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

by Pelonero, Catherine

  Wainwright gave a short description of the events, mentioning that Kitty had called to one of her neighbors by name in her pleas for help (obviously Karl Ross, though Wainwright did not give his name). “For the most part,” Loudon Wainwright wrote, “the witnesses, crouching in darkened windows like watchers of a Late Show, looked on until the play had passed beyond their view. Then they went back to bed.” He pointed out that not all of the people had understood they were watching a murder, conceding that some had seen or heard too little to grasp what was going on, but others had. “The fact is that no one, even those who were sure something was terribly wrong, felt moved enough to act.”

  Wainwright had interviewed Lieutenant Bernard Jacobs at the scene. His article mentioned that Jacobs stood next to the bloodstains on the sidewalk as they spoke. He quoted Jacobs: “People told us they just didn’t want to get involved. They don’t want to be questioned or have to go to court.” Lieutenant Jacobs pointed out the Mowbray, where he said people had looked down at what was happening to Kitty, then at the apartments on the second floor of the Tudor building, of which he said, “People up there were sitting right on top of the crime.” Jacobs also told him of Winston Moseley’s statement to police, that he had not been worried about anyone coming to help the victim.

  Wainwright also interviewed a witness from the Mowbray who expressed his deep regret, saying, “The thing keeps coming back in my mind. You just don’t want to get involved. They might have picked me up as a suspect if I’d bounced right out there. I was getting ready, but my wife stopped me.” The man described seeing Kitty on the pavement, struggling to get up; how she had then staggered a little when she walked “like she had a few drinks in her.” He told of how he had strained forward to get a closer look, how others had done the same. He saw people with their heads out and heard windows going up and down all along the street. The man spoke of how bad he now felt whenever he looked out at the place on Austin Street where Kitty had been attacked. “How could so many of us have had the same idea that we didn’t need to do anything? But that’s not all that’s wrong.” Wainwright wrote that the man then revealed something else that was bothering him. The thirty-eight witnesses had at least talked to the police. Pointing accusingly at another building, likely the Tudor, the man said, “There are people over there who saw everything. And there hasn’t been a peep out of them yet. Not one peep.”

  Indeed, the prosecutors feared they wouldn’t be able to get one peep out of any of the witnesses anymore.

  When they began interviewing them in preparation for the trial, they took the unusual step of having them brought in by police via O’Connor’s secure garage entrance to the building. The goal was to protect their identities from the press.

  Frank Cacciatore and Charles Skoller reviewed the voluminous case file and decided to interview between twenty and twenty-five witnesses, focusing on those who, based on their statements to police, had seen or heard enough of the crime to help prosecutors reconstruct the events of that night and thus build a strong case against Winston Moseley as the perpetrator.

  As Charles Skoller would later recall in his 2008 memoir, Twisted Confessions, he and Frank Cacciatore, particularly as residents of Queens themselves, felt a good deal of anger and astonishment over the witnesses’ failure to act. Like the police, the district attorneys had certainly had to contend in the past with lack of cooperation from witnesses. Apathetic, fearful, or belligerent witnesses were not a novel encounter for them. But this case seemed to illustrate—all too graphically, painfully, and in high numbers—the worst end result from citizens not wanting to get involved. According to Skoller, he and Cacciatore both felt that Kitty Genovese could have been saved from death had someone alerted the police after the first attack.

  The two men agreed ahead of time that when interviewing the witnesses, they would restrict their questioning to the facts of the case and would not focus on the reasons why they had not called the police that night.

  The first person they interviewed was Joseph Fink, the elevator operator in the Mowbray. From his chair in the lobby, Fink had had a clear view of the first attack on Kitty. He heard Kitty’s screams. He saw Moseley stab her in the back, saw Moseley flee, saw Kitty struggle up and away. He could give a good description of Moseley.

  Normally, he would have been an ideal witness.

  But he admitted that the only thing he had done in response to seeing all this was to take the elevator downstairs to the basement and go to sleep. “I thought about going downstairs to get my baseball bat,” Fink offered. Neither Skoller nor Cacciatore believed this. Even if they had, they didn’t think a mention that Fink had thought of helping before deciding not to do so would be much of a mitigating factor for a jury. In this case, the prosecutors feared the possibility of a jury turning their hostility against the witnesses instead of against the man on trial for murder.

  They told Joseph Fink to be ready to testify, though they had no intention of calling him.

  Nor could they call the next witness they spoke to, Karl Ross. In his interview with Cacciatore and Skoller, Ross altered the story he had given the police, now saying he had not seen or heard a thing, except Kitty’s final screams in his hallway. This conflicted with things previously said by both Ross himself and others, including the female friend of his in Nassau County whom Ross had called for advice when Kitty lay in the hallway calling to him. As with Joseph Fink, prosecutors feared that the behavior of Karl Ross might distract the jury from what the actual killer had done. Moreover, Ross kept changing his story. At least Joseph Fink was not an outright liar, Charles Skoller thought.

  Skoller had a few other thoughts about Joseph Fink and Karl Ross that he expressed in interviews years later. Calling them “the two most disturbing witnesses of all the neighbors,” Skoller said, “I don’t think I could feel more disgust for individuals than those two people.”

  According to Skoller’s memoir, he and Cacciatore contemplated disclosing the identities and addresses of these two men to the media, but they were too busy to engage in retribution at the time. Years hence, however, Charles Skoller divulged both names in interviews and in his own book.

  In Twisted Confessions, Skoller wrote of the other witnesses he and Cacciatore met on the same day they interviewed Fink and Ross. “The other neighbors added little useful information. Their lack of action on the night of March 13, 1964, was variously explained. Some were just plain indifferent. Others were afraid, confused, or disbelieving. Yet others had no excuse at all. The majority of neighbors were elderly, many in their late sixties and seventies. We attributed their passivity to fear. Some retreated from their original statements to the police, omitting details they believed would cause them to be called as witnesses during the trial. Two men living in the Marbury (sic) had the gall to claim they’d called the police upon hearing Kitty’s screams. Confronted with the police reports of their original statements, they backed down and finally admitted the truth.

  “Other neighbors took the opposite tack, exaggerating their knowledge about the events in hopes of being called as witnesses and basking in their fifteen minutes of fame. We didn’t call them as witnesses. Had we done so, no doubt they would have earned themselves fifteen minutes of ridicule instead.”

  The first day of interviews produced, in the opinion of the prosecutors, not one who they felt confident in calling to testify in court. They fared better with subsequent interviews. Ultimately they decided to call three witnesses from the Mowbray Apartments: Robert Mozer, the man on the seventh floor whose shouts at Moseley had driven him off the first time; Andree Picq, the woman on the fourth floor who saw Moseley striking at Kitty on Austin Street during the first attack, and who had remained at her window to see Moseley return, and then hear Kitty’s last two screams for help; and Irene Frost, the woman in the corner apartment on the second floor who had seen Kitty and Moseley on the street together at the time of the first attack, and had then watched Kitty until she eventually turned the corner at t
he back of the Tudor building.

  From the six-story West Virginia Apartments, they would call Samuel Koshkin, who heard Kitty’s screams, saw Moseley flee and back away in his car, saw Kitty make her way around the Tudor and into the hallway in the back of the building, and watched Moseley return, search, and then enter the hallway where Kitty had gone.

  From the Tudor residents they chose only Sophie Farrar, the woman who had held dying Kitty Genovese in her arms. Though Sophie had not witnessed any part of the attacks and had not seen Moseley at all that night, the prosecutors wanted to present the jury with at least one person who had shown a measure of bravery and compassion.

  chapter 15

  “TRIAL BEGINS IN QUEENS SLAYING; SOME OF 38 WITNESSES TO TESTIFY,” read the headline in the New York Times.

  On June 8, 1964, a Monday, the trial of Winston Moseley for the murder of Catherine Genovese opened in the Supreme Court of Queens. The Criminal Courts Building was located at 125-01 Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens, approximately two blocks from where the murder had taken place. It was easy walking distance from Kitty’s former neighborhood, and many of her former neighbors made the trip in order to watch the proceedings. They were hardly alone, however. Crowds of people began showing up at the courthouse very early that morning in hope of getting seats. Reporters from several newspapers were present. An hour before the trial was set to begin, such a throng of people had gathered both inside the courthouse and on the front steps that a court officer made an announcement over a loudspeaker, warning that only a limited number of spectators would be admitted. It did little to thin the crowd.

  Notably absent were members of Kitty’s family. The family wanted to see justice done, of course, but as Bill Genovese later put it, nothing that happened in the courtroom was going to give Kitty back to them. Considering all they had endured in the past three months with Kitty’s death and the overwhelming news coverage that followed, the family preferred to avoid the court proceedings and the inevitable ‘How do you feel?’ questions from the press.

  Newspaper coverage had heated up again in the days leading up to the trial. An item in the Long Island Star-Journal on June 2 announced the launch of an “Anti-Apathy Drive” organized by community leaders in Kew Gardens and the surrounding neighborhoods, who were meeting to plan an education campaign to combat public apathy toward crime. The meeting was being held in Kew Gardens. The Star-Journal had published a prominent article the week before about a meeting of philosophy and sociology professors from Queens College debating the causes of apathy and the behavior of Kitty’s neighbors. The philosophy professors advanced rather broad and lofty theories, essentially concluding (according to reporter Edward Weiland), that “Apathy is the end result of man’s fear of man.” The sociologists offered a more pedestrian analysis. One of them said: “The area where Kitty Genovese lived has been badly misrepresented. It’s not an upper middle-class community. It’s actually a low class community in which the people have moved up economically, but not morally or emotionally.” Another sociologist added: “In other words, it’s middle-mass, not middle class.”

  Whatever the philosophical truths or socioeconomic status of Kitty’s neighbors, the killer’s trial afforded the public a chance to hear at least some of the salacious details firsthand. The trial had been scheduled to start on May 28, but a brief adjournment to June 8 had been granted at the request of the defense, which needed additional time for the defendant to be examined by another psychiatrist of their choosing (three individual psychiatrists would testify in all). Though Judge J. Irwin Shapiro had expressed his displeasure over a delay, he had granted the request. The prosecution had raised no objection to the delay, perhaps fearing that the defense could later use the lack of sufficient psychiatric testimony as a basis for appeal.

  The first hours were consumed by jury selection. Sparrow asked prospective jurors if they could remain objective despite anything they may have previously read in the papers. According to press accounts, Sparrow had also said to potential jurors, “You wouldn’t want to enter this case as an instrument of revenge, would you?”

  Covering the trial for the New York Times, reporter David Anderson wrote, “During the four and a half hours that it took to select a jury, Mr. Cacciatore repeatedly objected to references to the Kralik and Johnson cases. He also objected to Mr. Sparrow’s suggestions that Negro jurors might be prejudiced in favor of Moseley, who is a Negro. This appeared to irritate Justice Shapiro, too, and at one point he said: ‘Don’t discuss that, sir, it has no place in an American court.’ ”

  A jury of eleven men and one woman was impaneled along with two alternates, after which Judge Shapiro called a five-minute recess. With the jury out of the courtroom, Judge Shapiro said to Sidney Sparrow, “I want to call your attention, counsel, to the fact that while you’ve been talking about a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity, no such defense has heretofore been interposed in the case. The only plea interposed by the defendant as far as the record discloses is a plea of not guilty.”

  “I accept your Honor’s statements that that is so, although my independent recollection is that I made such a plea,” Sparrow replied. “In any event, I ask the Court to allow the defendant at this time to formally enter his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.”

  “In addition to the plea of not guilty?” the judge asked.

  “That is correct.”

  Shapiro turned to the prosecution. “Any objection?”

  “No objection by the People, sir,” Cacciatore replied.

  “All right, motion granted,” said Judge Shapiro. “The plea will stand as corrected and as amended.”

  Noting the frenzy that had ensued that morning with spectators dashing into the courtroom and clamoring for seats—including one confrontation that had nearly erupted into a fistfight—Judge Shapiro directed that henceforth only ten spectators at a time would be admitted to the courtroom. No one would be allowed to come or go while the trial was in session.

  With the jury returned and seated, Frank Cacciatore opened the case for the People. He read the indictment and gave a concise but thorough overview of the facts of the crime as alleged by the prosecution, mentioning the defendant’s signed statement to this effect. Cacciatore did not shrink from stating the graphic details, emphasizing both the defendant’s corroboration and the recovery of the weapon and personal effects of the deceased.

  Frank Cacciatore concluded his opening statement by telling the jury, “The People will prove that he deliberately, with malice aforethought, willfully—willfully killed Kitty Genovese. And should there be any testimony from any source that he did not know the nature of his act, or the quality of his act, or that the act was wrong, the People will prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt this defendant’s criminal responsibility in every act, in every performance throughout the entire act of his from the time that he left his house until the time when he got back to his house . . . the People will prove each and every element to be a responsible, a deliberate, a willful, a coordinated act, and the People will expect at the appropriate time that you will bring in that verdict which is justified under the evidence that the People will submit to you and the law that the Court will give you.”

  Sidney Sparrow stood and opened for the defense. He began by readily conceding that the People would prove the factual elements of the crime, “and the defendant will supply any additional aspects of it which they don’t have.”

  Far from denying the crime, Sidney Sparrow’s defense strategy rested rather on emphasizing the crimes of Winston Moseley in all their horrific details. This, he hoped, combined with the psychiatric testimony, would lead the jury to the conclusion that Moseley must be a madman.

  In formulating a defense based on defect of mind, Sparrow had delved deeply into his client’s background, rooting around for clues he could show a jury as to how and why the defendant’s mental state had deteriorated over time. The jury would be hearing a lot about Moseley’s sad childhood, as Sparrow tried
connecting the dots from the anguish and instability of his boyhood to an uncontrollable and predatory rage against the female sex. Proving insanity on the part of Winston Moseley would have to be based extensively on an examination of his younger years, his past experiences with women, and his relationship with his parents; Sparrow needed anything he could cull in order to show that, despite his client’s seemingly rational demeanor and the appearance of a normal, functioning day-to-day life, the roots of madness were unquestionably embedded in the man’s psyche.

  Sparrow skimmed through Moseley’s troubled childhood, early sexual experience, and painful first marriage, promising the jury they would hear the details firsthand through witness testimony. “And his mind, without his knowing it, was changing, or had been changing all along,” Sparrow said. “He still was outwardly intelligent, competent, well-liked, reserved, but shy and quiet.”

  Describing the traumatic years of Moseley’s first marriage and his former wife’s humiliating infidelity, Sparrow told the jury, “And you’ll see that in his mind, among his hobbies he collected knives, polished his gun, painted his gun, cleaned his gun, gravitated more and more toward dogs, and other animals.

  “And, as a matter of fact, he didn’t even feel as if he were part of this world because much of what happened in his world seemed to be a dream world that he wasn’t even in.”

  Sparrow touched on Moseley’s current marriage. “You will hear how with Bettye he continued to work, stayed at home with the children during the evenings, but there came a time when he grew more and more introverted, and he brooded, and he stared into space. And yet with Bettye, the first and only person with whom he found fidelity, he had no quarrel, there was no difficulty.