The Murder of Kitty Genovese:

The witnesses did not watch for half an hour

The original New York Times article reported in its opening sentence that witnesses watched Kitty being stalked and stabbed for more than half an hour. [Footnote F-1.] The Times version of the killing (which is the one everybody remembers) gave the impression that the stalking and stabbing lasted continuously for half an hour and that Kitty and her attacker were visible to the witnesses throughout that 30 minute period. That was not so.

The Stabbings

As already explained, it appears (with one exception) that the first stabbings on Austin Street occurred before the witnesses awoke and got to their windows. [Click here.] After that first attack, the killer, Winston Moseley, ran to his car and drove away. Kitty then got up and slowly made her way around to the back of the 2 story Tudor building where none of the witnesses from the Mowbray Apartment House could have seen her. So most of the Mowbray witnesses could have watched Kitty for only the time it took her to get up and slowly walk the 40 feet or so from the front of the 2 story building on Austin Street to the corner drugstore store.

View diagram

Once Kitty turned that near corner, they could no longer see her. [Footnote F-2.] Anyone who lived in one of the 9 apartments at the southwest corner of the Mowbray Apartments could have continued to watch Kitty only until she turned the far corner at the back of the 2 story building some 60 feet further. [See image in left sidebar and Footnote F-3.] So none of the Mowbray witnesses could have seen Kitty for more than a few minutes - far less than the 30 minutes she is thought to have been visible to them. They certainly did not see the second (and last) attack in the hallway in the rear of the 2 story Tudor building. [Click here.]

The Stalking

Moseley's "stalking" of Kitty lasted about 2 minutes - not 30 minutes, [Footnote F-4.], and Kitty was not visible to any of the witnesses while it was happening. It occurred about 10 minutes after Kitty had disappeared from the Mowbray witnesses line of sight and had entered a doorway in the rear of the 2 story Tudor building. Moseley, who had parked his car about 2 blocks away, came back to look for her. We know of 5 witnesses who saw him return. Former New York City Chief of Detectives Albert A. Seedman describes what happened:

"Ten minutes later the neighbors saw [Moseley] return. [Mrs. Robert Mozer] noticed that he was walking normally, as if he didn't have a care in the world. ... Three floors below, [Andree Picq] was surprised to see that, while before he had had on a stocking cap, now he was wearing a Tyrolean hat with a feather in the band. Walking slowly, looking from side to side, he peeked into the doorway of the [bookstore]. Nothing. He walked past the liquor store and the dry cleaner, and turned the corner. [Irene Frost] ran from one to another of her three windows facing Austin Street to keep him in view. He crossed the parking lot without even looking into [Kitty's] locked Fiat. He gave a push at the door of the waiting room of the Kew Gardens railroad station and found it open. He spent only a minute inside. [Samuel Koshkin] picked up the phone to call the police, but his wife ... said, 'Don't. Thirty people must have called by now.' [Koshkin] saw the man wearing the Tyrolean hat come out of the side door of the Long Island railroad waiting room and head for the rear walkway. He tried the first doorway, 82-60. Nothing. He went to the second, 82-62. [Koshkin] held his breath. It had been twelve minutes since the last scream. As the man pushed the door open, only a few neighbors could hear a low cry, too weak for a scream, as the door closed behind him."

[Bracketed text is mine.] [Footnote F-5.] Seedman does not say what Koshkin did after that. Leaving Koshkin aside, any failure by the other four witnesses to call the police at this point is probably attributable to the fact that they did not have Koshkin's view of the rear of the 2 story Tudor building. [View diagram.] From their perspective on Austin Street, they had lost sight of Kitty 10 minutes earlier when she turned the corner of the 2 story Tudor building. As far as they knew, Kitty was long gone, so they probably had little idea of the mortal danger created by Moseley's return - esepcially if, as Mrs. Mozer said (above), "he was walking normally, as if he didn't have a care in the world".

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Click here to read a detailed analysis of the March 27, 1964 New York Times article that broke the story.

Footnote F-1:   Martin Gansberg, "37 Who Saw Murder Didn�t Call the Police", The New York Times, p. 1 (March 27, 1964) ("For more than half an hour thirty-eight respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.")

Footnote F-2:

• Trial testimony of Robert Mozer, Record on Appeal p. 59. [HTML] [PDF - 57 KB]



• Trial Testimony of Andree Picq, Record on Appeal p. 61. [HTML] [PDF - 57 KB]



• Affidavit of Michael Hoffman, para. 6 (July 15, 2003). [HTML]  [PDF - 251 KB]
  
  
• Seedman & Hellman, Chief!, p. 113 (last para.) (Arthur Fields Books, N.Y. 1974) (Speaking of Kitty turning the corner toward the back of the stores and leaving a witness's line of sight).

Footnote F-3:   Trial Testimony of Irene Frost, Record on Appeal pp. 64, 66. [HTML] [PDF - 99 KB]

Footnote F-4:   Seedman & Hellman, Chief!, p. 114 (last para.) (Arthur Fields Books, N.Y. 1974)  Seedman says that Moseley came back to look for Kitty about 10 minutes after the first attack and that he found her and began his second attack about 12 minutes after the first attack. (N.B., Seedman uses fictitious names for the witnesses).

Footnote F-5:   Seedman & Hellman, Chief!, p. 114 (last para.) (Arthur Fields Books, N.Y. 1974) (Seedman uses fictitious names for the witnesses. In the above quote, I have substituted their real names.).

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