friend for advice. Detective James P. Murphy interviewed Ross’s friend, a woman who lived in neighboring Nassau County, who confirmed that Ross had called her on the morning of March 13 about 3:30 or 4:00 a.m. Ross had said to her, “There is someone downstairs hurt. I don’t know what to do.” She replied that he should call the police. There was no further conversation, as he then hung up.

  Ross had then climbed out through a skylight onto the flat portion of the roof in search of a neighbor to call the police. Detective Sang wanted to know, why hadn’t he called the police himself? He obviously had a phone.

  In what was perhaps his only completely candid statement of that long morning, Karl Ross then spoke the words that would stick to the community like tar for decades afterward:

  “I didn’t want to get involved.”

  As for the rest of the Tudor residents, most echoed Ross’s first claim—minus the part about being drunk—that they had not seen or heard a thing. For some this was very likely true, particularly those who lived at the end of the building closer to Lefferts Boulevard, with no windows on Austin Street. The way the apartments upstairs of the Tudor were laid out, some units (like those of Kitty and Mary Ann, as well as Greta Schwartz) had bedrooms located in the center of the building, with living room windows facing the rear toward the railroad tracks rather than the front of Austin Street.

  But then there were the people in front apartments whose windows did face Austin. And the ones who lived on the end of the building adjacent to the parking lot.

  There were four apartments on that parking lot corner of the building, accessed through two separate entrances at street level. Kitty had entered the door at 82-62 Austin, where Karl Ross lived in one of two apartments at the top of the stairs. Was it possible that occupants of the other three apartments on that corner had heard nothing, even when Kitty was attacked in the hallway? Detectives were suspicious of claims they had not.

  And that was even before Mrs. Archer finally told them her account of what happened.

  Mrs. Archer was the woman to whose apartment Karl Ross had scurried across the roof while Kitty lay in the hallway calling to him for help. It would take a couple more days before she told detectives the whole story. They never would get it from Karl Ross. As time went on he would tell a variety of versions to a variety of people.

  In the meantime, Ross made it his mission that day and for some time afterward to comfort Kitty’s grieving roommate, Mary Ann. Ross was the only neighbor who knew the true nature of Kitty and Mary Ann’s relationship, who knew that Kitty and
Mary Ann were lovers rather than just two friends sharing an apartment.

  Ross was a gay man himself. Like Kitty, Mary Ann, and many other homosexuals of the time, he was discreet about his sexuality and private life. For Kitty and Mary Ann it was good to have a neighbor and friend like Karl, around whom they could relax without fear of outing themselves—which, at that time, could have cost them dearly. In 1964, five years prior to even the Stonewall riots, public celebrations of Gay Pride were unheard of, but gay harassment was very much alive.

  Added to her shock and grief, Mary Ann had to grapple with the very thorny issue of whether she should reveal her relationship with Kitty to the detectives. At the time she felt grateful to have her friend—their friend—Karl Ross to talk to. Naturally the detectives had not voiced their suspicions about him to Mary Ann. As far as she knew, he was almost as devastated as she over what had happened to Kitty.

  Perhaps he was. His upset over the tragedy was compounded by the shoddy treatment he’d gotten from Detective Mitchell Sang that morning, arresting him, when all he’d been trying to do was console Mary Ann! He had to appear before a judge and pay a $25 fine before they let him go, after which he had rushed back to Kew Gardens to be with his heartsick friend.

  Though Karl never shared all the details of his court appearance with Mary Ann—and she did not see the account of it that appeared on the inner pages of the New York Journal-American two days later—Detective Sang had obviously informed the judge of Ross’s inaction in the plight of his murdered neighbor. As he handed down Ross’s sentence of a fine and five-day suspended jail sentence on a charge of disorderly conduct (reduced from the original charge of interfering with an officer), Kew Gardens Criminal Court Judge Bernard Dubin commented: “How many lives could have been saved if people did not ignore cries for help from others?”

  Mary Ann had meanwhile called her employer to explain what had happened, saying she would not be coming to work that day. Her boss told her if she didn’t come in, she was fired. And so it was that Mary Ann lost her lover and her job in the same day. The latter meant little to her, the former had meant everything.

  This was only the beginning of a period of cruel loss for Mary Ann. More and more would fall away before things would begin to turn around for her.

  When Karl heard this latest punishing twist, about Mary Ann losing her job, he was outraged for his friend. It seemed as if her boss was almost as heartless as that detective who had treated him so badly.

  Karl spent a good bit of time with Mary Ann that night, having drinks with her so they could talk and remember Kitty.

  It was the very least he could do.

  1 According to phone directories from the time, the bar in the Tudor building was called Austin Bar & Grill.

  2 The address of the West Virginia Apartments is actually 82-40 Austin Street. It is a seven-story building on the same side of Austin Street as the Tudor building, separated from the Tudor by the railroad parking lot. In his 1974 memoir, Seedman did misidentify the West Virginia as the building with an elevator operator. It was the Mowbray that had an elevator operator, and the man on duty that night was Joseph Fink.

  3 Parking may have been allowed on both sides of Austin, a one-way street in this area, but a delivery man who arrived in time to see the assailant walking away after the final attack testified that there were no parked cars at all that morning along the Mowbray side of the street, only on the Tudor side.

  chapter 7

  KITTY GENOVESE COULD not stand to see anyone suffer.

  That’s how Louise had come to live with Kitty and Mary Ann in the tiny apartment at 82-70 Austin Street, Mary Ann explained to Detective John Carroll. Detective Carroll was interviewing Mary Ann, hoping to gain more insight into the late Kitty Genovese.

  Louise was a young woman whom Kitty had met at a party. The two had become friendly, Kitty feeling protective of the young woman who seemed to be having a hard time finding her way in life. Kitty felt sorry for Louise and wanted to help. And she had. Louise had sought employment in the bar business and had gotten a job through Kitty, who also offered her a place to stay until she got on her feet. Louise had been living with them for the past month. Louise confirmed these details during her own interview with Detective Joseph Price.

  Kitty was an easy touch when it came to helping others. In addition to what she had done for Louise, Kitty had also hired another friend, a man, to do odd jobs around the apartment. She knew he needed the money.

  There was another man Kitty knew, Sammy, who shared her fondness for horse racing. Sammy apparently wasn’t very lucky at the track however, since lately he’d been living in his car. Kitty slipped him money, offering encouragement that things were bound to get better.

  Kitty never talked about what she did for others. It was one of those things that only Mary Ann knew, being as close to Kitty as she was.

  As for that, Mary Ann explained to Detective Carroll that she and Kitty had met last spring, exactly one year ago. Shortly thereafter they had moved into the apartment in the Tudor building in Kew Gardens. They split all the expenses 50/50.

  Kitty‘s normal working hours at Ev’s Eleventh Hour had been 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. In her own job as a barmaid at Club Chris in Springfield Gardens, Mary Ann worked the 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. shift. They usually spent their evenings together, going to dinner or the occasional club. The evening of Thursday, March 12, had been out of the ordinary in that sense, she and Kitty having separate plans. Mary Ann had gone bowling with a friend, returning home at around 11:00 p.m. Kitty had gone on a planned night out with someone she knew from Ev’s, a man named Jack Timmins. Kitty had anticipated being out late and had planned to stay the night with Bessie Thompson, a customer of Ev’s who lived in an apartment right above the bar. Since she had not expected Kitty home, Mary Ann had gone to bed soon after she returned from bowling.

  She last saw Kitty alive on Wednesday night, March 11, when Mary Ann came home from work. Kitty had been at home, already in her pajamas. The following morning, March 12, Kitty had left for work before Mary Ann woke up.

  Mary Ann could not offer any information about enemies Kitty may have had. Kitty had never mentioned anyone annoying her or following her either in the neighborhood or around the bar.

  Mary Ann wanted to be helpful. She gave the names of restaurants they patronized, friends they had, and places they had gone. She had also divulged that she and Kitty were in a lesbian relationship.

  As it turned out, police had already learned this.

  DETECTIVES JOHN CARROLL and Jerry Byrnes had wasted no time in locating the man who had been out with Kitty on the night of March 12. Carroll and Byrnes had picked up Jack Timmins on the morning of March 13 and had taken him to the 102nd precinct for questioning.

  Timmins told them he had known Kitty for approximately a year and a half, having met her at Ev’s Eleventh Hour where he was a customer. The date he had with Kitty on the night of March 12 had been their first, planned two weeks before. He met her at Ev’s at 6:00 p.m. and they drove off together in his 1957 Pontiac convertible, headed for his brother Teddy’s home in Brooklyn. Arriving at his brother’s, the three of them had drinks and dinner, spending the major part of the evening there. Jack and Kitty left at about midnight and stopped in at a nearby bar in Brooklyn where they had about three drinks. After this he had driven back to Ev’s Eleventh Hour, where he dropped Kitty off in front of the tavern and saw her enter. He estimated the time as approximately 2:00 a.m. Jack had then gone to the apartment of a woman he knew, staying at her place until about 4:45 a.m., after which he went home.

  Jack Timmins stated that in general conversation at the bar where Kitty worked, the consensus of opinion was that Kitty was alleged to be a lesbian. He was unable to substantiate this opinion, but concurred because of her continued associations with females rather than males. He considered her a very likeable person and it was the opinion of all the customers that he knew that she was a fine girl. At no time did she ever relate
to him any accounts of any persons annoying her either at the bar or on the telephone or after hours.

  Detectives Carroll and Byrnes interviewed Teddy Timmins, Jack’s brother, who confirmed that Jack and Kitty Genovese had arrived at his home for dinner at about 7:00 p.m., remaining until about 12:30 a.m. He wasn’t able to offer any information about Kitty that might be of value to the investigation.

  The woman whom Jack Timmins had visited after his date with Kitty also confirmed that he had indeed come to her apartment, staying until about 4:45 a.m. The woman said she occasionally patronized Ev’s Eleventh Hour and knew Kitty as an employee there but was not well acquainted with her. She added that it was generally believed that Kitty was a lesbian.

  Detectives were thorough in their inquiry into the victim’s life, hoping it would yield some clues. They promptly collected some of Kitty’s personal papers and photographs from her apartment on the morning of March 13. They also took her little blue phone book. A list was made of every name and number in it.

  The investigators cast a wide net, interviewing Kitty’s co-workers past and present, customers of Ev’s Eleventh Hour, friends, and acquaintances. They even spoke with her hairdresser and the manager of the Laundromat where she washed her clothes. Beyond telling them that Kitty usually came in on Wednesdays to get her hair done and that she washed her clothes on a regular basis, neither could offer any information.

  Vincent Genovese, Kitty’s father, gave a statement to Detective John D. Flynn and Inspector Frederick Lussen. He told them of the family’s roots in Brooklyn, that his daughter had remained in New York when the rest of the family moved to Connecticut in 1954. He mentioned her brief marriage a decade ago to an Army lieutenant and the subsequent annulment. He did not remember the man’s last name and was vague as to why the marriage broke up. Kitty had not maintained any contact with her former husband. As far as other men in her life, Mr. Genovese said his daughter never spoke about men to him except to say that she was independent and no man could support her because she made more money than a man.