Phillip Mithcell

Phillip Mitchell, a 20-year-old African American man, died on September 13, 1973, in New York City after what later emerged as a brutal killing that was disguised to look like a fatal fall. That day, he ended up inside an apartment at 203 West 91st Street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, crossing paths with Waldo Grant, a quiet, solitary figure who moved through the neighborhood without drawing much attention.

According to Grant’s later admissions, the encounter in the apartment turned ...