The year was 1956, and the streets of St. Louis, bustling by day, had all but emptied for the night.
It was late, and the bright neon lights of the movie theater gave way to darkness as Ann Phillips walked home alone.
A movie, Ms. Phillips had thought, would be the perfect end to her night off from her work as a live-in nanny.
She had no idea how that decision would upend her life.
It was hours before she managed to pick herself up off the pavement. Beaten and left for dead, Ms. Phillips had laid there waiting for her eight shirtless attackers to come back and finish the job. When that didn’t happen, she went home, packed her things, and left for her parents’ house in Jackson, Mississippi….
