What a Creep: "The Kitty Genovese Murder"
What a Creep
Sonia Mansfield
4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2022
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Season 15, Episode 2
The Real Details & the Aftermath of One of the Most Famous Murders in New York City
The murder of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese made national news when The New York Times on March 27, 1964, claimed that 37 people watched as she was stabbed to death and did nothing to help her. The expression “Bystander Syndrome” was developed partly because of her crime and her death became a symbol of apathy and a lack of community on the rise. None of what we were taught turns out to be true. Today, I will talk about the real Kitty Genovese, police work in the 1960s, the terrible reporting by the Times and other news outlets, and what we can learn from this travesty.
Trigger warnings: murder, sexual assault, and rape.
Sources for this episode
Kitty Genovese WIKI
Bystander Effect
AM Rosenthal
American Psychological Association
The Daily Beast
Chicago Tribune
New York Times Winston Moseley Death
The New Yorker
A Crime to Remember Season 2 Episode 1
The Witness (William Genovese) by James D Solomon & Jessica Robinson
New York Times Sophia Farrar Obit
The Guardian
Original NY Times article March 27, 1964
Thirty-Eight Witnesses by A.M. Rosenthal
Kitty Genovese by Catherine Pelonero
Fifty Years After Kitty Genovese by Peter Hellman & Albert A. Seedman
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to What A Creep, the show with Margot Donnie and Sonia Mansfield talking about |
| 0:06.2 | creeps from the past to the present. |
| 0:08.9 | This is your quick guide to the biggest creeps, jerks, assholes and losers, the best of the |
| 0:13.6 | worst. |
| 0:14.6 | From two nice ladies who want the world to be a little less creepy. |
| 0:29.2 | Welcome back to What A Creep, this is Margot Donnie, you and my cohort in creepitude |
| 0:32.9 | as always is the amazing Sonia Mansfield. |
| 0:35.9 | Hey Sonia. |
| 0:36.9 | Hi my friend. |
| 0:37.9 | Hello my friend and good morning. |
| 0:40.1 | This is a morning recording for us. |
| 0:42.2 | It is. |
| 0:43.2 | I'm here drinking my coffee out of my, I'm right on top of that rose mug that Margot sent |
| 0:48.6 | me. |
| 0:49.6 | But I love. |
| 0:50.6 | I am slurping down the coffee as well. |
| 0:54.1 | We came up with the idea for this segment. |
| 0:57.2 | We were talking about the New York Times that were both subscribers, a long time, I don't |
| 1:02.9 | know about you. |
| 1:03.9 | Yes, yes. |
| 1:04.9 | A long long time subscriber and I get the hard copy every weekend. |
| 1:09.1 | And even though the look no news outlet is 100% correct all the time. |
... |
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