JANUARY 1 "DO YOU STILL HEAR THE CRY?"
The Brutal
Rape and Murder That Changed New York City Forever
On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was raped and stabbed to death
outside her apartment in Queens, with 38 people allegedly ignoring her screams.
The gruesome circumstances of the crime itself made
Genovese’s death the kind of urban tragedy that would have garnered headlines
anywhere. A pretty and well-liked brunette living in the city, she worked as a
bar manager at a local watering hole—making it all the more tragic when,
walking home from her car past 3 a.m. one night, she was attacked and stabbed
in the back in front of her own Kew Gardens apartment by a knife-wielding
stranger.
An injured Genovese screamed for help, then staggered around
the corner to the back entrance of the building. There, her attacker, who had
briefly run off, came back to finish the job. He stabbed her again and raped
her, robbing her of $49 in cash.
Many of her neighbors witnessed part of the attacks,
or heard her screams. At least two of them seemingly knew she had been stabbed
and did not intervene—one of whom, prosecutor Charles Skoller informs Bill
Genovese, nearly walked in on his sister’s second attack and phoned a
girlfriend who advised him not to get involved.
Genovese died in a pool of her own blood, cradled in
the arms of the only neighbor who ran to her side, in the hallway of her own
building as most of the neighborhood went back to sleep.
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