Kitty Genovese

In the early hours of March 13, 1964, 28-year-old American bar manager Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment building in Kew Gardens, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. 28-year-old Manhattan native Winston Moseley was arrested during a house burglary six days later and, while in custody, confessed to killing her. At his trial, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death; this sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment. Moseley died in prison on March 28, 2016, at the age of 81, having served 52 years. Two weeks after printing a short article on the attack, The New York Times published a longer report that conveyed a scene of indifference from neighbors who failed to come to Genovese's aid, saying 37 or 38 witnesses saw or heard the attack and did not call the police. The incident prompted inquiries into what became known as the bystander effect or "Genovese syndrome". Some researchers have questioned this version of events, offering alternative explanations as to why neighbors failed to intervene and suggesting that the actual number of witnesses was far fewer than reported. In 2015, Genovese's younger brother, Bill, said that the police were indeed summoned twice but did not respond because they believed it was a domestic dispute, and blamed The New York Times for faulty reporting. Bill's 2015 film The Witness showed an interview with neighbor Sophia Farrar, who was around Kitty's age; Farrar said in the film that she ran down to the stairwell when she heard Kitty's screams and held her as she was dying. In 2016, another movie called simply '37' referring to the number of neighbors that heard or saw parts of the murder covered the incident. After Moseley's death in 2016, The New York Times called their report "flawed", stating the article "grossly exaggerated the number of witnesses and what they had perceived".