Partner of Kitty Genovese – whose 1964 stabbing shocked New York – dies

The partner of Kitty Genovese, the Queens bartender whose 1964 murder rocked New York, died last week, nearly sixty years after social norms forced her to hide her grief from the prying public.

Mary Ann Zielonko, 85, died of pneumonia aspiration in Rutland, Vermont, on April 3, her domestic partner told the New York Times.

Zielonko lived mostly out of the spotlight, but endured time in its harsh glare due to her connection with Genovese, whom she met at a lesbian bar in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, the Times said.

“We just hit it off,” Zielonko told the Tribune of their early relationship, noting that they had a “quick bond” but “were in the closet a lot” due to the social conventions of the time.

Zielonko and Genovese – who were both New York natives – had been living together for a year when Genovese was brutally stabbed to death as she returned home from a bartending shift in the early hours of March 13, 1964.

During the half-hour long attack, Zielonko was less than 100 feet away, asleep in their Austin Street apartment.

“I was very numb, I would say, from the whole thing,” Zielonko told the Times’ Retro Report series in 2016.

“I felt, wow, she was so close, and I was sleeping, and I didn’t know what happened, and that I could have saved her. You know? That’s what I still think about,” she admitted.

The suspect in Genovese’s killing, 29-year-old Winston Moseley, was arrested six days after the stabbing. He was eventually convicted of murder and died in prison in 2016, the Times noted.

Despite the brutality of the crime, Genovese’s murder did not make headlines until two weeks later, when the New York Times published an article that claimed 38 people heard or saw Moseley stabbing, raping, and robbing Genovese, but did nothing to intervene.

The scandal prompted extensive study of what became known as the “bystander effect,” and the case appeared in American psychology textbooks for several decades.

“She cried to him, and he wouldn’t open his door,” Zielonko told the Rutland Herald in 2004, of the neighbor she believed to be the last person Genovese saw, aside from her killer.

“I knew he was afraid of everything, even to leave his house, but that doesn’t excuse him. That’s what I’m saying. Maybe people need to open doors. When someone reaches out for help, open your door, take a chance,” she said at the time.

Researchers, however, eventually uncovered major inaccuracies in the original New York Times report.

In 2016, the paper admitted that it had “grossly exaggerated” the number of supposed witnesses and what they allegedly saw and heard.

That same year, some of those neighbors spoke with Genovese’s brother, Bill, in a documentary that attempted to set the record straight about what happened on the night of the stabbing.

Through all of this, Zielonko mostly remained in the shadows.

Genovese’s family refused to acknowledge their relationship for many years, and the pair were typically referred to by the media as “roommates.”

After police found out that Zielonko and Genovese were actually romantic partners, they briefly questioned her as a suspect in the slaying, the Times said.

In the years following Genovese’s death, Zielonko built submarines for General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, Conn., her Rutland Herald obituary said.

In her free time, she enjoyed drawing, needlepoint, wood carving, and camping.

At the time of her death, Zielonko had been living in Vermont for nearly 25 years.

Still, the legacy of Genovese’s murder followed her everywhere: In her later years, Zielonko reflected on how the tragedy pushed her to always help others in times of need.

Once, when driving home from work, she saw a man and a woman arguing by the side of the road, Zielonko told the Rutland Herald.

When the man hit the woman, Zielonko pulled her car over and asked the woman if she needed help.

The woman ran into her car, she told the Herald.

“I drove her home, but never saw her again,” Zielonko recalled. “I could have just driven by that night, but I said, ‘I’ll take a chance.’”

Zielonko is survived by her domestic partner, Rebecca Jones, and her family.