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

terrible—shrieks that chilled her to the bone and sent her stumbling out of bed to her window overlooking Austin Street.
    Peering out, Sophie saw nothing but the usual sights: the gray concrete façade of the Mowbray apartment building across the street, partially obscured by the branches of winter-stripped trees; parked cars sitting frosted and dormant by the curb; stretches of bare sidewalk lit dimly by the yellow glow of street lamps. Through her closed window she could not see the sidewalk directly beneath her. She had no view of anyone lying on the pavement down the block in front of the bookstore, or staggering alongside the storefronts of her own building.
    She stayed at her window for a minute or so, looking out and listening for anything unusual, but all remained quiet. For Sophie Farrar, tranquility had returned and the night looked as still and unperturbed as always. She returned to her bed, awake and uneasy in the darkness, unaware of what had happened, unsuspecting of what awaited her.
    Sophie was a petite woman in her thirties whose slender, delicate frame belied her strength. Her husband worked long hours, leaving her with the responsibility of running their small but active household. Her days were spent caring for her baby daughter, getting her son off to school, and managing an insulated but busy life with the self-sufficiency common to working-class homemakers. She rarely went out during the day. When she did, she stayed close to home.
    Directly beneath her apartment was a small upholstery shop called Fairchild Decorators. During the eight years Sophie had lived here she had become friends with the owner, a man named Tony Corrado. Tony and his family lived a couple blocks away on Talbot Street, but he spent a good deal of time at his business, which had been there for the past fifteen years, since 1949. Nothing ever happens in Kew Gardens , Tony often said with a measure of satisfaction. Many people would likelyhave agreed. Sophie Farrar said later that what happened next was her first experience with violence, in Kew Gardens or anywhere else.
    Twenty minutes after Sophie heard the screams she was jolted once again by another shrill sound in the night: the ring of her telephone. She picked it up quickly, perhaps as eager to answer before it woke her children as she was to find out who could be calling.
    Greta Schwartz, possibly in a state of shock, probably overcome by panic, had rushed back to her own apartment after finding Kitty. She called Sophie.
    Answering her phone, Sophie listened to Greta’s voice, frantic, breathless. Greta explained—tried to explain—what she had seen. It came down to a single jarring sentence.
    “I saw Kitty lying in Karl’s hallway and she looked like she was dead . . .”
    Dead? Kitty, their neighbor? Dead?
    Sophie told Greta she’d come right down. She hung up the phone, bewildered. “I never thought of murder,” she said later. “I put on my slacks and ran down to see what was wrong with Kitty.”
    Kitty and her roommate, a shy and pretty young blonde named Mary Ann, lived in the apartment across the hall from Sophie and she knew them well, particularly Kitty, who was the more outgoing of the two. The Farrars lived in the larger front apartment overlooking Austin Street. Kitty and Mary Ann, who had moved in just last spring, occupied the rear unit facing the railroad tracks. They shared a common entrance at street level in the rear of the Tudor. The address was 82-70 Austin Street.
    And that was something—why was Kitty in the hallway at 82-62 Austin, down at the other end of the building? Karl Ross lived there. Kitty and Karl were friends, so maybe Kitty had been visiting him? Whatever the case, the only important thing was to find out what happened to Kitty.
    Sophie rushed down the stairwell and out the street-level door, stepping into a biting blast of winter night air. Greta met her and they hurried down the walkway, shivering more with trepidation than from