what is the kitty genovese case study

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Kitty Genovese

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 21, 2021 | Original: January 5, 2018

The Kitty Genovese murder in Queens, New York, in 1964 is one of the most famous murder cases to come out of New York City and into the national spotlight. What propelled it wasn’t the crime or the investigation, but the press coverage that alleged the murder had many witnesses who refused to come to the Kitty Genovese’s defense. This has been disproved over time, but not before it became part of the accepted lore of the crime.

KITTY GENOVESE MURDER

Kitty Genovese was returning from work home at around 2:30 a.m. on March 13, 1964, when she was approached by a man with a knife. Genovese ran toward her apartment building front door, and the man grabbed her and stabbed her while she screamed.

A neighbor, Robert Mozer, yelled out his window, “Let that girl alone!” causing the attacker to flee.

Genovese, seriously injured, crawled to the rear of her apartment building, out of the view of any possible witnesses. Ten minutes later, her attacker returned, stabbed her, raped her and stole her money.

She was found by neighbor Sophia Farrar, who screamed for someone to call the police. Police arrived several minutes later. Genovese died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

The murder elicited a brief news item in The New York Times .

WHO WAS KITTY GENOVESE?

Catherine Susan “Kitty” Genovese was born in Brooklyn, New York , on July 7, 1935, to parents Vincent and Rachel Genovese. The oldest of five children, Genovese was a graduate of Prospect Heights High School and remembered as a very good student and voted “Class Cut-Up” in her senior year.

Following her graduation in 1953, Genovese’s mother witnessed a murder on the streets, which motivated the family to move to New Canaan, Connecticut .

Kitty Genovese, however, remained in New York City , working as a secretary at an insurance company and working nights at Ev’s 11th Hour, a bar in the Hollis neighborhood of Queens, first as a bartender then as the manager, prompting her to move to Queens.

A decade later, Genovese met her girlfriend, Mary Ann Zielonko, in a Greenwich Village nightclub. The two found a second-floor apartment together in Kew Gardens in Queens, considered a peaceful, safe area to live.

THE INVESTIGATION

It was 4 a.m. when police knocked on the apartment door and informed Zielonko about the stabbing and Genovese’s death.

It wasn’t until around 7 a.m. that Detective Mitchell Sang arrived to question Zielonko, who was being consoled with liquor by neighbor Karl Ross. Sang found Ross intrusive to the questioning and arrested him for disorderly conduct. Sang also knew that Genovese’s body was discovered lying at the bottom of the stairs leading to Ross’ apartment.

Later, homicide detectives John Carroll and Jerry Burns arrived and grilled Zielonko on her relationship with Genovese. The questioning took an inappropriate turn, focusing on their sex life, and lasted for six hours.

Much of the police questioning of neighbors revealed a preoccupation with the gay lifestyle. Zielonko was considered a suspect.

MURDER OF KITTY GENOVESE SOLVED

Later that week, police got a call about a suspected robbery. When police showed up, they found a television in the trunk of the suspect’s car. The man, Winston Moseley, was arrested and taken to the station, where he confessed to stealing appliances dozens of times.

Moseley drove a white Corvair, and this struck Detective John Tartaglia, who remembered that some witnesses to Genovese’s murder had reported seeing a white car. This was mentioned to Moseley, who said nothing.

Tartaglia called in detectives John Carroll and Mitchell Sang. They noticed scabs on Moseley’s hands and accused him of killing Genovese. Moseley replied that he had and confirmed information that only the murderer would know.

WINSTON MOSELEY

Moseley had spotted Genovese at a traffic light while he sat in his parked car and then followed her home. He had been driving around Queens looking for a victim but gave no motive for the attack. Moseley was married with three children and had no prior record.

Later interrogations would have Moseley confess to several other rapes and two other murders, those of Annie Mae Johnson and Barbara Kralik. Moseley was sentenced to death on June 15, 1964—it was reduced to a life sentence in 1967.

He would later claim that a mobster executed Genovese and he was only the getaway driver. Moseley’s son has stated that he believes Moseley attacked Genovese because she yelled racial slurs at him. Moseley died in jail on March 28, 2016 at 81 years old.

NEW YORK TIMES COVERAGE

On March 27, 1964, The New York Times ran an article titled “37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call The Police,” alleging that multiple neighbors heard or witnessed Genovese’s murder but did nothing to help her.

The report was prompted by a conversation between Times editor A. M. Rosenthal and Police Commissioner Michael Murphy, during which Murphy made the claim that was the basis for the article.

The newspaper followed it up the next day with an analysis speaking to several experts on the psychology of why people would choose not to get involved.

Later in the year, Rosenthal adapted this information into a book called Thirty-eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case .

The New York Times coverage has been criticized for numerous factual errors and accused of contriving a social phenomenon for sensationalistic purposes.

BYSTANDER EFFECT

The phenomenon, called the Bystander Effect or the Genovese Syndrome, attempts to explain why someone witnessing a crime would not help the victim.

Psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley made their careers studying the Bystander Effect and have shown in clinical experiments that witnesses are less likely to help a crime victim if there are other witnesses. The more witnesses, the less likely any one person will intervene.

The Bystander Effect was used by the press as a parable of a morally bankrupt modern society losing its compassion for others, particularly in cities.

NEW YORK TIMES DEBUNKED

Decades following the murder, a journalistic movement began to correct the misinformation perpetuated by The New York Times stories.

In 2004, journalist Jim Rasenberger wrote an article for the Times debunking the claims of the 1964 reporting. A 2007 article in American Psychologist by Rachel Manning, Mark Levine, and Alan Collins further deflates Rosenthal’s claims.

In 2015, Genovese’s younger brother Bill produced and narrated the documentary The Witness , which lays out the case against the Times reporting in strong terms.

‘I DIDN’T WANT TO GET INVOLVED’

Only two neighbors have been shown to behave at the time of the murder in the way the Times claimed 38 people did. One of those was Karl Ross.

Intoxicated that night, Ross heard noises and after deliberation, cracked open his door to investigate. He saw Genovese laying on the ground, still alive and attempting to speak, and Moseley stabbing her. He shut the door and called a friend to ask what to do. The friend said not to get involved.

Ross eventually climbed out of his window and went to a neighbors apartment. He called the police after hearing Sophie Farrar call for someone to do so. Ross’ explanation—“I didn’t want to get involved”—became the famous rejoinder of the Bystander Effect.

THE BIRTH OF 911

The murder of Kitty Genovese is credited as one of the factors that pushed the emergency 911 system into place, after New York City officials joined in a national effort involving officials in other cities. It became the national emergency number in 1968.

Kitty Genovese. Kevin Cook . A Call For Help. The New Yorker . Her Shocking Murder Became the Stuff of Legend. But Everyone Got the Story Wrong. Washington Post .

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What Happened to Kitty Genovese

Charlotte Ruhl

Research Assistant & Psychology Graduate

BA (Hons) Psychology, Harvard University

Charlotte Ruhl, a psychology graduate from Harvard College, boasts over six years of research experience in clinical and social psychology. During her tenure at Harvard, she contributed to the Decision Science Lab, administering numerous studies in behavioral economics and social psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

On This Page:

Key Takeaways

• On March 13th, 1964, Kitty Genovese was arriving home from work in the middle of the night when she was brutally stabbed to death by Winston Moseley.
• This horrific incident led to the coining of the term “bystander effect” – a phenomenon within social psychology that describes how people are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present.
• Although Genovese’s case sparked a widespread public discourse about bystander intervention, it has since been revealed that the number of witnesses who actually heard or saw the events was largely overstated.
• The story of Genovese’s death continues to be told in pop culture today through movies, television shows, books, and music.

If you’ve ever taken an introductory psychology course or scanned any psychology textbook, then it is likely that you have encountered the term “ bystander effect .”

This term was coined after the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 when it was reported that 38 bystanders watched or heard the attack occur but instead relied on others to intervene or call the police.

Although it has since been revealed that the number of bystanders was likely to be much lower than the staggering number that was initially reported, Genovese’s story still serves as an illustration for this phenomenon, and her legacy continues to live on in popular culture today.

Who Is Kitty Genovese?

Catherine Susan “Kitty” Genovese was born on July 7th, 1935, in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian-American parents. The oldest of five, Genovese and her siblings were raised in a four-family row house in Park Slope, a neighborhood known for housing Italian and Irish families.

As a teenager, Genovese attended Prospect Heights High School, an all-girls school, where she thrived in her English and music classes and was elected “Class Cut-Up” among her graduating class of 712 students.

She was always known as a talkative and energetic person who was very popular in school (Worthen, 2019).

In 1954, her mother witnessed a horrifying murder that prompted the family to move out of the city and to New Canaan, Connecticut.

Genovese, having just graduated from high school, decided not to follow her family to the suburbs and instead remained in the city with her grandparents to prepare for her upcoming marriage to Rocco Anthony Fazzolare.

Fazzolare, an army officer and engineer, dated Genovese while he was in college and she was in high school. And although the couple did marry on October 31st, 1954, the marriage was soon annulled, and the two divorced in 1956 (Worthen, 2019).

In the late 1950s, Genovese moved to an apartment of her own in Brooklyn and began working as a bartender after she found her work as a secretary to be too unappealing.

But in August of 1961, Genovese was arrested for bookmaking – she and her friend, Dee Guarnieri, had been taking bets on horse races from bar patrons and were fined $50, and she lost her job (Worthen, 2019).

Genovese was a headstrong and hardworking individual, so she soon found a job at Ev’s Eleventh Hour Bar in Hollis, Queens. She eventually became the manager, filling in for the absentee owner.

Genovese’s extremely reliable and positive attitude was even reflected in her salary (she made roughly $750 a month, which is about $6,800 a month today), and she was saving this money to fulfill her dream goal of opening her own Italian restaurant (Worthen, 2019).

On March 13th, 1963, Genovese met Mary Ann Zielonko at Swing Rendezvous, an underground lesbian bar in Greenwich Village. The two fell fast for one another and ultimately decided to move in together.

They found an apartment on the second floor of a two-story building next to the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) in Kew Gardens, Queens (Worthen, 2019).

This new apartment in Kew Gardens would be the last place Genovese ever lived.

On March 13th, 1964, exactly a year after she met Zielonko, Genovese was brutally stabbed to death as she was coming home from a late-night shift at the bar.

Her brutal murder left the entire community devastated and after startling reports came out that 38 witnesses saw or heard the attack and failed to act, Genovese’s story gained widespread attention.

Her legacy lives on in movies, books, music, and psychology textbooks, as scholars try to understand the later-termed “bystander effect” and piece together the events that transpired on that awful March night (Worthen, 2019).

The Murder of Kitty Genovese

Around 2:30 in the morning on March 13th, 1964, Genovese began to drive home to her Kew Gardens apartment, eager to get home to see her girlfriend on their first anniversary.

At a traffic light on Hoover Avenue, Genovese was first spotted by Winston Moseley as he sat in his parked car. Moseley, a 28-year-old man who punched data cards for a business machine company, had left his wife and two sons asleep in their home in South Ozone Park, Queens, at around 1 a.m.

He drove around for hours, with a sharp hunting knife in his pocket, looking for a victim. And just as he was about to give up, he spotted Genovese at around 3 a.m. (Skoller, 2008).

Roughly 45 minutes from the time she departed the bar, Genovese arrived home and parked her car in the Kew Gardens LIRR parking lot, in an alleyway just feet from the front door to her building. In the few steps that it took her to walk toward the apartment complex, Moseley exited his vehicle, which was parked at a bus stop on Austin Street (see diagram below).

Moseley approached Genovese with a hunting knife in his hand, and as she tried to run toward the front of the building, he quickly overtook her and stabbed her twice in the back (Skoller, 2008).

Diagram produced by Joseph De May based on the map used during the 1964 trial of Winston Moseley to trace the route of his attack on Kitty Genovese and the location of witnesses to the crime, 2004

Being three in the morning, the area was completely desolate – Franken’s Pharmacy and Interlude Coffeehouse were both closed and most people were asleep. However, Robert Mozer, one of Genovese’s neighbors, awoke and saw the struggle occurring down below and called out to “Leave that girl alone!” (Krajicek, 2019).

Realizing that residents had awoken after Genovese screamed, “Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!” and in fear of being identified, Moseley quickly fled from the scene and back into his car.

Genovese got to her feet, not having suffered any fatal wounds, and tried to make it to her building’s entrance. Finally, inside, she collapsed in the vestibule right before the stairs.

Meanwhile, Moseley had driven away, covering his face with a wide-brimmed hat, but he returned 10 minutes later after having found Genovese lying barely conscious in a hallway at the back of the building. Now out of sight from any neighbors or people on the street, Moseley repeatedly stabbed Genovese before raping her and stealing $49 from her (Krajicek, 2019).

Approximately 30 minutes after Moseley first approached Genovese, he fled from the scene, leaving an unconscious Genovese to be discovered by Sophia Farrar, her close friend, who held her in her arms until an ambulance arrived (Lemann, 2014).

Records of the calls to the police are unclear, with multiple neighbors claiming to have called the police or called friends who called the police. It is reported that at 4:15 a.m. Genovese was picked up by an ambulance.

The stab wounds she sustained proved to be fatal, and Genovese died before making it to Queens General Hospital. She was buried three days later in Lakeview Cemetery in New Canaan, Connecticut (Pelonero, 2016).

The Aftermath

Moseley’s conviction.

Following the incident, the coroner’s report revealed that Genovese suffered from 13 stab wounds and several other defense wounds, indicating that she tried to fight back.

Homicide detectives began the search for her attacker, initially interviewing Zielonko, Genovese’s girlfriend. They quickly dismissed her as a suspect but only after having grilled her for six hours about her relationship with Genovese.

Just six days after the brutal murder, Winston Moseley was arrested for suspected robbery in Ozone Park, Queens after a television set was found in the trunk of his white Chevrolet Corvair.

A detective remembered that the same color car had been reported by witnesses to Genovese’s murder. During questioning, Moseley admitted to having murdered Genovese and two other women, Annie Mae Johnson and Barbara Kralik.

He was found guilty of all three murders and sentenced to death on June 15th, 1964. However, his sentence was later reduced to 20 years to life.

After escaping from Attica Prison in 1968 which added an additional 30 years onto his sentence and being denied parole 18 times, he died in prison on March 28th, 2016 at 81 years old (Kassin, 2017).

Public Response

Other than a short blurb titled “Queens Woman Is Stabbed to Death in Front of Home” that appeared in the New York Times on March 14th, Genovese’s murder did not receive much media attention in the initial few days following the brutal incident.

Two weeks later, New York City Commissioner Michael J. Murphy told Times editor Abraham Rosenthal about the murder, which finally motivated the major news outlet to produce a story.

The article, written by Martin Gansberg and titled “37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call Police,” was published two weeks later and discussed in detail how 38 people stood idle as Genovese was ruthlessly stabbed 13 times.

The article made national headlines, and the presumed lack of public apathy sparked widespread discussion about bystander intervention.

The Bystander Effect

The bystander effec t, a psychological phenomenon where individuals are less likely to offer help in the presence of others, is often cited as a rationale for why no one aided Kitty Genovese.

Witnesses may have assumed that others would intervene, diffusing individual responsibility to act. Furthermore, uncertainty or fear of misinterpretation might have deterred action.

In the Kitty Genovese case, it was initially reported that 38 neighbors were awakened by her screams. It was found later that about a dozen neighbors witnessed her murder, out of which 2 called the police, and none intervened until the attacker left.

Although 38 witnesses have since been determined to be an overestimate of the number of people who were aware that Moseley was attacking Genovese, this gruesome attack continues to represent a common psychological phenomenon: the bystander effect.

This concept refers to the tendency to be less likely to assist a victim when other people are present. It can be difficult to know how to act in a high-pressure situation in which an individual appears to be in danger.

To help guide the course of action, psychologists have devised multiple decision models of bystander intervention . According to social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane (1968), who pioneered the empirical research on this effect, a bystander progresses through a five-step decision-making process before intervening in any emergency situation.

The five steps are: 1) notice that something is wrong; 2) define the situation as an emergency; 3) decide whether they are personally responsible to act; 4) choose how to help; 5) implement the chosen helping behavior.

Another decision model is the common cost-benefit analysis. Here, bystanders weigh the costs and benefits of helping the victim, justifying their decision based on which course of action will provide the best outcome for themselves (Blagg, 2019).

There are also several factors that affect the magnitude of the bystander effect. The extent to which the situation is labeled as an emergency will affect how likely an individual is to act.

In a study done by Latane (1970), a student asked participants in one condition if they could spare a dime and participants in another condition if they could spare a dime because their wallet had been stolen.

Only 34% of people who were simply asked to give a dime did so, but 72% of people did when an explanation was given. Another study that collected data from EMS officials revealed that the response of bystanders was directly correlated to the health severity of the situation (Faul et al., 2016).

Together, these studies demonstrate that when a situation is perceived to be particularly threatening or unusual, bystander intervention is more likely. Another factor contributing to the bystander effect’s severity is group membership.

In other words, although when the number of bystanders increases, the effect increases, when the victim is of an individual’s same group, they are more likely to act (Rutkowski et al., 1983).

These are just two of many different factors that can impact the extent to which the bystander effect occurs.

Ultimately, it is important to prevent factors hindering an individual’s likelihood of intervening in a dangerous situation.

Inaccuracies Uncovered

Despite initial reports claiming that 38 witnesses were there on the night Genovese was stabbed to death, articles and documentaries have since been made to show another side of the story.

Specifically, a 2004 article in The New York Times questioned several claims about the initial report made just two weeks after the incident.

And a 2007 study also demonstrated that there was no actual evidence that 38 witnesses observed the murder and remained inactive (Manning et al., 2007).

In reality, because of the apartment complex’s layout and two separate attacks on Genovese, nobody saw the entire sequence of events.

And although approximately a dozen individuals (not 38) heard or saw parts of the attack, many of these individuals assumed it to be a domestic quarrel or a drunken brawl (Rasenburg, 2006).

Additionally, because the initial attack punctured Genovese’s lungs, it is unlikely she was able to scream at any volume.

A 2015 documentary called The Witness, directed by James Solomon, also revealed that investigators were aware of the errors in the initials New York Times article back in 1964, but the author did not want to state that witnesses did not think a murder was happening so as to not ruin the story.

It is clear that some individuals were more concerned with constructing a certain narrative that would optimize the story’s attention rather than reporting on what actually happened.

In Pop Culture

In addition to the documentary, Genovese’s story has been the subject of many television episodes, books, and songs.

Both the Law & Order episode “Remand” and the Law & Order: SVU episode “41 Witnesses” were based on the case as is season 2, episode 1 of the Investigation Discovery Channel’s A Crime to Remember series.

Harlan Ellison’s short study “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs,” The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, and Ryan David Jahn’s novel Good Neighbors are based on the story.

It also inspired folk singer Phil Ochs to write the song “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends,” and singer Ruby Lynn Reyner to write the song called “Kitty.”

Although there are many controversies surrounding this brutal murder, Genovese continues to live on through many avenues of society today.

• Rentschler, C. A. (2011). An urban physiognomy of the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder. Space and culture, 14(3), 310-329.

Blagg, R. (2019). Bystander effect. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/bystander-effect

Darley, J. M. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn”t he help?.

Darley, J. M., & Latané´, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility . Journal of Personality and SocialcPsychology, 8 , 377–383.

Faul, M., Aikman, S. N., & Sasser, S. M. (2016). Bystander intervention prior to the arrival of emergency medical services: comparing assistance across types of medical emergencies. Prehospital Emergency Care, 20 (3), 317-323.

Gansberg, M. (1964). 37 who saw murder didn”t call the police. New York Times, 27.

Kassin, S. M. (2017). The killing of Kitty Genovese: what else does this case tell us?. Perspectives on psychological Science, 12 (3), 374-381.

Krajicek, D. (2011). The killing of Kitty Genovese: 47 years later, still holds sway over New Yorkers. New York Daily News .

Lemann, N. (2014). A call for help: What the Kitty Genovese story really means. The New Yorker , 10.

Manning, R., Levine, M., & Collins, A. (2007). The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: The parable of the 38 witnesses. American Psychologist, 62 (6), 555.

Pelonero, C. (2016). Kitty Genovese: A true account of a public murder and its private consequences . Simon and Schuster.

Queens Woman Is Stabbed to Death in Front of Home. (1964). The New York Times , p. 26.

Rasenberger, J. (2004). Kitty, 40 years later. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/08/nyregion/kitty-40-years-later.html

Rasenberger, J. (2006). Nightmare on Austin street. American Heritage Publishing Company, Incorporated.

Rutkowski, G. K., Gruder, C. L., & Romer, D. (1983). Group cohesiveness, social norms, and bystander intervention. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44 (3), 545.

Skoller, C. E. (2008). Twisted confessions: The true story behind the Kitty Genovese and Barbara Kralik murder trials . BookPros, LLC. Solomon, J. (Director). (2015). The Witness [Video file]. FilmRise.

Worthen, M. (2019). Kitty Genovese . Retrieved from https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/kitty-genovese

Keep Learning

• Latané, B., & Nida, S. (1981). Ten years of research on group size and helping. Psychological Bulletin, 89, 308 –324.
• BBC Radio 4 Case Study: Kitty Genovese

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Bystander Apathy Experiment

Kitty Genovese Murder Explained

One of the classic experiments in social psychology is the one conducted by John Darley and Bibb Latané in 1964 called Bystander Apathy Experiment.

This article is a part of the guide:

• Social Psychology Experiments
• Milgram Experiment
• Bobo Doll Experiment
• Stanford Prison Experiment
• Asch Experiment

Browse Full Outline

• 1 Social Psychology Experiments
• 2.1 Asch Figure
• 3 Bobo Doll Experiment
• 4 Good Samaritan Experiment
• 5 Stanford Prison Experiment
• 6.1 Milgram Experiment Ethics
• 7 Bystander Apathy
• 8 Sherif’s Robbers Cave
• 9 Social Judgment Experiment
• 10 Halo Effect
• 11 Thought-Rebound
• 12 Ross’ False Consensus Effect
• 13 Interpersonal Bargaining
• 14 Understanding and Belief
• 15 Hawthorne Effect
• 16 Self-Deception
• 17 Confirmation Bias
• 18 Overjustification Effect
• 19 Choice Blindness
• 20.1 Cognitive Dissonance
• 21.1 Social Group Prejudice
• 21.2 Intergroup Discrimination
• 21.3 Selective Group Perception

The experimenters got their inspiration and motivation to conduct this experiment from the highly publicized murder of Kitty Genovese in the same year.

The Murder of Kitty Genovese

On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was murdered in front of her home. She parked her car a number of feet from her apartment when all of a sudden, a man named Winston Moseley chased her down and stabbed her in the back twice. Due to the excruciating pain, Kitty screamed for help and a neighbor responded shouting at the criminal "Let that girl alone!"Immediately after getting the attention of the criminal, Winston fled the scene and left the girl crawling towards her apartment.

Several witnesses reported to have seen Winston fled the scene with his car and returned ten minutes after the response of one of the neighbors. After seeing his prey lying on the ground almost unconscious, he stabbed the already wounded Kitty Genovese several times more. After this, he stole the money of the victim and sexually assaulted Ms Genovese. A neighbor phoned the police and an ambulance arrived but was too late to help the assaulted Kitty Genovese.

Shock to Psychology

Thirty-eight neighbors of Kitty Genovese were aware about the murder that was taking place during that time and yet all of them chose to do nothing in rescue of the assaulted girl. Why were such apathy, indifference and lack of concern observed from all the neighbors of Kitty? Two social psychologists started asking questions why the witnesses demonstrated a lack of reaction towards the victim's need for help.

Darley and Latané thought of a social psychology experiment that will let them see through an event similar to what took place during the murder of Kitty. First, they recruited university students and told them that they will be participating in a discussion about personal problems. Each participant will be talking to other participants of varying number in a discussion group but each of the participants has separate rooms. This conversation will take place over microphones and speakers just so the participants will not be able to physically see the other participants that they are talking to. The topic upon which the conversations will revolve is their college lives.

Each participant will be given two minutes to speak during their turn. All the microphones of other participants will be turned off. The subject is unaware that all the voices that he will hear are all pre-recorded voices. The number of voices that the subject will be 'talking to' depends on the treatment condition that he is in. There are five treatment conditions. First is a solo, one-on-one conversation and the last is a group of six participants (1 subject and 5 pre-recorded voices).

One of the pre-recorded voices is that of an epileptic student who is having seizures. The voice will first confess to the group that he is prone to seizures and it could be life-threatening during its first turn. During its second turn, the seizure will start.

"I'm... I'm having a fit... I... I think I'm... help me... I... I can't... Oh my God... err... if someone can just help me out here... I... I... can't breathe p-p-properly... I'm feeling... I'm going to d-d-die if…"

The real subject can only hear the event and he cannot see the actual participant who is having the seizures.

The actual response that the experimenters will be measuring during this event is the time it will take for the subject to stand up, leave the room, look for the experimenters and ask for help.

Results of the Bystander Apathy Experiment

Only 31% of the subjects tried to seek for help. This means that most of the subjects didn't bother to look for the experimenters to help the suffering participant. Most of them were obviously anxious but the reaction was not there.

However, the significant finding of this experiment lies on the results of the first treatment condition. In a one-on-one conversation, 85% of the subjects actually asked for help. This means that if the subjects think that they are the only one who knows about the incident, there is a higher probability that they will ask for help. On the contrary, the bigger groups displayed fewer reactions to the incident.

Analysis and Conclusion

The significantly higher percentage of subjects who asked for help in the first treatment condition entails that people react more if there is less number of people around an emergency or an event. On the other hand, the significantly lower percentage of subjects who helped in the other treatment conditions entails that individuals are less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present.

Two reasons were offered to explain the bystander apathy effect. First is diffusion of responsibility. This occurs when other people think that another person will intervene and as a result, they feel less responsible. The second explanation is pluralistic ignorance. This refers to the mentality that since everyone else is not reacting to the emergency; my personal help is not needed. Seeing the inaction of others will lead to the thought that the emergency is not that serious as compared to perception when he is alone.

• Individuals may be lead to thinking that other observers are more qualified to help. In times of medical emergencies, people might think that maybe a doctor is present in the scene and the patient will be better off with the help of the doctor.
• Some people may be too self-conscious that they don't want to give off negative images to other bystanders. For them to avoid this occurrence, these individuals simply do not respond to the emergency.
• Fears associated to perception can also be an explanation of bystander effect. Such fears include being outranked by a superior helper, or being rejected when offering one's help, or having to deal with legal consequences of offering inferior or even worsening assistance.
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How the Death of Kitty Genovese Birthed 911 and Neighborhood Watches

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The legacy of Kitty Genovese is grim and still resonates more than 50 years since her infamous murder. 

Genovese, 28, was walking to her Kew Gardens, Queens apartment from her car when 29-year-old Winston Moseley stalked, attacked, raped and murdered her about 3:15 a.m. on March 13, 1964.

Genovese had come home from working the late shift at a Queens bar and parked in the nearby Long Island Rail Road parking lot . She had only 100 feet to walk until she reached her door, located in an alleyway near the rear of the building, when Moseley approached her.

He ran after the frightened woman and stabbed her twice in the back before she could reach the major thoroughfare of Lefferts Boulevard, just up the block.

“Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!” several neighbors said they heard Genovese scream, but few said they realized that the cry was one for help.

Moseley ran away when one neighbor shouted “Let that girl alone!” but witnesses said that after driving away, he returned 10 minutes later.

“I had a feeling this man would close his window and go back to sleep, and sure enough, he did,” Moseley later said in court. 

He searched the parking lot, train station and an apartment complex, eventually finding a barely conscious Genovese in a hallway at the back of the building, where she had collapsed when she was unable to get through a locked door. She was completely out of view of any witnesses.

Moseley stabbed her several more times, raping her as she lay dying and taking $49 from her before fleeing.

Defensive wounds on Genovese’s hands suggested that she tried to prevent the attacks, which lasted about half an hour. She had been stabbed at least 14 times.

Police arrived after a witness called police minutes after the final attack, but it was too late. Genovese died on the way to the hospital about 4:15 a.m.

Moseley was arrested six days after killing Genovese during a house burglary. At the time of his arrest, he had been working a steady job, had no prior criminal record and was married with two children.

The brutal killing was completely random. Moseley later said he had simply wanted “to kill a woman.”

He told police he left his sleeping wife at home and drove around to find a victim, finally spotting Genovese and followed her to the parking lot.

Despite pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, Moseley was found guilty and sentenced to death.

“I don’t believe in capital punishment, but when I see a monster like this, I wouldn’t hesitate to pull the switch myself,” Judge J. Irwin Shapiro said at the time.

His initial death sentence was reduced to lifetime imprisonment, to which two additional 15-year sentences were tacked on for crimes—including another rape—he committed when he escaped from custody on March 18, 1968.

Moseley made a getaway when he was being taken back to prison from a Buffalo hospital, hitting a corrections officer and taking the man’s weapon before fleeing to a nearby vacant house.

When the couple who owned the home checked on the house three days later, Moseley bound and gagged the husband and raped his wife.

Moseley stole the couple’s car and fled to another house, where he took a woman and her daughter hostage. He left them unharmed after holding them captive for two hours. Moseley surrendered to police shortly thereafter.

He had been denied parole 18 times before his death, reportedly having shown little to no remorse for killing Genovese and at one point saying he considered her murder to be a mugging and never intended to kill her.  

Genovese’s murder came to symbolize a perceived callousness or apathy of life in an urban environment, New York in particular, as accounts of the killing said 38 people heard the dying woman’s pleas but did nothing to help.

In one reported account, a witness was said to have told police he stood at the top of the staircase and watched as the young woman was fatally stabbed but said. “I didn’t want to get involved.”

“The phrase that came out of this was, ‘I didn’t want to get involved,’” Kevin Cook, author of ‘Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America , told Inside Edition in 2014.

The exact number of witnesses was never definitively determined, but officials believe it may have been far less and actually about 12 people, two of which who eventually called police.

“There were certainly dozens of ear-witnesses and eyewitnesses, but when you talk about the people who heard something or saw something and knew what it meant, I don't think it's more than half a dozen," Cook said.

But researchers who studied the case said the fact remained that that being part of a crowd seems to alter a person’s sense of personal responsibility.

In the social phenomena, known as the bystander effect or Kitty Genovese syndrome, individuals witnessing an emergency are less likely to step in if others are present.

“Thirty people must have called the police by now,” a local woman is said to have told her husband.

A 1969 study found that 70 percent of people would call out to or help a woman in distress if they were alone, but only 40 percent did something when other people were there.

Moseley seemed to know this, telling detectives that he “knew they (witnesses) wouldn’t do anything, people never do.”

Genovese's girlfriend at the time, Mary Ann Zielonko, reflected on the crime in a 2004 interview with Sound Portraits Productions, saying: "I still have a lot of anger toward people because they could have saved her life, I mean, all the steps along the way when he attacked her three times.

“And then he sexually assaulted her, too, when she was dying. I mean, you look out the window and you see this happening and you don't help. That's — how do you live with yourself knowing you didn't do anything?"

One neighbor did do something. When she heard what was occurring, Sophia Farrar courageously stepped out of the safety to her apartment to help Genovese as she lay dying.

“Help is coming,” Farrar reportedly promised Genovese as she held her in her arms until an ambulance arrived. The woman had no way of knowing if Moseley was still in the area or would come back.

Genovese’s murder was also pivotal in the creation of the nation’s emergency response system.

At the time of her killing, there was no 911 emergency number and instead, residents were left to call local precincts to report a crime.

A neighborhood man told Cook his father called the police about the brutal attack.

“He swears his father did call the police, was put on hold, told the police - there's a woman staggering around out there! You need to come! There was no answer to that call,” Cook said. “In those days, there was no 911 system. That's something that came out of the Kitty Genovese case, at least indirectly.”

Her murder also inspired the creation of neighborhood watch program and other reforms including crime-victim compensation, sex offender registries and laws that allow victims’ families to speak during the penalty phase in felony trials, according to Cook.

Winston Moseley died in prison in March 2016 at 81 years old. At the time of his death he was one of New York state’s longest-serving inmates. 

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The learning network | march 13, 1964 | new york woman killed while witnesses do nothing.

March 13, 1964 | New York Woman Killed While Witnesses Do Nothing

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On March 13, 1964, a 28-year-old woman named Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was raped and killed in two separate late-night attacks near her home in Kew Gardens, Queens. Police found that at least 38 people had seen the attacks or heard Genovese scream, but no one intervened and just one woman called the police.

The story was barely reported until two weeks later, when Martin Gansberg covered it in vivid detail in The New York Times : “For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens,” Gansberg wrote. “Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.”

Gansberg detailed why some of the witnesses hadn’t acted. One said that he “didn’t want to get involved,” while another said, “without emotion,” according to Gansberg, “I was tired. I went back to bed.” The article ignited outrage against the 38 residents. Pundits proclaimed that it was an example of society’s moral decay; on the 40th anniversary of the attack, Jim Rasenberger wrote in The Times that “the case quickly expanded into an all-consuming metaphor for the ills of contemporary urban life.” Psychologists coined the term “Genovese syndrome” to explain why people are less likely to act in an emergency if others are present.

The Kitty Genovese episode became infamous, but later examination found that Gansberg had exaggerated details and presented a misleading perspective of the witnesses’ actions. All but one of the witnesses likely saw or heard only the first attack, after which Genovese walked away, giving the impression that she was all right. The second attack took place out of view of most people. Only one man saw the attack. He told another woman to call the police, but it was too late to save Genovese.

The witnesses, wrote Rasenberger, “reacted as they reportedly did not because they were apathetic or cold-hearted, but because they were confused, uncertain and afraid.”

Connect to Today:

In April 2010, a homeless man named Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax died on a street in Queens after being stabbed while intervening in an argument. A number of people walked by him as he lay dying on the street. The New York Times reported, “One man bent down to the sidewalk to shake the man, lifting him to reveal a pool of blood before walking away. Two men appeared to have a conversation about the situation, one pausing to take a photo of the body before departing. But the rest merely turned their heads toward the body, revealing some curiosity as they hurried along.” The article also noted that, “in New York, as in most other states, there is no legal obligation for a bystander to help someone in distress.”

In your opinion, what causes people to turn a blind eye when they see others in danger? Does the indifference of passers-by say something about society in general? Do you think cases such as the death of Mr. Tale-Yax support the premise of Genovese syndrome — that a large group of people in the area creates a diffusion of responsibility that results in inaction? Why or why not?

Learn more about what happened in history on March 13 »

Learn more about Historic Headlines and our collaboration with findingDulcinea »

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Do your research. The numbers are misleading. Someone did call and people saw but mistook the altercation for a lovers spat.

most people in new york city , really mind there own buisness because they dont wanna be invovled. , rather it was a lovers spat someone should of took up for the women and called 911 sooner

I’m doing a writing assignment on Caterine Genovese also known as ( Kitty), is the story I had to read and write about . When I read this story I didnt think it was true or not because its in my texts book from uw manitowoc and at the end of the story it has the web site to confirm what i read was really true or not. as i read more about the case yes its a little bit was different from my texts book but still I couldnt believe that people could just watch and listen to a women or any person get attacked and do nothing just because they were selfish and didnt want to get invovled….. especiallly when the neighborhood she was living in knew her well enough to call her Kitty and not by her first name!!! (so not all people mind they own buisness) just that one night when she needed help no one could do nothing to even try to help. I think thats wrong of the people that couldnt take the time to pick up the phone and call the cops.

Thank you for publishing Ms. Genovese picture. I remember reading about this case in my college psychology class and otherwise hearing about it over the years. Finally, she was made human by the photo.

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Column: The urban legend of Kitty Genovese and the 38 witnesses who ignored her blood-curdling screams

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When I was growing up in New York City, everyone knew about Kitty Genovese. We all knew the story of the 28-year-old bar manager who had been robbed, raped and stabbed to death outside her apartment building in Queens in 1964 while 38 people watched or listened to her screams outside their apartments but did nothing to stop the attack.

It was more than just another tabloid murder; it was a morality tale — exhibit A for the argument that cities were alienating and dehumanizing, that there was no such thing as neighborhood or community, that people were cold, cruel, selfish, indifferent. Even today, Kitty Genovese’s name is still invoked not just in New York but around the world when people fail to come to each other’s aid in times of violence and trouble.

Thirty-eight witnesses, the New York Times said, and no one did anything over the 35 minutes the attack was taking place. Not one called the police while it was underway, even though Genovese was screaming, “Please help me. Please help me.” And why not? “I didn’t want to get involved,” one neighbor said.

It was an appalling story. It was also wrong.

Last week, we were reminded of that by the obituary of 92-year-old Sophia Farrar , who lived across the hall from Genovese in 1964, and who rushed to her side that day, forcing open a wedged door to the vestibule behind the building where the stabbing had taken place despite the obvious potential danger. Farrar found Genovese in a pool of blood, yelled for a neighbor to call the police and cradled the bleeding woman until the ambulance arrived, whispering, “Help is on the way.”

So what about the idea that no one cared or tried to help? What about the 38 cold, disinterested or fearful people who did nothing?

Let’s back up a moment. When Genovese died it was the New York Times that created the shocking narrative of indifference and apathy, with a front-page story two weeks after the murder that began: “For more than half an hour, 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.” The story — and the number 38 — apparently originated with a conversation between New York City’s police commissioner and Abe Rosenthal, then the paper’s city editor. But the number was substantially exaggerated and inadequately checked before being allowed in the paper.

Some stories become part of the zeitgeist because they seem to encapsulate some elusive truth or tell us something fundamental about human beings. That was the case with the Genovese story.

In the years that followed, psychologists and others wrote about the “Kitty Genovese effect” and the so-called “bystander effect,” which held that the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely any one of them will intervene. Good Samaritan laws were passed in New York and elsewhere to encourage people to help victims. The murder helped lead to the creation of the 911 system, and folk singer Phil Ochs wrote a song inspired by the incident. Genovese’s name has been cited more than 100 times in the Los Angeles Times. A Fordham University professor called the case “the most cited incident in social psychology literature until the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001.”

But though the story took root in the public consciousness, it fell apart on closer inspection. Books and documentaries began to question and then re-report the facts. In 2016, more than 50 years after the attack took place, an editor’s note was appended to the original story in the New York Times saying: “Later reporting by The Times and others has called into question significant elements of this account.”

In Farrar’s obituary in the New York Times last week, Sam Roberts wrote: “With the benefit of hindsight, the number of eyewitnesses turned out to have been exaggerated; none actually saw the attack completely; some who heard it thought it was a drunken brawl or a lovers’ quarrel; and several people said they did call the police.”

Over the years, Kitty Genovese herself has been fleshed out as more than just a symbol. She worked as manager at a bar called Ev’s 11th Hour on Jamaica Avenue in Hollis, Queens. She frequented the folk music scene — on Monday nights she went to Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village, with her partner, Mary Ann Zielonko. The two were lovers but in those inhospitable, pre-Stonewall days they lived together in Kew Gardens as “roommates.”

Winston Moseley, who confessed to the killing after being arrested five days later during a burglary, died in prison at age 81 in 2016.

Sophia Farrar died of pneumonia at her home in New Jersey.

Even all these years later, reading about the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese, who was just starting her adult life, is overwhelmingly sad.

But here’s one small consolation, at least: It is an enormous relief to learn that this classic narrative of human failing was in fact hyperbole. Even if it took decades to get the story right, it’s good to know that the reality was more nuanced than the urban legend.

Sure, some neighbors were scared, some were silent, some could and should have done more. But there were those who acted like friends, like neighbors, like heroes, even at risk to themselves.

Rest in peace, Sophia Farrar.

@Nick_Goldberg

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Nicholas Goldberg is an associate editor and Op-Ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He previously served 11 years as editor of the editorial page and was also a former editor of the Op-Ed page and the Sunday Opinion section. While at New York Newsday in the 1980s and 1990s, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent and political reporter. His writing has been published in the New Republic, New York Times, Vanity Fair, the Nation, Sunday Times of London and Washington Monthly, among other places. He is a graduate of Harvard University.

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