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    Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences
    Unavailable
    Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences
    Unavailable
    Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences
    Ebook489 pages19 hours

    Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences

    By Catherine Pelonero

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A New York Times bestseller!

    Written in a flowing narrative style, Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences presents the story of the horrific and infamous murder of Kitty Genovese, a young woman stalked and stabbed on the street where she lived in Queens, New York, in 1964. The case sparked national outrage when the New York Times revealed that dozens of witnesses had seen or heard the attacks on Kitty Genovese and her struggle to reach safety but had failed to come to her aidor even call police until after the killer had fled.

    This book, first published in 2014 and now with a new afterword, cuts through misinformation and conjecture to present a definitive portrait of the crime, the aftermath, and the people involved. Based on six years of research, Catherine Pelonero’s book presents the facts from police reports, archival material, court documents, and firsthand interviews. Pelonero offers a personal look at Kitty Genovese, an ambitious young woman viciously struck down in the prime of her life; Winston Moseley, the killer who led a double life as a responsible family-man by day and a deadly predator by night; the consequences for a community condemned; and others touched by the tragedy.

    Beyond just a true-crime story, the book embodies much larger themes: the phenomenon of bystander inaction, the evolution of a serial killer, and the fears and injustices spawned by the stark prejudices of an era, many of which linger to this day.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSkyhorse Publishing
    Release dateMar 15, 2016
    ISBN9781634507714
    Unavailable
    Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences

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    Reviews for Kitty Genovese

    4.5/5

    13 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I have been super interested in this case since I first learned about it in college, some 30 years ago. This book is very detailed in the re-telling of the events, the trial, and the aftermath. I still can't believe the people who witnessed this horror did nothing to come to her aid. Just a tragic tale of the selfishness of the human condition.
    • 5/5
      I have read both this book and the one by Kevin Cook Kitty Genovese : the murder, the bystanders, the crime that changed America. While I was impressed by Cook's book, which I read first, I would say that this was superior. It gives us a lot more information about the people involved, and the consequences afterwords, as well as recent updates on some of the people involved. One notable result that she reports on is the work of Harold Takooshian who did studies on bystander apathy: people who didn't report staged ongoing crimes to a nearby policeman (some even warned the "criminal" that the policeman was nearby); the complete failure of any one to help a "lost" ten-year old child. He also founded the annual Catherine Genovese Memorial Conference, beginning in 1984. It is sometimes referred to in the press as the Kitty Genovese Memorial Seminar on Bad Samaritanism. The book is well researched and well written, and I would recommend it to anyone with the slightest interest.One major difference between the two books is the attitude that they took to towards the people in Kitty's neighborhood. Cook is inclined to go easier on them; he believes that at least one person reported the first attack to the police, but the dispatcher didn't think the incident was important and didn't dispatch the police until the second, much too late call. He also believes that many didn't understand what was happening, or that seeing the attacker flee and Kitty get up, thought the incident was over. Pelonero gives more emphasis to the fact that Kitty was obviously staggering, and was screaming that she had been stabbed, which makes Cook's scenario a bit thin. On the other hand, even if people further off could hear screams, could they understand what Kitty was saying? And people further off might more reasonably supposed that people nearer at hand, who could better tell what was going on, would deal with it. They both point out that Joseph Fink and Karl Ross, the latter a so-called "friend" of Kitty, were direct witnesses who both saw and heard what was going on, and still did nothing useful. Ross did call other people and ask what he should do: reports seem to vary as to whether his first call, a friend in Nassau, advised him to call, or not to call, the police. Pelerno points at that Karl Ross was a closeted homosexual at a time when homosexuality was very much illegal, although she obviously doesn't consider that to be an excuse for his failure to act immediately, although he did at least call Greta Schwartz who went to investigate what had happed to Kitty, and Sophie Farrar who immediately ran to Kitty to try to help and got Ross to call the police. I was disappointed that there was no further information on Ross. Fink was so uncooperative, and Ross changed his story so many times, that the prosecution didn't call them as witnesses.As I write this, some questions come to mind; I have a copy on hand of Pelornero's book but not Cook's. The building in which Kitty lived, the Tudor, was on Austin Street on one side. Since the entrance to the second floor apartments were up a staircase on the other side, one assumes the apartments went through to the Austin Street side. I am rather puzzled by the acoustics. Pelonero tells us that Kitty's screams during the first attack, on Austin Street, could be heard a least a block away. More emphasis is seems to be placed on the inaction of people further off at this attack, such as in the Mowbray which was across the street and set back from the sidewalk, and the closest apartment in the West Virgina, down the street, then the people in the Tudor apartments. I cannot remember that either book says anything about what Kitty's partner Mary Zielenko heard and saw. Perhaps she took sleeping pills, perhaps they feel that if she also ignored the screams, she was punished enough. We are told that the Farrars held screams, and looked out, but couldn't see what was going on. If their apartment was next to Kitty and Mary, that isn't surprising, since the attack was down the street a bit. Karl Ross, also in the Tudor, on the other hand was probably the only person who had a chance of seeing and hearing both attacks.So I have to conclude that Pelonero's defense of the accuracy of Rosenthal's piece on the murder is wrong, one exaggeration in an otherwise fine book. Cook is right that it simply isn't true that thirty-eight people watched Kitty die. It is bad enough that two, Fink and Ross did, and that others who understood what was happening, didn't call the police, even if they supposed that others might have. "I was afraid," may be a good reason for not interfering, but not for calling the police, especially if the caller stays indoors. (Of course, in July 2017, Justine Damond called the police because she thought an assault was in progress near her house, and one of the responding officers shot her to death for her pains when she approached their car.) We might also need a discussion about police/public relationships. With my one cavil about the Rosenthal article, I strongly recommend this book, and of the two, I prefer it over Cook's if you only read one.