Kitty Genovese

Remarks of former Queens County, NY Assistant District Attorney, Charles Skoller, delivered at the March 9, 2004 Kitty Genovese Forum at Fordham University

Forty years ago, I prosecuted Winston Moseley, the killer of Kitty Genovese together with another Assistant District Attorney in Queens County.

Now, our investigation and trial preparation did not disclose more than a half a dozen eye witnesses to the initial attack, and, I want to tell you about two of them. Joseph Fink was the assistant superintendent of the Mowbray Apartment house, nine stories, across the street from where Kitty was first attacked by Winston Moseley. He was seated in a sofa chair facing a very large bay window, and he actually saw the first attack take place, he knew exactly what was happening. He saw the knife, the shining blade of the knife as it struck Kitty in the back four times. He got up from his sofa chair, went downstairs to his apartment and went to sleep, telephone alongside his bed. He did nothing else.

The second person was Karl Ross, in whose vestibule hallway Kitty was attacked for the second time, some twenty minutes after the first attack. Karl Ross opened his door, saw the second attack take place, closed the door, called his girlfriend, asked her what to do. She told him not to get involved. Karl Ross called Kitty's next foor neighbor, Sophie Farrar.

This is an heroic person, Sophie Farrar. She did get involved. She immediately called the police and she rushed to Kitty's side. Sophie Farrar was about four feet, eight - tiny woman - her early thirties, she just had a baby a few months earlier, and she rushed into that vestibule not knowing what was going on, and she found Kitty lying on her back in desperate condition, and she cradled her in her arms and held her that way till the ambulance and police arrived. You shopuld know that Kitty died on the way to the hospital. The more serious and mortal wounds were inflicted on Kitty in the second attack, not the first attack.

I've always believed and still believe today that had someone picked up a telephone and called the police during the first attack, that Kitty would be alive today. Despite the absence of 911, response time was still excellent in 1964.

In preparing the case for trial, we pursued the death penalty, and there were only three witnesses who could actually identify Winston Moseley. Joseph Fink, Karl Ross, and the milkman who saw Moseley as he was leaving the scene. We could not call Fink or Ross to the witness stand. We felt that their conduct, horrible conduct, would detract from the cruelty and brutality of Winston Moseley's attack on Kitty Genovese, and might actually result in him not receiving the death penalty, which he did receive, and was set aside and he's serving a life sentence today.

It is ironic, however, that five days later, Winston Moseley was arrested because neighbors did get involved. Winston Moseley was burglarizing a home in Corona. He was seen by a neighbor leaving that house with a television set, going to his car and putting his television set in his car.

And this neighbor walked over to him and said, "What are you doing?"

And he said, "I'm helping the people move."

The neighbor didn't believe him, went next door to another neighbor and said, "Are the Bannisters moving?"

He says, "No, absolutely not."

He says, "Well then, they're being burglarized."

The other neighbor said, "I'll call the police, you disconnect the distributor caps in his car."

And that's exactly what happened. One neighbor called the police, the other one went into Moseley's car, destroyed the ability to start up the car. Moseley came out, couldn't get in his car, couldn't start it, walked around the corner, block, and that's where he was apprehended by the police. So, neighbors did get involved, and incidentally, that was before theNew York Times article exploded the situation of the witnesses.

Now, I've always believed, because I spoke to at least twenty to twenty-five of the neighbors, preparing this case for trial, that more than thirty-eight heard Kitty's screams. Neighbors heard her screams from the vestibule of that hallway where Karl Ross lived. And, but, I don't believe thirty-eight witnessed the attacks, certainly not the second attack, there was only one witness to the second attack, and certainly not even the first attack, but I think we should all be disturbed anyway. Whether you saw the attack, whether you heard the attack, certainly, as I mentioned on The History Channel a few years ago, a human life is worth more than a telephone call, substantially more than a telephone call, and a telephone call does not require you to identify yourself. All it does is enable you to provide information to come to the aid of a person in distress.

For those of you don't know, three years after Winston Moseley was sentenced, and his sentence was set aside, he's serving a life sentence, Winston Moseley escaped while being transferred to a hospital, took a family hostage in upstate New York, and raped the pregnant woman of the family.

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