The Murder of Kitty Genovese

In the early hours of March 13, 1964, twenty-eight-year-old Kitty Genovese returned home from work and parked her car in a lot near her Queens apartment, completely unaware that someone was following her. As she approached the door to her apartment building, Kitty’s stalker ran up behind her and stabbed her in the back twice before being scared off by a neighbor who yelled from his window. Wounded, Kitty managed to get to the back of the building, but her attacker soon returned and brutally assaulted her. By the time an ambulance arrived an hour later, it was too late; Kitty Genovese died before she reached the hospital. Kitty’s murder and the arrest of her killer, Winston Moseley, were quickly overshadowed by what were believed to be the facts of the attack, primarily the widely held belief that at least thirty-eight neighbors had seen the assault or heard Kitty’s cries for help and did nothing. Despite there having been no evidence to support that belief, the narrative quickly became about urban apathy, with the death of a Queens bartender merely a footnote. The murder of Kitty Genovese is one of the most notorious violent crimes in modern American history—not because of the details or circumstances of the crime, but because of the legend and mythology that has built up around it.