As a general rule, we don't discuss "true crime" stories very much here, but when it comes to classics, the horrifying story of Kitty Genovese remains an important landmark in criminal history.
For those too young to remember it, Kitty Genovese was the young New York City woman assaulted and murdered in a 1964 attack that lasted more than a half hour, while 38 witnesses saw all or part of the attack and did nothing - didn't even call for help.
It shocked a city that thought it couldn't be shocked and prompted debates about the chilling lessons to be drawn from the case. And it was the subject of a first-rate book, Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case,by A. M. "Abe" Rosenthal, then the City Editor of the New York Times, and one of that newspapers best writers ever. It has just been republished as an e-book - the above link will take you to the Amazon version, but it's also available in formats for other e-readers. If you're not familiar with the case, or even if you are, it's worth your time.