Genovese had driven home from her job working as a bar manager, late in the night of March 13, 1964. Arriving home at about 3:15 a.m. and parking about 100 feet (30 m) from her apartment's door, which was around the rear of the building, she was approached by Winston Moseley, a business machine operator.[2] Moseley ran after her and quickly overtook her, stabbing her twice in the back. Genovese screamed, "Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!" It was heard by several neighbors, but on a cold night with the windows closed, only a few of them recognized the sound as a cry for help. When one of the neighbors shouted at the attacker, "Let that girl alone!", Moseley ran away and Genovese slowly made her way toward the rear entrance of her apartment building. She was seriously injured, but now out of view of those few who may have had reason to believe she was in need of help.
Records of the earliest calls to police are unclear and were certainly not given a high priority by the police. One witness said his father called police after the initial attack and reported that a woman was "beat up, but got up and was staggering around."[6]
Other witnesses observed Moseley enter his car and drive away, only to return ten minutes later. In his car, he changed his hat to a wide-rimmed one to shadow his face. He systematically searched the parking lot, train station, and small apartment complex, ultimately finding Genovese, who was lying, barely conscious, in a hallway at the back of the building, where a locked doorway had prevented her from entering the building. [7] Out of view of the street and of those who may have heard or seen any sign of the original attack, he proceeded to further attack her, stabbing her several more times. Knife wounds in her hands suggested that she attempted to defend herself from him. While she lay dying, he raped her. He stole about $49 from her and left her dying in the hallway. The attacks spanned approximately half an hour.
A few minutes after the final attack a witness, Karl Ross, called the police. Police arrived within minutes of Ross' call. Genovese was taken away by ambulance, at 4:15 am, and died en route to the hospital. Later investigation by police and prosecutors revealed that approximately a dozen (but almost certainly not the 38 cited in the Times article) individuals nearby had heard or observed portions of the attack, though none could have seen or been aware of the entire incident.[8] Only one witness, Joseph Fink, was aware she was stabbed in the first attack, and only Karl Ross was aware of it in the second attack. Many were entirely unaware that an assault or homicide was in progress; some thought that what they saw or heard was a lovers' quarrel or a drunken brawl or a group of friends leaving the bar outside when Moseley first approached Genovese.
Ramming around, reading something completely unrelated, I discovered the transcript of this episode of NPR's On the Media.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Where do you think the number 38 came from?
JOSEPH DE MAY: No one knows. All I can tell you is that there’s a man named Charles Skoller, and he was the assistant prosecutor. He helped prosecute Winston Moseley. And he said he doesn't know where the 38 witness number came from. He said that the District Attorney’s Office found only maybe five or six people who saw anything that they could use, and of the people he identified, there are only really two that I know of who actually saw any part of the physical attack.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And the only person who could be said to have ignored the plight of this young woman was that man at the top of the stairs.
JOSEPH DE MAY: Well, let me tack on that word “ignored.” The rap against the witnesses is not that they sat there and watched what was going on. It was that they heard a scream and did not act upon it. Now, why didn't they act upon it? The common belief is that they didn't want to get involved, and, of course, that quote comes from the one guy at the top of the stairs who said that. But if you look at the Rosenthal book, the people who were interviewed later on said they didn't know why.
I think a number of them were uncertain about what was going on. Others truly thought that other people would call. Others thought that whatever the crisis was, the fact that the attacker had left and Kitty had left the scene under her own power meant there wasn't a problem any more.
And I have to tell you that I do not by any means accept that no one called the police. One of the people who contacted me is a retired New York City police officer who said that he was an eight-year-old boy whose bedroom was on the second floor of that apartment building on the night of the murder. And he said his father did call the police because he was there in the living room when he did. I've heard second- or third-hand about two other people who also said that they called the police.
I grew up with this story still floating around. Television programs used it as a template. Public intellectuals and even science fiction writers (the wiki article notes Harlan Ellison's long, and false, rhapsody, on the alleged incident) used it to create the myth of urban anomie and callousness that still exists. Like the Central Park jogger case of 1990, another incident that didn't occur the way everyone thought it did, or the Columbine HS massacre, it took on a life of its own.
The part of the NPR dialogue that got me slapping my head and shouting, "D'oh!", was the whole issue of the trial of the person who committed this murder. It seems the number "38", which is still bandied about, was one either the author of the original article, or editor Abe Rosenthal found while exploring his rectum (i.e., he pulled it out of his ass). Yet, of such nonsense not just urban myths and legends, but entire social philosophies are born.
In order to discover what actually happened, consulting the trial transcript might have helped, always with the caveat that they are also a limited source of information, too.
The idea that ours is a heartless, callous society that would rather allow an innocent young woman be murdered than trouble ourselves with "involvement" is an ugly story that needs to disappear. While there are, of course, instances where people sit by or walk away rather than help those in need, there are enough others to more than make up for the scared few - hardly 38! - who would rather "not get involved".
