Kitty Genovese

Doubts there were 38 eye witnesses

"Then we started to hear rumblings - rumblings from reporters who had covered the murder of Kitty Genovese and the trial of Winston Moseley discounting the claims that 39 otherwise ordinary and law-abiding citizens watched a slaughter and did nothing.
     We heard a story of one reporter, sent out by his editor to find these witnesses, who came back literally begging that the story not run because there was nothing there. He told his editor that the witnesses did not exist in the numbers claimed. But it was too late, the people of Austin Street in Kew Gardens had been stamped with the indelible mark of Cain - the story ran, full of the appropriate outrage and horror.  . . .
     In retracing the final steps of Kitty Genovese, we began to have doubts, too, as to the number of people who saw something that night. Did the people of Kew Gardens get a bad rap when Kitty Genovese was killed? We have our doubts. You decide."

Quote from: John Melia, "Stigma remains from Genovese case", The New York Daily News, col. 3 (Queens Edition) (Month and day not known, 1984). [PDF - 231 KB]

[Click here to return.]