00:00:00
Hey weirdos. I'm Ash. >> And I'm Elena. >> And this is Morbid. This is morbid. >> It's morbid at 2:00.
00:00:20
>> Yeah. I've had falafel and hummus. >> I've had falafel and garlic dip. >> Hell yeah.
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>> And I'm having a little lollipop. >> Oh my god. >> Having a little sodie break. I'm having
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a little strawberries and cream Dr. Peppery. >> I hate I hate to admit how good those
00:00:33
actually are. >> They are. They're so good. >> Yeah. >> They're not extra like they're not super
00:00:37
sweet. They're not like it. >> No. >> Uh but yeah, it's been, you know, it's been it's it's been a pretty good day
00:00:42
today. >> It's been such a good day. I'm having a little bit of an afternoon. >> Not in the world, but in the pod lab.
00:00:47
>> No, not in the world. >> Clarify that. >> Pretty awful right now. But the pod lab
00:00:51
day has been solid. >> It has been. I started the day with a big ass mason jar coffee, so I knew it
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was going to be a good one. >> Oh, see that's smart. >> I'm crashing a little bit, but that's
00:01:01
what the lollipop is for. >> Going to ride that lollipop. >> Going to ride that.
00:01:04
>> Oh, you know what? I started my day off really well. >> What did you start your day off doing?
00:01:08
>> So, you know how I've been telling you guys like do you know >> Joy just but like don't be hard on
00:01:13
yourself like do it small. So, I'm not being hard on myself is what I'm saying. And so, I was like I need to start
00:01:19
waking up earlier like before the house. I got in a good habit of that and then I
00:01:22
fell out of it. And so now I'm like, "Okay, my problem is I go too hard too fast. I put too much pressure on
00:01:28
myself." So I said, >> "And that's not how you habit stack. >> That is not how you habit stack." And
00:01:32
I've learned this. So I said, "Okay, for a couple weeks, get used to waking up early. Don't do anything productive when
00:01:37
you wake up early. Get your coffee, sit quietly, do something that's enjoyable. Don't feel like you have to be
00:01:44
productive. Just get used to that early morning thing." So I'm in the middle of that and I'm doing well, everybody.
00:01:49
>> Good job. >> And this morning I said, "You don't have to be productive yet. It's not next
00:01:52
week. Do this for a week. We may start on Monday. >> I made my coffee and then I sat down. I
00:01:57
said, I should watch something because like no one's awake to be loud. >> And you actually could have watched
00:02:04
something [ __ ] horrifying. >> I almost did. >> It's surprising that you didn't
00:02:07
actually. >> Well, I here's the funny part. So, I go into my like, you know, my like Netflix
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or Prime and I'm looking through it and I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to watch a horror movie cuz like no one's awake. I
00:02:17
can do this." >> That's what I would have expected. So, I was going to watch like Scream or
00:02:21
something like I was like just a comfort thing. And then I flipped by and I saw Center Stage.
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>> A great pick. >> The movie Center [ __ ] Stage. The one with Jiraqua's Canned Heat.
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>> Yes. >> Yeah, of course. >> That one. >> I haven't seen I probably haven't seen
00:02:42
Center Stage since you were pregnant and we watched it at the apartment. >> That's the last time I watched it. So
00:02:47
that was before that was when I was in high school. >> Earlier I was like, "Oh my god, I
00:02:50
haven't seen that movie in like a few years." I'm like, "That's literally 10 years almost."
00:02:54
>> That's I saw it and something deep within my It's from 2000. It is a 26y old movie. I saw this when it came out.
00:03:03
That's we watched this like Debbie will tell you, we watch this constantly, >> constantly.
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>> Constantly. And I saw it and something deep in my soul said, "Bitch, you watch
00:03:12
that right now." >> See, now I have a question for you. I I think I know the answer and I think we
00:03:17
vary. Out of these two iconic dance movies, which do you pick? Center Stage or Save the Last Dance?
00:03:23
>> Center Stage. >> Center Stage. Center. >> Save the Last Dance is my absolute favorite.
00:03:29
>> Save the Last Dance is great. >> Oh, I might watch nothing from that chair routine. I will take nothing away
00:03:34
from that. >> You better not. >> Nothing. >> Oh, wow. Um, it's iconic. >> Oh, wow. Like, I can't just move on from
00:03:42
that. Maybe I'll wake up early and watch that tomorrow. >> I'm telling you, it started my day off,
00:03:46
right? Cuz it was the nostalgia that this movie brought me. Like the girl who plays Moren was in all those movies
00:03:55
during that time period. What is her name? I need to find it now because I I saw her and I said, "Oh, you and me.
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We've been through so much." >> You and Moren. >> Me and Moren. Because she was in 10
00:04:05
Things I Hate About You. She was in Drive Me Crazy. Remember that banger of a film?
00:04:09
>> Oh my god. crossover with Center Stage and Save the Last Dance. 10 Things I Hate About You.
00:04:13
>> There you go. Julia Styles. We got it. Who is it that plays Moren? I'm looking
00:04:17
it up right now. Susan May Pratt. >> Ah. Oh, wait. >> She was the girl who was obsessed with
00:04:24
Shakespeare, like in love with Shakespeare and 10 Things I Hate About You. >> Yep. Yep.
00:04:27
>> And then Yeah. And she's like the [ __ ] in Drive Me Crazy. >> She's in so many things of that time.
00:04:32
And then she just went away. And I read and of course because I am who I am as a
00:04:37
human as I'm watching this I was like what is that lady up to right now and I looked and I found an article where she
00:04:43
was like yeah I was in all these things in the 2000 like early 2000s I was in like every teen movie and then nothing
00:04:48
happened after that. >> Damn. >> And I was like Susan May justice for Susan May Pratt
00:04:53
>> Mhm. >> is what I say because she's really tough people with three first names.
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>> Yeah. People with their first names get a get a bad rap. Also, fun little fact
00:05:03
that my my hyperfixation journey tell me everything. >> She had no ballet experience before
00:05:09
center stage blew my [ __ ] mind. I know >> that's actually >> and she played the star ballet dancer.
00:05:15
>> Yeah, that's actually nuts. >> Yeah. So, there's that. Zoe Sana's in that and she is
00:05:21
>> a goddess. >> I got to watch this again. I haven't seen this in so long. >> Guys, I highly recommend watching Center
00:05:27
Stage at 5:30 in the morning. >> Check it >> with a hot coffee. Let's [ __ ] go,
00:05:31
girls. >> I highly recommend Feeling Blue. Watch Center Stage at 5:30 in the morning.
00:05:36
>> She's been in a really good mood today, folks. >> I have. It set me right. >> Set me right. I may watch Drive Me Crazy
00:05:43
tomorrow morning. Drive me crazy. That would be a reckless way to start off your morning.
00:05:46
>> It absolutely would. >> It did in the best way. >> I'm ready. I'm ready for it.
00:05:51
>> I don't think I could watch um Save the Last Dance first thing in the morning
00:05:54
because No, that's not a first. You don't need to cry. >> No, not first thing in the morning. You
00:05:58
don't need deep emotions. You need >> teen nostalgia is what you need. >> Yeah. I just woke up from a really scary
00:06:06
dream this morning. >> You did? >> That there was like a robber in your house on the camera.
00:06:10
>> But then we were also getting dinner with Patricia Atel from Southern Charm. >> Wild
00:06:14
>> with Miss and I was lost in Miss Pat's house and I couldn't get to anybody. >> I would get lost in that house.
00:06:19
>> That house is gorgeous. >> No, that's one of those not my house but I'd know my way around houses. That's
00:06:25
honestly. Yeah, that house. >> Gorgeous. >> Obsessed with that house. >> It's kind of just like on the road, I
00:06:32
guess. Like people have driven past it and they're like, it's literally just like right there.
00:06:34
>> That's just >> Not to triangulate Miss Pat's location. >> I mean, she It's on Southern TV.
00:06:39
>> It's a pretty It's a pretty uh iconic house. >> It is. >> Um but yeah, and it was like the burglar
00:06:44
from the Sims. >> No, but it was a lot scarier than that. It was It was dressed like that, but it
00:06:49
didn't have the big uh what's the thing over it? >> Plumb bob. >> Yeah, it did not have a plumb bob.
00:06:53
Remember when you had a plumb bob? >> Yeah, it was scary. And it was saying creepy things into the camera and I was
00:06:57
trying to get to you, but I was like, "Miss Pat." >> I hate that. I mean, you get lost in
00:07:00
Miss Pats, you know? What can you do? >> I wouldn't. But it was in your old apartment, which was like super weird. I
00:07:06
was very transported and then I I hate a dream that you wake up from like first thing in the morning like that
00:07:11
>> where it's like I wasn't like I didn't wake up like shrieking or anything, but
00:07:14
it was like >> just like unsettling. >> Yeah. I don't like that. >> Yeah. And then I ran into my neighbor
00:07:20
who was like the nicest lady and she was so put together and I was wearing I one
00:07:25
hadn't brushed my teeth yet. I was wearing cherry pants. >> Yeah. >> And Drew shoes.
00:07:31
>> Hell yeah. >> It was really embarrassing. >> That's why I'm really happy that it
00:07:35
seems like my whole neighborhood is very um the same in the morning. >> This woman
00:07:40
>> feels like we're all just rolling out there in some sweatpants. I think she has like a a job to go to that's not
00:07:46
like >> that she has to like look nice. >> Yeah. Like I think she has to like look
00:07:49
nice and she looked great. In fact, I told her she had great loafers >> while I was wearing my husband shoes.
00:07:54
>> That's nice. >> My husband's van clampers. >> But you know what? You threw a compliment to somebody first thing in
00:07:58
the morning. I did. You started her day off right. >> I did. And Doolo's day started off
00:08:02
right. She [ __ ] loves our neighbors dog. >> So there you go. >> Yeah. You know, you do what you can.
00:08:07
>> So you know that's that's that's starting your day. >> Starting your day with us. Maybe you're
00:08:13
starting your day with us right now and you're like, "Wow, this is ridiculous." >> Like, "Holy [ __ ] what are you guys
00:08:17
doing?" Well, >> um, you know, if you need one more thing to do, maybe go pre-order the Butcher
00:08:22
Legacy, um, the third book, my series. You get it at butcherleacy.com. You can get it anywhere you want.
00:08:30
>> I believe there are still some signed copies left at Barnes & Noble, but there's a limited amount. So, go, Those
00:08:35
are only at Barnes & Noble right now, the signed copies. So, but, you know, go grab them wherever you want. And there's
00:08:41
special editions with fun illustrations and sprayed edges. >> There is. That's fun. So, go get
00:08:45
whatever one you feel you are drawn to. But for all, >> you know, >> um, also check out, we are, if you're
00:08:53
listening to the rewatcher, continue to do so, please. And if you're not, what the heck?
00:08:56
>> Come on. True Blood so fun. >> True Blood is really, really good. >> We're having a blast.
00:09:00
>> We are going to be covering next Wednesday the penultimate episode and then obviously the season finale the
00:09:06
week after that. So, tune in. And you know, it's going to be awesome because Ash is going to find out the
00:09:11
identification of a serial killer on True Blood. >> And I have so many theories >> and I can't wait for her to find out.
00:09:16
>> I'm so excited, but I'm also so nervous. I hate being wrong. >> I know. I'm excited for you to find out.
00:09:21
>> Okay. >> Uh but yeah, join us over there. It's a lot of fun. And I think that's
00:09:27
>> I I shouldn't say that's all business, but you know, >> that's all our business and pleasure, I
00:09:31
would say. >> Check it. >> Um but let's get into the case, shall we? >> We shall. So the case I have today for
00:09:37
us tell me >> is the murder of Kitty Genevese. >> Oh I'm I did take a psychology class in
00:09:46
college. >> Bystander effect. >> So I am familiar with this. >> Yep. A lot of people should be familiar
00:09:50
with this. If you took any psychology classes or any true crime or true crime any criminal justice classes
00:09:57
>> uh anything like that in school usually they they bring this up. Um, so this case is wild.
00:10:06
>> It's very tragic. >> It's very sad and very tragic and trigger warning because it's like very
00:10:13
brutal. Um, so let's talk about first who Kitty Genevies was. >> Katherine Kitty Genevies was born July
00:10:21
7th, 1935. She was born in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. She
00:10:26
was the oldest of five children born to Vincent and Rachel Genevies. Um, of the five Genevese children, quote, "Kitty
00:10:34
was the talker, brighteyed and full of pep." >> Oh, I love that. >> Uh, the family was definitely not well
00:10:39
off financially, and you know, life could be a little difficult. They're in a cramped Brooklyn apartment together.
00:10:44
That's a lot of people. >> Yeah. Think about Yeah. And think about New York apartments right now, and
00:10:48
there's seven people in there. >> No. >> Yeah. Uh, but they generally like they got along with each other and they cared
00:10:56
for one another best they could. It seemed like a good existence. >> That's nice. By the time she reached
00:11:00
high school in the fall of 1949, Kitty was definitely one of the more popular girls in school. She was killing it
00:11:07
>> and she was starting to get attention from the uh boys in her class. >> Of course, you know,
00:11:11
>> we love love. >> Uh one of her former classmates, Angelo Lanzone, said Kitty was attractive, but
00:11:16
there was more to her than looks. Kitty had charm. >> Oh, honey. >> Which Angelo
00:11:21
>> Angelo >> I love Angelo. Just being like she was real pretty, but she was also awesome.
00:11:25
>> I think she's a cancer, so she's definitely deep. She's a chama. >> Yeah. >> Uh and while Kitty may not have been the
00:11:31
best student among her peers at the time, she did excel in courses like English and music, she seemed like she
00:11:36
had a creative spirit to her. >> Yeah, that makes sense. >> Um and she was very liked by her
00:11:40
teachers. She was liked by other students. She was just like killing it. >> Kitty Kitty.
00:11:45
>> So, by the time Kitty finished high school in 1953, New York was changing. It was just changing as a city and there
00:11:52
were fears over rising crime rates. It was just becoming wild. Uh, not long after she graduated from high school,
00:11:59
her mother was walking home one afternoon and witnessed a shooting in the street in broad daylight.
00:12:03
>> Jesus. >> According to author Kevin Cook, Rachel Genevies practically walked into the
00:12:07
shooting. She was close enough to see the victim's blood filling the sidewalk cracks.
00:12:11
>> Oh, that'll change you. >> Yeah. Rachel's one and only experience as a witness to violent crime was more
00:12:17
than enough. She has a whole family to take care of. >> Yeah. In that summer, Vincent bought a
00:12:21
small ranch house in New Cananan, Connecticut, and began making arrangements to move the family to the
00:12:26
suburbs about 50 mi north of the city. He told the rest of the family, "It's safer there. Nice people."
00:12:32
>> I think that was happening a lot during this time, like people were moving outside of the city city
00:12:36
>> for sure. And obviously, the move to New Canaan was supposed to like bring them
00:12:40
out of this city that they saw as having rising crime rates. But Vincent also hoped that the new environment and
00:12:46
higher, you know, the higher caliber of community is what he felt it was, would encourage Kitty especially, to meet a
00:12:53
nice man and get married, >> have some kids, >> you know, and to that point, Kitty had
00:12:58
gone on a handful of dates with boys at school, but never anything serious that lasted more than a few dates. And in
00:13:03
truth, the thought of dating, quote, filled her with troubling longings and queasiness.
00:13:08
>> She's like, >> she's like, "No, not for me." So to Vincent and Rachel's great surprise,
00:13:12
when they announced the move to Connecticut, Kitty said, "No, I'm not moving." Hello. Yeah. She frankly told
00:13:19
her parents, "I can't go. I feel free in New York. I'm alive here." A >> And at first, the thought of their
00:13:25
daughter staying behind in the city was out of the question. She was an adult at
00:13:29
this point, and you know, if she wanted to live on her own, there was really nothing they could do to stop it.
00:13:33
>> They could try to convince her, but you can't stop it. >> Oh, that's got to be so rough. Cuz
00:13:37
they're like, "Wait, come with us because we feel like it's safer." And then this happens.
00:13:41
>> So she promised them she would find a safe neighborhood and a good job. She would call them regularly and take the
00:13:46
train to New Canaan on weekends to visit. >> All right. I mean, really, what more can
00:13:50
you ask her to do? >> And although Rachel and Vincent still didn't like the idea of leaving her
00:13:54
behind, Kitty's assurances seemed genuine and eventually they gave their blessing and were like, "Fine."
00:14:00
>> Now, in that first year on her own, Kitty stayed in the extra room in her grandfather's apartment and found work
00:14:05
as a secretary at an insurance company. And in time, she'd saved enough money to
00:14:09
move out, and by the end of 1954, she'd found an apartment of her own. Um, her job paid enough, but it kind of lacked
00:14:16
the social aspect that Kitty had been hoping for. So, just a few months after moving into the apartment, she quit her
00:14:22
job and found a new job waiting tables. When the job as a server fell through, she found another, this time as a
00:14:28
hostess at an Italian restaurant. But that, too, really wasn't what she wanted. And it was only by chance that
00:14:34
after the hostess job came to an end, Kitty finally found what she had been looking for when she answered an ad
00:14:40
looking for a bartender at the neighborhood bar in Hollis Clean Queen. >> Like you said, she's chatty. She's got
00:14:45
like a genetic. >> Yeah. And as a bartender, the money she made in tips was more than enough to
00:14:51
support herself. >> Yeah. >> But just as important, the bar in the neighborhood provided a community that
00:14:56
she was looking for, especially since her family had moved to Connecticut. >> Restaurant crews get so close.
00:15:01
>> Really tight. And in time, she moved up from bartender to manager and began settling into life in Queens.
00:15:07
>> Wow. Good for her to be so young and to make moves like that. Like legit money
00:15:10
moves. >> Yeah, she's moving on up now. As promised, Kitty kept in regular touch
00:15:15
with her parents. She visited as often as she could. She She was telling the truth.
00:15:19
>> Yeah. >> But Rachel and Vincent remained troubled that now in her mid20s, Kitty still
00:15:24
hadn't married or even dated someone seriously. They're just being parents. >> They're from a different generation. In
00:15:29
1959, to appease her parents, Kitty accepted a date with a man from Connecticut. Seeing how happy it made
00:15:36
her parents, she didn't have the heart to tell them she wasn't at all interested in them.
00:15:41
>> So, she let the relationship go on. And later that year, they got married. >> Oh, no.
00:15:45
>> So, she like really appeased her parents with that. >> She sure did. >> Just two months later, though, the
00:15:50
marriage was an old it just wasn't going to work. >> Just wasn't going to work. >> Oh, Kitty. Kitty's, you know, end of her
00:15:57
marriage was a serious disappointment to what I didn't mention before is her deeply Catholic parents.
00:16:03
>> You didn't I don't got that idea. Yeah, I didn't mention it because I thought it
00:16:06
was implied, but u but it was not to be the last embarrassment suffered by Rachel and Vincent Genevese in their
00:16:13
eyes. In 1961, less than two years after the enelment, uh, Kitty and one of her co-workers at the bar, Doueri,
00:16:22
were arrested for bookmaking for taking bets on the horse races from patrons at the bar.
00:16:28
>> Damn. >> Bets are also a big bar. >> I remember those football squares. Did you ever get those? Yeah, football
00:16:35
squares are huge. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's a little different, you know, with horses.
00:16:39
>> Well, and it's like the offense is relatively minor. >> Yeah. in even in the law's eyes. I mean,
00:16:44
and it resulted in a $50 fine. >> I was literally just gonna say, "Is it just a fine?"
00:16:47
>> But they both lost their jobs. >> Oh, which sucks. Despite whatever embarrassment Kitty's parents felt that
00:16:53
they they got from that, she managed to land on her feet and she quickly found a
00:16:57
new job tending bar at E's 11th hour, a neighborhood bar in Hollis, and moved into a a motel room a few blocks away.
00:17:04
>> Okay. So, a few years later, Kitty's life would again change dramatically, this time for the better.
00:17:10
>> Oh. Um, however, she explained the failed marriage to her parents in 1959. It almost certainly wasn't the truth.
00:17:16
>> Okay. However, she had said was happening. The fact was the queasiness that Kitty had always felt when it came
00:17:23
to dating and her failed, you know, quote unquote failed marriage >> was likely due to the fact that she did
00:17:29
not have an interest in men. >> Yeah, I was starting to wonder. >> Like a romantic interest in men. Of
00:17:34
course, in the late 1950s, early 1960s, coming out as a lesbian would have had serious consequences. She comes from a
00:17:42
deeply Catholic family. >> Exactly. And it would range from being disowned by her family to being
00:17:46
arrested. >> Yeah. >> Or involuntarily placed in a mental health facility. >> Yeah. [ __ ] was [ __ ] wild.
00:17:52
>> So, Kitty had good reason to keep that to herself. >> Uh whether or not she chose to reveal
00:17:57
that side of herself to her family, she wasn't entirely closeted. And on occasion she would visit the
00:18:02
underground, you know, gay and lesbian bars in Greenwich Village. So, she was at least like exploring that side of
00:18:07
her, which like good for her. >> And it was at one of these bars called the Swing Rendezvous, which is a great
00:18:14
bar, >> uh, that Kitty met the first person who she felt a true romantic connection
00:18:18
with, Maryanne Zalano. She was a few years younger than Kitty, but she'd been on her own since the age of 16 and had
00:18:26
been supporting herself in New York ever since, which takes a tough >> chick badass essentially. Like if you
00:18:33
can make it in New York from 16 years old. >> Yeah, that's a You're a straightup New
00:18:38
Yorker. >> One spring night in 1963, Maryanne stopped into the swing rendevous for a
00:18:43
drink and was approached by a woman at the bar. The woman asked, "Don't I know you from somewhere?"
00:18:48
>> Oh, I love it. And as opening lines go, it was definitely, you know, a tired one. So Maryannne was like, I don't
00:18:54
think so. And she kind of just, >> you know, had been hearing that from the age of 16 onward.
00:18:59
>> No. And she kind of brushed it off as a, you know, a failed pickup attempt. Yeah.
00:19:04
But the woman just smiled and said, "Oh, I think I do. I'm Kitty." So she wasn't
00:19:08
deterred by it. >> She said, "I will continue with this line." >> She was like, "I'm not embarrassed." I
00:19:12
thought that was great. Get out of here. >> Oh, I love that. So, the pickup line
00:19:16
might have been a tired one, but Marianne found it pretty hard to resist Kitty's charm and her infectious laugh,
00:19:21
which a lot of people said. She said, "We just hit it off. We meshed. I'm very quiet and she talked a lot. We both had
00:19:27
struggles with our sexuality, but we had a quick bond." A few days later, Maryanne returned home one afternoon and
00:19:33
found a note from Kitty taped to her door and it said, "We'll call you at the street corner phone booth at 7:00."
00:19:39
Kitty G, >> stop. Kitty G. That night they made plans to meet at Seven Steps, which was a nearby bar. And
00:19:48
from that point on, they were practically inseparable. >> Love, love. >> Kitty and Marian.
00:19:52
>> For weeks, the two would meet at bars or get together at Kitty's motel room around the corner of the bar. And Marian
00:19:58
said, "But that's not real life. Kitty was happy, but it made me nervous. I didn't think it was safe. Who lives in a
00:20:04
motel?" >> Yeah, understandable. At Marann's insistence, the two began looking for an
00:20:09
apartment and soon found a one-bedroom on Austin Street in the Q Gardens neighborhood of Queens, right next to
00:20:14
the Long Island Railroad Station. >> Okay. >> Now, decades later, Maryanne would
00:20:19
remember that time as quote, "One of the happiest years of my life." >> Oh, that breaks my heart.
00:20:23
>> Ruins me >> because you know what happens. >> They both work days. Kitty managing El's
00:20:27
11th hour and Maryanne tending bar at Club Chris, leaving their nights free to spend together.
00:20:32
>> Nice. When Rachel and Vincent Genevese first visited the apartment, Kitty introduced Marannne as her friend.
00:20:38
>> But after that, the question about her meeting a nice man and getting married
00:20:42
came to an end. >> Well, that's good. >> And Marian said, "I think her mother knew."
00:20:45
>> It's nice they stopped asking. >> And Marian said she was always very nice to me.
00:20:50
>> All right. Nice. >> But later after Kitty's death, their attitude towards Maryanne changed.
00:20:56
>> Okay. Well, that's really shitty. >> Starting at the funeral where they refused to acknowledge her. Oh, I really
00:21:02
don't. >> And Marian said, "I think it was because of our lifestyle." >> It wasn't because of your lifestyle. It
00:21:08
was because of really messed up thinking. >> 100%. >> It's You don't have to take that blame.
00:21:16
>> No. I don't like when people refer to being gay as a lifestyle. >> I know. >> That has been said to me before and it
00:21:23
pisses me the [ __ ] off >> because it's like, is being straight a lifestyle? >> No. Because a lifestyle a lifestyle is a
00:21:30
choice. a choice. Exactly. >> Being gay is not a choice. Just like being straight is not really a choice.
00:21:35
>> I love a cozy lifestyle. That's my choice. I chose that lifestyle. Like that's it's that's not the same.
00:21:43
>> I just got so triggered in that moment. I remembered like an exact >> Maryanne is saying it's because of our
00:21:48
lifestyle because that's what you know she's from Sarah as well. So she that's how she heard it said to
00:21:53
>> her. Ex what I'm saying like that was put on her. >> Yeah. Exactly. Now, regardless of how
00:21:57
Kitty's parents or anyone else felt about their relationship, Kitty and Marian could not have been happier. And
00:22:02
good for [ __ ] no. >> They both deserve to be. >> Immediately after moving in, Kitty began
00:22:06
setting up her apartment, determined to make it a cozy home cuz she was choosing
00:22:10
a cozy lifestyle and getting to know their neighbors. Billy Curado, one of her neighbors, said she was super nice
00:22:16
with a smile for everybody. >> Oh, she sounds [ __ ] awesome. >> Kitty Genevese sounds like a [ __ ]
00:22:21
badass. >> She does. Now, after moving in, they quickly settled into a quiet domestic
00:22:26
life together. >> And on their nights off, Kitty would read fiction while Maryanne painted.
00:22:31
>> Oh, >> like >> they talked about art, music, movies, their shared interest in astrology.
00:22:36
>> Oh, [ __ ] >> You would have loved >> Especially to be interested in astrology
00:22:41
back then. And OG astrology girly. >> Yeah. >> Come on. >> Yeah. They really were living this
00:22:48
little idyllic just moment together. And for for it to be in the 1960s, for them to be a gay
00:22:55
couple in the 1960s, that was hard to find. >> Absolutely. >> Is your own idealic
00:23:00
>> life >> bubble >> together where you were unbburdened by everyone else's [ __ ] opinions about
00:23:05
it. So they but they found that together and it makes me happy that they have so
00:23:09
happy and just like she's living such a New York life which makes me so happy because she that's what she wanted and
00:23:15
where she felt free. >> I feel free. I feel alive. >> Now it's going to take a rough turn. I
00:23:21
know I've set you up for this and I'm but I it it gives me a little comfort to know that she had this like idealic life
00:23:28
with someone she loved before this happened. But this is going to be a hard >> turn.
00:23:32
>> Now at around 2:30 a.m. on March 13th, 1964, Kitty finished closing up E's 11th
00:23:39
hour and headed out to her red Fiat parked in the lot. After years of managing the bar, Kitty had gone through
00:23:44
this routine a million times. And it all felt so routine that she didn't even think to survey her surroundings when
00:23:50
she left the bar. She might have noticed, if she did, a man in the Chevy Corv sitting at the light watching her.
00:23:58
>> Mhm. >> If she looked in her rearview mirror as she pulled out the lot, she might have
00:24:02
seen this man do a U-turn in the middle of the road to follow her car. >> But even at that late hour, it's
00:24:08
unlikely that Kitty had danger on her mind. After all, Queens was the safest of the burrows at this point. She felt
00:24:14
so at home here that it never would have occurred to her that something terrible
00:24:18
could happen. >> Well, that's and like you said, she has been inshed in this place for years.
00:24:22
>> This is her home. She feels safe now. Pulling off the parkway at the Queens Boulevard exit, Kitty turned onto Austin
00:24:28
Street and then parked in the lot for the Long Island Railroad, ignoring the no parking signs, just as everyone in
00:24:33
the neighborhood always did. They said, "Fuck that." >> Um, as she got out of the car, she
00:24:37
fumbled with her keys. She probably didn't notice the white Corvair slowly passed by and pull off the side road a
00:24:44
half a block away. >> After lingering a moment to lock her car doors, Kitty turned and began walking
00:24:49
towards the building. The door that led to Kitty and Marann's second floor apartment was in the back of the
00:24:54
building, which required her to walk down a dark alley, lit faintly by the street lamp by the railroad tracks at
00:25:00
the other end, but pretty dark. >> Yeah. >> Maybe Kitty finally caught on to this
00:25:04
man who'd been following her since she left the bar. Or maybe she simply got the feeling that something wasn't right.
00:25:09
We don't know. Whatever the case, she started running towards the street light and the man behind her ran after her.
00:25:15
>> Oh god, that's an absolute nightmare. >> Most women know that feeling >> absolutely
00:25:20
>> of running from somebody. >> So many people So many women have been in that situation. Now, she'd reached
00:25:25
the entrance to the bookstore when she find when he finally caught up with her, uh, knocking her to the ground and
00:25:31
driving his hunting knife into her back, yanking it out, and then stabbing her again. It happened this fast.
00:25:38
>> And that's a split second. >> Yeah. Several of Kitty's neighbors were awoken by the screams they heard coming
00:25:43
from the street. She shouted, "Oh my god, he stabbed me. Please help. Please help me." Oh, at that one of the windows
00:25:50
in the apartment above shot open and a man, Robert Moser stuck his head out and he shouted, "Let that girl alone!"
00:25:58
thinking that she was being harassed by someone. >> Yeah. >> The sound of Moser's voice startled
00:26:03
Kitty's attacker who looked up at the man in the window, then shrugged his shoulders and walked down Austin Street
00:26:09
towards his car. He was just like, "Whatever." >> Oh my god. >> Now, with her attacker having fled,
00:26:14
Kitty struggled to her feet and began making her way towards the back of the building. presumably trying to get
00:26:19
inside to safety where she would find help. >> Yeah. >> Now that the scene was quiet again,
00:26:23
those who had been woken by the screams assumed probably that whatever commotion
00:26:27
that was about, it was over. So, they turned off the lights and went back to bed.
00:26:32
>> 10 or so minutes later. 10 or so minutes later, those few who were still awake
00:26:37
and still watching out their windows saw the man in the white car return. >> 10 minutes later,
00:26:42
>> she came back. >> So, and it's like, what was he planning to do? because she could have found her
00:26:47
way inside at that point. Like, was he going to break into the apartment looking for her? Who knows? Or was he
00:26:52
coming back for somebody else? >> Well, now his face was covered with a wide-brimmed hat. And the man appeared
00:26:57
to be looking for something, searching the area around the bookstore, the parking lot of the train station, and
00:27:03
eventually behind the building where he found what he was looking for. God. >> Kitty Genevies was slumped in front of
00:27:08
the back door to her building. A locked door preventing her from reaching to the
00:27:13
safety of her apartment. >> Oh my god. What happened next occurred out of the view of any neighbors
00:27:18
windows. So, the specific details of the attack are unknown. But according to the
00:27:22
autopsy performed the following day by Queen's medical examiner, William Benson, there were 13 stab wounds
00:27:29
scattered over the body, nine in front and four in back. A stab wound in the throat, and several slashes on the right
00:27:38
hand. >> That's unreal. >> The wounds on the hand were jagged, indicating Kitty had tried to fight off
00:27:43
her attacker. But by that time, her injuries would have left her with little energy to do anything. Despite the
00:27:49
number and severity of stab wounds, the cause of death was listed as bilateral pneumothorax, meaning the air from a
00:27:56
punctured lung had filled her chest and compressed her lungs, causing her to suffocate. That's a horrible way to go.
00:28:04
After stabbing Kitty repeatedly, the man sexually assaulted her and robbed her of
00:28:10
the $49 she had on her and then fled to his car. Mhm. >> Piece of [ __ ] >> Garbage.
00:28:18
>> Just moments after the attacker fled the scene, her next door neighbor, Sophia
00:28:22
Farrar, got a phone call from one of the other residents in the building. The frantic neighbor told Ferrar that Kitty
00:28:28
had been attacked and was outside by the vestibule. Without hesitating, Sophia dropped the phone and ran down the back
00:28:34
stairs. When she reached the door, she found that it wouldn't budge because Kitty was slumped against it.
00:28:39
>> Mhm. A moment later, Sophia was able to get the door open and found Kitty, quote, in a pool of blood, moaning and
00:28:45
gurgling and barely conscious. >> Sophia shouted for someone to call an ambulance, then held the gravely wounded
00:28:51
Kitty in her arms, whispering to her that help was on the way. >> I'm so glad she wasn't alone throughout
00:28:57
all of that. But she was alone through so much of that. >> It's true. And in a 2016 interview,
00:29:02
Farrar said, "I only hope that she knew it was me that she wasn't alone." >> Yeah. What happened next remains pretty
00:29:08
unclear with some details kind of like lost through time >> and others because one thing that you
00:29:14
should know about this is that the myths and untruths surrounding this case are a
00:29:19
plenty. >> Yeah, it's heavily debated. >> It it's very difficult to ascertain fact
00:29:24
from fiction and what's been told through a game of telephone for a long time. Mhm.
00:29:28
>> Now, several people in the building called the police at various points during the attack, but because no one
00:29:34
could tell what exactly was happening, they couldn't adequately convey the emergency. In the most charitable
00:29:40
interpretation, it appears the police dispatcher, there was no 911 system at the time, which is wild to think about.
00:29:46
Bonkers, >> was under the impression that Kitty had been beaten up or robbed, so the report
00:29:51
wasn't given the highest priority, which wo >> by the time the real nature of the
00:29:56
attack had been reported, nearly 40 minutes had passed, and it would be another half hour before the ambulance
00:30:02
arrived at 4:15 a.m. By then, it was too late. Kitty had died from her injuries on the way to the hospital.
00:30:09
>> Now, a short time after Kitty was taken away by ambulance, Maryanne heard a pounding at the door.
00:30:14
>> She said, "It woke me up and I was scared. Who comes knocking at 4 in the morning?"
00:30:18
>> Mhm. >> So, she cautiously opens it to find a police officer on the other side.
00:30:22
>> That's your worst nightmare. >> The officer explained that Kitty had been attacked and was on her way to the
00:30:26
hospital. She had lost a lot of blood and it didn't look like she was going to survive. Marian said, "I went numb." As
00:30:33
they stood there in the doorway, another OP officer approached and informed them
00:30:37
that Kitty was dead. >> Oh. At 4 in the morning, >> at 4 am, she hears a knock at the door.
00:30:42
It's a police officer who says, "The love of your life has been attacked and is on the way to the hospital, and we
00:30:47
don't think she's going to make it." And another officer comes up while you're processing that and says, "She actually
00:30:52
died." >> Make it >> like one two punch. >> How do you ever recover? >> How do you process that? And at such a
00:30:59
young age, too, like your mid20s, that that's probably the first person you've ever truly loved.
00:31:04
>> How the [ __ ] do you ever move on from >> I don't know how you survived. >> So, for the next several hours, Marian
00:31:10
sat in the kitchen with her neighbor Carl Ross, who brought over a bottle of vodka.
00:31:14
>> Outside, police and reporters were milling about the area, taping off the scene, snapping photos. When Detective
00:31:20
Mitchell Sang arrived around 7:30 a.m., he didn't take kindly to the presence of
00:31:24
Carl Ross. In his report, Sang wrote that Ross quote claimed to be consoling Maryanne while swilling vodka and act
00:31:31
acting obnoxious when Sang asked to speak to Maryanne alone and Carl protested which like don't do that.
00:31:39
>> Yeah, you got to the detective physically pulled him out of his chair and shoved him out the door.
00:31:43
>> Yeah. >> Angry, frustrated, and probably a little drunk, Ross kicked a hole in one of the
00:31:48
first floor doors, causing Sang to place him under arrest for disorderly conduct.
00:31:52
>> It's like, babe, you're not doing yourself any favors. And it's also like with everything going on right now. I
00:31:57
just wouldn't >> like cuz you're also adding to Maryanne's like [ __ ] right now. Like
00:32:02
she's going through enough. It does. It just doesn't need to be about you. >> You might think you're helping, but
00:32:06
you're very >> You're just making it about you right now. And Maryann's the one going through
00:32:09
this. >> Yeah. >> No. I also don't think he should have been arrested. >> No. >> I think you just tell him like you get
00:32:15
just go sleep. Yeah. Like go sleep it off. You shouldn't arrest him for that. Obviously, everyone's own.
00:32:20
>> You know, he did like damage public. >> No, I didn't even think of that. I in my
00:32:24
head I was like, "Oh, he kicked a door." You know, it happens. He kicked a hole in it. That does suck.
00:32:28
>> And now it's like somebody's got to [ __ ] fix that. >> It's just such like a high I'm like,
00:32:31
"Fuck." Like the emotions are so high in that situation. It sucks all around. >> It's true. They probably just arrested
00:32:36
him to get him the [ __ ] out of >> They probably did cuz he was drunk. So that's not good.
00:32:39
>> Hopefully they just let him sleep it off and then sent him home. >> Yeah. I just feel bad for these people.
00:32:42
>> I know this is a lot. >> The arrest of Carl Ross does reflect the misplaced priorities and bias that would
00:32:49
ultimately run through much of this case though, which is frustrating. A young woman had been brutally murdered by a
00:32:55
stranger at the doorstep of her own apartment building. >> It's like maybe let's focus on that.
00:32:59
>> Yeah. And it's like the first action taken in the investigation was to arrest
00:33:02
a neighbor. Can we look somewhere else? Yeah. >> When homicide detectives John Carol and
00:33:06
Jerry Burns took over the investigation later that morning, things didn't exactly improve.
00:33:11
>> Oh, great. After aggressively interviewing the neighbors in the building, the detectives turned their
00:33:15
attention to Maryanne, who was treated more as a suspect than a victim. >> A suspect?
00:33:20
>> Yeah. Maryanne. woke her out of a dead sleep. >> Marian said it was good cop, bad cop.
00:33:24
But the bad one, Burns, did most of the talking. >> For hours, they peppered her with
00:33:29
questions that, in retrospect, didn't seem all that relative to what happened. >> I'm sure
00:33:33
>> they wanted to know how long she'd known Kitty, who their friends were, how often
00:33:36
they argued, and most important inappropriately, did Maryanne have any sexual problems.
00:33:42
>> Sexual? Oh, cuz they were saying, "Are you a lesbian?" Because that was considered a sexual problem.
00:33:47
>> She said, "I was still in shock. It took me a while to realize what he was getting at. They thought I might be the
00:33:52
one who killed her. >> Unreal. >> Like, she didn't even know that's what they were getting at.
00:33:55
>> Unreal. >> It eventually became clear to Maryanne that the detectives were more interested
00:33:59
in her relationship with Kitty than they were finding the man responsible for murdering her. And the more they pressed
00:34:05
her, the less comfortable she became. >> The other thing, it's like, go ask around from the apartment. A man
00:34:11
literally saw the person who did this. >> Yeah. You you're aggressively talking to
00:34:15
the neighbors. They're going to tell you they saw a man. She said I didn't want to talk to the cops, especially not
00:34:21
Burns, but they harassed me for six hours trying to get me to say something bad about Kitty. Finally, they got me to
00:34:26
admit it. Okay, we were lesbians. >> Yeah. >> Decades later, Maryanne would still
00:34:31
regret revealing that information. She said, "I was always upset with myself for revealing that. What right did they
00:34:37
have to know?" >> It's true. What right did they have to know? But when you're pressed for 6
00:34:41
hours, >> I'm surprised the worst day of your life. Like >> now, in the days that followed, Marian
00:34:46
shut herself up in her apartment while more than a few neighbors began keeping their distance from her.
00:34:51
>> That's horrible. >> Police officers and detectives continued coming around to ask prying questions
00:34:56
about their relationship that felt more like accusations than anything else. A few days later at the funeral, things
00:35:02
only got worse as Kitty's parents rejected Marion entirely and turned their back on her.
00:35:07
>> That's shitty. Kitty's brother Vincent said, "My mother couldn't handle it. We
00:35:11
read about it in the papers, the gruesome description." A few days after the funeral, the police finally took
00:35:16
Maryanne's name off the suspect list. >> Why? >> Couldn't even let her get through the
00:35:21
funeral. >> Here's the thing. Normally, when somebody is murdered, if they are living
00:35:25
with a partner, of course, you ask the partner first. This is a little different.
00:35:30
>> This is so much different. >> Outside on the street, she's not in the apartment.
00:35:33
>> The door was locked, and that's the whole reason she couldn't get in. >> She was sleeping in the apartment. and
00:35:37
neighbors literally saw a man. It's like this is a very different situation. I would always say it makes sense to ask
00:35:44
the partner first cuz you got to rule them out. This is not one of those. And I feel like they railroaded her at
00:35:49
first. >> Well, they did it because of they did it because of her sexuality 100%.
00:35:53
>> Now, on March 18th, less than a week after the murder, Corona, New York resident Raul Clearary was standing
00:35:59
outside his house when he saw a young man he didn't know coming out of his neighbor's house carrying a television.
00:36:05
Clearary called out and asked the man what he was doing. He said, "It's okay. I'm helping them move." As he loaded the
00:36:11
TV into his Chevy Corvair. >> Mhm. Now, Clary went back inside and called one of the other neighbors to ask
00:36:17
whether the family across the street was moving, which this is a good neighbor. >> It really is. Hell yeah.
00:36:21
>> And the neighbor said they definitely were not. Then hung up and called the police. Not wanting the man to get away
00:36:27
before the police arrived, Raul waited until the man was back inside the house. Then he went out to the Chevy, lifted
00:36:32
the hood, and removed the distributor cap, ducking back into his apartment before the van returned.
00:36:38
>> King [ __ ] is not even the description. That's next level. That's a neighbor
00:36:43
that you want to like take care of your [ __ ] while you're away. >> Yeah, cuz he's not. All he's doing is
00:36:49
making it so that car won't run. He's not breaking it. He's not He just removed a cap that he can put back when
00:36:55
he needs put back if you are proven to not be a robber. iconic >> pretty Raul. >> Raul forever.
00:37:02
>> Now, when the man came back out and found his car wouldn't start, he simply got out and walked away down the street,
00:37:06
giving no indication that he was committing a crime. >> Okay. >> He was equally unconcerned a short time
00:37:11
later when two patrol officers pulled up beside him and started asking questions
00:37:15
about his having been at a house down the street. >> Yeah. >> The young man with the white Chevy
00:37:20
turned out to be 29-year-old Queens resident Winston Mosley. >> Winston Mosley. At the time of his
00:37:26
arrest, Mosley was married with three children. >> Are you [ __ ] >> had a decent job at a nearby factory and
00:37:32
most importantly, he had no criminal record. >> That is next level. >> To their surprise, when he was
00:37:40
interrogated by police, he freely admitted to having robbed the house in Corona and even claimed to have
00:37:45
committed many similar break-ins in the past. He told police he had given most of the appliances to his father, who
00:37:51
owned a repair shop and could resell them. The officers paid a visit to Mosley's father, who confirmed that his
00:37:57
son had brought him several items in the past. Now, despite his calm demeanor and
00:38:01
almost eager confession to robbery, investigators couldn't help but feel there was something he was hiding. So,
00:38:07
they decided to hold on to him a little longer for the robberies while they did some digging. It didn't take long for
00:38:12
them to realized that Mosley's car matched the description of the car seen outside Kitty's building on the night of
00:38:18
the murder. Mhm. A few hours after Winston Mosley was arrested for robbery, he was sitting in an interrogation room
00:38:24
across from Detective John Carroll. Among other things, Carol was curious about the fresh scabs on Mosley's hands,
00:38:31
which he claimed he got from working around the house. >> Doubt it. >> Carol said, "No, you got those cuts from
00:38:37
Kitty Genevese when you were putting the knife in." >> [ __ ] >> Which like, whoa.
00:38:42
>> Just boom. The room went silent for a few seconds and then with a slight smile
00:38:50
forming on his lips, he looked at Carol and said, "Okay, I killed her." Oh, that's chilling.
00:38:58
What the [ __ ] Just a father of three. Yep. In that interrogation room cheesing
00:39:05
about the fact that he murdered a young woman. And this detective is like, "No, you got those cuts when you put the
00:39:11
knife in her body." And he's like, "Okay, I did kill her. You're right. What the [ __ ]
00:39:16
>> That's a moment that probably never left Detective Carol. Can you [ __ ] imagine
00:39:21
>> cuz you're looking at evil like you are looking at pure evil. >> That's like we always say like one of
00:39:25
those things you see in a movie and you're like, "All right." >> Yeah. >> And it's like that's really happened.
00:39:30
>> Ew. >> For the rest of the night, Winston Mosley continued giving his confession
00:39:35
to detectives, not sparing any gruesome detail. >> That's such a weasly ass. >> Even as he ate his dinner,
00:39:40
>> he shouldn't have been given a dinner. He told them about how he had spotted her when she was getting into her car,
00:39:45
how he'd followed her home and stabbed her, and how he came back after being run off the first time. He even told
00:39:51
them about how he'd stolen her wallet and kept the money, throwing the rest of the billfold into the weeds. As he was
00:39:56
on his way to work the next morning, Mosley also claimed that as he was driving home after killing Kitty, he
00:40:02
spotted a man sleeping in his car by the side of the road. He approached the car
00:40:07
and tapped on the driver's side window with the bloody knife. Startling the driver awake, Mosley said,
00:40:13
"Listen, mister. You shouldn't be sleeping like that. The carbon monoxide builds up or somebody could come along
00:40:18
and do something bad to you." >> Jesus Christ. >> The man thanked him for the warning,
00:40:22
then drove off. >> I'm sure that man's probably like, "What?" >> Yeah. >> And to tap on the window with the bloody
00:40:29
knife to say that you're a psychopath. >> No, he absolutely is. To the detectives,
00:40:34
the whole story seemed [ __ ] bizarre. And Mosley was so forthcoming that they wondered whether he was even telling the
00:40:39
truth. They were like, "Is this real?" Like, he was >> But he had no reason to lie. And he
00:40:43
seemed to know too much about the murder to be a false confession. So, there was
00:40:47
little doubt that Winston Mosley had killed Kitty Genevies. But that wasn't all. After he'd finished confessing to
00:40:53
the robberies around Queens and the murder of Kitty Genevies, he also confessed to murdering 24year-old Annie
00:40:59
May Johnson a week earlier. The details of that one are remarkably similar to those of Kitty's murder. When they asked
00:41:06
why he'd done it, the best explanation Winston could come up with was that he gave in to urges to kill and rape.
00:41:13
>> Well, >> put him away. >> Yeah. Forever. >> Bye. >> Bye. >> When Mosley was done giving his
00:41:18
confession, Detective Carol went to the phone to call prosecutor uh Phil Chedda to inform him that they'd likely solved
00:41:26
two recent murders. Chedda listened to Carol's story, but after he heard the details of the Johnson murder, he
00:41:32
stopped the detectives and explained that Mosley was wrong. He claimed he'd shot Annie May Johnson when in fact she
00:41:38
had been stabbed to death. Oh, so he was just trying to get credit for a murder.
00:41:42
Well, when Carol dis confronted Mosley with the discrepancy, Winston looked unsurprised. Then in the same flat tone
00:41:49
he'd had all night, he simply said, "I shot her." So it's like, "What the [ __ ] are you
00:41:55
talking about?" Now, this is wild. So, when the autopsy was initially conducted on Annie May Johnson, the coroner had to
00:42:02
contend with the fact that she had been badly burned across large parts of her body, which obscured some of her
00:42:08
injuries. After having the body exumed and x-rayed, the coroner discovered that indeed his original cause of death had
00:42:17
been wrong. The X-rays clearly showed six .22 caliber bullets in Johnson's body.
00:42:23
>> Holy [ __ ] When he had originally conducted the autopsy, the entrance wounds had been so small that he'd
00:42:29
mistaken them for puncture wounds caused by something like an ice pick. Thus, he
00:42:34
had listed it as stabbing. >> Oh. >> This new revelation proved that not only had Winston Mosley killed Kitty
00:42:40
Genevies, he had absolutely killed Annie May Johnson. >> Wow. >> The fact that they said, "No, you were
00:42:47
wrong." Like you told them, he just said, "I shot her." >> Like he's like, "Go ahead, figure it
00:42:52
out." >> Wow. Oh, like what? >> Now, the murder of Kitty Genevies was a tragic event that scarred the
00:43:00
neighborhood that it happened in. >> But from an objective position, there was little about it that was like
00:43:06
outrageously like out of the ordinary for like a horrible crime, unfortunately. >> You know what I mean? Like it wasn't it
00:43:12
was horrible, but it was like a horrible crime. And had it not been for the news
00:43:17
coverage that followed, it likely probably would have been one of those that we found and were like, "Why didn't
00:43:22
we know about this?" You know what I mean? Like it would have got like totally obscured in other things,
00:43:26
>> right? >> Um, in fact, in the week that followed Kitty's death, the murder made the paper
00:43:31
a handful of times reporting basic facts. Then came Martin Gansberg's now notorious New York Times article that
00:43:37
changed the narrative entirely. Published on March 27th, 1964. or Gainesburg's article, 37 who saw murder
00:43:46
didn't call the police, ignored >> most of the facts of Kitty's murder, and instead focused on a misunderstanding of
00:43:54
the reactions from her neighbors. >> He wrote, "For more than half an hour, 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in
00:44:02
Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Q Gardens." According to him, Kitty's
00:44:10
neighbors not only heard her cries for help, but actively ignored them, knowing that she was being violently assaulted.
00:44:16
He said, "If we had been called when he first attacked, the woman might not be dead." Now, that's he had quoted a
00:44:21
police chief as saying that >> it seems unlikely that Martin Ginsburg was acting like in bad faith when he
00:44:27
wrote the article. Instead, the article was assigned to him by an editor, okay, a Rosenthal, who had been fed the
00:44:33
misinformation by New York City police commissioner Michael Murphy. So this is not like one guy who just made it's a
00:44:40
game of telephone, but it was misinformation that was given. >> Yeah. >> And then spewed out to every
00:44:45
>> I remember like cuz when you go over it, they're like it's it's not real. The by
00:44:50
like they're trying to say the bystander effect is not real. >> Exactly. Now in reality, no one saw
00:44:55
Kitty getting attacked the second time. >> Right. Cuz they wouldn't have been able
00:44:59
to. She was in the alley. At most, people heard her cries for help, and when they went to see what was going on,
00:45:04
she had already moved behind the building and couldn't be seen. As for no one calling the police, that was also
00:45:09
untrue. Several people called the police that night, but not knowing exactly what
00:45:13
was happening, the reports were marked low priority, and police didn't respond, as they would have if they knew she was
00:45:20
being actively murdered. Now, regardless of the facts, the story seemed to speak
00:45:25
to the people of New York, many of who, like Kitty's parents, were concerned about the changing composition of the
00:45:31
neighborhoods in what they thought was rising crime rates. >> Journalist Joe Ston wrote, "The killing
00:45:36
of Kitty Genevies was first a tragedy, then a symbol, then a bit of a durable urban mythology."
00:45:43
That is to say, the story, as the New York Times presented, it confirmed what a lot of people already believed, that
00:45:49
crime rates were skyrocketing and it was becoming unsafe to live in these neighborhoods.
00:45:54
>> Um, and that all of this stuff resulted in an extreme form of apathy, right? That they that they were really making
00:46:02
people feel like people are apathetic as a whole >> and it prevented them from even doing
00:46:08
anything to intervene for this poor woman. >> Right. Now to the editor Abe Rosenthal,
00:46:13
the story had very little to do with Kitty at all and was in fact all about the state of American society in the
00:46:19
mid1 1960s. >> He wrote in 1999, I was interested only in the manner of her dying. That is the
00:46:26
power of the Genevese matter. It talks to us not about her, a subject that was barely of fleeting interest to us, but
00:46:32
about ourselves, a subject never out of our minds. Uh, >> that's a real thing that was said. I
00:46:40
literally Did you just see me like Ash actively like backed up in her seat like it just it thrust her backwards.
00:46:48
>> What the [ __ ] I can't imagine. He So he's actually speechless. >> So the whole thing was like, "Oh my
00:46:58
goodness, we're all becoming apathetic. This is bad. High crime rates. Nobody's going to interview." And then he's
00:47:04
literally like, "Yeah, I don't care about that woman that got married. Let's talk about apathy though. Did you not
00:47:09
step right in the irony of your statement? >> Did you choke on the irony of that
00:47:14
statement that you're being like, "Fuck, we're all getting apathetic. This is terrible. Everybody listen to this. Who
00:47:19
gives a [ __ ] about that girl? I care about me." It's like, you literally are apathy, my friend. Like, that's insane.
00:47:26
You are literally walking apathy down the street. >> The point you just >> How'd you miss it? Like how can you how
00:47:33
can you actually lack that much humanity? And also like as a journalist, I'm like, you wrote that down and read
00:47:39
it and then published it >> and and somebody else was like, "Good idea." Like what?
00:47:43
>> Hello. >> Yeah. >> Yikes. >> As author Melissa Jane Hardy put it, Rosenthal's interest was aroused not by
00:47:50
the murder victim, but by his fantasy of the reader reading the story. >> Okay. >> Which is a perfect way of saying it.
00:47:56
>> Yeah. She's like, "Yeah, he didn't care about a murder victim. He had this w this fantasy in his head about somebody
00:48:02
reading this story and being enthralled by it. >> Then you should read then you should
00:48:05
write fiction. >> Yeah. >> Fantasy is perhaps the best way to describe his interpretation of this
00:48:12
case. To him it didn't matter that Kitty Genevese had a family, friends, a girlfriend who loved her.
00:48:17
>> Clearly not. >> Or that an entire neighborhood had been literally [ __ ] traumatized by her
00:48:21
death and would carry with them the burden of inaction, however unfairly it had been put upon them. Mhm.
00:48:28
>> What mattered to him, the only thing that mattered was that people maintained
00:48:32
their fear and outrage that drove them to pick up his articles instead of another paper. That is so outlandish.
00:48:40
>> Like that's unbelievable. And just the the lack of ethics, babe. >> Yeah, that's a crazy one.
00:48:47
>> The lack of ethics, the lap lack of empathy. Yeah. >> The Hello. >> Yep. >> Hello.
00:48:53
>> Hello. In the weeks that followed, subsequent articles appeared in different newspapers like all over the place
00:49:00
addressing the so-called problem of urban apathy. Um, >> did they put him on the cover of those?
00:49:05
Roenthal wrote in a March 28th article, "Experts in human behavior such as psychiatrists and sociologists seemed as
00:49:13
hardput as anyone else to explain the inaction of witnesses." Citing no one in particular, Rosenthal went on to say
00:49:20
most of the witnesses in attempting to explain their inaction said they did not want to get involved. So he didn't cite
00:49:26
anyone as saying that just everybody said that >> except people had gotten involved,
00:49:31
>> right? >> Somebody yelled at their window. >> Many as soon as they knew what was
00:49:35
happening, got involved, >> called the police, right? When Robert Moser heard Kitty's cries for help, he
00:49:39
shouted at the man he believed was only harassing her, but he got involved when he thought somebody was just harassing
00:49:44
her, >> causing Winston Mosley to briefly flee the scene >> for for 10 minutes. >> The only reason Moser didn't go down to
00:49:51
see what was happening was that he saw Kitty stand up and begin walking towards the door, and he said he just believed
00:49:56
she was all right. >> Right. Also, the moment Sophia Far learned that Kitty was in trouble, she
00:50:01
raced down the stairs and held Kitty in her arms, offering her comfort and kindness and like just somebody being
00:50:08
there in her final moments of life. >> That's the thing. There was a lot of humanity in
00:50:13
away from this. Like the fact of the matter was if there was an action, it was on the part of law enforcement.
00:50:18
>> Yeah. >> Who couldn't be bothered to find out what the [ __ ] was going on until it was
00:50:22
too [ __ ] late. >> Yeah. >> Like that's the reality. >> It's the truth. It is the truth.
00:50:28
>> But none of that mattered to to the people that were saying this like to Rosenthal. All that mattered to him was
00:50:33
that people kept reading what he was saying. He kept building a name for himself.
00:50:37
>> In the weeks and months that followed, he continued to push the apathy narrative, determined to find, you know,
00:50:43
a way to ride this wave of attention as far as he could. In May of that year, he
00:50:47
published a long form article in the paper titled study of the sickness of apathy where he summarized the public
00:50:53
reaction to learning of the enaction of the Genevese case saying what the devil do you expect in a town a jungle like
00:51:00
this. >> Sir, go elsewhere. Just go away. In a matter of months, this story had been changed. They had
00:51:09
taken a tragic story of a brutal murder in Queens and made it into an alarmist statement of the decline of urban
00:51:15
society. >> Mhm. >> And she got totally lost, >> which is he didn't give a [ __ ] about.
00:51:20
>> Yeah. In his autobiography, Rosenthal wrote of Kitty, "Her name, once known only to her family and the people she
00:51:27
served at the bar, has taken on an an instantly understood meaning to all who have heard it."
00:51:33
I'm going to make a broad statement, but I feel pretty confident about it. Does he hate women?
00:51:39
>> I feel like he hates women. I'm just getting woman hater vibes. >> It's not great.
00:51:43
>> Broad statement, but feels appropriate. >> Yeah. >> You [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> Like what?
00:51:49
>> Can you imagine writing that about a about any person who has lived >> Yeah. >> Like that? That doesn't suck. But a
00:51:56
murder victim who was in their like mid20s when they were brutally stabbed and like sexually assaulted. Yeah.
00:52:03
>> Nobody would have known her name. Nobody would have known your [ __ ] name if
00:52:07
you didn't insert your dumb self into this. >> Well, and that's it's like this all just
00:52:10
fit their world view that like it didn't matter if it was true or not. This fit the world view that they had of what was
00:52:16
going on. And so people they just accepted it and anyone else who had that worldview also accepted this as like,
00:52:21
"Yep, confirmation of what I've been saying." >> That's just a [ __ ] crazy thing to
00:52:27
simply just accepted what they heard in passing. Life in the city had become so hard and so bad that people were even
00:52:33
afraid, too afraid to intervene to save the life of a young woman being attacked
00:52:37
in front of them on the street. That was the message >> for decades. That was the story of Kitty
00:52:44
Genevese. Not one of a young woman cut down in the prime of her [ __ ] life, but one of urban apathy and cowardice.
00:52:52
Mhm. >> And it would remain that way until someone finally decided to ask some more
00:52:59
probing questions and say, "Wait a minute. How could this have possibly happened?"
00:53:03
>> Now, following his arrest and arraignment, Winston Mosley was briefly held in a psychiatric hospital where he
00:53:09
was evaluated and deemed to be sane. >> Wow, that's even scarier. >> Worse, in June 1964, Mosley went on
00:53:15
trial for the murder of Kitty Genevies where he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. I was like, you were just
00:53:20
literally deemed sane. >> By that point, he had been charged with Annie May Johnson's murder the month
00:53:25
before Kitty's death and the murder of 15year-old Barbara Kick in Queens the previous July.
00:53:30
>> God, this guy is a [ __ ] crazy person, >> which we I want to go back and try to
00:53:35
look further into those two cases. So, we'll touch upon that again. >> As evidence of his insanity, Mosley's
00:53:41
lawyer cited his client's willingness to confess to the crimes >> despite the lack of evidence that
00:53:46
conclusively tied him to the murders. It's a wild weird thing to do, but it's not insane.
00:53:50
>> But it's not insane. Regardless of his explanation and admittedly bizarre behavior, less than a week after the
00:53:56
trial began, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but that was eventually commuted to life in
00:54:01
prison. >> Four years later, he broke away from a prison guard in Buffalo, New York, and
00:54:06
escaped from jail briefly before being recaptured and returned to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Danamaro, New
00:54:11
York. Phew. In the years that followed, he appealed his case and repeatedly petitioned for parole, but was denied
00:54:17
each time. >> During his final hearing for parole in 2015, >> holy [ __ ] What? >> The parole board declined his petition,
00:54:25
writing, "You still minimize the gravity of your behavior and did not exhibit much insight." And for that reason, they
00:54:31
believed he was not fit for release. >> That many years later, they still said you're not showing any. He was 80 years
00:54:38
old and still not showing remorse. That's next level. The following year, he died of natural causes at age 81.
00:54:45
>> Rest in distress. Winston Mosley's death probably would have gone unnoticed had
00:54:49
it not coincided with the release of The Witness, a documentary by filmmaker James Solomon, and Kitty's brother,
00:54:56
Bill. >> Oh, okay. after spending decades watching his sister's life and tragic death be exploited for the sake of a
00:55:02
cynical social critique like brought up in psychology classes as like you know >> Bill Genevies decided it was time to
00:55:09
correct the record once and for all. He said there was a lot of things we discovered of the 11 years of research
00:55:15
that he and Solomon had done for the film. He said but basically the most fundamental thing was that the 38
00:55:21
eyewitness story and three attacks was not true. Which is wild. That's got to just shatter your [ __ ] brain.
00:55:27
Especially as somebody related to the case. >> Well, and this poor this poor family her
00:55:31
poor family and friends and Maryanne were told that 38 of her neighbors watch this happen and didn't give a [ __ ] about
00:55:39
her. >> Like that would have been maddening. I can't imagine that. >> And that also is going to change your
00:55:45
view on society and the way that you interact with society. >> Probably shaped a lot of it. Mhm.
00:55:49
>> Now, most important to Genevies was learning that contrary to popular belief, his sister hadn't been callously
00:55:55
ignored that night. And in fact, there was someone with her in the final moments of her life.
00:55:59
>> And it's like that could have provided that family so much comfort had they known that.
00:56:02
>> And he said that, Bill said that. He said that was enormous. It was such a relief.
00:56:06
>> Of course, it was. And about Sophia Farrar's actions that night, he said, "My only regret is that my parents were
00:56:12
not able to understand that that was the case. They would have been, I'm sure, somewhat relieved to have known that
00:56:18
somebody was there. And not only somebody, it was a friend of hers. >> Of course, they would have been relieved
00:56:23
by that. >> In the course of their research, Solomon and Genevies found many people who
00:56:27
continued to carry not only the trauma of that night, but also the memory of his sister were still telling them like
00:56:34
she was this amazing person and that's not what is being told here. Yeah. In telling their story and in celebrating
00:56:39
the life of his sister, Bill Genevese started a larger conversation that ultimately questioned this myth of urban
00:56:46
apathy and corrected the record when it came to the life and death of Kitty Genevese. As for Maryanne, whose life
00:56:53
was irreparably altered that night, >> like I said, >> she eventually managed to heal a little
00:56:58
bit from the trauma of her loss and built a life for herself working as a statistical analyst.
00:57:03
>> Wow, good for her. In 1997, she retired with her partner in Rutland, Vermont,
00:57:08
but she carried Kitty's memory with her until her death in April 2024. >> Oh, just happened.
00:57:13
>> I'm glad she lived such a long life. >> In 2004, Maryanne spoke to the press for
00:57:19
the first time about her relationship with Kitty, during which the interviewer asked, "If Kitty hadn't died that night,
00:57:24
would they still be together?" And she said, "I think Kitty would probably own a bar and I think she would be happy."
00:57:29
And then she paused for a second and added, "We both would. I was about to cry. >> No, I get it.
00:57:35
>> Then she paused for a second and said, "We would both be >> of course they'd be happy."
00:57:39
>> Which is like, >> yeah, >> for her to have to like sit there and think about like what life could be with
00:57:45
the person you love so much and taken from you like that, they had their whole lives ahead of them.
00:57:50
>> Those are the questions that it's like, is that appropriate to ask? >> Yeah. It's like and and I can see like
00:57:56
both sides of that coin where it's like I know >> I don't know. I don't know if it is.
00:58:01
It's like had if she had her partner that's really kind of disrespectful. >> Well, that's that's the other thing.
00:58:06
Yeah, that's the thing. It's like if she was single, like single, you know what I
00:58:11
mean? Like to be like, do you think you would still be together? But even that is like it's kind of disrespectful to
00:58:16
her to put her in that position. But she also is diving into something that would
00:58:21
be so hard to access, which is like, "Hey, go back and pull out all your hopes and dreams for your life together
00:58:30
>> that you had to put that you just had down. >> You had to put to the side." Yeah.
00:58:34
>> When that h that was torn away from you >> that you literally had to bury >> and tell me would you still be together?
00:58:39
Like that's a lot for her to have to access in that moment. And I think I understand the question itself. I I
00:58:45
don't know. That's got to have the impact. >> I'm not saying the person who asked it
00:58:48
was trying to be >> No, I'm not either >> a dick, but I just that question I'm like, "Oo, that hurt my
00:58:54
>> heart." >> And I And I just don't think >> I don't know. It just doesn't feel like
00:59:00
something I need to I don't need to know that. >> It's not my business. >> It's her it's it's her feelings.
00:59:05
>> I just think that sometimes people can be a lot more tactful with the way they
00:59:09
interview. >> For sure. >> You know, and and that's a great example of it. I don't think the intent was bad,
00:59:13
but I'm just like, >> "Yeah, some is not not the bad thing. It's just the >> outcome,
00:59:19
>> the execution of it is >> is not great. And I just feel like she I just didn't I don't know. That's not
00:59:25
that's not for us. >> If she wanted to access that, then she she can access that. But I don't know.
00:59:30
It felt I don't want to like force someone to access that kind of pain. >> A little exploitative.
00:59:36
>> But >> I think Kitty Genevie sounded like the coolest [ __ ] lady >> ever. I wanted to hang I would hang with
00:59:44
her in a [ __ ] second. The whole time I was reading this and stuff about her. I was like,
00:59:48
>> damn. Like what a >> sounds like a great girl. >> What a cool girl. And then Maryanne
00:59:54
sounds like such a badass. And I feel like hanging in their apartment would be so cool with like her painting and her
01:00:01
uh kitty reading and talking astrology. >> Yeah. Just talking astrology, cooking,
01:00:07
all kinds of cool [ __ ] >> We would have been like we would have been tight. I feel like
01:00:10
>> they just sound >> had we come had we crossed paths back then. >> They just sounded like they were she was
01:00:16
taken away from >> from a lot of people and people who didn't even know her yet.
01:00:20
>> She was taken away from potential friends >> that she probably would have had
01:00:24
everywhere. >> I'm so happy like you said in the middle of that that they had that little bubble
01:00:28
for even the amount of time that they did. Like I'm that's a that's a such a special connection
01:00:34
>> and I'm glad that her brother was a like set like Solomon was able to >> they were able to like dive in and be
01:00:42
like no she wasn't callously ignored cuz that's an awful thing to think about for
01:00:47
your loved one. >> Yeah. Yeah. When I to think that her parents thought that she was just
01:00:51
callously ignored as she was killed, brutally killed and that no one was with her when she died
01:00:56
>> when in reality Sophia Ferrar was holding her and hope and whispering to her to make sure she knew she was with
01:01:02
her. >> That's a good [ __ ] person right there. >> I feel like sometimes we like always
01:01:06
look >> want to look a lot of people want to look for the worst >> for the hole in the donut.
01:01:11
>> The hole in the donut. I tell my kids that all the time. Don't look for the hole. It is my nanny and my grandmother.
01:01:15
It was. She would always say, "Don't stop looking for the hole in the donut." Like, there's a whole bunch of donut
01:01:21
around that hole and you're not even looking at it. >> I love that. >> And I tell the kids that all the time
01:01:24
when they're being negative. >> I'm going to take that when I have kids. >> And it's like sometimes people are
01:01:29
great. >> Yeah. Sometimes that is true. >> And sometimes human interactions are great.
01:01:34
>> Yeah. Sometimes people are [ __ ] terrible, but sometimes there's people will surprise you.
01:01:38
>> Well, the sad thing is it's like there are so many instances of humans being terrible to each other. when there is an
01:01:44
instance of connection, let's expose that for what it is and let's let's like hold that deer, not try to flip it on
01:01:51
its head. >> Exactly. And it sounds like, you know, people did did act. It wasn't an action.
01:01:57
>> It was just a tragic tragic awful [ __ ] Winston Mosley can go [ __ ] himself
01:02:03
>> 100%. >> Rest in distress, [ __ ] >> Yeah. [ __ ] you. >> Because the fact that he came back,
01:02:08
>> go [ __ ] yourself. The fact that he was scared off and then came back is really
01:02:12
scary. It's also just like that's a [ __ ] predator. >> Yeah. >> Um, what's your fun fact?
01:02:17
>> So, most people are petting cats the wrong way. >> How am I supposed to pet my cat?
01:02:22
>> Apparently, research shows that they will tolerate it for food and attention.
01:02:26
Like, they're just dealing with it. But the safest spots to do it are under their chin.
01:02:32
>> A, >> their cheeks and the base of their ears. The worst, their belly, and the base of
01:02:38
their tail. Oh, that makes sense. Um, none of my cats except Remy like being pet on the belly and I always do behind
01:02:44
their ears. >> There you go. >> A Yeah, >> I love knowing that. >> Yeah. So, get them under the chin and
01:02:49
the cheeks. >> The base of their tail makes so much sense because once you start going to a
01:02:52
cat's tail, it's like the most sensitive part of their body. >> That makes sense.
01:02:56
>> Yeah. >> So, yeah. >> Thanks for that. >> Pet your cat accordingly. >> Pet your cat correct.
01:03:00
>> Come correct. Well, with that, we hope you keep listening. >> And we hope you keep it weird,
01:03:08
but not so weird that you try to like turn things into something that they're not when they actually were quite all
01:03:12
right. >> Yeah, it's pretty wild. >> Yeah, it's a weird [ __ ] thing to do. Gives weird vibes. It does.