What Happened to Kitty Genovese? Revisiting Her Harrowing Murder 61 Years Later and Why It Helped Created the 911 System

Mar. 15, 2025

Catherine “Kitty” Genovese.Photo: Courtesy of The Witnesses Film, LLC

However, it was later revealed that there were far fewer witnesses than initially reported, and several tried to help Kitty. Unfortunately, she died en route to a hospital. Three years later, Kitty’s slaying and its aftermath inspired the creation of the 911 emergency calling system, according to PBS’Independent Lens. The number went into use nationally inFebruary 1968.

While Kitty’s murder became front-page news, her brother, Bill Genovese, told PEOPLE that he and his family members avoided finding out how the tragic event unfolded. When Winston Moseley wasconvicted of first-degree murderand sentenced to death in July 1964, Kitty’s family “couldn’t bear to go to the trial,” Bill said in the 2016 documentaryThe Witness.

It wasn’t until their mother died in 1992 that he began to research his late sister to learn more about her life and death. In the process, Bill found consolation when he learned that Kitty hadn’t been alone when she died.

“I wish my parents knew that,” he told PEOPLE in January 2017. “I would have hoped it would have been a comfort for them.”

So what happened to Kitty Genovese? Here’s everything to know about her murder 61 years later and how her family has kept her memory alive.

Who was Kitty Genovese?

Kitty Genovese in an undated photo.The Daily News via AP

The Daily News via AP

Catherine “Kitty” Susan Genovese was born on July 7, 1935, and she led a colorful life. “She was pretty extraordinary … a real pistol,” her brother Bill told PEOPLE.

InThe Witness, Kitty’s classmate Ilse Hirsch Metchek described heras witty, funny and a “cutup.” Though she wasn’t particularly dedicated to her studies — sometimes skipping school — she was smart.

After her family moved to Connecticut, she stayed in New York, where she eventually moved in with her partner, Mary Ann Zielonko. Speaking in the 2016 documentary Witness, Mary Ann recalled Kitty pursuing her after they crossed paths at a bar.

“I fell very much in love with her,” Mary Ann said, adding that Kitty was still getting to know herself. “I think she had conflicts about being gay, because we would have arguments about this. I think in time she would have worked it out, but she didn’t have the chance.”

Walter Brosnan, a frequent bar customer, and Victor Horan, her coworker, recounted that Kitty was sweet and liked to goof around.

What happened to Kitty Genovese?

Daily News page 7 on July 25, 1995 about Kitty Genovese’s murder.NY Daily News via Getty

NY Daily News via Getty

The originalNew York Timesfront page story about her murder claimed that there were 38 witnesses to her slaying, that she was attacked three separate times and that no one called the police.

What really happened was starkly different: At around 3:15 a.m. on March 13, 1964, Winston Moseley followed Kitty as she drove from her job as a bar manager in Hollis, Queens, to her home in Kew Gardens.

When she exited her red Fiat, he followed her on foot, at which point she noticed him and began running,The New York Timeslater reported. He caught up with her and stabbed her in the back two times with a hunting knife on a sidewalk.

During Moseley’s first attack, witness Robert Mozer heard Kitty crying for help. Mozer yelled out of his apartment window, scaring Moseley off. He testified that he saw Moseley run away “like a scared rabbit” and watched Kitty walk away around a corner out of sight, after which Mozer returned to bed, assuming the incident was over.

Moseley, however, didn’t leave for long. He later recalled changing his hat from a stocking cap to a wide-brim to hide his face and moving his car out of sight of Mozer’s building before returning to the scene.

He found Kitty lying down in a hallway at the rear of her apartment building, writhing in pain and crying for help. He stabbed her 12 times and raped her before fleeing.

It was revealed in the 2016 documentaryThe Witnessthat at least two people called the police for help, and a friend of Kitty’s who lived in her building, Sophia Farrar, ran downstairs to the hallway and found Kitty in a pool of blood, barely conscious.

She held Kitty and told her help was on the way, cradling her until an ambulance arrived. Kitty died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

How many times was Kitty Genovese stabbed?

Kitty was stabbed a total of 14 times. Moseley stabbed her twice in the first attack before Mozer scared him off, then a dozen times when he returned to the crime scene.

How many witnesses to Kitty Genovese’s murder were there?

View of scene looking across the street where on March 13, 1964, Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was murdered at 82-70 Austin St., Kew Garden, Queens, New York.Dennis Caruso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty

Dennis Caruso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty

It’s likely there weren’t actually 38 witnesses,The New York Timesreported in February 2004. According to Charles Skoller — the former assistant district attorney who prosecuted Moseley — only “half a dozen” people sawanything to which they could testify in court.

This is partly because the second attack, which took longer than the first, happened indoors, facing the Long Island Railroad, not the street. However, Skoller stated that it was possible as many as 38 people heard screams but couldn’t see or decipher where they came from.

More recently, in September 2020,The New York Timesstated that no witnesses saw the crime happen in full and that some who heard it happen thought it was just a “drunken brawl or a lovers' quarrel.”

Historian, attorney and Kew Gardens resident Joseph De May, Jr. toldOn the Mediain July 2009 that the only man who could’ve seen Kitty bleeding in the vestibule was inebriated.

After reportedly not wanting to get involved, the witness allegedly called a woman who lived in the building, who then called the police.According toThe New Yorker, this man was Karl Ross, a friend of Kitty.

Another man, Michael Hoffman, was a teenager living in a building across the street at the time of the murder and said his father called the police and was ignored, Kevin Cook, author ofKitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime That Changed America, explained toNPRin March 2014.

View of scene where on March 13, 1964, Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was murdered in New York City.Dennis Caruso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty

In 2016’sThe Witness, Hattie Grund recounted that she also called the police and told them that she heard a woman scream for help. Grund told Kitty’s brother Bill that the police told her at the time that they had already been alerted about the incident.

“It wasn’t that people didn’t call,” she said. “There might have been other people that called because once you got the police station [on the phone] before you could finish, they said, ‘We’ve gotten the calls.’ "

Only one witness allegedly saw Kitty being harmed and didn’t try to help. Joseph Fink, a man who lived across the street from Kitty’s building, reportedly saw the first attack from outside his window and did nothing,The New Yorkerreported. During the second attack, Fink went to sleep in his basement and didn’t intervene.

Who killed Kitty Genovese?

Winston Moseley (c) in handcuffs after surrendering to police and FBI agents in suburban Grand Island.Bettmann/ Getty

Bettmann/ Getty

Kitty’s murderer was serial killer and rapist Winston Moseley.

He was caught five days after Kitty’s death while burglarizing another property, and he confessed to the crime. In addition to admitting he killed Kitty, Moseley revealed that he murdered and raped 15-year-old Barbara Kralik and 24-year-old Annie Mae Johnson.

He was never tried for Kralik and Johnson’s murders but reportedly knew details only their killers could have known about the cases.

In 1968, Moseley was hospitalized in Buffalo, N.Y., for a self-inflicted injury,The New Timesreported. He escaped from the hospital after stealing a security guard’s gun, took five people hostage and raped a woman before the FBI apprehended him. He received two 15-year prison sentences to be served concurrently with his life sentence.

Moseley, who earned a sociology degree while in prison, wrote an essay inThe New York Timesin 1977, in which he expressed regret for killing Kitty.

“More than a decade ago, I committed a crime I genuinely regret. No one should murder or can justify it,” he wrote. “I’ve been imprisoned many years now, and I’ve wished so many times that [I] could bring Kitty Genovese back to life, back to her family and friends.”

Moseley died at age 81 on April 4, 2016. He served nearly 52 years before his death at the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y.

What did Kitty Genovese’s brother Bill do?

William Genovese brother of Kitty Genovese, leaving Brooklyn Federal Courthouse.Andrew Savulich/NY Daily News Archive via Getty

Andrew Savulich/NY Daily News Archive via Getty

He and the rest of the Genovese family didn’t attend Moseley’s trial, and their mother had a stroke a year after the murder.

After their mother died in 1992, Bill began investigating further into his sister’s murder, as well as into her life.

He chronicled his efforts in the documentaryThe Witness, in which he interviewed several surviving witnesses to Kitty’s murder and found solace in knowing she wasn’t alone when she died, as Farrar was holding his sister while they awaited help.

What happened to Kitty Genovese’s girlfriend?

Over the years, Zielonko reflected on how well she and Kitty “meshed,” leading to a “quick bond,” she toldThe Chicago Tribunein March 2003.

Zielonko later said she didn’t remember much else about the night of the slaying because she blocked a lot of it out of her mind.

“I was very numb, I would say, from the whole thing,” she toldThe New York Timesin April 2016. “I felt, wow, she was so close, and I was sleeping, and I didn’t know what happened, and that I could have saved her. You know? That’s what I really think still.”

Speaking to theRutland Heraldin March 2004, Zielonko revealed that she felt “helpless” after Kitty’s death, wondering if she could have done something to prevent the incident. She vowed not to turn her back the next time she saw someone in danger.

Zielonko died at age 85 on April 3, 2020, in Rutland, Vt., perThe New York Times.

source: people.com