The Murder of Kitty Genovese

Podcast Transcript

On March 13, 1964, at 2:30 am, a woman named Kitty Genovese was returning home from work.

As she arrived outside her apartment, a man approached her with a knife. She was stabbed, raped, and killed.

The murder itself is not what made this event noteworthy. It is known for the number of witnesses who heard the attack but did not call the police or intervene.

When this was reported to the media, it put the case in the national spotlight and led to the recognition of a psychological phenomenon.

Learn about the murder of Kitty Genovese and the insight the case provided into human psychology on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was just 28 years old when she was murdered outside her apartment in Queens, New York.

A bar manager, Genovese was best known for being a chatterbox, with lots of energy and a zest for life.

Before she was murdered, she had been saving up to open an Italian Restaurant. Genovese lived with her girlfriend, Mary Ann Zielonko, in a second-floor apartment in Kew Gardens, Queens, in one of 14 similar units in the building.

On the evening in question, March 13, 1964, as she was making her way home, she was approached by a man and stabbed. She reportedly called out, “Oh my God. He stabbed me. Please help me.” No one came.

As she was about to get stabbed again, someone did notice. A neighbor, Robert Mozer, called out from above, “Leave that girl alone!” Still, he did not leave his apartment, nor did he call the police.

Mozer did manage to scare Genovese’s attacker off for a few minutes. The man reportedly ran down a nearby alley and sat in his car, preparing to drive away from the crime scene.

However, the nearby apartment building lights soon went off, prompting the man to return.

During these few minutes, Genovese attempted to crawl away, ending up behind her building. Her attacker came back and found her, now out of sight, and he robbed, stabbed, and raped her.

One of Genovese’s neighbors, Sophia Farrar, eventually found her, finding Genovese in a pool of blood and calling for neighbors to help.

This led to a neighbor, Greta Schwartz, calling the police as Farrar waited with Genovese’s body.

Kitty Genovese would die soon after, in the ambulance taking her to the hospital.

Kitty Genovese’s girlfriend was told the devastating news later that morning at 4:00 am.

New York City Police Detective Mitchell Sang was assigned to lead the investigation.

The police questioning was initially centered on Zielonko. The questions focused on the two’s relationship, asking about their sexualities rather than the case. Initially, Zielonko was considered a suspect.

One of their neighbors, Karl Ross, was also questioned. When the police arrived to formally interrogate Zielonko, they found Ross with her, both drinking.

As Genovese’s body was found outside of his apartment’s stairs, coupled with the fact that he was arrested for disorderly conduct during questioning, he was considered to be a suspect.

Fortunately, the police found the murderer.

Later in the week, a suspected robbery occurred. When investigating the suspect’s car, they found stolen appliances and arrested him.

The man’s name was Winston Mosley.

Mosley was suspected due to his car. Witnesses to Genovese’s murder reported seeing a white car. Mosley, having driven a white Corvair, was asked about the murder but remained silent.

However, Mosley’s hands told a different story.

They were covered in scabs. The detectives accused him of the murder, and Mosley’s reply was damaging. He both admitted to the murder and gave information about the crime that was never released to the public, confirming him as the killer.

According to Mosley, he had spotted Genovese on her way home and followed her. He had gone out that night specifically looking for a victim, but never explained why.

During his interrogation, he had also confessed to two other rapes and murders. This resulted in his being sentenced to death, which was later reduced to life in prison.

As tragic as the murder of Kitty Genovese was, the murder itself was not the reason why it became well-known.

The case is notorious due to the supposed number of witnesses to the crime.

The murder was initially reported by the New York Times in an article on March 27, 1964, titled “37 People Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police.”

The article stated that multiple neighbors saw or heard the crime take place and did nothing. Later, it was reported that there were 38 witnesses.

Due to this shocking number, the case quickly garnered national attention.

If you have heard of Kitty Genovese and of her murder, this is the story that you are probably familiar with.

However, the Times article contained many factual errors, most of which are still commonly believed today.

The number reported by The New York Times originated from a conversation with the Police Commissioner and the New York Times editor. However, the number he provided was exaggerated and not fact-checked.

The reality of the attack was as follows: no one saw her murder completely as implied; those who saw the start of the attack thought it was a drunken brawl or a lovers’ quarrel. None of the neighbors saw the stabbing, though they did see a violent action.

Additionally, multiple neighbors claimed that they did call the police, though this may have been after the stabbing had already occurred.

Finally, the second stabbing, the one that actually killed Kitty Genovese, was in a different, more private area than the first attack, away from the original witnesses.

Public attitudes regarding the case were very negative, with the perception of New York City and people who lived in cities being “callous” and “having no empathy.”

Regardless of the actual facts, the story of Kitty Genovese’s murder became well known in the public’s collective memory and became an inspiration for the study of a psychological phenomenon known as “The Bystander Effect.”

Even though the number of witnesses in the case was exaggerated, the Bystander effect is still relevant because the testimony of the neighbors reported a common theme: “I didn’t want to get involved.”

So, what is the Bystander effect? How does it work?

Initially dubbed Genovese Syndrome, the Bystander Effect is the attempt to psychologically explain why witnesses wouldn’t help a victim when a crime was being committed.

This has been documented through multiple experiments, with the most notable being conducted by psychologists John Darley and Bibi Latané in 1968.

To summarize the experiment, the general setup involved creating an emergency situation within a laboratory setting. Participants of the experiment would be taken to a cubicle with an intercom, with the number of participants varying.

The goal of the experiment was to determine which variables influence people’s reactions in an emergency. The dependent variable would be the number of people involved in the “bystander” position, with numbers varying from being on your own to having five or more people.

The participants would then be asked about their problems in college. The experiment would have one participant mention that they have trouble with seizures early on in questioning. A few rounds in, this same participant would then fake having a seizure.

Their study was to see how long it would take for the participant to get help for the seizure victim.

The study found that you are much more likely to get help when you are on your own in the experiment. If there were others involved, the percentage of people who would ask for help would drop significantly, going from 100% when on your own to 62% in a group larger than 5 people. The time waiting to get help also increased drastically.

This is referred to as “pluralistic ignorance,” which essentially means that we have the tendency to rely on others’ actions and reactions when deciding how we want to act.

This basically means that you are psychologically inclined to see something and think, “Oh, this is someone else’s problem.” However, if everyone thinks that way, no one reacts leaving the problem to potentially become worse.

This also part of what is known as diffusion of responsibility, meaning that as a group is larger, the personal responsibility on one person decreases, separating the victim from the bystander. If no one were to react, you now become far more likely to point back to the situation and say “See! They didn’t act either!” clearing yourself internally of any blame.

You are also more likely to look towards others to define the situation. If they don’t think it’s an emergency, you are less likely to as well.

Additionally, the self-help reflection given after the experiment saw that many people focused on how the situation impacted them, rather than the victim.

To sum it up, in an individual situation as the sole bystander, you are more likely to become involved as there is more pressure to act, as you can’t push responsibility or blame onto anyone but yourself. So, when others are present, rationalizing your own inaction becomes easier.

Many people have a desire to help others, driven by both social norms and basic human empathy. However, there is also a desire to avoid a situation that would cause embarrassment, future involvement, or any immediate harm.

Latané and Darley found that there is a five-step model in which bystanders decide whether or not to help.

The Steps are as follows.

You notice the event.
You decide whether or not the situation is an emergency. If you see others not reacting to the situation, people typically assume it is not an emergency.
You either assume responsibility or think that someone else will.
You either know how to react or you do not have the skills to help.
Based on the information stated, you decide whether to help or opt not to due to worries about the consequences.

Another well-known experiment on the Bystander Effect was also done by Latané and Darley. Known as the “Smoky Room Experiment,” it was specifically designed to test the diffusion of responsibility.

In the experiment, participants were divided into groups of varying sizes and brought into a room, where they were asked to complete a questionnaire on urban life and the pressures associated with living in such environments.

As the subjects were filling out the questionnaire, “smoke” filled the room. I say smoke, but it was actually just steam.

When left alone, 75% of the subjects took action in response the smoke in the room before finishing the questionaire. However, in groups of three, 62% finished filling out the questionnaire before taking action.

When questioned, the subjects stated that they were worried about appearing anxious to others and were looking to see if anyone else was reacting or noticing. However, because the others were feeling the same way and also trying to look calm, they believed that they were overreacting to the smoke and deemed the situation safe.

This experiment confirmed the earlier findings of diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance.

Despite being in a perceived emergency, the participants were willing to ignore a potentially life-threatening situation to avoid embarrassment.

So, what does this say about the Kitty Genovese case?

Despite the inaccuracies in the initial article, it suggests that because many people witnessed at least some of the incident, no one took responsibility, called for help, or defended Kitty. They all thought someone else would do it.

Kitty’s murder did lead to changes in the emergency response systems. Her murder is often cited as one of the main reasons 911 is used as an emergency response number.

The murder of Kitty Genovese has had a massive impact on our understanding of human psychology. Although many of the details surrounding the case have been proven false, the bystander effect is a real phenomenon.

Though Kitty’s murder was a senseless tragedy, it opened the door to a better understanding human psychology and what makes us act and what makes us stand idly by.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Research and writing for this episode were provided by Olivia Ashe.

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