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The Kitty Genovese Story · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, San Francisco, we're coming out to see you. We
0:04
Speaker 1: got invited back to San Francisco Sketch Fest this year
0:07
Speaker 1: and we are pretty excited because we are doing a
0:10
Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon show for the first time, so considers a
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Speaker 1: football game. We're gonna be uh January Sunday at one pm,
0:20
Speaker 1: and UH, get your tickets fast because they're definitely gonna
0:22
Speaker 1: sell out. Just go to s F sketch Fest dot
0:26
Speaker 1: com where you can google that junk and uh just
0:29
Speaker 1: follow the ticket links and there's lots of great shows,
0:33
Speaker 1: so I would recommend just making a weekend out of it.
0:36
Speaker 1: But check us out Sunday afternoon, January PM in San Francisco.
0:40
Speaker 1: Can't wait to see everybody there. Welcome to Stuff You
0:44
Speaker 1: Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
0:53
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W.
0:57
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry So this you Should Know
1:01
Speaker 1: podcast True Crime Edition. Actually yeah, but so much more
1:06
Speaker 1: than just a single crime agreed, a crime that echoed
1:11
Speaker 1: throughout a city, throughout the world, throughout decades. And it's true, man, Like,
1:16
Speaker 1: there are very few crimes you can point to that
1:18
Speaker 1: had more of an impact than the murder of Kitty
1:23
Speaker 1: GENEVESE agreed. Uh, and there are a lot of true
1:27
Speaker 1: crime podcast out there. We are not trying to become one. No,
1:32
Speaker 1: this is just something we do from time to time.
1:34
Speaker 1: I had somebody on Facebook, Oh, don't get me started
1:37
Speaker 1: on that on the hinter Kaife murders there, this is
1:41
Speaker 1: so played, everyone's done this. Who didn't know about this?
1:45
Speaker 1: A bunch of people were like, well, I haven't heard
1:47
Speaker 1: about it, but most counts I had never heard about it.
1:53
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard about it until like a year or
1:56
Speaker 1: two ago. So oh, it's so played. Oh and then
2:01
Speaker 1: of course later on all these people are like, man,
2:05
Speaker 1: what a jerk. He's like the the whole Uh. Well,
2:09
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if anyone was offended. All I meant was
2:12
Speaker 1: is this has been well covered. I think that it
2:14
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the way I said it.
2:16
Speaker 1: The two thousand sixteen election has proven that. Um, if
2:20
Speaker 1: you add if into your apology, it's not an actual apology. Yeah,
2:24
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. If you're offended, is not an apology. That's
2:27
Speaker 1: putting it back on the person. It's it's you, you,
2:30
Speaker 1: you worm, your piece of garbage. Oh yeah, yeah, man, sorry,
2:35
Speaker 1: Kitty Genevise and her family. I know, and you know what,
2:39
Speaker 1: as I researched this and as I watched did you
2:42
Speaker 1: watch The Witness the documentary recently on Netflix right now?
2:46
Speaker 1: It is HBO documentary, And um, I was disturbed and
2:52
Speaker 1: I'm glad it finally covered it in the documentary, but
2:54
Speaker 1: I was disturbed that Kitty Genevise and we'll get to
2:58
Speaker 1: her murder, but very quickly she was murdered and became
3:01
Speaker 1: the symbol for um people not helping out right what
3:07
Speaker 1: came to be known as bystander apathy or the bystander
3:10
Speaker 1: effect that the more people who are around, the less
3:14
Speaker 1: likely anyone is to help. Yeah, so she became such
3:17
Speaker 1: a symbol that me never hear about Kitty Genevise and
3:21
Speaker 1: who she was as a person. And that was one
3:24
Speaker 1: great thing about that document and there are multiple great
3:27
Speaker 1: things about that, but that it really talked about her
3:30
Speaker 1: and showed her and revived her spirit, which I was
3:33
Speaker 1: really looking for because even in researching online, it's hard
3:36
Speaker 1: to get a lot of information. So um, some things,
3:40
Speaker 1: some even contemporary articles still aren't mentioning that she was gay. Well, yeah,
3:45
Speaker 1: her own brother who made the documentary didn't know that
3:48
Speaker 1: she was gay. No, it's true, but it's it's been
3:51
Speaker 1: out since I'm not sure when actually that came out.
3:56
Speaker 1: It was just this year, okay, so it was fairly
3:58
Speaker 1: new year. That was like in the last five years,
4:01
Speaker 1: maybe so. And honoring that, why don't we talk a
4:05
Speaker 1: minute about Catherine genevese Kitty Yeah. Born in Brooklyn, uh,
4:13
Speaker 1: to Vincent and Rene Leginovise Italian American parents. Um, and
4:19
Speaker 1: it's weird, I don't see. Oh. Yeah, Rachel was her
4:23
Speaker 1: mother's name. She was Rachel Petroley at first. So, um.
4:27
Speaker 1: They lived in Brooklyn, and she was very well loved
4:30
Speaker 1: in school. Yes, she was like the leader of her click. Yeah.
4:34
Speaker 1: And she was apparently a lot of fun and a
4:36
Speaker 1: good mimic of her teachers. And she was voted class
4:40
Speaker 1: cut up in her senior year graduating class. And she
4:44
Speaker 1: went to an all girls school and Prospect Heights, and
4:47
Speaker 1: it it was just, by all accounts, this vivacious, fun loving,
4:51
Speaker 1: really sweet sweet lady yeah or girl. At that point,
4:55
Speaker 1: her little brother Bill who and ended up making the
4:59
Speaker 1: being featured in the documentary, The witness was just in
5:03
Speaker 1: love with her she was just amazing to him and
5:06
Speaker 1: had a very special relationship. Yeah. I think she was
5:08
Speaker 1: about thirteen years older than him. Yeah, quite a bit,
5:10
Speaker 1: maybe twelve years older. Um, I had his sister like that,
5:14
Speaker 1: and like there's a very special relationship, none of that
5:18
Speaker 1: sibling rivalry. Um, they're not old enough to be your mother.
5:23
Speaker 1: That's just as it's a unique situation to be a
5:28
Speaker 1: younger sibling and to be able to inherit like all
5:31
Speaker 1: that worldly wisdom and they're they're going through all their
5:35
Speaker 1: own things and their own struggles and their own travails.
5:37
Speaker 1: But to that thirteen year old younger brother, they know
5:41
Speaker 1: everything and they're the coolest person walking the planet and
5:44
Speaker 1: they're the kindest person walking the planet because they've lived
5:47
Speaker 1: long enough to like figure out some of the major stuff.
5:51
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, even my own sister is only six
5:53
Speaker 1: years older, and we we very much had and still
5:56
Speaker 1: have that relationship where uh and she my brother are
6:00
Speaker 1: great now too. But you know, when you're two or
6:03
Speaker 1: three years apart, there can be a little bit of
6:04
Speaker 1: the knocking of heads. But by the time I came along,
6:08
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, my sister was six, It
6:10
Speaker 1: was perfect. I was a little baby doll for her right.
6:12
Speaker 1: Um So, anyway, that was very much the relationship that
6:15
Speaker 1: Kitty had with Bill, and it seemed like one of
6:19
Speaker 1: the old older brothers always had a little bit of it, like, yeah,
6:23
Speaker 1: she always liked him better. Yeah kind of attitude. It
6:25
Speaker 1: seems seemed like everybody kind of knew like she liked
6:28
Speaker 1: Bill the most. Yeah, which I kind of felt bad for.
6:30
Speaker 1: But that's just this family dynamics. Man. You know. The
6:33
Speaker 1: thing is when whenever you do start to kind of
6:36
Speaker 1: talk about somebody who's died, especially someone who's died violently
6:40
Speaker 1: and young, it's easy to um canonized, you know. He
6:45
Speaker 1: really put him up on a pedestal and forget their flaws.
6:47
Speaker 1: And of course I'm sure Kitty had tons of flaws,
6:51
Speaker 1: but she didn't seem to have any from from what
6:55
Speaker 1: I'm gathering, that were, you know, just terrible flaws or
7:00
Speaker 1: that made her like a bad person. She seemed like
7:02
Speaker 1: she was a like an overall above average great person. Yeah, agreed. So, um,
7:09
Speaker 1: New York was getting too dangerous for her family. They
7:12
Speaker 1: thought to have all these kids. Uh, So they moved
7:16
Speaker 1: when she graduated high school to New Canaan, Connecticut. And
7:19
Speaker 1: she said you know what, I'm staying here in New York.
7:21
Speaker 1: I'm eighteen now. I love it here. Um. She got
7:25
Speaker 1: married for a brief time, uh, to a guy was
7:28
Speaker 1: his named Rocco. I don't remember his name, it's either
7:31
Speaker 1: Rocky or Rocco. And Um. In the documentary, Bill tries
7:36
Speaker 1: to get in touch with him. He's like, I really
7:37
Speaker 1: because he found out she was gay and was like,
7:40
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't even know this. I think Rocco
7:42
Speaker 1: can help shed some light. And he very respectfully asked
7:46
Speaker 1: for his own privacy. He said, my relationship with Kitty
7:49
Speaker 1: will remain forever a mystery. Yeah, it's like, that's an
7:53
Speaker 1: odd spot it was. I think he just didn't want to.
7:58
Speaker 1: I mean, if she was a and they were married
8:01
Speaker 1: for a short time, he either didn't know and maybe
8:05
Speaker 1: felt the fool or he did know and was maybe
8:08
Speaker 1: trying to do right by her in some way. Either way,
8:11
Speaker 1: he didn't want to talk about it. But Um. She
8:14
Speaker 1: worked as a secretary for a little while. She was
8:17
Speaker 1: a waitress for a little while. Eventually she was a
8:20
Speaker 1: bar made bartender and then became bar manager at a
8:23
Speaker 1: place in Hollis Queen's called EVS Eleventh Hour well, and
8:29
Speaker 1: from all accounts, it was one of those wonderful neighborhood
8:33
Speaker 1: bars where the people are in there getting sauce pretty
8:37
Speaker 1: early in the days, and everyone knew everyone, and everyone
8:40
Speaker 1: loved Kitty, and she helped take care of everybody, but
8:43
Speaker 1: was very much an independent um kind of firecracker of
8:47
Speaker 1: a woman. Drove a red fiat. Her dad used to
8:51
Speaker 1: tease her about, like, when are you going to find
8:53
Speaker 1: the right guy. She's like, I make more money than
8:56
Speaker 1: any guy I would go out with. I don't need that,
8:58
Speaker 1: which is I guess night t sixties for dadam gay
9:04
Speaker 1: and I can't say it, but she did make pretty
9:05
Speaker 1: good dough as the bar manager. Um. And then in
9:09
Speaker 1: March ninete, she met a woman named Mary Anne Zlonko
9:15
Speaker 1: at Swing Rendezvous. It was an underground lesbian bar in
9:19
Speaker 1: the village, and they moved in together shortly thereafter. Yeh
9:23
Speaker 1: and Kitty actually used to bring um Maryanne home with
9:28
Speaker 1: her to visit, but her family was all like, well,
9:30
Speaker 1: they're just good friends and roommates. It's the sixties, the
9:35
Speaker 1: early sixties. Yeah, And there's an audio interview with her
9:39
Speaker 1: in that documentary that's really touching. She didn't want to
9:42
Speaker 1: be on camera, but Bill was able to speak to
9:45
Speaker 1: her and uh, I think, well, so compelling about this
9:49
Speaker 1: documentary was that he was there was a search of
9:51
Speaker 1: a man looking for closure. It's a harrowing, sometimes almost
9:57
Speaker 1: unbearable to watch. Yeah, sir, I mean like he's at
10:02
Speaker 1: odds with his family here there. Um he uh, he's
10:07
Speaker 1: just just doing things where if you if you watch
10:10
Speaker 1: it in the context of the documentary and you just
10:12
Speaker 1: follow along the documentary, it all makes uttering complete sense.
10:15
Speaker 1: But then if you stop and remove yourself long enough
10:18
Speaker 1: to be like, this is a documentary, which means this
10:21
Speaker 1: guy really did this stuff and there was a camera
10:24
Speaker 1: following him along while he was doing it, I was like,
10:27
Speaker 1: I I couldn't have done half of it, you know,
10:30
Speaker 1: he really he just at one point he calls it
10:34
Speaker 1: an obsession, but it's it's not. He doesn't come off
10:37
Speaker 1: as obsessed, you know. All right, So let's detail the
10:42
Speaker 1: crime and then we will take a break after that.
10:45
Speaker 1: How does that sound? Yeah? Alright, So flash forward to
10:49
Speaker 1: March thirteenth, nineteen sixty four. It's three fifteen in the
10:53
Speaker 1: morning and Kitty genevese Is, as she often did, was
10:58
Speaker 1: making her way home from work late at night as
11:01
Speaker 1: a bar manager and was being trailed by a man,
11:06
Speaker 1: a man by the name of Winston Moseley. Yes, who
11:11
Speaker 1: was definitely the villain of this story, but is not
11:15
Speaker 1: the only one that will turn out. So, um Kitty
11:19
Speaker 1: was and at the time she was killed, and Winston
11:24
Speaker 1: or killer was twenty nine, just turned twenty nine, I
11:26
Speaker 1: think like a week or so before, And I think
11:29
Speaker 1: he said, this is March nine. Yeah, he was married
11:34
Speaker 1: with a couple of kids. Yeah, his wife, Elizabeth worked
11:37
Speaker 1: the night shift. She was a hospital nurse, and um
11:41
Speaker 1: Winston's mother stayed at home with the kids. So he
11:45
Speaker 1: basically said, you know, on my own house. I've got
11:48
Speaker 1: a great job operating computers. No one even knows what
11:51
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be doing with him yet, but I'm
11:53
Speaker 1: making money doing it. Yeah, he's a smart guy, So
11:55
Speaker 1: I'm gonna indulge myself. I'm gonna go out and stalk
11:58
Speaker 1: women and murder them and my spare time, that's what
12:01
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. So that's what he was doing on
12:04
Speaker 1: this night. He was cruising around looking for a woman
12:06
Speaker 1: to um kill. Basically, Yeah, that was his direct quote
12:11
Speaker 1: in questioning. Yeah, I was looking for a woman to kill. Yeah,
12:15
Speaker 1: so he saw at I believe a red light, this
12:19
Speaker 1: little red Fiat convertible caught his eye and there was
12:22
Speaker 1: kitty driving. So he started a follower and she parked,
12:26
Speaker 1: and she parked in the parking lot for the Long
12:28
Speaker 1: Island Railway, which the parking lot went backed up to
12:34
Speaker 1: the side of her apartment building, which is a two
12:37
Speaker 1: story tutor job that had shops in the bottom and
12:42
Speaker 1: apartments in the top. Right. Yeah, this was in Q
12:44
Speaker 1: Gardens and Queens. So he followed her on foot. At
12:48
Speaker 1: this point Um she sees him and knows that something
12:54
Speaker 1: is going on. He has a knife in his hand,
12:56
Speaker 1: so she starts uh running. He catches up to her
13:00
Speaker 1: by outside of a bookstore and stabs her twice in
13:04
Speaker 1: the back right off the bat with this knife. And
13:08
Speaker 1: she had been running um toward a bar that she
13:12
Speaker 1: thought would be open, but it turned out apparently there
13:14
Speaker 1: was a new manager and the new manager had closed
13:17
Speaker 1: down early, so when she stabbed twice in the back.
13:19
Speaker 1: It's on this darkened street, but right across the street,
13:22
Speaker 1: Austin Street, is a ten story apartment building with dozens
13:27
Speaker 1: of windows looking out onto Austin Street. Where she's being
13:31
Speaker 1: stabbed in the back, and she screamed, she cries out.
13:35
Speaker 1: I think she said something like, oh God, he stabbed me,
13:38
Speaker 1: helped me, help me, is what they They said, basically,
13:41
Speaker 1: definitively is what she screamed. And people who were witnesses
13:46
Speaker 1: to this recounted that one guy said that he was
13:52
Speaker 1: I think a ten or eleven year old kid who
13:54
Speaker 1: was inside one of the apartments in the Mobray apartment building,
13:57
Speaker 1: and that he was awoke and awakened from a d sleep.
14:00
Speaker 1: The scream was so loud, he said it was the
14:02
Speaker 1: loudest thing he's ever heard. So she screams, and a
14:08
Speaker 1: man living in the Mobrie apartment buildings opens his window.
14:12
Speaker 1: What's his name, Yeah, Robert moser Um opened his window
14:16
Speaker 1: and screamed out, hey, get out of there, what are
14:18
Speaker 1: you doing? And uh, Mosley took off, took off, running away.
14:24
Speaker 1: He's very frequently misquoted as having said like, let that
14:28
Speaker 1: girl alone, but even by his own words in his
14:31
Speaker 1: own testimony, he said, hey, get out of there. Yeah,
14:35
Speaker 1: at any rate, he scared him away. Uh So, in
14:40
Speaker 1: between that time, about thirty minutes passes. Kitty Um makes
14:45
Speaker 1: her way around to the vestibule of her own building. Right, Yeah,
14:51
Speaker 1: and um goes inside the vestibule and uh, like you
14:57
Speaker 1: think the horror is over for her. She could probably
15:00
Speaker 1: survive these wounds. Um is in shock, I would imagine.
15:06
Speaker 1: And then Mosley went to his car, kind of checked
15:10
Speaker 1: out the building, saw that some lights had gone on,
15:13
Speaker 1: and reason to himself, no one's gonna do anything, puts
15:17
Speaker 1: on a different hat and goes back, finds her in
15:20
Speaker 1: the vestibule and finishes the job and the most horrific
15:24
Speaker 1: ways you can imagine. Yeah, he uh, he stabbed her
15:27
Speaker 1: at least twelve more times. They think at least she
15:30
Speaker 1: was stabbed at least fourteen times. He said he doesn't
15:33
Speaker 1: remember how many times he stabbed her. Um, but he
15:35
Speaker 1: basically kept stabbing her until she stopped screaming. Um, she
15:39
Speaker 1: was still alive. I saw that he attempted the raper.
15:42
Speaker 1: I've also seen that he raped her. Yeah. I'm not
15:44
Speaker 1: sure which one's correct, but at one point, and this
15:48
Speaker 1: is really important here, as he's stabbing her and she's
15:51
Speaker 1: screaming in the vestibule, there's a staircase that leads directly
15:56
Speaker 1: up to a door, and behind that door lived a
15:58
Speaker 1: man named Carl Ross. And Carl Ross opened his door
16:01
Speaker 1: and looked down one single flight of stairs at Winston
16:06
Speaker 1: Mosley stabbing um kitty Genevese, who is bloody. There was
16:12
Speaker 1: no confusing what was going on. And he closed the
16:15
Speaker 1: door and he called his girlfriend, and his girlfriend said,
16:20
Speaker 1: you don't get involved. I'm worried for you. Just just
16:23
Speaker 1: leave it alone. It's none of your business. And he did.
16:26
Speaker 1: He didn't do anything at least for a little while,
16:29
Speaker 1: all right. So that's a good place to break here,
16:31
Speaker 1: and we're gonna come back and talk about who saw
16:34
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17:52
Speaker 1: So at this point, um, Kitty Genevies is uh not
17:58
Speaker 1: dead yet, but dying in the vestibule. Um, a woman
18:03
Speaker 1: did come down and uh was with her. Her name
18:08
Speaker 1: is Sophia Ferrar. She's still with us, and um, she
18:12
Speaker 1: was a neighbor and friend of Kitty's. And so she
18:15
Speaker 1: went down there and uh apparently was with her as
18:19
Speaker 1: she passed away, tried to calm her down. Evidently did
18:23
Speaker 1: calm her down, and likes to think that she at
18:27
Speaker 1: least saw a friendly face and that she was being
18:30
Speaker 1: cared for as she passed. Uh. The weird thing is
18:33
Speaker 1: is that is not mentioned. I guess we gotta get
18:36
Speaker 1: into the New York Times now. Yeah. So, so after
18:39
Speaker 1: the murder um like the next day, the Times ran
18:43
Speaker 1: four paragraphs on the Kitty Genovase murder. It was not
18:47
Speaker 1: incredibly newsworthy at first because that year, there were six
18:51
Speaker 1: d thirty six murders in New York City. Yeah, that
18:53
Speaker 1: was just one of them, just one. But a couple
18:57
Speaker 1: of weeks later, UM, the head the city editor of
19:01
Speaker 1: the New York Times, a guy named A Rosenthal, who's
19:03
Speaker 1: a legendary journalist, was having lunch with I believe, the
19:06
Speaker 1: police commissioner of the NYPD. And the commissioner said, did
19:10
Speaker 1: you hear about that Genevese murder? This one for the books.
19:14
Speaker 1: Thirty eight people standing around watched the whole thing. Nobody
19:17
Speaker 1: did it a thing about it. Now you've got a story.
19:21
Speaker 1: A Rosenthal, legendary journalist, is like, uh, thank you for that.
19:26
Speaker 1: Here's my diners Club card. I have to go now
19:30
Speaker 1: and get this story done. So he did. He assigned
19:33
Speaker 1: it out to a guy. What was the original reporter's name, Um,
19:37
Speaker 1: his name was Martin Gainsberg, and they wrote on the
19:41
Speaker 1: front page. I shouldn't say they wrote it was definitely
19:44
Speaker 1: all Gainsberger, but he was assigned and definitely under the
19:46
Speaker 1: direction of A Rosenthal, like, this is this is the story.
19:50
Speaker 1: Thirty eight people stood around and did nothing. Yeah, the
19:54
Speaker 1: title of the article was thirty seven. It was thirty
19:56
Speaker 1: seven at a time thirty seven who saw a murder
19:59
Speaker 1: didn't call the police, And basically the entire article and
20:03
Speaker 1: the entire narrative from that moment forward for decades was
20:09
Speaker 1: a not about this woman at all. Hardly she became
20:13
Speaker 1: a symbol be not necessarily even about the crime, but
20:17
Speaker 1: about the crime of uh, these people who didn't the
20:20
Speaker 1: crime of apathy for these thirty seven or thirty eight people.
20:25
Speaker 1: But it was very much misconstrued in the New York Times,
20:29
Speaker 1: to the point where in two thousand four they all
20:32
Speaker 1: but wrote a retraction with new information. Um, because the
20:37
Speaker 1: original article they said, like these people witnessed it. That
20:40
Speaker 1: is not true. Um. Maybe only a couple of people
20:45
Speaker 1: might have actually seen anything with their eyeballs. The other
20:49
Speaker 1: thirty five or thirty six may have heard someone screaming, uh.
20:55
Speaker 1: They might have thought it was a drunken couple in
20:58
Speaker 1: their neighborhood coming home from a bar. Uh. There might
21:01
Speaker 1: have been some apathy involved, for sure for some of them.
21:04
Speaker 1: But to characterize this as thirty seven or thirty eight
21:08
Speaker 1: people witnessed this horrific crime and literally shut their doors
21:12
Speaker 1: and windows to it was not accurate at all, they said. Um,
21:18
Speaker 1: they said specifically. Well, the way that they put it
21:22
Speaker 1: was that there were The way the story read was
21:26
Speaker 1: that thirty eight people had watched this murder which took place.
21:29
Speaker 1: They misreported that there were three attacks and that the
21:32
Speaker 1: man had been chased off twice and came back two
21:36
Speaker 1: more times. Um, But that this whole thing had taken
21:39
Speaker 1: place over thirty minutes, this long, prolonged attack, and that
21:43
Speaker 1: thirty eight people had just been sitting there watching it,
21:45
Speaker 1: doing nothing, And that is definitely a mischaracterization of what
21:50
Speaker 1: had happened, Like you're saying, for the most part, people
21:53
Speaker 1: were ear witnesses, not eyewitnesses. There are certainly not thirty
21:56
Speaker 1: eight eyewitnesses, and most people weren't in a position to
22:00
Speaker 1: do much, if anything about it, certainly physically. But I
22:04
Speaker 1: don't know if you could call it like a retraction
22:07
Speaker 1: because the point that A Rosenthal he never apologized for whatever.
22:12
Speaker 1: Even in the documentary he's interviewed, um he and he's like, I,
22:17
Speaker 1: this is great, I'm glad that it did what it did. Yeah. Sure.
22:20
Speaker 1: His The point is still there that there was apathy
22:23
Speaker 1: in in that there were two people who could have
22:28
Speaker 1: done something and they didn't. But then from what the
22:33
Speaker 1: Other witnesses said the scream was pretty clearly not a
22:37
Speaker 1: purse snatching and not a couple fighting drunkenly, that it
22:41
Speaker 1: was a violent crime being committed on this woman. And
22:45
Speaker 1: people still didn't do anything. Yeah, they misreported. Um, possibly
22:51
Speaker 1: that no one called police. Apparently perhaps up to three
22:55
Speaker 1: people called the police, although police logs showed only one
22:59
Speaker 1: call came in. Um. And it may be a case
23:01
Speaker 1: of these people now telling themselves like I called the
23:05
Speaker 1: cops that did something when they may not have. Uh,
23:07
Speaker 1: they did not report at all that Ms Ferrar had
23:11
Speaker 1: gone down to be with her. She was not mentioned ever. UM.
23:15
Speaker 1: So I kind of went from feeling like, yeah, you
23:17
Speaker 1: know this bystander effect it had good. It led to
23:20
Speaker 1: the being created apparently in some ways, and people study
23:25
Speaker 1: this in class and it raised awareness. So you know,
23:28
Speaker 1: if they stretched it a little bit, then it had
23:30
Speaker 1: a good effect. That's what Abe basically, that was his position.
23:34
Speaker 1: That still is his position. But oh did he finally
23:38
Speaker 1: passed away? Um? And then I finally came around and
23:42
Speaker 1: be like, no, you know, the truth is what you
23:45
Speaker 1: should print. And if you're a reporter and you run
23:47
Speaker 1: a story, you should print the truth and not some
23:50
Speaker 1: sensationalized version of it to sell newspapers. No, no, absolutely,
23:54
Speaker 1: I agree with you, And I think the one thing
23:56
Speaker 1: that you can hang on a Rosenthal is that, Um,
24:00
Speaker 1: that story was definitely fashioned in a manner to be
24:03
Speaker 1: as sensational as possible, to shock and outrage the public
24:07
Speaker 1: as much as possible. But I still think it's rooted
24:10
Speaker 1: in in the basic fact that there was apathy involved
24:15
Speaker 1: and that it possibly allowed Winston mostly to finish the
24:20
Speaker 1: job that Kitty Jenneviez might have survived had somebody done
24:25
Speaker 1: more than just sit up, look out the window and
24:27
Speaker 1: go back to bed or not even bother to look
24:30
Speaker 1: out the window. And like you said, Chuck, like this
24:33
Speaker 1: had a lot of impact because this this story comes
24:36
Speaker 1: out in nine and for forty years. It wasn't until
24:40
Speaker 1: two thousand four that the time saw fit to like
24:42
Speaker 1: go back and really reinvestigate, and they did. There was
24:46
Speaker 1: a great, um, great article called Kitty four years later,
24:50
Speaker 1: I think, um, and and the author goes through and
24:54
Speaker 1: reinvestigates the case and really sets a lot of facts straight. Um.
24:58
Speaker 1: But within that forty year period, the effects that this
25:02
Speaker 1: murder had were just sweeping. It led to the establishment
25:07
Speaker 1: of nine on one. It's a big one and it
25:10
Speaker 1: it created this whole field of psychology that looks into
25:15
Speaker 1: the psychology of crowds. You know, why we would just
25:18
Speaker 1: stand around? What is this diffusion of responsibility? None of
25:22
Speaker 1: that understanding existed until the Kidty Geneviez murder. Yeah, and weirdly,
25:26
Speaker 1: why is someone Why is a solo witness more apt
25:31
Speaker 1: to act than a group of people? One thing I
25:34
Speaker 1: saw is that is called social influence, and that we
25:36
Speaker 1: take our cues from others. So if inaction is basically
25:40
Speaker 1: what is on the table right, then we're going to
25:43
Speaker 1: be inactive as well. If people are starting to move
25:46
Speaker 1: toward it, towards the problem, we'll probably join in too.
25:51
Speaker 1: I could see that, or people thinking like either I'm
25:55
Speaker 1: not someone else's better equipped to deal with this than me,
25:58
Speaker 1: or I feel like someone else will do this so
26:02
Speaker 1: I don't have to. Yeah, a lot goes into play.
26:04
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting. One of the less productive things that
26:07
Speaker 1: came out of it, though, is this idea that when
26:09
Speaker 1: you live in a city, in a big city, you
26:11
Speaker 1: put enough people together, everybody stops caring about anybody else.
26:14
Speaker 1: They're all out for number one and Q gardens became
26:18
Speaker 1: the center of this or just such a symbolic example
26:24
Speaker 1: of of urban care uncaring, I guess, and Kitty Jona
26:29
Speaker 1: Viz became a symbol of of that as well. And
26:33
Speaker 1: they need to do something to act out um, to
26:38
Speaker 1: help other people when you see them need help. Alright,
26:41
Speaker 1: So let's take another quick break here and we're going
26:44
Speaker 1: to get back into what happened to uh Mr Mosley
26:47
Speaker 1: and the further effects of this crime after this. So
27:15
Speaker 1: a week after this murder, uh Mosley was breaking into
27:21
Speaker 1: a house. He's not a good guy, No, he was
27:24
Speaker 1: a terrible guy. He was um beyond being a sociopath
27:29
Speaker 1: and a psychotic, was of just a burglar and he
27:33
Speaker 1: would he was just straight up robbing a house one
27:35
Speaker 1: day of a television and one of the neighbors saw
27:38
Speaker 1: this called the cops. Cops came and arrested him. No, no, no, no,
27:42
Speaker 1: that's not true. What the neighbor. Here's the thing, this
27:46
Speaker 1: is the great ironic twist of the Kittie Jane v story.
27:49
Speaker 1: He went to a different neighborhood. He was robbing a
27:52
Speaker 1: house and the neighbors said, hey, what are you doing?
27:55
Speaker 1: And he started to run from the house. The neighbor
27:56
Speaker 1: chased him and tackled him and held him until the
27:58
Speaker 1: cops came. Oh yeah, he called that's how he went
28:01
Speaker 1: down intervention. Yeah yeah, yeah, but ampathy intervention a week later. Yes, okay,
28:08
Speaker 1: So at any rate, he calls the cops, he gets arrested,
28:11
Speaker 1: and very like, uh, matter of factly says that he
28:16
Speaker 1: killed Kitty Genevise. And not only that, but he killed
28:19
Speaker 1: supposedly two other women, a woman named Barbara Craylick. Uh.
28:24
Speaker 1: Actually she was a girl, she's only fifteen, and then
28:27
Speaker 1: a woman named Annie Mae Johnson. And apparently both of
28:31
Speaker 1: them had been sexually assaulted. And he was never tried
28:34
Speaker 1: for those But um he did plead not guilty by
28:37
Speaker 1: reason of insanity, which did not work well. Sentenced to death,
28:41
Speaker 1: and by luck of timing, was able to appeal. Uh.
28:45
Speaker 1: And the death penalty had gone away from most crimes
28:48
Speaker 1: in that time period, and he um was resentenced to
28:52
Speaker 1: life in prison. Yes, supposedly the prosecution had withheld some
28:56
Speaker 1: evidence about his mental state during his sentencing, so he
29:00
Speaker 1: was able to get it reduced. So he was hanging
29:03
Speaker 1: out during his time. Um, and he was in attica,
29:08
Speaker 1: I believe and he had injured himself and was being
29:12
Speaker 1: taken to the hospital, and on the way the way there,
29:14
Speaker 1: he got the gun away from the guard who was
29:18
Speaker 1: escorting him and took off and for I think five days,
29:23
Speaker 1: he basically just the city of Buffalo was in mortal
29:27
Speaker 1: fear of the fact that the guy who murdered Kitty
29:30
Speaker 1: Geneviez was now on the loose in their town. And
29:33
Speaker 1: they were afraid, rightfully, so he raped one woman. When
29:37
Speaker 1: the cops closed in on him, he got ahold of
29:40
Speaker 1: five people and held him hostage in a standoff that
29:43
Speaker 1: lasted for a little while with the FBI before they
29:46
Speaker 1: finally got to him. Um, he was bad dude. So
29:49
Speaker 1: they sent him back to prison and uh, they said,
29:52
Speaker 1: you're not getting out here ever. Yeah, he was later
29:56
Speaker 1: a part of the Attica prison riots as well. And Um,
30:00
Speaker 1: the one lady that he killed, he burned her alive,
30:04
Speaker 1: like the family was upstairs, and he broke into her house,
30:09
Speaker 1: raped her, killed her, and burned her alive in the
30:11
Speaker 1: home and the house went up in flames. So it
30:14
Speaker 1: sounded like he had no He sounded like a true sociopath,
30:18
Speaker 1: like he had no Um, not, there's ever reason for
30:21
Speaker 1: killing someone, but it was always just at random because
30:25
Speaker 1: he wanted to do that. That's a lot what it
30:28
Speaker 1: sounds like. It was a self indulgence. So in the documentary,
30:33
Speaker 1: UM very powerful scene where the son I'm sorry, the
30:38
Speaker 1: little brother of Kitty, who was told through his eyes,
30:41
Speaker 1: interviews and sits down with one of the sons of
30:45
Speaker 1: Mosley and it's just like, I mean, you cut the
30:50
Speaker 1: tension with a knife. Obviously, it's just so like fraught
30:53
Speaker 1: with tension, and um he had told his son that
30:58
Speaker 1: she was yelling racial lers at him. He also said
31:02
Speaker 1: that he was just a getaway driver um for some
31:06
Speaker 1: mobster and the Genevese family was related to the crime
31:10
Speaker 1: mob family, the Genevese family and none of this stuff
31:13
Speaker 1: is true. And the brother was just like a no,
31:17
Speaker 1: We're not related to that family at all. We have
31:20
Speaker 1: nothing to do with that. And he just gives him
31:22
Speaker 1: a look when he talks about the racial slurs, like,
31:25
Speaker 1: come on, man, that's not what happened. So it was
31:28
Speaker 1: a really really powerful scene of these two guys kind
31:32
Speaker 1: of working it out in a way. I didn't see
31:35
Speaker 1: them working anything out, oh see, which made it even
31:37
Speaker 1: worse for me. I thought there was some between them.
31:41
Speaker 1: They kind of came to a nice, nicer place than
31:43
Speaker 1: where they started. Did not catch that at all. Maybe
31:45
Speaker 1: you just skip forward or something. Maybe I was like,
31:51
Speaker 1: I can't take this. Well. The sun was saying, like,
31:54
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's you know, we need to
31:55
Speaker 1: we need to move you know. The son of was
31:59
Speaker 1: saying that they needed to move on from all this,
32:01
Speaker 1: and then the brother was saying, I definitely don't you
32:04
Speaker 1: know the sins of the father and the sins of
32:05
Speaker 1: the sons. Yeah, he said that, so, um, you know,
32:08
Speaker 1: I felt I felt like they were better off than
32:10
Speaker 1: when they started for having that conversation. I honestly did
32:13
Speaker 1: not catch that well regardless. Um Winston Mosley after I
32:20
Speaker 1: guess after his second his first escape, the second little
32:26
Speaker 1: crime spree in Buffalo, um he when he was captured,
32:30
Speaker 1: he he apparently reformed himself. Where he claimed to be reformed.
32:34
Speaker 1: He got a degree in prison. Um. He wrote an
32:38
Speaker 1: editorial that The New York Times published where he basically said,
32:41
Speaker 1: I'm a changed man. And everybody said, look at that.
32:44
Speaker 1: It's just about the time your first parole hearing is
32:46
Speaker 1: coming up. This is great timing. Uh. He went up
32:49
Speaker 1: before the parole board and they said no. Uh. He
32:53
Speaker 1: went up before the parole board again, they said no.
32:55
Speaker 1: He went up eighteen times. Uh when eighteen times the
32:58
Speaker 1: parole board said no. Yeah. I think the last one
33:01
Speaker 1: was just a couple of years before he died. But
33:02
Speaker 1: he died in two dozen sixteen, A d one in prison. Yeah,
33:07
Speaker 1: and he Uh, the brother tried to get an interview
33:09
Speaker 1: with him, and he said no, that he didn't want
33:12
Speaker 1: to be exploited anymore. And you could just feel this
33:17
Speaker 1: brother's pain of like really wanting to try and to
33:19
Speaker 1: talk him into it again. Um. And that basically the
33:23
Speaker 1: people that that were the go between like, yeah, you know,
33:27
Speaker 1: you can try, we can't keep you, but uh, he's
33:30
Speaker 1: not gonna change his mind. Right. So he never got
33:32
Speaker 1: that interview. Uh, but I feel like he got. I
33:36
Speaker 1: don't think he was looking for answers. I mean in
33:38
Speaker 1: the documentary, he went back to many of these apartment
33:42
Speaker 1: windows just to look at what their vantage point might
33:44
Speaker 1: have been. He got an actress to recreate, um, what
33:49
Speaker 1: the screaming would have sounded like, uh from down there
33:52
Speaker 1: on the street, which was very chilling scene. And I
33:56
Speaker 1: don't know that he was looking for like you said
33:59
Speaker 1: he was at odds with his family. Of times you
34:00
Speaker 1: could tell the one little brother was like, man, this
34:02
Speaker 1: is hard on all of us, so you need to stop. UM.
34:06
Speaker 1: But I don't think he was necessarily looking for the
34:08
Speaker 1: closure in that I want to find out for sure
34:11
Speaker 1: if these people could have stopped it. I think the
34:13
Speaker 1: closure comes more in the journey of learning about his
34:18
Speaker 1: sister and learning as much as he can about this case.
34:21
Speaker 1: It's really interesting. It was very interesting, um the two
34:27
Speaker 1: four Times article and then now this, this documentary has
34:30
Speaker 1: definitely exonerated Q Gardens as a whole. They said, now
34:34
Speaker 1: there's there's way more nuance to this, there's way more UM.
34:38
Speaker 1: But two things to people that have um not been exonerated.
34:43
Speaker 1: Our guy named Joseph Fink and a guy named Carl Ross.
34:47
Speaker 1: Carl Ross was the guy who lived at the top
34:49
Speaker 1: of the vestibule who opened his door. The ironic thing
34:52
Speaker 1: about Carl Ross is, if you notice it says thirty
34:54
Speaker 1: eight witnesses, thirty seven did nothing. The thirty that that
34:59
Speaker 1: that last thirty eight witness that the Times was referring
35:02
Speaker 1: to was Carl Ross. They said, he's the one who
35:04
Speaker 1: called the police. He called the police, like long after
35:07
Speaker 1: Kitty Genovese was dead. Yeah, so he was, Actually he
35:12
Speaker 1: was actually, I don't want to say celebrated or whatever,
35:15
Speaker 1: but he was exonerated initially by this Times article when
35:18
Speaker 1: it turns out that he was one of the two
35:20
Speaker 1: people who could have done something and didn't. The other
35:22
Speaker 1: one was Joseph Fink, who saw the initial attack from
35:24
Speaker 1: his vantage point in the elevator. He ran the elevator
35:27
Speaker 1: in the Mowbray apartments across the street, and he um
35:31
Speaker 1: apparently saw what was happening and left his his elevator
35:35
Speaker 1: and went to bed and that was that. But again,
35:39
Speaker 1: it seems like the overall feeling is okay. Other than
35:43
Speaker 1: those two guys, everybody else is fine. I just disagree
35:46
Speaker 1: with that. I think that there's a lot more that
35:47
Speaker 1: people could have done that didn't, And I don't think
35:50
Speaker 1: it's a I just don't think that everybody's off the
35:53
Speaker 1: hook for that. Yep, you got anything else? No, man. Uh.
36:01
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about Kitty Genevese, just
36:05
Speaker 1: search the Internet. There's a lot about her, but be
36:08
Speaker 1: careful what you read because it's all over the place. Frankly. Uh.
36:12
Speaker 1: And since I said internet, It's time for a listener mail,
36:17
Speaker 1: uh fish fraud follow up. Hey, guys, recently began began
36:21
Speaker 1: a job as a marine fisheries observer for the Department
36:25
Speaker 1: of Fishing, Game and the Bearing Sea, and just listen
36:29
Speaker 1: to your fish fraud episode. Each season, a percentage of
36:32
Speaker 1: vessels fish fishing here at least are randomly selected have
36:37
Speaker 1: an observer on board to monitor the operations and buy
36:40
Speaker 1: catch that come up in their pots or nets. The
36:44
Speaker 1: presence of an observer is admittedly a bit of a
36:46
Speaker 1: drag for this fisherman. We have to put up with
36:48
Speaker 1: us skinny nerds ll L E type that uh. We
36:54
Speaker 1: are generally a great deterrent of any mischief at sea.
36:57
Speaker 1: But from what I have seen, most of the fishermen
36:59
Speaker 1: are real, shar honest folks who know what they're doing.
37:03
Speaker 1: Of course, this is only a small portion of all
37:05
Speaker 1: the vessels on the water. Isn't going to solve that
37:08
Speaker 1: problem by any means, But what you'd like to know
37:10
Speaker 1: that there is some coverage on fishing, fishing, vessels and processors.
37:15
Speaker 1: Thanks for all the laughs, my dudes. That is from
37:18
Speaker 1: Kevin h Alexandra Witz in Olympia, Washington. It's a lot.
37:24
Speaker 1: Kevin had no idea, did you that these people did that?
37:28
Speaker 1: But there's basically like a sky Marshall program fighting fish
37:32
Speaker 1: fraud on the high seas. Yeah, we talked about that,
37:34
Speaker 1: we did. Yeah, I don't remember that. Yeah, we were
37:37
Speaker 1: just like, it's just so infrequent and random that you know,
37:41
Speaker 1: what's what good is it doing? And it sounds like
37:43
Speaker 1: he agrees in some ways, but still have fun out
37:47
Speaker 1: there on the high seas. Don't get seasick. Uh. If
37:50
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with this, like Kevin did,
37:52
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us that that's y s K podcast.
37:55
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
37:57
Speaker 1: you Should Know, Uh, you can send us any all
38:00
Speaker 1: the Stuff podcast at houstuffworks dot com and there's always
38:02
Speaker 1: join us ter home on the web. Stuff you Should
38:04
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38:14
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