{"id":13764,"date":"2016-09-30T15:17:32","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T22:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=films&#038;p=13764"},"modified":"2022-03-03T12:41:08","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T20:41:08","slug":"witness","status":"publish","type":"films","link":"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/witness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Witness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The name Kitty Genovese became synonymous with bystander apathy after <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The New York Times<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> reported that 38 witnesses watched her being murdered in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York \u2013 and did nothing to help. This version of events went largely unchallenged for half a century. The horrifying implications of the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Times <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">story reached across the city and the country, and would eventually impact lawmakers and lecture halls across the globe. At home, determined to prove he wasn\u2019t like the witnesses who watched and did nothing, Kitty\u2019s younger brother Bill Genovese, who was quite close to his big sister, volunteered to serve in Vietnam where he would lose both his legs in combat. More than 50 years later, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Witness<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> follows Bill\u2019s dogged search for the truth as he attempts to<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> find out for himself what actually took place that fateful night of March 13, 1964.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the process, he unravels a myth that transformed his life, condemned a city, and defined an era. In his decade-long investigation, Bill confronts those closest to the crime, including the surviving witnesses to Kitty\u2019s death, the prosecutor in the murder trial, and journalists Mike Wallace, Gabe Pressman, and A.M. Rosenthal, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The New York Times<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> editor who wrote the initial coverage of the murder that launched the legend.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A gripping mystery, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Witness <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">debunks one of America\u2019s most chilling crime stories as a brother reclaims his sister\u2019s forgotten life from her infamous death.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The name Kitty Genovese became synonymous with bystander apathy after The New York Times reported that 38 witnesses watched her being murdered in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York \u2013 and did nothing to help. This version of events went largely unchallenged for half a century. The horrifying implications of the Times story reached across the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":14075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"topic":[1245],"class_list":["post-13764","films","type-films","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topic-crime"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Witness | Film about Reinvestigating Kitty Genovese Murder | Independent Lens | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Witness: Did 38 witnesses really do nothing while Kitty Genovese was murdered in Queens, NY, 1964? 50 years later her brother tries to find the truth.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/witness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Witness | Films | PBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Did 38 witnesses do nothing while Kitty Genovese was murdered in NY, 1964? 50 years later, her brother re-investigates.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/witness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Independent Lens\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-03T20:41:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/witness-signature-kitty-car.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"The Witness | Films | PBS\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Did 38 witnesses do nothing while Kitty Genovese was murdered in NY, 1964? 50 years later, her brother re-investigates.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/witness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/witness\/\",\"name\":\"The Witness | Film about Reinvestigating Kitty Genovese Murder | Independent Lens | PBS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/witness\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/witness\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/witness-signature-kitty-car.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-09-30T22:17:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-03T20:41:08+00:00\",\"description\":\"The Witness: Did 38 witnesses really do nothing while Kitty Genovese was murdered in Queens, NY, 1964? 50 years later her brother tries to find the truth.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/witness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/witness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/witness\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/witness-signature-kitty-car.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/witness-signature-kitty-car.jpg\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":1080,\"caption\":\"Kitty Genovese atop a car in black and white photo, circa 1956. 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