The Witness Page #2

Michael, I just

recently found out

that your mom was with my sister

when she passed away.

I was wondering if she'd be

willing to talk to me?

My mom, she really

liked Kitty.

And, you know, she can't get

around no more

but I spoke to her

and she told me stuff

that I couldn't hear when I was

younger, what happened and all.

We'll get into that later.

This was Kitty's

apartment here.

- On this side?

- Right here, yes.

And then yours

is straight ahead?

Yes.

This room here,

this was my room.

Kitty's window is right there.

When I went

to school sometimes

if Kitty would have coffee

and toast with my mom.

Kitty confided in her a lot.

They were friends

and they talked

about whatever women

talked about, you know.

So that night,

what happened?

I mean, in your house,

what happened?

A... a scream,

a loud, loud scream

a horrible,

blood curdling scream

and it woke me up.

How many people

do you think heard it?

Just looking at the windows,

about 40, 50

could be 60

because it was so loud.

Uh, the whole neighborhood

had to hear it.

And this neighborhood

back in the 60s

I remember

a lot of the older people

they had numbers on their arms

they were

in concentration camps.

That type of a person

might not wanna get involved

with authorities because of

what happened with the Nazis

so, you know, you can't blame

people for being afraid.

But that night

when I walked up the hallway

my parents were up, out,

this window was open

and my father was looking out

the window.

Well, he didn't see anything

so my parents went back to bed.

About 20 minutes later or so

somebody called my mom

and that's when my mom

said to my father

"Kitty's in the hall bleeding."

And she just grabbed her jacket

and threw it on.

And she started to run

and my father was putting

his pants on

and he says,

"Wait, wait for me."

And she ran down.

So she comes in, it's 3:30

in the morning or thereabouts

and it's freezing cold.

It was cold March..

...and this is actually

the doorway.

When my mom tried to open

the door, it hit Kitty

and she was facing her head

towards the door

her feet towards the stairs

and my mother had to push

the door in to get in.

She held her,

and she could feel

the stab wounds in her back

and her hands kept going,

still fighting

and my mom

finally calmed her down

but she couldn't talk

and she started to gurgle.

That was her, she was just

passing then

she was dying, so...

Hours later I opened the door

and the whole bottom

of this foyer was blood.

But you could actually

smell the blood.

You know, it's like something

you don't forget.

It's like walking

in an old butcher shop

how you could smell that

the... the human, the meat.

It... You know, it...

The prints on the wall

were marked in pencil

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

And it wasn't until

I was talking to my mother

and I said when I looked in,

I saw the handprint.

And she says, "That was

my fingerprints on the wall."

- Your mom?

- Yeah.

'Cause when she went

to get up, she was like

she went and she put her hands

on the wall.

My mom spoke to one woman

from a newspaper back then

and she told her what happened

and the woman says

you know, "Would you do that

again, if you had to? "

And my mother says,

"Certainly, of course."

When the paper come out,

it says my mom said

that she would never get

involved with it

and that's when my mother says,

"It don't pay to talk

because they twist

what you say."

And that's, she never said

anything since...you know.

Do you think your mother

would talk to me?

I... I'll twist her arm a little,

you know, but I think she would.

Not, not too hard, but...

I think that she would

do that.

Thank you so much.

I wish it could have been

different circumstances.

Alright?

- Yeah, really.

You know, give the best

to your family and...

Why was Sophia left out

of the original story?

It would have made such

a difference to my family

knowing that Kitty died

in the arms of a friend.

Truth is my family doesn't know

much about Kitty's murder.

The only time we learned

any details of that night

was in 1995.

That's when the killer

appealed for a retrial.

It briefly brought us

face to face with the man

who murdered and attempted

to rape Kitty.

Hearing those details

for the first time

was unbearable for me

and my siblings.

Speaking for myself..

...it never goes away.

I never forget the day

that the policemen

in New Canaan

came to our door,

knocked on it..

...and told us what happened.

It was very early

in the morning

and the doorbell went off

and I think

I was awakened by that

and I heard

the... the conversations.

And then, then, then

just ex... extreme

like piercing, screaming.

And then freezing in my bed.

My mother, my mother

was a basket case.

My father was also.

My father couldn't even

identify my, my, uh

sister's body in the morgue. He

had to send his brother there.

And the neighbors

are all like

"Oh, my God,

what can we do for you? "

And it's like, uh...

"Why don't you take,

why don't you take Frank? "

I... I just went off

to the McSweeny's.

I was with them for weeks.

I never even went

to my sister's funeral.

It was all over the news,

everywhere.

So, I got a lot

of my information

just from sneaking maybe,

and turning on a TV and...

The only thing we could

think about is the tragedy.

We almost erased her

from our lives.

Bill, it's hard to say

how he handled it.

I... I... I really, you know,

we really never sat down

and talked about it.

She took a...

a shine to Billy.

She spent a lot of time

with him.

Kitty and I were separated

when I was 6.

That year my parents decided

the city

was getting too dangerous

so we left

for New Canaan, Connecticut.

Kitty had already

graduated high school

and much to my parent's

frustration

she decided

to stay in the city.

For the next 10 years,

I only saw her on weekends

when she would come to visit.

We'd have a lot of fun driving

around in her red Fiat.

But the best part was talking

late into the night.

Kitty seemed to know

about everything.

And I was a curious kid

and asked a lot of questions.

Kitty always took the time

to answer them.

For decades, the identity

of the so called 38 witnesses

has been a mystery.

If I was going to track

any of them down

first I'd have to find out

who they were.

I requested all the information

on my sister's murder

from the New York police

department.

They sent me copies

of the original detective

accounts of witness interviews

called DD5's.

I saw her, she was wearing

a black coat and high heels

and the coat was held

around her body.

She was a, a small girl...

- Terrific scream.

What I thought at first

was some cat...

It sounded like a child.

- And I looked out to see and I couldn't see anything.

- Otherwise I...

The police want to know your name and

everything and they get people involved.

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