Witness to Murder
Cheryl Draper (Barbara Stanwyck), while looking out her bedroom window, witnesses a young woman being strangled to death. The woman reports the killing to the police, but when the man named Albert Richter (George Sanders) notices detectives arriving downstairs, he moves the body. When the police show up to his door, Richter acts nonchalant, and when no body is found, the police are convinced that the woman saw something in her dreams.
The next day, the man puts the woman's body in a trunk and leaves to disposes of the body. While he is out, Draper notices that the man's apartment is for rent and is given a tour by the building manager (Dick Elliott). She finds torn drapery (which Richter dubiously re-ripped in front of the police) and a pair of women's earrings. Richter returns and sees Draper drive away to the police department with the earrings. He preemptively phones the police and Draper is then accused of robbery. The two confront each other at the police station, but Richter opts not to press charges. However, the scene leaves Police Lt. Lawrence Mathews (Gary Merrill) suspicious.
Mathews goes to Draper's apartment and tells her that Richter is an ex-Nazi who had been "denazified" and is now an unsuccessful author who is marrying a wealthy heiress. The two meet again when the body of an unidentified woman is found in a park. Draper comes off as conspiratorial and Mathews believes she is pretending and obsessing about the case—he believes she is telling the truth that she saw something, but does not think what she saw was reality. She is forcibly admitted to an insane asylum after Richter surreptitiously types threatening messages from Draper to him to frame her as crazy and a threat to his safety.
While Draper is away, Mathews and a fellow policeman go to the apartment building of the deceased woman to see if anyone there recognizes Richter—no one does, and the police have no case. After Draper is released, Richter is at her home and confesses that he killed the girl because she was insignificant to him and he did not want his future wealth to be threatened. However, because she is officially labeled insane by the police and has no credibility, he does not fear admitting anything to her.
Richter later returns to her home with a purported suicide note wherein Draper says she will kill herself, and he tries to push her out of her window. Just as he is about to throw her out, a policewoman buzzes at the door and Draper flees. She is pursued by Richter, as well as the police, who think she is suicidal. Draper runs up a high-rise that is under construction, and gets to the tops and is cornered by Richter. He pushes her off the tower, but there are a few construction planks below the precipice onto which she falls and is saved. Mathews arrives and Richter attempts to push him off as well, but after a brief struggle, it is Richter who falls to his death. Mathews rescues Draper and the police now come to believe her story.
murder