37 Witnesses

When thinking about this week’s blog, this one randomly popped into my head so I decided to go with it. Some of you may have heard about a phenomenon known as the Bystander effect, it’s known as a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when others are present. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help. Observers are more likely to take action if there are few to no other witnesses. The construction of this psychological phenomenon was formed after the murder of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese.

First let me give you a little back story on who Kitty Genovese was. She was born on July 7^th, 1935 in Brooklyn New York to her Italian-American parents, along with her four siblings. She was known as a being popular in school and a social butterfly. After high school her family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, but Kitty decided to stay in New York, she loved it there. After working some odd jobs she eventually became a bar manager at Ev’s 11^th Hour in Hollis, she did very well and was a reliable hard working employee. The money she earned she had dreamed of saving up to own her own Italian Restaurant.

On March 13^th, 1963 Kitty met a woman named Mary Ann Zielonko at an underground lesbian bar in Greenwich Village. The two quickly fell in love and decided to move in together. Next to the Long Island Rail Road station in Kew Garden they found an apartment. It was one of fourteen similar units in the two story building; theirs was on the second floor.

One year after meeting Mary Ann, March 13^th, 1964 she was leaving her shift at work around 3am and was very excited to get home to celebrate their anniversary. Little did she know how her night would truly end.

Kitty parked her car by the rail station and began walking to her nearby apartment, unaware that a man by the name of Winston Moseley was on the lookout for a victim. He left his sleeping wife, two sons and five German Shepherds around 1am to start his search. When he saw Kitty get into her car he made a U-turn and followed her, when she parked her car he parked his. The area was very desolate at 3am, all businesses were closed and the majority of residents were asleep.

Kitty heard Moseley's footsteps following behind her and noticed she was being followed; startled she began to run while screaming "Help! Help! Help!" He was able to catch up to her, first thing he did was stab her, she yelled "Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me! Somebody please help me!" One of her neighbors saw the struggle and yelled out to "Leave that girl alone." This startled Moseley and he ran off and back into his car 100 yards away. Kitty got up, turned and made her way up the direction she'd come from, eventually entering the first apartment building, where she collapsed at the foot of the stairs. Lying on the floor of the hallway, she called for help, but no one came.

Moseley sat in his car, some say he even drove away and came back about ten minutes later when he soon realized the police weren’t coming like he initially thought was going to happen. He was then determined to finish what he had started. He got out of his car and went on a search for Kitty, he found her laying there bleeding and terrified. He at that point stabbed her around 14 times, brutally raped her and when he was done he took $49 dollars from her wallet and left. She was alive, but barely breathing.

Sophie Farr heard the commotion and came running over to Kitty's aid, holding her in her arms and comforting her. More than 30 minutes after the initial attack another neighbor named Karl Ross finally phoned the police and they quickly arrived on scene, sadly Kitty died on the way to the hospital. A few witnesses claimed they had called the police, but their calls weren't given priority. Others claimed to have called, but didn't report the severity of the crime. Others stated they simply thought about calling the police, but assumed someone else would or already did.

The murder of Kitty Genovese gained worldwide attention when The New York Times published an article “37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police; Apathy at Stabbing of Queens Woman Shocks Inspector.” The article was published with photographs of the scene and its main focus point were on three things: the time between when Kitty was first attacked and when police received the first call; the number of persons who saw or heard the attacks but did not help; and the excuses given by witnesses as to why they did not help Kitty, the most infamous of these being the chilling phrase, “I didn’t want to get involved.” Some say this article was exaggerated while others say it’s factual.

Winston Moseley

Winston Moseley was arrested 6 days after Kitty’s murder and police suspected this wasn’t his first attack, but on June 11^th, 1964 he was convicted of first degree murder in only the Kitty Genovese case. 4 days later he was given a death sentence by electric chair. The death sentence was later reduced to a life in prison sentence when New York abolished most capitol punishments.  While in prison he escaped while on a hospital visit, raped a woman and held hostages at gunpoint before being recaptured. He was denied parole 18 times.  He died March 28^th, 2016 at the age of 81.

The murder of Kitty not only helped in the research that led to “The Bystander Effect’ her death is also credited as one of the factors that pushed the emergency 911 system into place, it became the national emergency number in 1968. Prior you had to dial “0” to reach the operator and hope that they were not too busy to transfer your call.

Moral of the story if you see something say something, if somebody would have done this for Kitty she may have been able to have a long happy life instead of the tragic events that occurred.

Resources:

https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/kitty-genovese

https://itotd.com/articles/7879/kitty-genovese-syndrome/

https://www.kittygenovesebook.com/the-murder-of-kitty-genovese/