Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Elena.
And this is Morbid.
This is morbid.
It's morbid at two o'clock.
Yeah, I've had falafel and hummus.
I've had falafel and garlic dip.
Hell yeah.
And I'm having a little lollipop.
Oh my God.
Having a little sody break.
I'm having a little strawberries and cream Dr. Peppy.
I hate to admit how good those actually are.
They are.
They're so good.
Yeah.
They're not extra, like they're not super sweet.
That's why I like it.
But yeah, it's been, you know, it's been a pretty good day today.
It's been such a good day.
I'm having a little bit of an afternoon.
Not in the world, but in the pod lab.
No, not in the world.
I don't need to clarify that.
The world is pretty awful right now.
But the pod lab day has been solid.
It has been.
I started the day with a big ass mason jar coffee, so I knew it was going to be a good one.
Oh, see, that's smart.
I'm crashing a little bit, but that's what the Ollipop is for.
You're going to ride that Ollipop.
Going to ride that wave.
Oh, you know what?
I started my day off really well.
What did you start your day off doing?
So you know how I've been telling you guys like do, you know.
Joy.
But like don't be hard on yourself.
Like do it small.
So I'm not being hard on myself is what I'm saying.
And so I was like I need to start waking up earlier like before the house.
I got in a good habit of that and then I fell out of it.
And so now I'm like, okay, my problem is I go too hard, too fast.
I put too much pressure on myself.
And that's not how you habit stack.
That is not how you habit stack.
And I've learned this.
So I said, okay, for a couple of weeks, get used to waking up early.
Don't do anything productive when you wake up early.
Get your coffee.
Sit quietly.
Do something that's enjoyable.
Don't feel like you have to be productive.
Just get used to that early morning thing.
So I'm in the middle of that and I'm doing well, everybody.
Good job.
And this morning I said, you don't have to be productive yet.
It's not next week.
Do this for a week.
We start on Monday.
I made my coffee and then I sat down.
I said, I should watch something.
Yeah.
Because like no one's awake.
I know.
And you actually could have watched something fucking horrifying.
I almost did.
It's surprising that you didn't actually.
Well, here's the funny part.
So I go into my Netflix or Prime and I'm looking through it and I'm like oh, I'm going to watch a horror movie.
Yeah.
Like no one's awake.
I can do this.
That's what I would have expected.
So I was going to watch like Scream or something.
Like I was like just a comfort thing.
And then I flipped by and I saw Center Stage.
A great pick.
The movie Center motherfucking Stage.
A wonderful pick.
The one with Jamiroquai's canned heat.
Yes yeah, of course that one i haven't seen.
I probably haven't seen center stage since you were pregnant and we watched it at the apartment.
That's the last time i watched it.
Yeah, so that was before.
That was when i was in high school.
Earlier i was like, oh my god, i haven't seen that movie in like a few years.
I'm like that's literally 10 years almost, that's.
I saw it and it's something deep within my.
It's from 2000.
It is a 26 year old movie.
I saw this when it came out.
That's, we watched this, like Debbie will tell you, we watched this constantly, constantly.
And I saw it and something deep in my soul said, bitch, you watch that right now.
See, now I have a question for you.
I think I know the answer, and I think we vary.
Out of these two iconic dance movies, which do you pick?
Center Stage or Save the Last Dance?
Center Stage.
Center Stage.
Save the Last Dance is my absolute favorite.
Save the Last Dance is great.
I might watch that later.
I'm taking nothing away from that chair routine.
I will take nothing away from that.
You better not.
Nothing.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Wow.
I can't just move on from that.
Maybe I'll wake up early and watch that tomorrow.
I'm telling you it started my day off right, because it was the nostalgia that this movie brought me.
Like the girl who plays Maureen was in all those movies during that time period.
What is her name?
I need to find it now because I saw her and I said, oh, you and me.
We've been through so much.
You and Maureen.
Me and Maureen because she was in 10 Things I Hate About You.
She was in Drive Me Crazy.
Remember that banger of a film?
Oh, my God.
Crossover with Center Stage and Save the Lost Dance.
10 Things I Hate About You.
There you go.
Julia Stiles.
We got it.
Who is it that plays Maureen?
I'm looking it up right now.
Susan May Pratt.
Oh, wait.
She was the girl who was obsessed with Shakespeare, like in love with Shakespeare and 10 Things I Hate About You.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she's like the bitch in Drive Me Crazy.
She's in so many things of that time.
And then she just went away.
And I read.
And of course, because I am who I am as a human.
As I'm watching this, I was like, what is that lady up to right now?
And I looked and I found an article where she was like yeah, I was in all these things in the early 2000s.
I was in every teen movie.
And then nothing happened after that.
Damn.
And I was like, Susan May.
Justice for Susan May Pratt is what I say.
It's really tough for people with three first names.
Yeah.
People with their first names get a bad rap.
Also, fun little fact that my hyper fixation journey took me down.
She had no ballet experience before center stage.
Wow.
Blew my fucking mind.
I know.
That's actually insane.
And she played the star ballet dancer.
Yeah.
That's actually nuts.
Yeah.
So there's that.
Zoe Saldana's in that and she is a goddess.
I gotta watch this again.
I haven't seen this in so long.
Guys, I highly recommend watching Center Stage at 5.30 in the morning.
Check it.
With a hot coffee.
Let's fucking go, girls.
I highly recommend Feeling Blue.
Watch Center Stage at 5.30 in the morning.
She's been in a really good mood today, folks.
I have.
It set me right.
I love it.
It set me right.
I may watch Drive Me Crazy tomorrow morning.
That would be a reckless way to start off your morning.
It absolutely would.
In the best way.
I'm ready.
I'm ready for it.
I don't think I could watch Save the Lost Dance first thing in the morning because I cry.
No, that's not a first.
You don't need to cry.
No, not first thing in the morning.
You don't need deep emotions.
You need teen nostalgia is what you need.
Yeah, I just woke up from a really scary dream this morning.
You did.
That there was like a robber in your house on the camera.
Yeah, I hate that.
And we were also getting dinner with Patricia Atchell from Southern Charm.
Which is wild.
And I was lost in Miss Pat's house and I couldn't get to anybody.
I would get lost in that house.
That house is gorgeous.
No.
That's one of those not my house, but I'd know my way around houses.
Yes.
That's honestly, yeah.
That house gorgeous, gorgeous.
I'm obsessed with that house.
It's kind of just like on the road, i guess, like people have driven past it and they're like it's literally just like right there.
That's just not to triangulate, miss pat's location, i mean, it's on southern.
It's a pretty, it's a pretty uh, iconic house.
It is Um, but yeah.
And it was like the burglar from the Sims.
No, but it was a lot scarier than that.
It was, it was dressed like that, but it didn't have the big, uh, what's the thing over its head?
Plumbob.
Yeah.
It did not have a plumbob.
Remember when you had a plumbob?
Yeah.
That was scary.
And it was saying creepy things into the camera and I was trying to get to you but I was lost in Miss Pat's.
I hate that.
I mean, you get lost in Miss Pat's, you know, what can you do?
I wouldn't.
But it was in your old apartment, which was super weird.
I was very transported.
And then I hate a dream that you wake up from like first thing in the morning like that.
Yeah.
It's like I wasn't like I didn't wake up like shrieking or anything, but it was like, just like unsettling.
Yeah.
I don't like that.
Yeah.
And then I ran into my neighbor who was like the nicest lady and she was so put together.
And I was wearing, I one hadn't brushed my teeth yet.
I was wearing cherry pants.
Yeah.
And drew shoes.
Hell yeah.
It was really embarrassing.
That's why I'm really happy that it seems like my whole neighborhood is very the same in the morning.
Yeah.
This woman feels like we're all just rolling out there and some sweatpants.
I think she has like a job to go to.
That's not like that.
She has to like look nice.
Yeah.
Like I think she has to like look nice and she looked great.
In fact, I told her she had great loafers while I was wearing my husband's shoes.
That's nice.
My husband's van clompers.
But you know what?
You threw a compliment to somebody first thing in the morning.
I did.
You started her day off right.
I did.
And Dolo's day started off right.
She fucking loves our neighbor's dog.
So there you go.
Yeah, you know, you do what you can.
So, you know, that's starting your day.
Starting your day.
Starting your day with us.
Maybe you're starting your day with us right now and you're like, wow, this is ridiculous.
Like, holy shit, what are you guys doing?
Well, You know, if you need one more thing to do, maybe go pre-order The Butcher Legacy, the third book in my series.
What's the link?
You can get it at butcherlegacy.com.
You can get it anywhere you want.
I believe there are still some signed copies left at Barnes & Noble, but there's a limited amount, so go...
Those are only at Barnes & Noble right now, the signed copies.
But, you know, go grab them wherever you want.
And they're special editions with fun illustrations and sprayed edges.
There is.
That's fun.
So go get whatever one you feel you are drawn to.
There's an option for all.
You know?
Also, check out, if you're listening to the rewatcher, continue to do so, please.
And if you're not, what the heck?
Come on.
True Blood's so fun.
True Blood is really, really good.
We're having a blast.
We are going to be covering next Wednesday the penultimate episode and then obviously, the season finale the week after that.
Yes.
So tune in.
And you know it's going to be awesome because Ash is going to find out the identification of a serial killer on True Blood.
And I have so many theories.
And I can't wait for her to find out.
I'm so excited, but I'm also so nervous.
I hate being wrong.
I know.
I'm excited for you to find out.
Okay.
But yeah, join us over there.
It's a lot of fun.
And I think that's...
I shouldn't say that's all business, but you know.
That's all our business.
Business and pleasure, I would say.
Check it.
But let's get into the case, shall we?
We shall.
So the case I have today for us.
Tell me.
Is the murder of Kitty Genovese.
Oh i'm, i did take a psychology class in college so i am familiar with this.
Yep, a lot of people should be familiar with this if you took any psychology classes or any true crime or true crime, any criminal justice classes uh, anything like that in school.
Usually they they bring this up um, so this case is wild.
Um, It's very tragic.
It's very sad and very tragic and trigger warning because it's like very brutal.
So let's talk about first who Kitty Genovese was.
Mm-hmm.
Catherine Kitty Genovese was born July 7th, 1935.
She was born in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
She was the oldest of five children born to Vincent and Rachel Genovese.
Of the five Genovese children, quote, Kitty was the talker, bright eyed and full of pep.
Oh, I love that.
The family was definitely not well off financially.
And, you know, life could be a little difficult.
They're in a cramped Brooklyn apartment together.
That's a lot of people.
Yeah, Brooklyn's tough.
Yeah.
And think about New York apartments right now.
And there's seven people in there.
No.
Yeah.
But they generally like they got along with each other and they cared for one another best they could.
It seemed like a good existence.
That's nice.
By the time she reached high school in the fall of 1949, Kitty was definitely one of the more popular girls in school.
She was killing it.
And she was starting to get attention from the boys in her class.
Of course.
You know?
We love love.
One of her former classmates, Angelo Lanzone, said Kitty was attractive, but there was more to her than looks.
Kitty had charm.
Oh, honey.
Which, Angelo.
Angelo.
I love Angelo.
Just being like, she was real pretty, but she was also awesome.
I think she's a cancer, so she's definitely deep.
She's a chama.
Yeah.
And while Kitty may not have been the best student among her peers at the time, she did excel in courses like English and music.
She seemed like she had a creative spirit to her.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And she was very liked by her teachers.
She was liked by other students.
She was just like killing it.
Kitty.
Kitty.
So by the time Kitty finished high school in 1953, New York was changing.
It was just changing as a city.
And there were fears over rising crime rates.
It was just becoming wild.
Yeah.
Not long after she graduated from high school, her mother was walking home one afternoon and witnessed a shooting in the street in broad daylight.
According to author Kevin Cook, Rachel Genovese practically walked into the shooting.
She was close enough to see the victim's blood filling the sidewalk cracks.
Oh, that'll change you.
Yeah.
Rachel's one and only experience as a witness to violent crime was more than enough.
She has a whole family to take care of.
Yeah.
And that summer Vincent bought a small ranch house in New Canaan Connecticut, and began making arrangements to move the family to the suburbs about 50 miles north of the city.
He told the rest of the family it's safer there.
Nice people.
I think that was happening a lot during this time.
People were moving outside of the city city.
For sure.
And obviously the move to New Canaan was supposed to like bring them out of the city that they saw as having rising crime rates.
But Vincent also hoped that the new environment and higher you know, the higher caliber of community is what he felt it was would encourage Kitty especially to meet a nice man and get married.
Yeah.
Have some kids.
And to that point Kitty had gone on a handful of dates with boys at school, but never anything serious that lasted more than a few dates.
And in truth, the thought of dating, quote, filled her with troubling longings and queasiness.
She's like, not for me.
So, to Vincent and Rachel's great surprise, when they announced the move to Connecticut, Kitty said no.
I'm not moving.
Hello?
Yeah, she frankly told her parents, I can't go.
I feel free in New York.
I'm alive here.
And at first, the thought of their daughter staying behind in the city was out of the question.
She was an adult at this point and you know, if she wanted to live on her own, there was really nothing they could do to stop it.
Yeah.
They could try to convince her, but you can't stop it.
Oh, that's got to be so rough because they're like wait, come with us, because we feel like it's safer.
And then this happens.
Yeah.
So she promised them she would find a safe neighborhood and a good job.
She would call them regularly and take the train to New Canaan on weekends to visit.
All right.
I mean, really, what more can you ask her to do?
And although Rachel and Vincent still didn't like the idea of leaving her behind, Kitty's assurances seemed genuine and eventually they gave their blessing and were like fine.
Now, in that first year on her own, Kitty stayed in the extra room in her grandfather's apartment and found work as a secretary at an insurance company.
And in time she'd saved enough money to move out, and by the end of 1954 she'd found an apartment of her own.
Her job paid enough, but it kind of lacked the social aspect that Kitty had been hoping for.
So just a few months after moving into the apartment, she quit her job and found a new job waiting tables.
When the job as a server fell through, she found another, this time as a hostess at an Italian restaurant.
But that, too, really wasn't what she wanted.
And it was only by chance that, after the hostess job came to an end, Kitty finally found what she had been looking for when she answered an ad looking for a bartender at the neighborhood bar in Hollis Queens.
Like you said, she's chatty.
She's charismatic.
She's charismatic.
Yeah, and as a bartender, the money she made in tips was more than enough to support herself.
Oh, yeah.
But just as important, the bar in the neighborhood provided a community that she was looking for, especially since her family had moved to Connecticut.
Restaurant crews get so close.
Really tight.
And in time, she moved up from bartender to manager and began settling into life in Queens.
Wow, good for her to be so young and to make moves like that, like legit money moves.
Yeah, she's moving on up.
Now, as promised, Kitty kept in regular touch with her parents.
She visited as often as she could.
She was telling the truth.
But Rachel and Vincent remained troubled that now in her mid-20s, Kitty still hadn't married or even dated someone seriously.
They're just being parents.
They're from a different generation.
Yeah.
In 1959, to appease her parents, Kitty accepted a date with a man from Connecticut.
Seeing how happy it made her parents, she didn't have the heart to tell them she wasn't at all interested in him.
So she let the relationship go on, and later that year they got married.
So she, like, really appeased her parents with that one.
She sure did.
Just two months later, though, the marriage wasn't old.
It just wasn't going to work.
Just wasn't going to work.
Oh, Kitty.
Kitty's, you know, end of her marriage was a serious disappointment to.
What I didn't mention before is her deeply Catholic parents.
You didn't really even have to mention it.
I don't know if you guys got that idea.
Yeah, I didn't mention it because I thought it was implied.
But it was not to be the last embarrassment suffered by Rachel and Vincent Genovese in their eyes.
Oh.
In 1961, less than two years after the annulment, Kitty and one of her co-workers at the bar Dee Guarneri were arrested for bookmaking, for taking bets on the horse races from patrons at the bar.
Damn.
Bets are also a big bar thing.
She's livin'.
I remember those football squares.
Yeah.
Did you ever get those?
Oh, yeah.
Football squares are huge.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And it's a little different, you know, with horses.
Well, and it's like the offense is relatively minor.
Yeah.
Even in the law's eyes.
I mean, and it resulted in a $50 fine.
I was literally just going to say, is it just a fine?
But they both lost their jobs.
Oh, which sucks.
Despite whatever embarrassment Kitty's parents felt that they got from that, she managed to land on her feet and she quickly found a new job tending bar at Ev's 11th Hour, a neighborhood bar in Hollis, and moved into a motel room a few blocks away.
Okay.
So a few years later, Kitty's life would again change dramatically, this time for the better.
Oh.
However, she explained the failed marriage to her parents in 1959.
It almost certainly wasn't the truth.
Okay.
However, she had said was happening.
The fact was, the queasiness that Kitty had always felt when it came to dating and her quote-unquote failed marriage was likely due to the fact that she did not have an interest in men.
Yeah, I was starting to wonder.
Like a romantic interest in men.
Of course, in the late 1950s, early 1960s, coming out as a lesbian would have had serious consequences.
She comes from a deeply Catholic family.
Exactly.
And it would range from being disowned by her family to being arrested...
Yeah.
Or involuntarily placed in a mental health facility.
Yeah.
Shit was fucking wild.
So Kitty had good reason to keep that to herself.
Whether or not she chose to reveal that side of herself to her family, she wasn't entirely closeted.
And on occasion she would visit the underground.
You know gay and lesbian bars in Greenwich Village.
So she was at least like exploring that side of her, which was good for her.
And it was at one of these bars called the Swing Rendezvous, which is a great fucking name.
That Kitty met the first person who she felt a true romantic connection with, Mary Ann Zalonko.
She was a few years younger than Kitty, but she'd been on her own since the age of 16 and had been supporting herself in New York ever since, which takes a tough chick.
Badass.
Yeah.
Essentially, like if you could make it in New York from 16 years old.
Yeah.
That's a, you're a straight up New Yorker.
One spring night in 1963, Marianne stopped into the Swing Rendezvous for a drink and was approached by a woman at the bar.
The woman asked, don't I know you from somewhere?
Oh, I love that.
And as opening lines go, it was definitely, you know, a tired one.
So Marianne was like, I don't think so.
You know, Marianne had been hearing that from the age of 16 onward.
No.
And she kind of brushed it off as a, you know, a failed pickup attempt.
Yeah.
But the woman just smiled and said, oh, I think I do.
I'm Kitty.
So she wasn't deterred by it.
She said, I will continue with this line.
She was like, I'm not embarrassed.
I thought that was great.
Yeah.
I love that.
So the pickup line might have been a tired one, but Marianne found it pretty hard to resist Kitty's charm and her infectious laugh.
Which a lot of people said.
She said, we just hit it off.
We meshed.
I'm very quiet, and she talked a lot.
We both had struggles with our sexuality, but we had a quick bond.
A few days later.
Marianne returned home one afternoon and found a note from Kitty taped to her door.
And it said, we'll call you at the street corner phone booth at 7, Kitty G. Street.
Kitty G. That night, they made plans to meet at Seven Steps, which was a nearby bar.
And from that point on, they were practically inseparable.
Love, love, love.
Kitty and Marion.
For weeks the two would meet at bars or get together at Kitty's motel room around the corner of the bar.
And Marion said, but that's not real life.
Kitty was happy, but it made me nervous.
I didn't think it was safe.
Who lives in a motel?
Yeah, understandable.
At Marianne's insistence, the two began looking for an apartment and soon found a one-bedroom on Austin Street in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, right next to the Long Island Railroad Station.
Okay.
Now, decades later, Marianne would remember that time as quote, one of the happiest years of my life.
Oh, that breaks my heart.
Which just ruins me.
Because you know what happens.
They both worked days Kitty managing Elle's 11th hour and Marianne tending bar at Club Chris leaving their nights free to spend together.
Nice.
Yeah.
When Rachel and Vincent Genovese first visited the apartment, Kitty introduced Marianne as her friend.
But after that, the question about her meeting a nice man and getting married came to an end.
Well, that's good.
And Marianne said, I think her mother knew.
It's nice they stopped asking.
And Marianne said she was always very nice to me.
All right, nice.
But later, after Kitty's death, their attitude towards Marianne changed.
Okay, well, that's really shitty.
Starting at the funeral where they refused to acknowledge her.
Oh, I really don't like that.
And Marianne said, I think it was because of our lifestyle.
It wasn't because of your lifestyle.
It was because of really messed up thinking.
100%.
You don't have to take that blame.
No.
I don't like when people refer to being gay as a lifestyle.
I know.
That has been said to me before and it hisses me the fuck off.
Because it's like, is being straight a lifestyle?
No, because a lifestyle is a choice.
Being gay is not a choice.
Just like being straight is not really a choice.
I love a cozy lifestyle.
That's my choice.
I chose that lifestyle.
That's not the same.
I just got so triggered in that moment.
I remembered like an exact instance.
And obviously Marianne is saying it's because of our lifestyle, because that's what you know, she's from this era as well.
So that's how she heard it said to her.
That's what I'm saying.
Like that was put on her.
Yeah, exactly.
Now, regardless of how Kitty's parents or anyone else felt about their relationship, Kitty and Marion could not have been happier.
Good.
And good for fucking them.
They both deserve to be.
Immediately after moving in, Kitty began setting up her apartment, determined to make it a cozy home because she was choosing a cozy lifestyle and getting to know their neighbors.
Billy Corrado, one of her neighbors, said she was super nice with a smile for everybody.
Oh, she sounds fucking awesome.
Kitty Genovese sounds like a fucking badass.
She does.
Now, after moving in, they quickly settled into a quiet domestic life together.
Love.
And on their nights off, Kitty would read fiction while Marianne painted.
Oh!
Like...
They talked about art, music, movies, their shared interest in astrology.
Oh, bitch.
You would have loved them.
I love, especially to be interested in astrology back then, an OG astrology girly.
Yeah.
Come on.
Yeah.
They really were living this little idyllic just moment together and for for to be in the 1960s, for them to be a gay couple in the 1960s that was hard to find.
Absolutely is your own idyllic life bubble yeah together, where you were unburdened by everyone else's fucking opinions about it.
So they, but they found that together and it makes me happy.
That makes me so happy and just like she's living such a new york life, which makes me so happy because she that's what she wanted and where she felt free, i feel free, i feel alive.
Oh, Now it's going to take a rough turn.
I know I've set you up for this, but it gives me a little comfort to know that she had this like idyllic life with someone she loved before this happened.
But this is going to be a hard turn.
Now at around 230 am on March 13 1964, Kitty finished closing up Ev's 11th Hour and headed out to her red Fiat parked in the lot.
After years of managing the bar, Kitty had gone through this routine a million times and it all felt so routine that she didn't even think to survey her surroundings when she left the bar.
She might have noticed, if she did, a man in the Chevy Corvair sitting at the light watching her.
If she looked in her rearview mirror as she pulled out the lot, she might have seen this man do a U-turn in the middle of the road to follow her car.
Oof.
But even at that late hour, it's unlikely that Kitty had danger on her mind.
After all, Queens was the safest of the boroughs at this point.
She felt so at home here that it never would have occurred to her that something terrible could happen.
Well, like you said, she has been enmeshed in this place for years.
This is her home.
She feels safe.
Now pulling off the parkway at the Queens Boulevard exit Kitty, turned onto Austin Street and then parked in the lot for the Long Island Railroad, ignoring the no parking signs, just as everyone in the neighborhood always does.
I was going to say.
They said fuck that.
Yeah.
As she got out of the car, she fumbled with her keys.
She probably didn't notice the white Corvair slowly pass by and pull off the side road a half a block away.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe Kitty finally caught on to this man who'd been following her since she left the bar.
Or maybe she simply got the feeling that something wasn't right.
We don't know.
Whatever the case, she started running towards the streetlight.
And the man behind her ran after her.
Oh, God.
That's an absolute nightmare.
Most women know that feeling.
Absolutely.
Of running from somebody.
So many people, so many women, have been in that situation.
Now she'd reach the entrance to the bookstore when she find.
When he finally caught up with her uh, knocking her to the ground and driving his hunting knife into her back, yanking it out and then stabbing her again.
It happened this fast and that's a split second.
Yeah, several of kitty's neighbors were awoken by the screams they heard coming from the street.
She shouted oh my god, he stabbed me.
Please help, please help me.
Oh Yeah,
He was just like, whatever.
Now, with her attacker having fled, Kitty struggled to her feet and began making her way towards the back of the building, presumably trying to get inside to safety, where she would find help.
Now that the scene was quiet again, those who had been woken by the screams assumed probably that whatever commotion that was about, it was over.
So they turned off the lights and went back to bed.
Ten or so minutes later.
Ten or so minutes later, those few who were still awake and still watching out their windows saw the man in the white car return.
Ten minutes later.
He came back.
So, and it's like, what was he planning to do?
Because she could have found her way inside at that point.
Like, was he going to break into the apartment looking for her?
Who knows?
Or was he coming back for somebody else?
Well, now his face was covered with a wide-brimmed hat.
Oh, God.
Oh, my God.
What happened next occurred out of the view of any neighbor's windows, so the specific details of the attack are unknown, but according to the autopsy performed the following day by Queens medical examiner William Benson, there were 13 stab wounds scattered over the body nine in front and four in back, a stab wound in the throat and several slashes on the right hand.
That's unreal.
The wounds on the hand were jagged, indicating Kitty had tried to fight off her attacker.
But by that time, her injuries would have left her with little energy to do anything.
Despite the number and severity of stab wounds, the cause of death was listed as bilateral pneumothorax, meaning the air from a punctured lung had filled her chest and compressed her lungs, causing her to suffocate.
That's a horrible way to go.
After stabbing Kitty repeatedly, the man sexually assaulted her and robbed her of the 49 she had on her and then fled to his car.
Piece of shit.
Garbage.
Mm-hmm.
A moment later, Sophia was able to get the door open and found Kitty quote in a pool of blood, moaning and gurgling and barely conscious.
Sophia shouted for someone to call an ambulance, then held the gravely wounded Kitty in her arms, whispering to her that help was on the way.
I'm so glad she wasn't alone throughout all of that, but she was alone through so much of that.
It's true.
And in a 2016 interview, Farrar said, I only hope that she knew it was me that she wasn't alone.
Yeah.
What happened next remains pretty unclear, with some details kind of like lost through time and others, because one thing that you should know about this is that the myths and untruths surrounding this case are a plenty.
Yeah, it's heavily debated, it.
It's very difficult to ascertain fact from fiction and what's been told through a game of telephone for a long time Now.
Several people in the building called the police at various points during the attack, but because no one could tell what exactly was happening, they couldn't adequately convey the emergency.
In the most charitable interpretation.
It appears the police dispatcher there was no 911 system at the time, which is wild to think about was under the impression that Kitty had been beaten up or robbed, so the report wasn't given the highest priority.
Which whoa.
Right.
By the time the real nature of the attack had been reported, nearly 40 minutes had passed and it would be another half hour before the ambulance arrived at 415 am.
By then, it was too late.
Kitty had died from her injuries on the way to the hospital.
Now a short time after Kitty was taken away by ambulance, Marianne heard a pounding at the door.
She said, it woke me up and I was scared.
Who comes knocking at four in the morning?
So she cautiously opens it to find a police officer on the other side.
Worst nightmare.
The officer explained that Kitty had been attacked and was on her way to the hospital.
She had lost a lot of blood and it didn't look like she was going to survive.
Marianne said, I went numb.
As they stood there in the doorway, another officer approached and informed them that Kitty was dead.
Oh.
At 4 in the morning?
So, 4 a.m., she hears a knock at the door.
It's a police officer who says the love of your life has been attacked and is on the way to the hospital and we don't think she's going to make it.
And another officer comes up while you're processing that and says she actually died.
She didn't make it.
Like, one-two punch.
Oh.
How do you ever recover from that?
How do you process that?
And at such a young age too, like your mid-20s, that's probably the first person you've ever truly loved.
How the fuck do you ever move on from that?
No, I don't know how you survive.
So for the next several hours Marianne sat in the kitchen with her neighbor Carl Ross, who brought over a bottle of vodka.
Outside, police and reporters were milling about the area, taping off the scenes, snapping photos.
When Detective Mitchell Sang arrived around 730 am, he didn't take kindly to the presence of Carl Ross.
In his report, Sang wrote that Ross quote claimed to be consoling Marianne, while swilling vodka and acting obnoxious.
When Sang asked to speak to Marianne alone and Carl protested, which like, don't do that.
Yeah, you gotta.
The detective physically pulled him out of his chair and shoved him out the door.
Yeah.
Angry, frustrated and probably a little drunk Ross kicked a hole in one of the first floor doors, causing Sang to place him under arrest for disorderly conduct.
That's like, babe, you're not doing yourself any favors.
And it's also like, with everything going on right now.
Don't add.
I just wouldn't.
Because you're also adding to Marianne's shit right now.
That she has to deal with.
She's going through enough.
It just doesn't need to be about you.
You might think you're helping, but you're very much hurting.
Yeah, you're just making it about you right now and Marianne, someone going through this.
Yeah.
Now, I also don't think he should have been arrested.
No.
I think you just tell him, like, you get – just go outside.
Go sleep it off.
Yeah, like, go sleep it off.
You shouldn't arrest him for that.
No.
Obviously, everyone's owner.
Well, you know, he did, like, damage a public property.
Well, he did kick a hole.
I didn't even think of that.
In my head, I was like, oh, he kicked a door.
You know, it happens.
Yeah, he kicked a hole in it.
That does suck.
And now it's like somebody's got to fucking fix that.
It's just such, like, a high – I'm like, fuck.
Like, the emotions are so high in that situation.
It sucks all around.
It's true.
They probably just arrested him to get him the fuck out of there.
They probably did because he was drunk.
Yeah.
So that's not good.
Hopefully, they just let him sleep it off and then sent him home.
Yeah.
I just feel bad for these people.
I know, this is a lot.
The arrest of Carl Ross does reflect the misplaced priorities and bias that would ultimately run through much of this case though, which is frustrating.
A young woman had been brutally murdered by a stranger at the doorstep of her own apartment building.
It's like, maybe let's focus on that.
Yeah, and it's like the first action taken in the investigation was to arrest a neighbor.
Can we look somewhere else?
Yeah.
When homicide detectives John Carroll and Jerry Burns took over the investigation later that morning, things didn't exactly improve.
Oh, great.
After aggressively interviewing the neighbors in the building, the detectives turned their attention to Marianne, who was treated more as a suspect than a victim.
A suspect?
Yeah.
You woke her out of a dead sleep.
Marianne said it was good cop, bad cop.
But the bad one, Burns, did most of the talking.
Oh.
For hours.
They peppered her with questions that, in retrospect, didn't seem all that relevant to what happened.
I'm sure.
They wanted to know how long she'd known Kitty, who their friends were, how often they argued and, most importantly inappropriately, did Marianne have any sexual problems?
Sexual?
Oh, because they were saying, are you a lesbian?
Because that was considered a sexual problem.
She said, I was still in shock.
It took me a while to realize what he was getting at.
They thought I might be the one who killed her.
Unreal.
She didn't even know that's what they were getting at.
Unreal.
It eventually became clear to Marianne that the detectives were more interested in her relationship with Kitty than they were finding the man responsible for murdering her.
And the more they pressed her, the less comfortable she became.
The other thing, it's like, go ask around from the apartment.
A man literally saw the person who did this.
You're aggressively talking to the neighbors.
They're going to tell you they saw a man.
Yeah.
She said I didn't want to talk to the cops, especially not Burns, but they harassed me for six hours trying to get me to say something bad about Kitty.
Finally, they got me to admit it.
Okay, we were lesbians.
Yeah.
Decades later, Marianne would still regret revealing that information.
She said, I was always upset with myself for revealing that.
What right did they have to know?
It's true.
What right did they have to know?
But when you're pressed for six hours, I'm surprised you didn't say more than that.
Yeah.
Now, in the days that followed, Marion shut herself up in her apartment, while more than a few neighbors began keeping their distance from her.
That's horrible.
Police officers and detectives continued coming around to ask prying questions about their relationship that felt more like accusations than anything else.
A few days later at the funeral, things only got worse, as Kitty's parents rejected Marion entirely and turned their back on her.
That's shitty.
Kitty's brother Vincent said, Nice.
Couldn't even let her get through the funeral.
And here's the thing.
Normally, when somebody is murdered, if they are living with a partner, of course you ask the partner first.
This is a little different.
This is so much different.
She's outside on the street.
She's not in the apartment.
The door was locked and that's the whole reason she couldn't get in.
She was sleeping in the apartment and neighbors literally saw a man attacking her.
It's like this is a very different situation.
I would always say it makes sense to ask the partner first because you got to rule them out.
But not here.
This is not one of those.
And I feel like they railroaded her at first.
Well, they did it because of her sexuality, 100%.
Mm-hmm.
Now Cleary went back inside and called one of the other neighbors to ask whether the family across the street was moving.
Which this is a good neighbor.
It really is.
Hell yeah.
And the neighbor said they definitely were not.
Then hung up and called the police.
Not wanting the man to get away before the police arrived, Raul waited until the man was back inside the house.
Then he went out to the Chevy, lifted the hood and removed the distributor cap, ducking back into his apartment before the man returned king, shit is not even the description.
That's next level.
That's a neighbor that you want to like take care of your shit while you're away.
Yeah, because he's not.
All he's doing is making it so that car won't run.
He's not breaking it, he's not.
He just removed a cap that he can put back when he needs to back if you are proven to not be a robber.
Iconic behavior raul, raul forever now.
When the man came back out and found his car wouldn't start, he simply got out and walked away down the street, giving no indication that he was committing a crime.
It was equally unconcerned a short time later when two patrol officers pulled up beside him and started asking questions about his having been at a house down the street.
Yeah, The young man with the white Chevy turned out to be 29-year-old Queens resident, Winston Mosley.
Winston Mosley.
At the time of his arrest, Mosley was married with three children.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Had a decent job at a nearby factory.
And most importantly, he had no criminal record.
That is next level.
To their surprise, when he was interrogated by police, he freely admitted to having robbed the house in Corona and even claimed to have committed many similar break-ins in the past.
He told police he had given most of the appliances to his father, who owned a repair shop and could resell them.
The officers paid a visit to Mosley's father, who confirmed that his son had brought him several items in the past.
Now, despite his calm demeanor and almost eager confession to robbery, investigators couldn't help but feel there was something he was hiding.
So they decided to hold on to him a little longer for the robberies while they did some digging.
It didn't take long for them to realize that Mosley's car matched the description of the car seen outside Kitty's building on the night of the murder.
A few hours after Winston Mosley was arrested for robbery, he was sitting in an interrogation room across from Detective John Carroll.
Among other things, Carol was curious about the fresh scabs on Moseley's hands which he claimed he got from working around the house.
Doubt it.
Carol said, no, you got those cuts from Kitty Genevieve's when you were putting the knife in.
Which like, whoa.
Just boom.
The room went silent for a few seconds.
And then, with a slight smile forming on his lips, he looked at Carol and said okay, I killed her.
Oh, that's chilling.
What the fuck?
Just a father of three yep in that interrogation room cheesing about the fact that he murdered a young woman.
And this detective is like no, you got those cuts when you put the knife in her body.
And he's like okay, i did kill her, you're right, what the fuck?
That's a moment that probably never left detective carol, can you fucking imagine?
Because you're looking at evil.
That's like you are looking at pure evil.
That's like we always say, like one of those things you see in a movie and you're like, all right.
Yeah.
And it's like that's real.
But it happened.
It really happened.
Ew.
For the rest of the night, Winston Mosley continued giving his confession to detectives, not sparing any gruesome detail.
That's such a Weasley-ass name.
Even as he ate his dinner.
He shouldn't have been given a dinner.
He told them about how he'd spotted her when she was getting into her car, how he'd followed her home and stabbed her, and how he came back after being run off the first time.
He even told them about how he'd stolen her wallet and kept the money, throwing the rest of the billfold into the weeds as he was on his way to work the next morning.
Mosley also claimed that as he was driving home after killing Kitty, he spotted a man sleeping in his car by the side of the road.
He approached the car and tapped on the driver's side window with the bloody knife.
Startling the driver awake.
Mosley said listen mister, you shouldn't be sleeping like that.
The carbon monoxide builds up or somebody could come along and do something bad to you.
Jesus Christ.
The man thanked him for the warning then drove off.
I'm sure.
That man's probably like what?
Yeah.
And to tap on the window with a bloody knife.
To say that you're a psychopath.
No, he absolutely is.
To the detectives, the whole story seemed fucking bizarre.
And Mosley was so forthcoming that they wondered whether he was even telling the truth.
They were like, is this real?
Right.
But he had no reason to lie.
And he seemed to know too much about the murder to be a false confession.
So there was little doubt that Winston Mosley had killed Kitty Genovese.
But that wasn't all.
After he'd finished confessing to the robberies around Queens and the murder of Kitty Genovese, he also confessed to murdering 24-year-old Annie Mae Johnson a week earlier.
The details of that one are remarkably similar to those of Kitty's murder.
When they asked why he'd done it, the best explanation Winston could come up with was that he gave in to urges to kill and rape.
Well, put him away.
Yeah, forever.
Bye.
Bye.
When Mosley was done giving his confession, Detective Carroll went to the phone to call prosecutor Phil Cheda to inform him that they'd likely solved two recent murders.
Cheda listened to Carroll's story, but after he heard the details of the Johnson murder he stopped the detectives and explained that Mosley was wrong.
He claimed he'd shot Annie Mae Johnson when, in fact, she had been stabbed to death.
Oh, so he was just trying to get credit for a murder?
Well, when Carol confronted Mosley with the discrepancy, Winston looked unsurprised.
Then in the same flat tone he'd had all night, he simply said, I shot her.
So it's like, what the fuck are you talking about now?
This is wild.
So when the autopsy was initially conducted on Annie Mae Johnson, the coroner had to contend with the fact that she had been badly burned across large parts of her body, which obscured some of her injuries.
Holy shit.
Oh.
This new revelation proved that not only had Winston Mosley killed Kitty Genovese, he had absolutely killed Annie Mae Johnson.
Wow.
The fact that they said, no, you were wrong, like you told them, he just said, no, I shot her.
Like, he's like, go ahead, figure it out.
Wow.
Like, what?
What?
Now.
The murder of Kitty Genovese was a tragic event that scarred the neighborhood that it happened in.
Yeah, of course.
But from an objective position there was little about it that was like outrageously, like out of the ordinary, for like a horrible crime.
Unfortunately, yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like it wasn't, it was horrible.
Yeah.
But it was like a horrible crime.
And had it not been for the news coverage that followed, it likely, probably would have been one of those that we found and we're like why didn't we know about this?
You know what I mean?
Like it would have got like totally obscured and other things.
In fact, in the week that followed Kitty's death, the murder made the paper a handful of times, reporting basic facts.
Then came Martin Gansberg's now notorious New York Times article that changed the narrative entirely, published on March 27 1964.
Gainsbourg's article 37 Who Saw Murder, Didn't Call the Police, ignored most of the facts of Kitty's murder and instead focused on a misunderstanding of the reactions from her neighbors.
Yeah.
He wrote.
According to him, Kitty's neighbors not only heard her cries for help, but actively ignored them, knowing that she was being violently assaulted.
He said, if we had been called when he first attacked, the woman might not be dead now.
That's he had quoted a police chief as saying that.
It seems unlikely that Martin Ginsburg was acting like in bad faith when he wrote the article.
Instead, the article was assigned to him by an editor, Abe Rosenthal, who had been fed the misinformation by New York City Police Commissioner Michael Murphy.
So this is not like one guy who just made shit up.
It's a game of telephone.
It's a game of telephone, but it was misinformation that was given.
Yeah.
And then spewed out.
Right.
I remember like when you go over it, they're like, it's not real.
It's not.
Like they're trying to say the bystander effect is not real.
Exactly.
Now, in reality, no one saw Kitty getting attacked the second time.
Right, because they wouldn't have been able to.
She was in the vestibule.
She was in the alley.
At most, people heard her cries for help and when they went to see what was going on, she had already moved behind the building and couldn't be seen.
As for no one calling the police, that was also untrue.
Several people called the police that night, but not knowing exactly what was happening.
The reports were marked low priority and police didn't respond as they would have if they knew she was being actively murdered.
Right.
Now, regardless of the facts, the story seemed to speak to the people of New York, many of who, like Kitty's parents, were concerned about the changing composition of the neighborhoods and what they thought was rising crime rates.
Journalist Joe Sexton wrote.
That is to say, the story as the New York Times presented it confirmed what a lot of people already believed that crime rates were skyrocketing and it was becoming unsafe to live in these neighborhoods.
And that all of this stuff resulted in an extreme form of apathy.
Right.
That they were really making people feel like people are becoming apathetic as a whole.
And it prevented them from even doing anything to intervene for this poor woman.
Right.
Now to the editor, Abe Rosenthal.
The story had very little to do with Kitty at all and was in fact all about the state of American society in the mid-1960s.
He wrote in 1999, I was interested only in the manner of her dying.
That is the power of the Genovese matter.
It talks to us, not about her, a subject that was barely of fleeting interest to us, but about ourselves, a subject never out of our minds.
Oh.
That's a real thing that was said.
I literally... Did you just see me like... Ash actively like backed up in her seat.
Like it just... It thrust her backwards.
What the fuck?
I can't imagine...
So he's actually speechless.
So the whole thing was like, oh, my goodness, we're all becoming apathetic.
This is bad.
High crime rates.
Nobody's going to interview.
And then he's literally like, yeah, I don't care about that woman that got married.
Let's talk about apathy.
And it's like, did you not step right in the irony of your statement?
Did you choke on the irony of that statement?
That you're being like, fuck, we're all getting apathetic.
This is terrible.
Everybody listen to this.
Who gives a fuck about that girl?
I care about me.
It's like, you literally are apathy, my friend.
Like, that's insane.
You are literally walking apathy down the street.
The point, you just...
How'd you miss it?
How can you actually lack that much humanity?
And also, as a journalist, I'm like, you wrote that down and read it and then published it?
And somebody else was like, good idea.
Like, what?
Hello?
Yeah.
Yikes.
As author Melissa Jane Hardy put it, Rosenthal's interest was aroused not by the murder victim but by his fantasy of the reader reading the story.
Which is a perfect way of saying it.
Yeah.
She's like, yeah, he didn't care about a murder victim.
He had this fantasy in his head about somebody reading this story and being enthralled by it.
Then you should write fiction.
Yeah.
Fantasy is perhaps the best way to describe his interpretation of this case.
To him, it didn't matter that Kitty Genovese had a family, friends, a girlfriend who loved her.
Clearly not.
Or that an entire neighborhood had been literally fucking traumatized by her death and would carry with them the burden of inaction.
However unfairly it had been put upon them.
What mattered to him.
The only thing that mattered was that people maintained their fear and outrage that drove them to pick up his articles instead of another paper.
That is so outlandish.
Like, that's unbelievable.
And just the lack of ethics, babe.
Yeah.
That's a crazy one.
The lack of ethics, the lack of empathy.
Yeah.
Hello?
Yep.
Hello?
Hello?
In the weeks that followed, subsequent articles appeared in different newspapers, like all over the place, addressing the so-called problem of urban apathy.
Did they put him on the cover of those?
Rosenthal wrote in a March 28th article experts in human behavior, such as psychiatrists and sociologists, seemed as hard put as anyone else to explain the inaction of witnesses.
Citing no one in particular.
Rosenthal went on to say most of the witnesses, in attempting to explain their inaction, said they did not want to get involved.
So he didn't cite anyone as saying that.
But he just said everybody said that.
Except people had gotten involved.
Right.
Somebody yelled out their window.
Many, as soon as they knew what was happening, got involved.
Called the police, right.
When Robert Moser heard Kitty's cries for help, he shouted at the man he believed was only harassing her.
But he got involved when he thought somebody was just harassing her.
Yeah.
Causing Winston Mosley to briefly flee the scene.
Yep.
For 10 minutes.
The only reason Moser didn't go down to see what was happening was that he saw Kitty stand up and begin walking towards the door.
And he said he just believed she was all right.
Right.
Also the moment Sophia Farrer learned that Kitty was in trouble, she raced down the stairs and held Kitty in her arms.
Yeah.
Offering her comfort and kindness and like just somebody being there in her final moments of life.
That's the thing.
There was a a lot of humanity involved in this and a lot of empathy.
Like the fact of the matter was, if there was an action, it was on the part of law enforcement.
Yeah, who couldn't be bothered to find out what the fuck was going on until it was too fucking late.
Yeah, Like that's the reality.
It's the truth.
It is the truth.
But none of that mattered to the people that were saying this, like to Rosenthal.
All that mattered to him was that people kept reading what he was saying.
He kept building a name for himself.
In the weeks and months that followed, he continued to push the apathy narrative, determined to find, you know, a way to ride this wave of attention, as far as he could.
In May of that year he published a long form article in the paper titled Study of the Sickness of Apathy, where he summarized the public reaction to learning of the inaction of the Genovese case, saying what the devil do you expect in a town, a jungle like this?
Sir, go elsewhere.
Just go away.
In a matter of months...
This story had been changed.
They had taken a tragic story of a brutal murder in Queens and made it into an alarmist statement of the decline of urban society.
And she got totally lost.
Which he didn't give a shit about.
Yeah.
In his autobiography Rosenthal Road of Kitty.
Her name, once known only to her family and the people she served at the bar, has taken on an instantly understood meaning to all who have heard it.
I'm going to make a broad statement, but I feel pretty confident about it.
Does he hate women?
I feel like he hates women.
I'm just getting woman hater vibes.
Yeah, it's not great.
Broad statement, but feels appropriate.
Yeah.
You motherfucker.
Yeah.
Like what?
Can you imagine writing that about any person who has lived?
Yeah.
That doesn't suck.
But a murder victim who was in their mid-20s when they were brutally stabbed and sexually assaulted?
Yeah.
Nobody would have known her name.
Nobody would have known your fucking name if you didn't insert your dumb self into this.
It's like this all just fit their worldview.
Man, oh, man.
It didn't matter if it was true or not.
This fit the worldview that they had of what was going on.
And so they just accepted it.
And anyone else who had that worldview also accepted this as, like yep, confirmation of what I've been saying.
That's just a fucking crazy thing to write down.
And for anyone else, they simply just accepted what they heard in passing.
Life in the city had become so hard and so bad that people were even afraid, too afraid, to intervene to save the life of a young woman being attacked in front of them on the street.
That was the message.
For decades, that was the story of Kitty Genovese.
Not one of a young woman cut down in the prime of her fucking life, but one of urban apathy and cowardice.
And it would remain that way until someone finally decided to ask some more probing questions and say wait a minute.
How could this have possibly happened?
Now.
Following his arrest and arraignment, Winston Mosley was briefly held in a psychiatric hospital, where he was evaluated and deemed to be sane.
Wow, that's even scarier.
In June 1964, Mosley went on trial for the murder of Kitty Genovese, where he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
I was like, you were just found sane.
You were literally deemed sane.
By that point he had been charged with Annie Mae Johnson's murder the month before Kitty's death and the murder of 15-year-old Barbara Kralik in Queens the previous July.
This guy is a fucking crazy person.
Which I want to go back and try to look further into those two cases.
So we'll touch upon that again.
As evidence of his insanity, Mosley's lawyer cited his client's willingness to confess to the crimes.
Despite the lack of evidence that conclusively tied him to the murders.
It's a wild, weird thing to do, but it's not insane.
But it's not insane.
Regardless of his explanation and admittedly, bizarre behavior, less than a week after the trial began, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
But that was eventually commuted to life in prison.
Four years later, he broke away from a prison guard in Buffalo, New York, and escaped from jail briefly before being recaptured and returned to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York.
In the years that followed, he appealed his case and repeatedly petitioned for parole, but was denied each time.
During his final hearing for parole in 2015.
Holy shit, what?
The parole board declined his petition writing you still minimize the gravity of your behavior and did not exhibit much insight.
And for that reason, they believed he was not fit for release.
That many years later, they still said you're not showing any remorse.
He was 80 years old and still not showing remorse.
That's next level.
The following year, he died of natural causes at age 81.
Rest in distress.
Winston Mosley's death probably would have gone unnoticed had it not coincided with the release of The Witness, a documentary by filmmaker James Solomon and Kitty's brother, Bill.
Oh, okay.
After spending decades watching his sister's life and tragic death be exploited for the sake of a cynical social critique like brought up in psychology classes.
As, like you know, Bill Genovese decided it was time to correct the record once and for all.
He said there was a lot of things we discovered of the 11 years of research that he and Solomon had done for the film.
He said.
But basically the most fundamental thing was that the 38 eyewitness story and three attacks was not true, which is wild.
That's got to just shatter your fucking brain, especially as somebody related to the case.
Well, in this poor family.
Her poor family and friends and Marianne were told that 38 of her neighbors watched this happen and didn't give a shit about her.
Like, that would have been...
Maddening.
I can't imagine that.
And that also is going to change your view on society and the way that you interact with society.
It probably shaped a lot of it.
Now, most important to Genovese was learning that, contrary to popular belief, his sister hadn't been callously ignored that night.
And in fact, there was someone with her in the final moments of her life.
But that could have provided that family so much comfort had they known that.
And he said that.
Bill said that.
He said that was enormous.
It was such a relief.
Of course it was.
About Sophia Farrar's actions that night.
He said, my only regret is that my parents were not able to understand that that was the case.
They would have been, I'm sure, somewhat relieved to have known that somebody was there.
And not only somebody, it was a friend of hers.
Of course they would have been relieved.
In the course of their research, Solomon and Genovese found many people who continued to carry not only the trauma of that night but also the memory of his sister, were still telling them like she was, this amazing person.
And that's not what is being told here.
In telling their story and in celebrating the life of his sister, Bill Genovese started a larger conversation that ultimately questioned this myth of urban apathy and corrected the record when it came to the life and death of Kitty Genovese.
As for Marianne, whose life was irreparably altered that night.
Like I said.
She eventually managed to heal a little bit from the trauma of her loss and built a life for herself, working as a statistical analyst.
Wow.
Good for her.
In 1997, she retired with her partner in Rutland, Vermont, but she carried Kitty's memory with her until her death in April 2024.
Oh.
Just happened.
I'm glad she lived such a long life.
In 2000.
And I hope she was so happy.
Yeah.
In 2004, Marianne spoke to the press for the first time about her relationship with Kitty, during which the interviewer asked if Kitty hadn't died that night, would they still be together?
And she said, I think Kitty would probably own a bar and I think she would be happy.
And then she paused for a second and added, we both would.
I was about to cry.
No, I get it.
Then she paused for a second and said, we would both be.
Of course they'd be happy.
Which just like.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For her to have to like, sit there and think about like, what life could be with the person you love so much and taken from you, like that they had their whole lives ahead of them.
Those are the questions that it's like, is that appropriate to ask?
Yeah, it's like, and I can see like both sides of that coin.
I know, I know.
I don't know.
I don't know if it is.
It's like, if she had her partner, that's really kind of disrespectful.
Well, that's the other thing.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, that's the thing.
If she was single... Absolutely.
You know what I mean?
Like, to be like, do you think you would still be together?
But even that is like... It's kind of disrespectful to her to put her in that position.
She also is diving into something that would be so hard to access, which is like, hey...
Go back and pull out all your hopes and dreams for your life together.
That you had to put.
That you just had to.
Down, down, down, down, down.
You had to put to the side.
Yeah.
When that happened.
That was torn away from you.
That you literally had to bury.
And tell me, would you still be together?
Like, that's a lot for her to have to access in that moment.
I understand.
I understand the question itself.
I don't know.
That's got a heavy impact.
I'm not saying the person who asked it was trying to be.
No, I'm not either.
A dick.
But I just, that question, I'm like, ooh, that hurt my...
Heart.
And I just don't think.
I don't know.
It just doesn't feel like something I need to – I don't need to know that.
It's not my business.
It's her.
It's her feelings.
I just think that sometimes people can be a lot more tactful with the way they interview.
For sure.
And that's a great example of it.
I don't think the intent was bad, but I'm just like – Yeah.
Maybe scratch that one.
Sometimes intent is not the bad thing.
It's just the outcome, the execution of it.
Yeah.
It's not great.
And I just feel like she – I just didn't – I don't know.
That's not for us.
If she wanted to access that, then she can access that.
I don't know.
I don't want to like force someone to access that kind of pain.
A little exploitative.
But I think Kitty Genovese sounded like the coolest fucking lady ever.
She really did.
I would hang with her in a fucking second.
The whole time I was reading this and stuff about her, I was like, damn.
Sounds like a great girl.
Yeah.
What a cool girl.
And then Marianne sounds like such a badass.
And I feel like hanging in their apartment would be so cool.
I know.
With like her painting and her fucking... Kitty reading and talking astrology.
Yeah, just talking astrology.
They would have been... Doing all kinds of cool shit.
We would have been like... We would have been tight, I feel like.
They just sounded cool.
Had we crossed paths back then.
They just sounded like... They were... She was taken away from...
From a lot of people and people who didn't even know her yet.
She's taken away from potential friends.
It's awful.
That she probably would have had everywhere.
I'm so happy, like you said in the middle of that, that they had that little bubble for even the amount of time that they did.
That's such a special connection.
And I'm glad that her brother was in like... To set the record straight.
Like Solomon was able to...
They were able to like dive in and be like, no, she wasn't callously ignored.
Because that's an awful thing to think about for your loved one.
Yeah.
To think that her parents thought that she was just callously ignored as she was brutally killed.
Yeah.
And that no one was with her when she died.
When, in reality, Sophia Farrar was holding her and whispering to her to make sure she knew she was with her.
That's a good fucking person right there.
I feel like sometimes we like always look...
A lot of people want to look for the worst.
For the hole in the donut.
The hole in the donut.
I tell my kids that all the time.
Is that a nannyism?
It is a nannyism.
My grandmother, she would always say, don't stop looking for the hole in the donut.
There's a whole bunch of donut around that hole and you're not even looking at it.
I love that.
And I tell the kids that all the time when they're being negative.
I'm going to take that when I have kids.
And it's like...
Sometimes people are great.
Yeah.
Sometimes that is true.
And sometimes human interactions are great.
Sometimes people are fucking terrible, but sometimes people will surprise you.
Well, and the sad thing is it's like there are so many instances of humans being terrible to each other.
Yeah.
When there is an instance of connection, let's expose that for what it is.
Yeah, exactly.
And let's like hold that deer, not try to flip it on its head.
Exactly.
And it sounds like, you know, people did act.
It wasn't inaction.
It was just a tragic tragic, awful experience.
Fucking winston mosley can go fuck himself 100.
Rest in distress, bitch.
Yeah, fuck you.
Because the fact that he came back, go fuck yourself.
The fact that he was scared off and then came back, is really scary.
It's also just like that's a fucking predator.
Yeah um, what's your fun fact?
So most people are petting cats the wrong way.
How am i supposed to pet my cat?
Apparently, research shows that they will tolerate it for food and attention.
Like they're just dealing with it.
But the safest spots to do it are under their chin, their cheeks, and the base of their ears.
The worst, their belly and the base of their tail.
Oh, that makes sense.
None of my cats, except Remy, like being pet on the belly.
Yeah.
And I always do behind their ears.
There you go.
Oh yeah.
I love knowing that.
Yeah.
So get them under the chin and the cheeks.
The base of their tail makes so much sense because once you start going to a cat's tail, it's like the most sensitive part of their body.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
So yeah.
Thanks for that.
Pet your cat accordingly.
Pet your cat correct.
Come correct.
Well, with that, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird.
But not so weird that you try to like turn things into something that they're not, when they actually were quite all right.
Yeah.
It's pretty wild.
Yeah.
It's a weird fucking thing to do.
Gives weird vibes.
It does.
