Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences Read Online Free PDF Page B

even be hiding the perpetrator.
    Not here though. Not only were the police sure that the attacker was long gone, they were also sure that if anyone heard or saw anything, they would say so. The good people lived here, the law-abiding citizens—the ones who paid taxes, sent their kids to school, and kept their homes looking nice. They were clean and decent folks. They would step up to the plate. They would cooperate.
    That’s what the police thought before sunrise on March 13, 1964.
    IN BACK OF the Tudor, Mitch Sang and his colleagues were taking information from Kitty’s three neighbors who had been present when they arrived. Sophie Farrar had told them her story. Detectives wouldspeak with her again, but for now they let the distraught woman go inside to get cleaned up.
    The older woman, Greta Schwartz, appeared similarly upset. Like Sophie, she was thin and petite. Her age made her seem all the more fragile.
    Mrs. Schwartz explained that she had not heard any screams, that she had been alerted by a phone call. She told them how she had come down and found Kitty, how at first she thought that Kitty had fallen. “Poor Kitty,” she wailed. “That poor girl!”
    Indeed. And poor Mrs. Schwartz, having walked unaware into a scene like that.
    Detectives were far less moved by the jumpy young man Karl Ross. Ross was thirty-one years old, short, husky, with thinning hair. Ross had called the police. He knew the victim and she had been attacked in his hallway. They had questions for him.
    Getting him to talk was not a problem, but getting him to say anything of substance was another matter.
    Yes, he knew Kitty. They were friends. They talked all the time, had a drink together once in a while. What time did he hear screams? He didn’t know. What did he see? Nothing, nothing at all, until he heard something—calls for help it sounded like—in the hallway. Then he opened his door and saw Kitty lying there. Was she alone at that time? Yes. Probably. He thought so. Hard to say, it was dark.
    He told them Kitty works at a bar over in Hollis called Ev’s Eleventh Hour. She lives in this building, four doors down. Her family lives in Connecticut. Kitty moved here about a year ago with her roommate, Mary Ann Zielonko . . .
    He talked fast and freely, about everything except for what happened in the last hour, as if he could drown the detectives in a disingenuous flood of details about Kitty that would wash away their questions about what he had seen and heard of her this night. He was maddeningly vague, evasive in spite of his rapid outpouring of words. He mentioned he was a professional poodle trimmer and that he had a pet grooming salon right around the corner on Lefferts Boulevard. He even sold Kittya dog! Last Christmas. Kitty wanted a dog as a gift for her roommate and he found her just the one she wanted, a miniature poodle.
    Fantastic. But what had he done for her when she was laying at the bottom of his stairs?
    Detective Sang had more to ask Karl Ross, but there was something he had to do first.
    ON THIS DAY, which she would remember forever after as the worst of her life, Mary Ann Zielonko awoke to the sound of loud rapping at her door.
    Mary Ann was a shy, soft-spoken twenty-five-year-old barmaid who worked the day shift at Club Chris in nearby Springfield Gardens. Blonde and willowy, she was an attractive woman with a delicate look that mirrored the gentle and vulnerable soul within. An assistant district attorney would later describe her as bearing a striking resemblance to movie star Kim Novak.
    In a sleepy haze, Mary Ann made her way through the small apartment and opened her front door to face two men she had never seen before. Detective Sang showed her his gold shield. Mary Ann listened as he spoke, but the words were incomprehensible. She wondered if she was still asleep. In her confusion she thought at first he was looking for Kitty. But Kitty was not home, nor had Mary Ann expected her home tonight. Kitty had