Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences (35 page)

“Did you notice any blood?”

“At first I didn’t, until I held her head and I had blood all over my hands. And then she moved, and I saw all the blood from under her back, and then I noticed she had holes in her coat.”

“Holes in her coat where,” Judge Shapiro asked, “in the back?”

“Yes,” Sophie replied.

Frank Cacciatore asked Sophie to confirm that police and an ambulance had then come, and that Kitty had been carried away, still alive, on a stretcher.

Sidney Sparrow had no questions for Sophie Farrar. The prosecution called Mary Ann Zielonko.

The only purpose in calling Mary Ann was to have her identify recovered personal items that had belonged to Kitty. Cacciatore first established that Mary Ann had lived with Kitty Genovese at the time of her death. The prosecutors were aware of the relationship between the two women but chose not to reveal it. As Assistant DA Charles Skoller said decades later, “Lesbian relationships weren’t generally accepted in those days, and we didn’t want theirs to jeopardize the outcome of the trial.”

Mary Ann identified Kitty’s brown wallet that police had found in the bushes behind Moseley’s place of work. Cacciatore entered the wallet into evidence.

“Now, Miss Zielonko,” Cacciatore continued, “I show you these keys, and I ask you whether you can identify them?”

“Yes; they’re Kitty’s house keys and car keys.”

“Where did you see them last, Miss Zielonko? Do you recall the early morning of March 13th when you saw Kitty in the hallway?”

“I didn’t see Kitty in the hallway,” Mary Ann responded.

“Oh, you did not? Did you see the keys then?”

“I think I saw them on the floor.”

Judge Shapiro interrupted, “I can’t hear you, Miss. If you want to talk to yourself, you might as well get off the witness stand. The jury wants to hear you. Keep your voice up.”

“I think I saw them on the floor up the hall when I went in,” Mary Ann answered. Frank Cacciatore entered the keys into evidence and mercifully dismissed Mary Ann from the witness stand.

Homicide Detective John Carroll took the stand and gave an account of how he and his colleagues had found Kitty that morning. After detailing the injuries he had observed on the victim, Frank Cacciatore had Detective Carroll tell the jury of the arrest and interrogation of Winston Moseley. Carroll recounted what Moseley had told them of the killing, citing specific details from his admissions. Cacciatore asked at some length about the statement Moseley had then given to Assistant District Attorney Philip Chetta. Detective Carroll had been present during Chetta’s question and answer session with Moseley. He recalled Moseley reading and then signing the typed statement, which ran six pages. Detectives Carroll and Mitchell Sang had signed as witnesses.

After the direct examination by the prosecution, Sidney Sparrow
did
cross-examine this witness.

“Detective Carroll, at the time that you saw this defendant at the station house it was in the late afternoon or early evening?” Sparrow asked.

“Approximately 6:00 p.m., sir.”

“And had you received a communication which led to your coming to the station house some time earlier or just a short while before?” Sparrow probed.

“Approximately 4:30,” Carroll answered.

“And at the time that you got there did you notice the physical condition of this defendant?” Carroll responded that he had and Sparrow asked, “Were there any signs of injury or bruise or anything of that nature on him?”

“No, sir.”

Sparrow asked if he had struck or in any way inflicted injury on the defendant or if he had seen any other police officer do so. Detective Carroll answered no to both.

“Did he give these statements to you voluntarily and freely?” Sparrow asked.

“Yes, he did.”

“What would you say his demeanor or composure was?”

“My opinion is that he was rather relieved by it all,” John Carroll answered.

“Calm and quiet when he told you?”

“Very calm and very deliberate.”

“Did he at any time indicate any remorse?” Sparrow asked.

“I didn’t detect any.”

“Any compassion for this individual?”

“I didn’t detect any.”

“Did he speak of any other killings or acts?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And did he tell you about the killing of one Anna Mae Johnson?”

Frank Cacciatore interrupted. “If Your Honor pleases, I am going to object to this. We are now trying the case against this defendant concerning Catherine Genovese and no other.”

“Yes,” Judge Shapiro agreed. “Gentlemen and madam of the jury, the case that you are hearing is the accusation returned by the grand jury charging the defendant, Winston Moseley, with committing the crime of Murder in the 1st Degree by having stabbed Catherine Genovese. However, in view of the opening of counsel in which he indicated that the issue of legal insanity as I will define that term to you in my charge will be raised in this case, I will permit counsel to examine this witness on any statements made by the defendant for any bearing that they may possibly have on the question of his mental capacity, for that purpose alone.”

Cacciatore then asked if the witness could be recalled after the conclusion of the People’s direct case. Sparrow agreed and the judge granted the request. Detective Carroll departed the stand. One of Kitty’s uncles then briefly testified to having identified the dead body of his niece prior to autopsy. The prosecution called William Benenson, assistant medical examiner, to discuss the autopsy he had performed.

“Now, tell us, please,” Frank Cacciatore asked the doctor, “what your exam showed and whether you came to any conclusion concerning the cause of death of Catherine Genovese?”

“Well, the essential facts were that she had multiple stab wounds scattered over the various parts of the body, that two of these stab wounds had penetrated the right and left chest, releasing air into the chest cavity. As a result of that, the lungs were compressed and breathing became impossible and she died. The cause of death as I defined it is bilateral pneumothorax due to multiple stab wounds; bilateral pneumothorax meaning air in the chest cavities compressing the lungs.”

“On both sides?” Judge Shapiro asked.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Now, doctor,” Cacciatore continued, “you examined the wounds on the body of Catherine Genovese, is that so?” Cacciatore picked up the hunting knife that police had taken from Moseley’s home and asked if it could be the instrument that had produced the injuries found on the body. Dr. Benenson replied that it could so.

“How many stab wounds did you note on the body of Catherine Genovese?”

“There were thirteen stab wounds,” Benenson answered, “and then there were some cuts on the fingers, defense cuts. She had her hands up.”

“What would that indicate to you?” Cacciatore asked.

“That she put her hand up in order to deflect.”

“Doctor, did you examine the vaginal area of the deceased, Kitty Genovese?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Will you tell us, please, what your findings were?”

“There was no evidence of any recent injury, no positive evidence of there having been any sexual assault.”

Sidney Sparrow cross-examined Dr. Benenson. One by one, he had the medical examiner go through the length, depth, and location of each of the stab wounds on Kitty’s body, using a chart to show where they had been inflicted. Far from wanting to downplay the extent of the victim’s injuries, Sparrow wanted the gruesome details explained
to the jury, particularly in relation to the slashes on the breasts and the stab wounds in the chest and abdominal region. These injuries bore direct relevance to Sparrow’s defense and assertions on the defendant’s disturbed state of mind.

Lieutenant Bernard Jacobs took the stand next. Frank Cacciatore asked Jacobs to recount the conversation he had with Winston Moseley at the 102nd precinct on the night of March 18.

“I asked the defendant Moseley what he had done in reference to the killing of Kitty Genovese,” Jacobs testified. “He told me that during the early morning hours of March 13th he had left his home in a white Chevrolet Corvair and he cruised the highways, streets of Queens, looking for a lone, unattended female. He said to me that he had in mind to rape and to rob and to kill a girl.

“I asked him, was he looking for a particular girl or what. He said, ‘I didn’t care which girl.’ He says, ‘I just set out to find the girl that was unattended and alone and I was going to kill her, and sometime during the early morning hours I was located at a point in the vicinity of Kew Gardens Road and I noticed a girl driving a red sports car, who was alone, and I determined that I would follow her. I did so, and I followed her to a point near a Long Island Railroad station. I observed her drive her car into the station and alight from the vehicle. When she had driven the car in, I had gotten out of my car and I stood by the side. When she commenced to walk across the lot in the direction of some houses, I cut diagonally across her path, thereby intercepting her.’ ”

“When you say ‘diagonally across her path, thereby intercepting her,’ are you using your words or his?” Cacciatore asked.

“I am using the defendant’s words, sir,” Jacobs said. He continued his recitation of what Moseley had told him about his initial attack on Kitty, and how he had run away when someone shouted at him from a window. “I said to him, ‘Why did you walk away?’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I was frightened. I did not want to get caught. I had a feeling that this man would close his window and go back to sleep and then I would return, and sure enough the man apparently closed the window because I heard no other calls. I then backed my car up a street into
the next cross street, parked it there. I changed my hat. I was in the beginning wearing a sort of stocking cap and I changed it to a fedoratype hat. I then walked down the street. I approached the railroad depot, looked in there to see if the girl was hiding from me, and when I did not find her there, I went to the rear of the row of buildings. I tried one door, which was locked. I tried the second door and I found it open. It opened into a hallway and there she was lying on the floor. The moment she saw me, she immediately started to scream again. I wanted to shut her up because I didn’t want to get found doing what I was doing, and I stabbed her in the throat.’

“I asked him, ‘Did you stab her in any other places besides the stab in the throat?’ He said, ‘I stabbed her a lot of times. The stab in the throat was just to shut her up.’

“He says, ‘Then she was twisting and turning. I don’t know where or how many times I stabbed her,’ he says, ‘but I must have stabbed her a lot of times.’ And I said, ‘Well, did she finally get quiet?’ He said, ‘Well, not completely. She was moaning. She was making some kind of sounds but they didn’t come to me as words that I could make out. But finally she was laying fairly still and fairly quiet and I took my knife and I cut through her undergarments and I found that she was wearing a sanitary pad, which I picked from between her legs and cast aside in some part of the hallway. I also cut through her brassiere with the knife and a pair of falsies fell out of the brassiere. I was wearing gloves at this time and I took off the glove on my right hand to open my pants and I laid on the girl.’ ”

Jacobs continued, “I then questioned him. I said, ‘Did you complete an act of sexual intercourse?’ He said, ‘I did not have an erection but I did have an orgasm.’ ”

Judge Shapiro interrupted. “Are these his words or yours?”

“These are the words of the defendant, Judge,” Jacobs replied. “He says, ‘I just laid on the girl and I don’t think I got it inside her. I then took some cosmetics which she had, a billfold containing $49 in money, some medication and some paper. I then noticed that one of the falsies, which I had cast aside, was imprinted with my fingers in blood. I figured that I was leaving behind one or more fingerprints
that the police would find and I decided to also take the falsie with me, which I did.’ ”

This testimony was crucial to the prosecution’s objective. The words Moseley had spoken to Lieutenant Jacobs showed not only his calculated and deliberate intent to kill Kitty Genovese, but also clearly indicated that he feared being caught; a concern that he should not have had if he was truly unaware that what he was doing was wrong.

Jacobs further testified about Moseley telling them where he had discarded Kitty’s belongings and their subsequent recovery. He related what Moseley had told him about the knife he had used and where in Moseley’s home it had later been found. He also told of the conversation he had had with Moseley in which Moseley told Jacobs that he was sorry he had been caught, saying, “You could go to the electric chair for what I have just done.” The electric chair was precisely where the prosecution wanted him to go, and they intended to get as much into the record as possible to show that Winston Moseley deserved such a fate.

When it was Sparrow’s turn to cross-examine, he began by asking Lieutenant Jacobs if he had made any notes of his conversations with Moseley. Jacobs said that he had not. Sparrow then picked at Jacobs’s testimony, questioning his recollection of words and phraseology that he claimed Moseley had used. After a few minutes of this, Judge Shapiro called all counsel up to the bench for an off-the-record conference. After the conference, the judge asked the witness, “Tell me, was the defendant articulate when you spoke to him?”

“Very much so,” Jacobs answered.

“Was his language, his vocabulary extensive and good?” Shapiro asked.

“His language was very extensive,” Jacobs replied. “His speech was excellent, a well-modulated voice, carefully chosen selection of words. I was quite taken with it.”

Sidney Sparrow asked, “He was quite calm?”

“That would be an opinion matter,” Jacobs replied. “In your opinion, was he calm?”

Not particularly so.”

“And he wasn’t struck by anybody to impel the story or the statements that he made, was he?”

“No, sir.”

“Now, with relation to your statement when you suggested to him that he was happy to get it off his chest, did you make any notes of that?”

“No, sir, I did not.”