By Philip Newman
“Your release would be incompatible with the welfare and safety of the community,” board members of the New York State Division of Parole told Moseley March 12.Moseley, a business machine operator from Richmond Hill, will come up for parole again in two years.Genovese, 28, was arriving home at 82-62 Austin St. in Kew Gardens at 3:20 a.m. on a cold March 13, 1964, after working as night manager of Eve's 11th Hour Bar in Hollis. The white Chevrolet Corvair that followed her the five miles from Hollis stopped and her attacker emerged, chased her down and stabbed her repeatedly.Despite her screams, police investigators said, none of the 38 neighbors they questioned went to her aid. Some said they did not want to get involved.Police said someone did shout from a nearby apartment building, whereupon the attacker fled but returned to finish off his wounded victim.The case was proclaimed an example of the concept that big city life can promote an “every-man-for-himself” society.Moseley, 29, was arrested in East Elmhurst five days later and confessed to murdering Genovese, explaining he picked her at random. He was sentenced to death, but on appeal the capital sentence was reduced to life imprisonment.Moseley, now 73, escaped from a hospital ward of Attica state prison in 1968 and terrorized a rural area for three days, raping a woman before he was recaptured.The public debate over why no one tried to come to the aid of Genovese went on for years, including a discussion at a symposium in New York City a few months after the slaying.A.M. Rosenthal, executive editor of the New York Times, in his book “Thirty-Eight Witnesses,” wrote: “My own favorite comment came from the theologian who said that he could not understand it and that perhaps 'depersonalization' in New York had gone farther than he thought.”Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 136.
