A man convicted of the 1964 stabbing death of Kitty Genovese in a crime that came to symbolize urban decay and indifference has died in prison at age 81.
Winston Moseley died on March 28 at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, state prisons spokesman Thomas Mailey said. An autopsy will try to determine the cause of Moseley’s death.
Genovese was a 28-year-old bar manager. Her killing caused an outcry after reports that neighbors saw the attack and heard her screams but did not try to help her. Details of the accounts were challenged, but the crime spurred the adoption of the 911 system and Good Samaritan laws.
Moseley spent more than 50 years in prison and was one of the state’s longest-serving inmates. He was denied parole 18 times, the last time in 2015. His prison mates included David Sweat and Richard Matt, who cut their way out of the maximum-security facility last year. A massive three-week manhunt ended with Matt killed and Sweat captured.
In 1968, Moseley was involved in a prison breakout, during which he held hostages in Buffalo and raped a woman before being recaptured. He joined the Attica uprising in 1971 and earned a college degree from Niagara University in 1977.
“I know that I did some terrible things, and I’ve tried very hard to atone for those things in prison,” he said in a November 2013 parole interview. “I think almost 50 years of paying for those crimes is enough.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article
Good riddance to a piece of human garbage. He should have been executed 50 years ago.
To rot in prison for murder is just punishment for murder. 50 years is too short.
No Randy, I don’t like paying his room and board for fifty years. Every tax payer is punished when murderers and capital offenders are allowed to live. We were lolled to sleep so Jonathan Pollard, our greatest traitor, could be returned to Israel after his crimes were forgotten. How many people did that scumbag kill through his treason. Keep drinking the cool aid when it comes to Capital punishment and keep the country spending hundreds of billions to keep our worst criminals alive. Let’s build more prisons to hold the ever growing numbers of butchers, traitors and thieves.
The murderers and rapists should be put to death. I am sick and tired of paying for their lives in prison. Take a life, give up your own. Our do good liberals are responsible for this. Yes, there are some who are put in prison for a crime they didn’t commit, but there are a lot of them that did do the crime and should give up their life. A rapist or child sex abuser are even worse than a murderer in my eyes. They can’t be rehabilitated. Eliminate them.
Yes agreed vermin like this need to be disposed of post haste they gave up there right to life , should have never been born in the first place they are freaks of nature be gone .
I like that when they think 50 years or whatever length of time or even the death sentence is inhuman and unusual punishment. But I just would like to tell them there victim is still dead aren’t they. They don’t deserve to ever walk among the rest of society again. If you can’t do your time. Don’t do the crime
final payback and always remembered as garbage.
In that the overwhelming majority of death sentence cases are defended at the state’s expense, you might want to delve into the actual state costs of an death sentence defense, versus a normal lifetime in prison…………………research indicates with the automatic appeals tied to a death sentence, it is still cheaper to house an inmate for life, than pay the multiple costs involved in the appellate process of our ridiculous court system, with judges that only work 1/2 day two or three days a week AND attorneys who love the state-issued blank checks for defending a capital crime……………….can file appeals and make money for offering a half hearted defense for years……………………as I recall my college learnin’ on this matter……………………