In the early hours of March 13, , Kitty Genovese, a year-old bartender, was raped and stabbed outside the apartment building where she lived in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens , New York , United States. Researchers have since uncovered major inaccuracies in the Times article, and police interviews revealed that some witnesses had attempted to contact authorities.
In , reporters at a competing news organization discovered that the Times article was inconsistent with the facts, but they were unwilling at the time to challenge Times editor Abe Rosenthal. In , an article in the American Psychologist found "no evidence for the presence of 38 witnesses, or that witnesses observed the murder, or that witnesses remained inactive". Winston Moseley, a year-old Manhattan native, was arrested during a house burglary six days after the murder.
While in custody, he confessed to killing Genovese. At his trial, Moseley was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Moseley died in prison on March 28, , at the age of 81, having served 52 years. John's Place in Park Slope , a western Brooklyn neighborhood populated mainly by families of Italian and Irish heritage. In her teenage years, Genovese attended the all-girl Prospect Heights High School , where she was recalled as being "self-assured beyond her years" and having a "sunny disposition". Later that year, the couple wed, but the marriage was annulled near the end of due to Genovese's sexuality as a lesbian.
After moving into an apartment in Brooklyn, Genovese worked in clerical jobs, which she found unappealing. By the late s, she had accepted a position as a bartender. In August she was briefly arrested for bookmaking , as she had been taking bets on horse races from bar patrons. Genovese held another bartending position at Ev's Eleventh Hour Bar on Jamaica Avenue and rd Street in Hollis , Queens , and was soon managing the bar on behalf of its absentee owner.
