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

by Pelonero, Catherine

  Kitty called for help. She called for Karl Ross by name, calling that it was her, crying out that she had been stabbed.

  Karl Ross called his friend in Nassau County, who told him to call the police. He hung up on her, climbed out onto the roof, and banged on Mrs. Archer’s living room window.

  Mrs. Archer heard Kitty calling for help. She gave Greta Schwartz’s phone number to Karl Ross. Ross left and called Greta.

  Greta came down, found Kitty in the hallway, and hurried back to her own apartment, where she called Sophie Farrar.

  Sophie Farrar came downstairs and she and Greta went to Karl’s hallway.

  Sophie held Kitty in her arms while Karl Ross called the police. The squad car from the 102nd arrived at the scene two minutes after receiving Ross’s call.

  From her apartment above the bookstore, Mrs. Archer had heard Kitty’s pleading in the hallway, which had apparently lasted some minutes. Was it possible then that the persons in the other three apartments by the corner had not heard?

  The only absolute certainty was that no one had responded in any meaningful way to the last words Kitty Genovese would ever speak.

  The killer had been lucky.

  Or perhaps he knew the city better than Inspector Frederick Lussen or the detectives did.

  ON MONDAY, MARCH 16, the same day Mrs. Archer gave her extended account of the crime, the funeral of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese took place near her parents’ home in New Canaan, Connecticut.

  Her family chose a white dress for her burial. For some reason this detail would stay with Mary Ann. How strange, seeing Kitty wearing a white dress. It reminded Mary Ann of a wedding gown. Sometimes, afterward, she would dream of Kitty in the ghostly white dress, when she wasn’t dreaming of her on the steel table at the morgue.

  Mary Ann kept a low profile, as befitting a mere friend of the deceased. She could not shout, Give her back to me!, as she wished to. She could only push herself through the ceremonies, offer quiet condolences to Kitty’s family.

  This, then, was really the end. Kitty would be buried, the only truly happy year of Mary’s Ann life slipping forever beneath the earth along with her.

  Among the many mourners who made the trip to New Canaan to pay their respects was Kitty’s coworker, Victor Horan. “Two things I’ll never forget. First was the mother, Kitty’s mother, breaking down. Just sobbing. She was really brokenhearted, poor woman.

  “The second thing was the detectives. The same two detectives who came to my house the morning it happened came to the wake. Judy Anderson, Evelyn [Randolph]’s maid, walked in and one of the detectives asked me, ‘Who’s the black gal?’ I told them she was Evelyn’s maid. She knew Kitty from the bar.”

  The detectives had come to see if they spotted any suspicious individuals in attendance at Kitty’s funeral services. Women are often killed by a person known to them. But there was no one here who seemed suspect.

  Church bells tolled for Kitty Genovese. In a death shadowed by cruel happenstance and bitter ironies, the very last of these may have been her solemn burial in New Canaan, a small town she often said did not appeal to her because she never felt alive there.

  Certainly her traumatized family never intended any such irony, just as twenty-eight-year-old Kitty had certainly never given instructions on where she wanted to be buried.

  It all made little difference now anyway.

  AFTER FIVE DAYS of investigation and scores of interviews, police were left with little more than the alarm for the suspect that had been transmitted by Detective Mitchell Sang:

  Male—Light complexion negro or dark complexion white, approximately 25 yrs.—slim build—wearing dark Tyrolean type hat, ¾ length dark coat—dark pants—walks with short-paced rapid gait—erect stature—may be riding in a late model white or light gray domestic compact sedan.

  That, and the lingering fear that the killer would strike again.

  4 Ross is variously identified in documents of the time as both “Karl” and “Carl.” In the interest of simplicity, he is called “Karl” throughout this book except in cases when a direct quotation is made from a source giving his name with the alternate spelling “Carl.”

  chapter 9

  “WINSTON?”

  Elizabeth Moseley stepped toward the bedroom. Entering the room, she found her husband alone, sitting in a chair by the window.

  “Winston?” She stepped toward him. “What are you doing? You have to go to work,” she said.

  It was March 18, 1964, a Wednesday morning. Bettye Moseley had just come home from her night shift at Elmhurst General Hospital. Normally her husband was heading out the door by the time she arrived, but not this morning. When she did not see him in the driveway, the kitchen, or anywhere downstairs, she first called to him, then walked upstairs. Here he was in their bedroom, sitting, staring blankly out the window, not answering.

  Bettye approached him, speaking his name again. He still did not respond. She went to shake him and saw that he looked pale, white. He appeared to be in some sort of daze.

  “Are you going to work?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Well, you are late already.”

  “Call my job. Tell them I’ll be there.”

  “Winston, what’s wrong?”

  He wouldn’t tell her. He would not say anything, except to insist that she call his work and tell them he would be there later. Winston and Bettye Moseley then had their first, and perhaps last, loud argument. As a trained nurse, Bettye knew how to keep her cool, how to weather a stressful situation with calm control. But this, this bizarre new spectacle—her husband sitting transfixed, as if in a waking coma, barely communicating, late for work . . . What was happening here?

  For months now she had stood by patiently, helplessly, while her husband slowly collapsed under some invisible weight. The stony silences, the constant beer drinking, the gradual inward slide. She had reached for him, but he never reached back.

  Bettye Moseley had finally reached the limits of her endurance. She knew something was wrong. Very wrong. This time she insisted he tell her. She raised her voice, demanding an answer, but to no avail. All he wanted her to do was call work for him. She refused. Bettye would not be placated, not this time. Still, he would not relent, would not give her any explanation. “Just call work for me and tell them I’ll be there,” he said.

  “I’m not going to make any excuse for you,” she told him finally, exasperated. “Make your own excuse.”

  He left, driving away in the Corvair.

  In the sudden strange emptiness of the house on Sutter Avenue, Bettye Moseley went about her day. She had little choice, with two babies, five dogs, a home to take care of, and a need to get at least a few hours of sleep before her next night shift at the hospital. She hoped her husband would tell her what was wrong with him. It was so obvious to her that something was terribly amiss, had been for some time. But she had no idea what it could be. All she could do was wait, worry. Hope that her husband would take her into his confidence, let her help him, before he became completely undone by whatever it was that haunted him. In the meantime Bettye Moseley had to go about her ordinary routine on March 18, 1964, never suspecting that before day’s end she herself would be undone.

  JOHN TARTAGLIA FEARED no man. That was the feeling of his colleagues in the detective bureau who respected him and civilian friends who admired him. Tartaglia was a towering, imposing man in his late thirties, a second-grade detective assigned to the 114th precinct in Astoria, Queens. He had seen action in the Normandy invasion during World War II and plenty more during the last dozen years or so with the NYPD. Smart, savvy, and focused, Tartaglia had already earned a reputation as one of the finest young detectives on the force.

  On the afternoon of March 18, 1964, Detective Tartaglia had a man before him in the station house who had been picked up by two patrolmen on suspicion of burglarizing a home in the East Elmhurst section of Queens. The burglary of which the man was accused had be
en a bold act; a daytime break-in of a home in a populous area. The suspect, who wore no disguise nor had attempted to hide his features in any way, had allegedly carried a television out of a house at around 11:30 a.m. that morning. The house he burglarized was unoccupied at the time, the residents not at home, but one of their neighbors had seen the unfamiliar man going in and out of the house. The neighbor had confronted him, asking what he was doing there. According to the neighbor, the man had smiled back at him and replied, “It’s okay, I’m just giving them a hand moving.” The burglar had appeared so calm and unflustered that the neighbor had almost believed him; just to be sure, though, he called another neighbor to see if he knew whether the people who lived next door were moving. No, he was certain they were not, although he too found it very strange that a thief would not flee after being confronted. Who was this guy?

  The two men watched the young burglar walk from his car back into the house. One of them pulled the distributor cap off the car—a white Chevy Corvair—while the other called the police.

  When the owner of the Corvair, a young, slender, light-skinned black man, emerged from the house and tried to start his car, the engine would not turn over. Unperturbed, the young man got out of the car, locked it, and walked away, hands in his pockets, whistling.

  Patrolmen Daniel Dunn and Pete Williamson picked him up a few minutes later, walking a short distance away from the house he had burglarized. He did not argue, did not resist. They searched him and found a screwdriver in his pocket. Still the young man appeared unperturbed, even when they took him back to his Corvair and found the spoils of not one, but two burglaries he had committed that morning. Yes, he told the officers, he had broken into two different homes that day. It was only 11:30 a.m.

  Dunn and Williamson arrested the man and took him to the 114th precinct, where he was delivered to duty detective John Tartaglia for further questioning.

  The suspect had given his name to the officer at the desk when they brought him in—Winston Moseley, age twenty-nine, 133-19 Sutter Avenue, South Ozone Park. They ran a check on him. He had no prior record.

  The patrolmen had found several items thought to be stolen in the trunk of his Corvair—two televisions, some small appliances, and a cache of pornographic pictures. Of the pornography, he made a point of telling the police that those pictures had come from the first house he robbed that morning. He would never buy such things himself.

  Detective John Tartaglia could handle the toughest of customers with ease. His deep voice and steely bearing were enough to intimidate the most bold and aggressive criminals. In this instance, however, Detective Tartaglia found himself staring across his desk at a slight young man who appeared as anything but a hardened street criminal. Composed, well groomed, rather nondescript in appearance, the suspect sat still in the chair, eyes cast downward. He gave no hint of anxiety, and neither did he betray any sign of concern nor alarm over his predicament, though he was obviously alert to his surroundings. He might easily be mistaken for a man patiently waiting for a routine checkup at the doctor’s office rather than one who had just been hauled into a police station on suspicion of a felony.

  Tartaglia had no need to subdue this suspect. He already seemed about as subdued as a man could get. Oddly, though, he did not seem intimidated; more like it was simply his nature to be passive, and he would be that way regardless of whether he was being interrogated at a police station or browsing the aisles at a grocery store.

  When Tartaglia asked a question, he answered clearly, without hesitation, his soft voice steady and calm. He was obviously intelligent and articulate. He seemed to be a bright man with his wits about him. What he did not seem to be was brazen, which seemed at odds with the nature of the crimes he had just committed, particularly the second burglary where the suspicious neighbor had questioned him. And there seemed no doubt as to whether he had committed these crimes, since he admitted to them at once, even freely giving additional details to Detective Tartaglia: he planned to take the stolen TVs to his father’s repair shop in Corona, where they could be sold. As for why he had returned to the house in the second burglary after the neighbor had questioned him, he realized that he had left his screwdriver inside the home he had just robbed. He had gone back inside to get it.

  Questioning this suspect was proving oddly easy. Not only was there a complete absence of belligerence, but also he did not even seem to want to hold back. Not that the suspect was bragging—some criminals do, but again, he did not seem the type—but more like he was content to have this chat. He was just an exceedingly tranquil, ordinary guy, obviously quite intelligent, having a measured conversation with another guy who just happened to be a detective. The suspect didn’t offer any new details, but nor did he put up any resistance to Tartaglia’s questions. When asked something, he simply answered. Passive. Cooperative.

  Very strange.

  Detective Tartaglia asked him a little more about himself, perhaps as much out of curiosity as protocol.

  As he had told the desk sergeant when they brought him in, his name was Winston Moseley. He owned his house in South Ozone Park, lived there with his wife and two children. His profession was Remington Rand tab operator at Raygram, up in Mount Vernon. Asked to explain his job, Moseley told Tartaglia that he managed the company’s inventory schedules, programming the Remington Rand machines to read the inventory punch cards as a means of tracking the movement of goods, thereby generating sales and profit reports by vendor. A specialized task, for which Moseley currently earned $100 per week. He had been with Raygram for ten years now.

  Whatever else this suspect might be, he was certainly no hapless halfwit, fencing TVs to survive. It didn’t sound as if he needed to be stealing at all in fact, or doing anything of a criminal nature for that matter. He had a nice home, family, and a steady job. His wife worked too, earning almost as much as he did. Why for God’s sake was he burglarizing homes? Moreover, why was he so freely giving up all this information to a detective?

  Perhaps the biggest question Tartaglia had after speaking with Moseley was how he had even been captured; he was far too intelligent to have been caught the way he had. He had not even tried to talk his way out of it with either the patrolmen or the detective.

  John Tartaglia had to wonder the same thing as Bettye Moseley—What is going on here?

  Tartaglia asked Moseley if he had committed any other burglaries besides the two this morning. Yes, he had burglarized many homes. How many? He wasn’t sure; probably thirty to forty, at least.

  He told Detective Tartaglia about his first burglary last summer, crawling through the window of a random home in the dead of night, on impulse. He mentioned the people sleeping, how easy it had been to sneak into their home, take what he wanted, and slip out, undetected. Today marked his first daylight break-ins. Normally he invaded homes between midnight and dawn, while his wife was at work and the children home asleep. As for his wife, she never knew he left the house at night. As for the children, he trusted his five German Shepherds to guard them while he was gone. The dogs would attack a stranger who came into his house. Besides, he couldn’t imagine anyone coming in to hurt the children anyway. Who would do such a thing?

  As for the burglaries, he usually just took the television. He would keep the stolen TVs in the trunk of his car until he could take them over to his father’s shop. They never stayed in the trunk long, as he went to his father’s repair shop every night after his day at Raygram. He helped his father by making deliveries of repaired television sets.

  Tartaglia asked if he stole TVs from the homes of his father’s customers. To this inquiry Moseley became indignant. Of course not, he told Detective Tartaglia. He would never do such a dishonest thing as that.

  ARRESTING ALPHONSO MOSELEY was not something John Tartaglia wanted to do. He had little choice, however, after Moseley’s son pointed out several televisions in his shop that had come from the son’s clandestine burglaries. The older man had been working at his repair bench when po
lice escorted his son into his shop at 2:00 p.m. on the afternoon of March 18. Alphonso Moseley looked up, bewildered, and then stood by in helpless astonishment as his son, avoiding his father’s eyes, pointed out the stolen merchandise. Like his son, the elder Mr. Moseley displayed neither hostility nor belligerence. He did not raise his voice or cause any commotion. Alphonso kept his calm much like his son had, but he did react, however quietly. Surprise. Confusion. Then pain. Silent suffering etched into his aging face as he observed his son point at televisions he claimed to have stolen. Alphonso never would have believed it had he not heard the admissions from his son’s own mouth.

  Alphonso Moseley looked and behaved more like a respectable, dignified grandfather rather than the father, much less co-conspirator, of a master thief. Winston Moseley told the detectives that his father had not been privy to the burglaries; he had kept him in the dark about his criminal forays, just as he had his wife and everyone else. It mattered little, however. With the evidence sitting on the shelves of Alphonso Moseley’s repair shop, Detective Tartaglia had to arrest the older man for receipt of stolen goods.

  The older man went without resistance. Perhaps there was no resistance left in Alphonso Moseley. Life would do with him as it pleased it seemed, no matter how much he tried to make things right. As the detectives escorted him out of his little repair shop on Northern Boulevard, the business he had started so he and his son could work together, he may have thought of all the times he had tried to coax his son into opening up more, mixing better with people, and taking an interest in things other than the damn dogs and ant colonies. He may have thought back on the years of Winston’s childhood when the two of them had essentially made their way alone, his son dwelling largely in a private introverted world while the father worried about his shy, motherless child. Whatever his thoughts, he made only one request, spoken in the muted tone of a man accustomed to pleading for even the smallest of kindnesses: “Don’t hurt my boy.”