RUTHFULLY YOURS

The crowning indignity to Kitty Genovese’s memory is the half-page obituary and celebrity photograph afforded  to her killer, Winston Moseley.( NYT 4/516)  A close runner-up is the leniency shown to him by our justice system which did not execute this multiple rapist/murderer, but instead allowed him the privilege of a college education while in prison.  To read the details of this man’s heinous and barbaric deeds and then chew on that last fact is perhaps an approximation of the angry frustration many American voters feel about how our government orders its priorities.

Moseley, who lived a long life, dying at 81, confessed to killing three women, raping eight and committing up to 40 burglaries. He stabbed Kitty Genovese 14 times, raping her after he had stabbed her, while she bled profusely, near death.  Though he was sentenced to death, that penalty was reversed on appeal, a decision that enabled him to subsequently escape from Attica while our state, concerned about this vermin’s health, was transporting him to the hospital.  Another innocent young woman was raped, innocent people were held at gunpoint and a dazed public was incredulous at the lapses in security and judgment that would allow this brutal animal to be uncaged.

For hard-working middle-America, college represents the second biggest financial burden after being a homeowner.  Transferring that to their children via student loans, simply shifts the burden to the next generation which is increasingly in debt for decades after graduation. The argument for making a college education available to prisoners is that it reduces recidivism, ultimately saving the taxpayers’ money and it improves prison safety. Though this might make sense for prisoners who have  reasonable expectations of leaving  jail after completing their sentences, it makes no sense at all for a serial killer who is unlikely to ever be granted parole.

Yet Moseley took correspondence courses from Niagara University and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology in 1977.  Who better than a sociopath to excel at that subject?  He was the first convicted killer in New York to earn a college degree in prison and adding to that distinction, the NYT published his op-ed essay titled, “I’m A Man Who Wants to Be An Asset” the same year.  Reminding us of the chutzpah of the defendant who kills his parents and begs for the judge’s mercy since he is now an orphan, Moseley wrote: “The crime was tragic, but it did serve society, urging it to come to the aid of its members in distress or danger.” At his parole hearing in 1984, he continued in the same vein, stating that 20 years of imprisonment was more suffering than crime victims endured “because for a victim, it’s a one-time, or one-hour, or one-minute affair, but for the person who’s caught, it’s forever.” (Kevin Cook, “Kitty Genovese: The Murder, The Bystanders, The Crime that Changed America.”)

One can only imagine the reprise of grief that must be felt by Kitty Genovese’s surviving loved ones in seeing this appalling allocation of selective newspaper space to the man who not only murdered Kitty but raped her as she lay dying. A more appropriate approach to Moseley’s overdue death would have been to ignore it completely and feel the collective pangs of guilt for having fed, housed, educated and kept this foul piece of humanity alive and healthy for 81 years.