A Savage Stalks at Midnight

"We, the jury, recommend the death penalty," said the foreman-- and the New York City courtroom echoed with audience applause. Judge J. Irwin Shapiro, an ordinarily soft-spoken veteran of more than 20 years of criminal law, pounded his desk for order, then exploded in his own outburst against the defendant. "I don't believe in capital punishment," he cried, "but I must say I feel this may be improper when I see this monster. I wouldn't hesitate to pull the switch myself!"

Before Shapiro stood a slim, impassive Negro named Winston Moseley, 29. In the course of confessions to police and his own horrifying testimony at the trial, Moseley had admitted murdering three women, setting fire to the genital organ of one victim, raping "four or five" others, robbing and attempting to rape even more. He had attacked lone women on New York streets, using a single-shot .22 rifle, a pistol, a steak knife, a hunting knife and a screwdriver. He was also a necrophiliac. Said a psychiatrist in court: "He told me he got no thrill with live women he raped."

"Until She Was Quiet." The father of three children, a $100-a-week business accounting machine operator and a sometime Baptist, Moseley owned a $16,000 home in Queens, had five pedigreed German shepherd dogs, drove a 1960 white Corvair, and gave every sign of respectability--in the daytime. But after dark, he became a savage.

The crime for which he was finally convicted occurred about 3 a.m. last March 13 when Moseley, armed with a bone-handled German hunting knife, was cruising in his Corvair through the quiet streets of Queens. In calm, almost dispassionate testimony, he told the shocked courtroom: "I just set out to find any girl that was unattended and I was going to kill her." The girl he spotted was Kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old bar manager, driving her red Fiat home from work. Moseley followed until she parked in a lot just 35 yds. from her apartment home.

When Kitty left her car, she noticed Moseley lurking nearby, walked nervously toward a street light, then began to run. Recalled Moseley: "I could run much faster than she could. And I jumped on her back and stabbed her several times. She fell to the ground and I kneeled over her." Kitty shrieked: "Oh my God, I've been stabbed! Please help me! Please help me!"

Lights flashed on throughout the apartment building. One man threw open his bedroom window, bellowed down to the street, "Let that girl alone." Moseley hurried back to his car, while Kitty--stabbed four times--staggered away. Moseley stayed in his car only long enough to change from a stocking cap to a black fedora, then he returned to stalk the bleeding girl. Of the shout from the building, Moseley recalled: "I had a feeling that this man would close his window and go back to sleep, and sure enough he did." In all, at least 38 persons witnessed--without calling the police--one part or another of the fatal ordeal of Kitty Genovese.

Before their eyes, Moseley began hunting through the shadows for his victim. He peered through locked doors of a railroad station and a coffee shop. He returned to the apartment building and found Kitty, bleeding and terrified, on the floor. "She was twisting and turning," said Moseley, "and I don't know how many times or where I stabbed her until she was fairly quiet." Then Moseley ripped off her clothes and sexually molested her. "I heard the upstairs door open at least twice, maybe three times," Moseley recalled, "but when I looked up there was nobody."

"A Pretty Shameful Thing." Now relaxed and at ease, Moseley drove home, even played good Samaritan once by stopping to waken a motorist who had fallen asleep at a stoplight. He silently entered his house, washed his knife, replaced it neatly in his tool box and slept soundly. For a time thereafter, he seemed normal enough. Then on March 19, he skipped work, left home in broad daylight and drove to a nearby residential section. There he burglarized one house, drove to a second and parked his car at the curb. Incredibly, he made three trips carrying his loot to the car. Neighbors saw him, called the police, who arrested Moseley without a struggle.

Within hours, he confessed to all his crimes, insisted he felt no sorrow. When police wanted to take him past a battery of cameramen to his cell, Moseley said serenely: "I have a father out there. I also have a wife, and this is a pretty shameful thing. Would it be all right with you people if I covered up my face?"

At his trial, Moseley pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. After the jury returned its verdict, Moseley's lawyers asked for extra time to file motions before formal sentencing. Judge Shapiro flatly refused: "I know what I'm going to do," he said. "The sooner we get him out of Queens County and into the death house--the better."

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