Fifty Years After Kitty Genovese: Inside the Case That Rocked Our Faith in Each Other

By Albert A. Seedman and Peter Hellman

An investigator in the infamous New York murder looks back on the Kitty Genovese case and examines its enduring legacy.
 
Fifty years after she was viciously attacked in Kew Gardens, Queens, the name of murder victim Kitty Genovese still conjures the ugly specter of American apathy. “37 Saw Murder but Didn’t Call Police” ran a New York Times headline that created a legend. A thirty-eighth witness did call—“after much deliberation”—a half hour after the first attack left the targeted woman wounded on the street. By then, her killer had returned and finished the job: Genovese lay dying in a stairwell, just steps from the safety of her own apartment.
 
The apparent indifference of Genovese’s neighbors to her screams—and the cold-blooded calm of the killer who came back—fixed this case in the memory of detective chief Albert Seedman. Ten years later, he gave coauthor Peter Hellman the inside story on the murder that still haunts the American conscience.
 
Seedman’s account of the investigation, now with incisive new commentary from Hellman, is as gripping today as ever, and the plight of Kitty Genovese just as chilling. When Seedman questioned the murderer about Genovese’s neighbors, he replied, “I knew they wouldn’t do anything. People never do. That late at night, they just go back to sleep.” This fascinating account blends true crime with psychological insight about the “bystander effect” and the ever-important issue of how we confront—or don’t confront—evil in our midst.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781615192298

Albert A. Seedman

Albert A. Seedman (1918–2013) was an NYPD deputy inspector overseeing four Queens detective squads when Kitty Genovese was murdered. An unlikely policeman when he first joined the force (he had been a certified public accountant), he ultimately rose through the ranks to become Chief of Detectives in New York City—at the helm of an investigative force second only to the FBI in size. A legend in his own time, he is remembered for his keen insights into the many high-profile cases that crossed his desk.

Book preview

FIFTY YEARS

AFTER

KITTY GENOVESE

ALSO BY ALBERT A. SEEDMAN

AND PETER HELLMAN

Chief! Classic Cases from the Files of the Chief of Detectives

ALSO BY PETER HELLMAN

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A Book Based Upon an Album Discovered by a Concentration Camp Survivor, Lili Meier

FIFTY YEARS

AFTER

KITTY GENOVESE

Inside the Case That

Rocked Our Faith in Each Other

THE ORIGINAL CASE FILE REVISITED

DETECTIVE CHIEF ALBERT A. SEEDMAN

AND PETER HELLMAN

EXPLOGO

New York

FIFTY YEARS AFTER KITTY GENOVESE:

Inside the Case That Rocked Our Faith in Each Other

"The Kitty Genovese Case" copyright © 1974, 2001, 2014 Albert A. Seedman and Peter Hellman.

All other text copyright © 2014 Peter Hellman.

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no portion of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The Experiment, LLC

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www.theexperimentpublishing.com

The Experiment’s books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for premiums and sales promotions as well as for fund-raising or educational use. For details, contact us at [e-mail].

The text of The Kitty Genovese Case was first published in Chief! Classic Cases from the Files of the Chief of Detectives (1974). It has been revised and updated for this edition.

Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-229-8

Cover and text design by Karen Giangreco.

Portrait of Albert Seedman and photograph of Seedman at his desk copyright © Ken Regan | Camera 5.

Diagram of Kitty’s last steps based on an original by Joseph De May.

Stairwell photograph copyright © Dave Sagarin.

Photograph of the Tudor building copyright © Peter Hellman.

Distributed by Workman Publishing Company, Inc.

Distributed simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Ltd.

Published March 2014

In memory of Catherine Genovese

and Albert Seedman

CONTENTS

Introduction

THE KITTY GENOVESE CASE

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

INTRODUCTION

ABOUT ALBERT SEEDMAN AND HIS MOST FAMOUS CASE

THE NYPD’S CHIEF OF DETECTIVES commands the nation’s second-largest investigative force after the FBI. Yet few New Yorkers, even those who keep up with local news, are likely to know the name of their top detective. The last time, and possibly the only time, that a Chief of Detectives broke into the limelight was over forty years ago, during the thirteen-month reign of Albert Seedman, whose knack for crime-solving was right up there with that of Sherlock Holmes (admittedly, one directed 3,000 detectives, while the other counted only on Watson and a gaggle of underage Baker Street irregulars to assist him). Seedman died in 2013 at age ninety-four, nearly blind but in full possession of his canny instincts.

A couple of factors put the shine on Al Seedman’s three-star badge. For starters, he looked the part of a Big Apple detective chief—with his square jaw and shoulders, the piercing glint of his grey eyes, the onyx pinky ring on one hand, and the diamond-sprayed job on the ring finger of the other. The ever-present cigar was thrust out at a jaunty angle from his lips. And then, there were the headline cases that came his way, one after another, starting just before his elevation to the top detective job in March 1971. The previous year, it was the accidental destruction of an elegant Greenwich Village townhouse (next door to actor Dustin Hoffman’s home) which doubled as a Weathermen bomb factory. The next year saw the very public shooting of Mafia kingpin Joe Colombo in Central Park and murderous attacks on three different pairs of NYPD patrolman by the secretive Black Liberation Army. In the spring of 1972, feared gangster Crazy Joe Gallo was slain outside Umberto’s Clam House. Under Seedman, the Detective Bureau solved all these crimes.

AlbertSeedman_credit Ken Regan

Chief of Detectives Albert A. Seedman with one of his ever-present cigars.

Decades later, the names of the victims and perpetrators in those cases have faded from the public memory. All except one. That name belonged to Catherine Kitty Genovese, a lively, dark-eyed barmaid who hoped one day to run her own tavern. Coming home in the early morning hours of March 13, 1964, in a serene, middle-class neighborhood in Queens called Kew Gardens, the twenty-eight-year-old Genovese was stalked and stabbed fourteen times by a lone assailant in two separate attacks. Her screams echoed in the chilly night air, but none of her neighbors, peering out of their windows, came to her aid, and no more than two belatedly dialed the police. As her killer finished Genovese off and raped her at the base of a steep stairwell at the rear entrance to two second-story apartments, a man who lived upstairs opened his door and looked down. Then he slunk back into his apartment and only after much hesitation did he call his girlfriend to ask what he should do. Unwilling to call the police from his own phone, he skittered across the roof to a neighbor’s apartment, where he mustered the courage to call from her telephone. And this was a man who knew the victim.

THE FOLLOWING ACCOUNT of the Genovese murder investigation, as seen from within the Detective Bureau, was originally published in 1974 in Chief! Classic Cases from the Files of the Chief of Detectives. The book grew out of a New York Times Magazine profile of Seedman which was very nearly stillborn at our first meeting in the late fall of 1971. I’d trekked up the imposingly formal staircase of the old police headquarters, a domed Baroque pile on Centre Street later converted to luxury apartments. The Chief of Detectives’ enormous second-floor office was adjacent to the Commissioner’s. Seedman, wreathed in cigar smoke at his ancient desk, acknowledged me with a cursory nod when I was ushered in before returning to his paperwork. A white phone, one of two on his desk, rang. He

Reviews for Fifty Years After Kitty Genovese

[janarose1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I had a hard time with this book. I thought that it was poorly written. The entire thing read like a (rather boring) introduction. Overall, this is not something I would re-read or recommend.

[puddintame-358807 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this book very interesting. I read several books about the case around the same time. This combines the case files and reminiscences of Chief of Detective Albert A. Seedman, in his book Chief!, with updated information about what became of some of the people.The Genoveses "unwilling to relive the crime or to be exposed to hoards (sic) of reporters" did not attend the original trial, but thirty-one years later, four siblings and two aunts attended the unsuccessful appeal of her killer, Winston Moseley, to have his conviction overturned. "We have lived with this case for thirty-one years through movies, books, and newspapers," Frank Genovese told the Times during a break in the hearing." Winston Moseley broke out of jail and committed more violent crimes before he was recaptured. In November 2013, seventy-eight-year old Moseley, who had committed a number of other violent crimes, was denied his sixteenth request for parole.The case gave an impetus to the adoption of the 911 system. One of the witnesses, then a teenager, later said that his father attempted to call the police and report the crime as it was happening, but the call took several minutes. He tends to be believed or disbelieved according to the point that various authors are trying to make.The case also resulted in studies of the Bystander Effect -- why do people choose or not choose to help in the face of another's suffering. Some researchers switched from studying negative behavior (e.g., violence) to studying how to encourage "pro-social behavior," (e.g. heroism) On the other hand, as Hellman points out, Moseley was caught because two neighbors of the house he was robbing became suspicious, disabled his car, and called the police. It has also been shown that the original reports in the New York Times were somewhat exaggerated: there were not as many witnesses as they claimed, although those who were aware and did nothing were bad enough. There have been several memorial Catherine Genovese conferences organized by Professor Harold Takooshian at the Fordham University to discuss the issues involved in the crime.The case has become almost iconic in our culture, and I enjoyed learning more about its enduring effects.