A Puzzling Murder
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Tonight, I go back home to Georgia to look into the death of a young wife. That Atlanta wife murdered as she opened her very own front door. And all new 2020 starts right now. This is a true murder mystery. Emphasis on murder, emphasis on mystery. I felt like Lita's murder case looks like a true crime story, but it goes a lot deeper.

Who would kill this woman? She wasn't robbed. Somebody came to the door with roses and shot her dead. Was there a feeling that this had to be pretty calculated? She was shot with a 9 millimeter semi-automatic handgun. No obvious suspect. Was she at all concerned about the fact that she was in an interracial marriage and that this was a difficult time in the South? It was not a welcoming place for a black woman to live. She said, I'm done. I'm packing up my stuff.

I want you to see the puzzle. When I put it together and I show it to you, you'll never forget it. Your wife's best friend has been murdered and police are looking at you. It's a chilly, drizzly winter Atlanta morning and 35-year-old Lita McClinton is suddenly awakened. It's around 8:15 in the morning and she heard the doorbell ring and she tightens up her rope and goes downstairs to open the door.

And I think she was probably not going to open it, but she looked through the keyhole and saw that the person had a box of flowers. There was a man standing at the door holding a long white box of long stem roses that had a big thick pink ribbon around it. So she receives the flowers thinking that this is a delivery. She was really excited. She thought that it was a gift from one of her friends.

In a sea of red brick townhouses, Lita's white one stands out. Her best friend Poppy and three-year-old daughter have spent the night and they are still in bed upstairs just waking up. Poppy hears her say, "Good morning," to the man at the door. The flower delivery man produces a handgun. He fires a shot. She actually put the box of roses in front of her face.

The second shot went right through the center of her head and she fell with a large thud. Lita's friend Poppy was upstairs with her toddler and right away she grabbed her daughter and hit her into a closet and said, "You gotta be quiet, quiet as a mouse." She didn't know if the gunman was gonna come for her. Lita's neighbor hears the shots.

then sees the guy running like a bat out of hell, just booking it out of the complex, and he calls 911. The first police officer is only a few blocks away, and he gets the call, and so that police officer ends up holding Lita's hand. They thought Lita was completely unconscious, and yet she managed to squeeze his hand as he kept comforting her and telling her everything was going to be okay.

and he said it was her comforting him. Poppy got out of the closet and called Lita's mother, and she couldn't get words out. She finally just said, "Lita's been shot." Lita's mother called her husband. When they went to the hospital, they were put in a separate little waiting room. The doctor tended to Lita, and he came out about 30 minutes later and said,

I'm sorry. It was just so profoundly sad because Leta just drew people in. She had a lot of friends and she was a good person. Leta was a really wonderful young lady. The kind of person that would give you the shirt off her back. How did her parents take it? Oh, they were torn up. It'll never get easier because she's gone. We should have gone first, not her.

Atlanta's exclusive Buckhead neighborhood is known for its sprawling mansions, not murder. So when the shooting happened right here, neighbors were shocked and on edge. Sullivan was found in the doorway of her townhouse, shot twice in the head. It's pretty surprising that in this area, you know, those kinds of things probably wouldn't happen.

How did you learn that Leta had been killed? I ran to the TV because I heard Sullivan on Slayton Drive. Police say a box of roses was found near her body. The gunman apparently posed as a delivery man. And I said, "Oh my God, that's Leta." Detectives on the scene found a bullet fragment, two shell casings, and the box of roses. Two gunshots from a 9mm.

penetrated the box. The weapon was never found. To this day, it's never been found. In this case, you had just a minor amount of evidence. At the time, it was the top story on the news, and law enforcement officers felt a great deal of pressure in order to bring Lita's killer to justice. For years, Lita's case was cold, buried underneath the weight of unanswered questions and fading memories.

I'm Deb Miller Landau and I just wrote a book called A Devil Went Down to Georgia about the murder of Lita McClinton Sullivan. I covered the story for Atlanta Magazine back in 2004 and the more people I talked to, the more that I researched, the more I felt like I began to know Lita. So talking about the day that she died feels personal. The case was also personal to Clint Rucker, the prosecutor.

When I came to Atlanta to meet up with him, I learned that one of his passions is puzzles. Working from the outside in, which also translates to solving homicides. Where do you begin? How do you start to connect? When I'm putting together a puzzle, not only in real life, but also a murder case.

I make an assessment about what it is I'm working with. I start to identify pieces of the puzzle that are foundational. Lita's murder case looks like a true crime story, but it goes a lot deeper. It's a story about love and loss and greed. Lita had been reared in Atlanta's Black Leap.

You know, on the surface, she was living an Atlanta dream. A prosperous upbringing. A very prosperous upbringing. The expectations for her life were pretty high. Black women have had to be exceptional in order to be seen. And that was the case then, and I think it's still the case now.

One thing seems certain, a murder of this kind is personal. Was there a feeling that this had to be pretty calculated? Police knew almost immediately. Lita Sullivan was the intended victim. Who would kill this woman? She wasn't robbed. Somebody came to the door with roses and shot her dead. Atlanta had its fair share of crime.

But this was most certainly one of the highest profile cases that got reported in the news. Sullivan was shot twice in the head, a box of roses found next to her body. Using a flower delivery man and shooting her, it was something that just kind of stuck out to me.

Atlanta, Georgia, billed as a vibrant melting pot, a destination for creatives. But if you grew up in Georgia in the 1970s as I did, you know this was a very different place then, one still emerging from the dark shadows of segregation and racial tensions.

What was 1970s Atlanta like when she was sort of coming along? We've got African Americans that are kind of ascending into really prominent positions. Lolita also is ascending because her parents are part of this movement.

Lita's parents, Emory and Joanne McClinton, were both power players, movers and shakers in Atlanta. Emory McClinton was on the State Board of Transportation. Joanne McClinton was a member of the Georgia Legislature. Joanne will tell you stories about being in really interpersonal meetings with Dr. King. She was Maynard Jackson's campaign manager when he ran for mayor.

I think the McClintons had high expectations for who Lita would become. Lita Sullivan was a true daughter of Atlanta. She was just a gem. Very, very proper. And she had grown up in a world of cotillions. So she really was sort of that classic upper crust black person growing up in Atlanta. She knew where she was going. She had a great sense of style. And absolutely charming.

After high school, she went on to Spelman College. Her parents sort of hoped that she would enter the political arena like they were, but she was very much into fashion. She was working at a boutique at Lenox Square, and in walks this guy who had unruly curls and weird glasses and

just immediately saw Lita and was taken with her. Fresh out of college, 24-year-old Lita is smitten with James, Jim Sullivan. He's a bit older, 35, and he's also white. He showered her with gifts. He just completely showered her with attention. He comes in, he dazzles her. What did you learn about him? I learned that what he saw was a fantasy.

in Lita. I think he looked at her as a young, very attractive, very smart African-American female. Another big difference between them is class. Lita has been raised in Atlanta's high society and Jim on Boston's gritty South Side. He grew up in a very middle to lower middle class environment.

He went to Holy Cross College, got a bachelor's degree in economics. He always wanted more for himself. He always wanted to be a rich person.

but it didn't seem like that was in the cards. He was an accountant. He was working hard, but he really wasn't getting ahead. But life is about to change for Jim Sullivan when he inherits a thriving liquor distributorship from his uncle worth millions of dollars. Crown Beverages was worth around $3.2 million. Jim had become a wealthy man.

So when the McClintons met Jim for the first time, they were like, "Who is this guy?" He had this kind of manner that was very uncouth and brash. And they were sort of mystified about what their daughter saw in him. I mean, I think the only thing they had in common was that he was Catholic and they were Catholic as well.

But everything else was complete polar opposites. Another concern, of course, was race. Remember, this is the '70s. Even though the country is watching color barriers slipping away on the hit show "The Jeffersons" with Primetime's first interracial couple. Your parents have never gotten over the fact that I'm white. That's because you never got over being white. At that time, this was unusual.

Georgia's anti-miscegenation laws that forbade blacks and whites to marry had only been repealed 10 years earlier. Still, despite their obvious differences, Jim Sullivan pops the question to Leta. So the McClintons were like, "You cannot marry this man." They felt like Leta was really making a mistake and was kind of caught up in the exuberance of this relationship.

Despite her parents' strong objections, Lita and Jim are engaged.

But on the eve of her wedding, Jim drops a bomb. He tells Lita that he has been married before and that he has four children. Lita was shocked. And then, the very same night, Jim Sullivan blindsides his bride-to-be again. He whips out a piece of paper and he says, "Can you sign this?" And then she looks down and sees that he's drawn up a prenuptial agreement. And she's like, "What is this?"

Apparently determined to protect his newfound wealth, Sullivan surprises Lita with a prenup, which says that in the event of a divorce, she would walk away with virtually nothing. She's reluctant, but the cake is ordered, the flowers are ready, so Lita signs the agreement and ties the knot anyway.

Lita got married in 1976. It was a small ceremony in Macon, Georgia. Joanne McClinton would later describe that as the worst day of her life. The newlyweds settle some 80 miles south of Atlanta near Jim's business in Macon. It's a world away from Atlanta. But Lita agrees to give up her current job and her income and become full-time Mrs. Jim Sullivan.

They bought a house in Shirley Hills, a very affluent, very white part of Macon. Joanne and Emery McClinton feared for their daughter. Being part of an interracial couple in Macon, Georgia in the 1970s would have been extraordinarily challenging. The neighbors were like, "You have the gall to bring a black wife to Shirley Hills."

People threw garbage on their doorstep. The out-and-out racism had to be tough for Lita. But she moves forward and makes some new connections and friends, including Yvette Miller. When Lita and Yvette occasionally go out to eat, she notices something a bit curious. We'd go out to lunch at a nice restaurant, and she couldn't pay the bill.

And I would end up picking up the check. And they were a wealthy couple. They were very wealthy. Then one Christmas season, a card arrives in the mail addressed to Jim. Lita opens it, and what she discovers will make her question everything.

Lita and Jim Sullivan's first few months of marriage seemed to be going well. They were both intelligent, both attractive, definitely upper class, high society. But just beneath the surface, there's some obvious cracks. They seemed to be loving at first. At first. He was not that nice to her.

and he was not that kind to her. Was he brusque? Was he brash? He was a bit arrogant. Even though he had all of these resources, he did not, in my opinion, take care of his wife.

Friends say that the once generous millionaire has suddenly become a miser. He was notoriously cheap. He would wear his dead uncle's clothes around the house. He would use the sheath from the dry cleaning as saran wrap in the kitchen. He didn't want Lita to work, but he

He kept her on a very tight allowance where he gave her $150 a week. Did she express any discontentment with her marriage? When we were at those restaurants, Jim just does not give me enough money to take care of me and the house. You know, she clearly was not happy. Was there talk of infidelity? Lita had several instances where she questioned whether or not her husband was actually having an affair.

One day she finds a long blonde hair in their master bathroom and she asks Jim about it and he says, "I don't know what you're talking about." They got into this cycle of she accused him of philandering. He would deny it and then he would buy her sort of an expensive jewelry apology. Then during the holidays one year, Lita makes another stunning discovery. A Christmas card came addressed to Jim.

She opened it. A woman wrote in something like, "I'm missing your kisses." The woman's return address was on the envelope, so Lita went and spoke to her. And the woman said that she had been having an affair with Jim. Lita is distraught and goes home to be with her parents in Atlanta.

But her husband manages to lure her back, increasing her weekly allowance in a now post-nuptial agreement. Now it's $300 instead of $150 a week, but it still shows that all of their assets belong to Jim.

That's right, the successful business, Lita's Mercedes, multiple properties, even her jewelry still belong to her husband in the event of a divorce. But in an attempt at reconciliation, Lita signs the post-nup. Just a few months after Lita signs that agreement, without Lita knowing, Sullivan decides to sell Crown Beverages for $5 million.

And that's not all. He tells her they're moving to Palm Beach, Florida. Lita was in shock. She had no clue that he was going to whistle her down to Palm Beach. But Lita's new Florida home, located a stone's throw from what would become Mar-a-Lago, is more elaborate than she ever would have imagined.

called Casa Alita. It's a 17,000 square foot mansion with eight oceanfront bedrooms. It was just unbelievable. When you went to Jim's home, you go through this tunnel and you would be at the beach. It's your own private beach. But for Alita, everything that glitters isn't exactly gold.

James Sullivan very much wanted to integrate himself into the upper echelons of society and his aspirations did not include leaders participation. It was not a welcoming place for a black woman to live and when he found out that to sort of scale the level of social plateau he was looking at in Palm Beach, having a black wife was a serious impediment to that.

She was left out of some affairs and she really became upset. So even though they had money, this is a moneyed crowd, didn't really matter though. He was barely rich compared to Palm Beach. Did he want to be in that crowd? Oh yes. He wanted to, you know, be accepted as one of the rich and famous.

It doesn't take long before Jim starts to flirt with other women. And it's at a cocktail party that one particularly elegant Palm Beach woman catches Sullivan's eye. Jim sees Sookie Rogers, who is a Korean-born socialite. She was telegenic. She had a spicy personality. I think a man like Jim Sullivan could not help but be intrigued.

by this beautiful woman. They started dating. He's still married to Leta. By now, the Sullivans have been married nearly 10 years. But things are about to explode. Leta finds women's lingerie in their master bed. It's the bra that broke the camel's back. She said, "I'm done. I'm packing up my stuff, and I'm going back home." Leta arrives back in Atlanta. The very next day, she files for divorce from Jim.

But Sullivan fights Lita every step of the way and the divorce drags on. Did she seem concerned, worried, nervous about her breakup? What I detected was she was excited and she was cutting the cord and leaving Jim alone. She wanted her life back. While Lita is looking forward to a new life of freedom, she can't be happy about the prospect of leaving her marriage with virtually nothing.

No career, no Palm Beach mansion, no Buckhead townhouse, and $2,500 a month in alimony for three years. So Lita is going to divorce court, determined to fight for what she believes she deserves. All she wanted was a reasonable financial settlement so that she could kind of go on with her life.

January 16th, 1987 was set up to be a pivotal day in the lives of Lita and Jim Sullivan. A judge was going to decide whether or not to throw out the post-nuptial agreement. She might get as much as close to a million dollars in cash and assets. The morning of January 16th, Lita Sullivan, she'd lose her life that day.

With Lita out of the picture, Jim Sullivan stands to gain the property that they had and retain control over all his money. Sullivan was the main suspect. That is, until a treasure trove of secret recordings, recordings of Lita's private conversations are uncovered, taking this investigation in a whole new direction. And police are looking at you.

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but the first one would be the husband. - The first and obvious suspect was James Sullivan, who stood to gain everything from her death, all the property, all the monies, and who was contesting the divorce. - Detectives went down to speak to him in Palm Beach, and they put him through a polygraph.

Jim Sullivan not only passes the polygraph, but there's something else. He has an alibi that puts him nearly 700 miles away from the crime scene. James Sullivan was actually in Palm Beach at the time of Lita's murder. When you first look at it, it looks pretty cut and dry. When you interview all the people involved, everybody points in one direction, towards the husband.

But when you sit down and look at the facts, I'm not so sure that the husband is the person that committed the crime.

Nothing surfaced in the early stages of the investigation that implicated Jim Sullivan in the murder. Sullivan is cooperating with authorities, and during his interview with detectives, he mentions the name of his friend, Marvin Marable. At the time of Lita's death, Marvin and James Sullivan had a very close relationship.

Remember, Marvin Maribel is married to Lita's best friend, Poppy, who was in the Buckhead townhouse with her three-year-old daughter the morning that Lita was murdered. But back before the shooting, the friendship hadn't always sat well with Marvin.

When Lita moved back to Atlanta, they started, you know, hanging out together. So she's disillusioned by her relationship. Did her failed relationship have any impact on your relationship? Well, from the standpoint of them, you know, being together all the time and going out, yeah. Commiserating. Oh, absolutely. Certainly didn't help. You know, I can understand her being there for her friend, but...

You know, sometimes you can go overboard, which is what happened in our relationship. Marable, a former New York State trooper turned entrepreneur, says Lita would often spend hours at his home with Poppy. And it was during this time, he says, coincidentally or not, that his own marriage began to unravel. I found the letter where Poppy was planning to file for divorce.

So she was planning to file for divorce without your knowledge? Oh, yeah. That had to be a shocker. It was. So then you decided to try something a little questionable after that. You know, I have a background in law enforcement. I don't see it as questionable. It's your own telephone in your own house. I put a recorder on the-- people call it a tap on the phone. And I started recording conversations. In the house, the house phone? Mm-hmm.

on the house phone. He began listening to Poppy and Lita's conversations and ended up recording more than 300 hours. In doing those very personal conversations between girlfriends, Marvin Marable learns that there may be some information that James Sullivan might be interested in learning that would be helpful for him in his divorce case.

He tells Sullivan about the tapes and what's on them, specifically, Lita's post-divorce plans. And soon enough, the two disgruntled husbands are conspiring to get the best of their soon-to-be ex-wives in divorce court. Marvin Maribel travels down to Palm Beach under a false name, and the two men listen to the tapes. And Marvin says, "I'm not gonna record anymore." And Jim says, "No, no, no, keep recording."

Was there talk of money? Yeah. He offered $30,000.

Jim says to Marvin, if the judge decides to honor the postnuptial agreement, he's going to give Marvin $30,000 for the use of the information on the tapes. What kinds of things did Lita talk about that could be helpful to either one of you? You know, there were some guys that, you know, she would talk to, but she was legally separated. But then, just a few days after Marvin and Jim's secret meeting at Casa Elita... Poppy and Lita somehow discovered the recording device.

How did they react? It wasn't nice. She filed for divorce the next day. She was angry? She was very angry. Lita was upset too. So upset that she reported Marvin to the authorities and he was charged with possession of an eavesdropping device. So when police question Sullivan about who might have a motive to murder his wife, he tells them to look no further than Marvin Marable.

And sure enough, only a few days after Leta's death, Marvin is being questioned by the Atlanta Police Department about Leta's murder. I go down for the interview and the first thing they did is read me my rights. And from there on, it was just a nightmare.

- I was a prime suspect. - You have a law enforcement background, so you knew what police were-- - Right, so I knew that I was being followed. I could pick the investigators, police, I could pick them out all the time. Jim had mentioned my name to them. He said, "Look at Marvin Merrill." - This was serious stuff. - Oh, yeah. - How worried were you? - I was very worried. - Joanne and Emery McClinton were beyond devastated. Their eldest daughter was dead.

Just three days after Lita's murder, they held a funeral. Days dissolve into months and authorities are no closer to finding Lita Sullivan's murderer. The case is just sort of growing colder and colder by the minute. And while Marvin Marabelle might have been angry at Lita for pressing those charges against him for eavesdropping, there was no evidence he was responsible for her death.

I know that people get wrongly accused, wrongly convicted, and so the only saving grace is the fact that I knew I was innocent. My process of elimination is you can determine the pieces that don't fit. And just eliminate them. The way in which we eliminated Marvin Marable as a suspect, there was just not enough to connect him directly to the crime itself.

As for that eavesdropping device charge, Marvin was put on probation, which he completed, and then he was exonerated.

But on those recordings Maribel made, Lita had talked about other men, something that her soon-to-be ex-husband Sullivan pointed out to police. He made allegations that she was participating in extramarital affairs and that perhaps this was the action of, you know, a disgruntled boyfriend. We have a lot of major players involved.

At this point in the investigation, we have a lot of suspects. One of the first men police question is a professional athlete.

Lita and him had been friends when she was in Palm Beach. The police quickly found out that he was in prison for drug possession. That athlete is behind bars when Lita is killed, so clearly he can't be the trigger man. Then investigators turned their sights to a prominent Atlanta businessman. And he and Lita had been childhood friends, and they sort of rekindled their friendship.

and they realized that he had no motive and they found nothing that connected him. Authorities also take a hard look at another suitor who had taken Lita to dinner the night before her death and get this, had also given her two roses.

The suspect was a man named Bob Daniel. And Bob had had an incident a couple months before the murder where, in a drunken rage, he came to Lita's house, smashed his car into the garage, and as the cops were taking him away, he said, I'm going to kill that b----.

So, serious red flag. But that lead didn't go anywhere either. Bob had just had quadruple bypass surgery. You know, the police ultimately decided that Bob had nothing to do with it. It's the unknowing that makes it so difficult. And to know that there are individuals who may be walking around now planning and plotting to do the same thing to somebody else.

is abhorrent to me. I remember having the impression it was like a festering wound for them. The McClintons want to draw attention to a $25,000 reward in the case. The cause of finding justice for Lita became their obsession, became their passion. The reward is for the arrest and conviction of those individuals responsible for our daughter's murder.

To catch Lita's killer, the Atlanta Police Department assigns two veteran detectives to the case. If Lieutenant Walker bears a resemblance to actor Billy Dee Williams, Welcome Harris reminds one of Columbo, the dogged, disheveled detective of television fame. Building a murder case was like making a mosaic. You know, you get a shiny piece of glass here, a gem there. You put it together and you hope that from it emerges the shimmering image of a killer.

This particular case deals with what I consider to be high society. It contains a little bit of everything. Intrigue, mystery. These days, a lot of murders are solved using DNA technology, ring camera technology. But back then, it was detective work. She was shot with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun. The most important thing found at the crime scene was the roses.

They canvassed all the area flower shops and quickly found that the roses had been purchased at the Botany Bay Flower Shop. They interviewed the worker in there and he told them that this guy came in about 8 o'clock and bought these roses and paid in cash and then left. And he was in a small car. The florist gave a description of the man buying the flowers and another man who was waiting in the car.

So detectives know they're looking for at least two men. Until yet another person is described to police, that flower delivery man who had looked Lita's neighbor right in the eye. There was a next door neighbor of Lita's who lived over on the right side of her condo. His name was Bob Christensen. He actually gave a description of the flower delivery man as a Caucasian middle-aged man

They went down to the police station and worked with a police artist and got sketches. As the sketches were being completed, the officers were realizing, obviously, that the shooter was not Jim Sullivan and that the other individuals were all three distinct individuals. They didn't look anything like each other, so therefore we knew three people were involved.

For investigators, this has all the earmarks of only one thing: murder for hire. All the evidence pointed to a hitman showing up at the front door posing as a flower delivery man and firing a gunshot into Lita's head. With investigators now exploring the possibility that Lita was murdered by a hired gunman, another critical piece of evidence comes to light: a mysterious phone call.

And what they found was that on the same day that Lita was murdered, about an hour after the actual shooting, there was a collect phone call that was placed from a payphone right outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Was this a call from the killer? I don't know about you, I even had a collect call from a payphone. So as a cop, you probably go, "I wonder if that's connected."

And a tip from a woman 700 miles away may just be the big break investigators have been waiting for. I said, anyone knows that if you wanted to get a woman to answer the door, all you would have to do is take flowers to the door. This was a huge puzzle of a case. I hit man.

showing up at the front door, posing as a flower delivery man, firing a gunshot into Alita's head. How did your puzzle-solving skills come into play? You figure out what fits and what doesn't fit. I want everyone listening to this to know that I am absolutely innocent. The loss of a daughter. They still don't have the murder weapon.

But they do have witnesses. Do you know anybody who could possibly take care of my problem for me? Because I need some help here. Anyone knows that if you wanted to get a woman to answer the door, all you would have to do is take flowers to the door. She suggested the flowers. She suggested the flowers. You actually brought in a doorbell. Why? To have that sense of what Lita Sullivan experienced

right before her murder. She's about to meet her maker. It's a deadly delivery of a dozen pink roses. 35-year-old Lita McClinton Sullivan opens her front door and is suddenly gunned down. On the year anniversary of Lita's death, there are no named suspects.

They still don't have the murder weapon. They don't have a hitman. They don't have a paper trail that ties Jim or anyone else to a hit. But that's about to change when they get Jim Sullivan's phone records. On the same day that Lita was murdered, about an hour or so after the actual shooting, there was a collect phone call to James Sullivan's home in Palm Beach, Florida. It turns out to be from a rest stop.

in Suwannee, Georgia, maybe 30 or 40 miles from Buckhead. Using a phone call to call another state, that opens up federal jurisdiction. In this case, that's the FBI. We believed the phone call from Suwannee Rest Stop to his home in Palm Beach, Florida, was sufficient indication that a contract hitter may have called him after doing the job.

Enter Special Agent John Kingston, who takes a particular interest in that phone call and a whole slew of other calls Jim Sullivan made and received around the time of Leta's murder. I got a whole year's worth six months before the murder to six months after the murder. Kingston notices a few calls and one of them was to Bob Christianson, Leta's neighbor. When Kingston talks to Bob, he finds out that Jim had called Bob three days before the murder.

Sullivan said, had he seen anything suspicious around Lita's townhouse? And Bob finds it strange. He hasn't talked to Jim in over a year. Bob Christensen shares something else with Agent Kingston. On the same day Jim Sullivan called him, three days before the fatal flower delivery, Lita heard a loud knock on her door at five or six in the morning. It was so early and so unnerving, she didn't answer it.

So that made the call that he got from Jim even more suspicious. Kingston also finds that a call is made between Jim's house and a Howard Johnson's motel in Atlanta, just a couple of miles from Lita's house. This is really strange. One thing that he's learned about Jim is that he's not a Hojo's kind of guy. So he goes to the Howard Johnson's and asks if he can look through the records. They gave me the shoebox with all the registration cards.

And I pick out three that I thought, well, these are awfully interesting. So I say, do you guys have the phone records? They said, yeah, sure we do. And I'm thinking, boy, these people keep really good records. They keep them for a long time, and I'm really glad. They bring me the phone records for January 13th. And I'm flipping through them, flipping through them. All of a sudden, I see 305, Palm Beach, South Florida area code. And I'm pretty sure it's Jim's number. And so I check my records real quick. I go, yep, that's his number.

And then I look and I said, "Oh look, it's from 518. That's one of the three cards I pulled out." Well, it just so happens I have a copy of it here. And one of the things that imparts is three individuals checked into the room. The individual who actually registered used the name Johnny Fur. But three individuals is important to me because I think three people involved in the crime.

They put their car down as a Toyota 85 with a North Carolina plate. We believe that a Toyota was the getaway car for the murder. So there's two coincidences already. But remember, these motel records are from January 13th. Lita was murdered three days later on the 16th. Special Agent Kingston is beginning to surmise that the killers may have tried and failed to get to her once before.

What I believe it to be is the killers having come down three days before the actual murder was committed, knocking on her door, her not answering it, and them having to stop and regroup and figure out what plan B is going to be. So I am in love with this registration card and becomes the focal point of my life for the next several months.

Kingston's next move is to locate this so-called Johnny Fur with the North Carolina license plate. And to my surprise, there are 150 John or Johnny Furs in North Carolina. But to my great surprise, 115 of these 150 are in a very small circle in North Carolina between the three cities of Albemarle, Concord, and Kannapolis.

They're going to knock on every door and find this Johnny Fur. Of course, they're coming from Georgia, and any time the FBI goes and investigates in another state, they need that state's approval. And just as they're about to get to the state border, their boss calls them and says, "North Carolina's denying you entry, and they'll take it from here." That pretty much kills my case. That kills my case.

Yeah, soon after that, Agent Kingston is transferred to another job and that whole investigation just sort of fades away. Meantime, in Palm Beach, Jim and Suki are living the high life. So with Leta out of the picture, Jim is free to marry Suki, which he does eight months after Leta's murder. He's thinking that he's the cat's meow.

eating in restaurants in Palm Beach, going to parties, got another attractive woman on his arm. Jim drives around town in a Rolls Royce and gets into a fender bender and has to go to traffic court. Jim says to the judge, "Well, you've misunderstood. I wasn't even driving that day. Suki was driving." So the judge says, "We're gonna throw it out." However, the cop who was on the scene catches wind

And he says Suki wasn't even in the car that day. It was Jim driving alone. So now Jim has perjured himself, as has Suki. Jim ultimately got convicted of perjury, was given a year probation and a year of home confinement. Suki Sullivan also receives a year of probation.

Suki's freaking out. When she gets charged with perjury on his behalf, she's like, "I'm done with this." Suki files for divorce from Jim. And the trial that follows is the juiciest

craziest gossip in town. So when it's Suki's turn to testify, she drops a bomb. You can hear a pin drop. It's a big moment.

After 33 months of marriage, Suki files for divorce from Jim. Not surprisingly, it's another disputed divorce. But what might have been typical testimony about alimony takes a sudden turn in court. Tell me what it was he said to you about Lita. He hired someone to do it with her. I'm sorry? He hired someone to do it with her.

She claimed that he confessed to her that he had Leta killed. This became a bombshell in the investigation of the murder of Leta Sullivan. Suki Sullivan's divorce testimony may be big news for the FBI, but it has zero impact on the divorce judgment, which favors her husband, Jim Sullivan, in nearly every way.

His divorce was complete, but his life with turmoil was just beginning. The opulent ocean facing Palm Beach Palace may look like something out of the Great Gatsby, but while we watched, a new chapter in a crime story was unfolding.

We develop information here at WSB there's going to be a raid on Jim Sullivan's Palm Beach mansion. And that is the biggest break in the Lita Sullivan case since the murder itself. Investigators from the FBI, Atlanta police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation were on the grounds of a mansion identified as that of James Sullivan. All of a sudden, Jim Sullivan is clearly in the crosshairs of federal authorities.

They got a tip that Jim, now a convicted felon, has guns in the house. Of course, you're not allowed to have guns if you're a convicted felon. So they put together a sweeping affidavit to get a search warrant. We did see a number of guns loaded into a car and this box carried out. When they found the guns, he was in violation of his probation and so he went to jail for nine months.

All this time a federal grand jury has been convening in Atlanta. They've got what they found in the mansion. They've got what they found in the phone records. They've got Suki Sullivan. They've got the neighbors. What they don't have are the identities of the hit team.

There's a problem, though. We, the federal government, have a five-year statute of limitations, which is going to be up on January 16th of '92. With five or six days to go before it expired, the U.S. attorney made a bold decision. We're going to take our best shot with what we got right now. So they indict Jim Sullivan.

Jim Sullivan is indicted on multiple counts of arranging Lita's murder for hire through interstate phone calls. Millionaire James V. Sullivan is on trial in connection with an alleged murder for hire plot. Here he arrives for the first day of trial testimony. It was a trial that transfixed Atlanta. I mean, it was something we were covering on basically a daily basis. But we couldn't have it on camera because it's federal court.

It looks like the family is finally going to have some accountability for the murder of their daughter, Lita. The prosecution suggests the killers were calling Sullivan from the rest stop to say the job was done. The defense suggests otherwise. Jim Sullivan is lawyered up with the best criminal defense lawyers that you can find anywhere in Atlanta and maybe in the whole country.

There is no evidence at this point in this case who placed that call or whether that call was placed by anyone connected with the crime. The prosecutors spend two weeks telling their side of the story. Suki, the woman he married months after Lita's death, delivered some of the most dramatic testimony the jury has heard. They build what they feel like is a really strong case. And then a big bombshell hits.

The judge says, "I'm forced to dismiss this case for lack of evidence." Judge Marvin Shube ruled that in effect, even if Sullivan may have been involved in the murder for hire, the government fell short in proving the phone calls related to the murder. This is one of the most difficult decisions I had to make because I firmly believe in the jury system. And then he looks at Jim and he says, "You've been acquitted." This was ultra shocking. Suddenly it's over.

And Jim is a free man. I want everyone listening to this to know that I am absolutely innocent. I had nothing to do with Lita's death. Her death was a great tragedy. And I thank God and my attorneys that this ordeal is over. The family at that point, I guess, is just sort of at a loss. How devastating was that for them? They felt like the justice system had let them down.

I was not expecting this. It's extremely difficult. The system today is weighed in the favor of the defense. James Sullivan seems to have gotten away with murder.

But Lita's parents aren't giving up. They file a wrongful death suit in Palm Beach, Florida, and they win. We, the jury, return the following verdict. The jury deems that Jim is guilty of wrongful death. Total damages of the estate of Lita McClinton Sullivan, $4 million. But Sullivan is able to hide his assets and not pay any of the civil judgment.

Jim Sullivan appealed her civil judgment, and he won by having the Florida court say that they had filed it after the Florida statute of limitations. Once again, Jim has wiggled out of any responsibility, and the family is left dumbfounded. Until... A call is received out of the blue. A young woman comes forward. It proved to be the break in the case that everyone was looking for.

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Eleven years have gone by since Lita Sullivan was gunned down on her doorstep when a tip comes in from a town 700 miles away. A call is received out of the blue and the individual calling is an attorney in Beaumont, Texas. He has a receptionist whose name is Belinda Trahan who has told him a very unusual story

about her boyfriend, Tony Harwood. Melinda and Tony lived together in Albemarle, North Carolina. And he was a long-distance truck driver for North American van lines.

He basically drove a moving truck. Belinda tells her boss about a time that Tony came home from a long-haul trucking trip and said that a rich white man in Florida offered to pay him to, quote, "take care of his black wife in Georgia." At the time, Belinda didn't believe it. She thought he must be cheating on her. Belinda thought that it was Tony just trying to get out of town and go down to Atlanta to the strip bars.

Until he took her to meet this rich white guy in a diner somewhere, and he got a wad full of money. She says he sits down briefly in their booth and gives Tony Harwood the balance owed for the hit on the man's wife.

Belinda Trahan tells her boss that soon after this bizarre trip, she broke up with Tony Harwood and moved to Texas. But now, 11 years later, she says that he mysteriously reached out to her again, asking her to meet him at a nearby truck stop. She's afraid that he may commit harm to her.

And it's this new tip from Belinda Trahan that sends Georgia authorities to the Lone Star State, turning up the heat on an otherwise cold case. Georgia Bureau of Investigator Agent John Lang takes a detective from the Atlanta Police Department and goes down to Texas to talk to Belinda. She was with Tony when they met this mysterious man at this diner that they were meeting at.

We wanted to show her a lineup of pictures in hopes that she could pick Sullivan out of it. And she takes her pink fingernail and taps right on Jim Sullivan's face and says, "This is the man." My plan of attack was

to get some recordings with her and Tony. So we got her to get in touch with Tony again. She's talking to him and trying to coax information out of him, knowing John Lang is listening on her end. And Tony gives enough information that places him at the scene at the time. We had the phone calls with Tony. She picked Jim Sullivan out of the lineup. There was still more investigation to do.

We really didn't know who Tony Harwood was. John Lang knows that Tony worked at North American Van Lines. So he calls up North American Van Lines and he says, "Hey, you don't happen to have your records from 11 years ago?" And the guy says,

"Yeah, there's some boxes full of files up in a musty attic. You're more than welcome to go poke around." We went up into a hot attic and opened the first box that I went through. And about the third document I looked at was Jim Sullivan. His address was on it. Palm Beach, Florida. His signature was on it. And Tony Harwood's signature was on it.

He finds a bill of lading showing that Tony Harwood moved furniture for Jim Sullivan two months before the murder. And it's the paper trail he needs. It's like the jackpot. - Astounding. I don't know any other way to explain it. I mean, open this box and like the third record I look at, here it is. I mean, it just like it was meant to be.

On a Sunday morning in April of 1998, John Lang and local authorities go knock on Tony's door in Albemarle, North Carolina. Tony answers the door. And he said, "You know, I've been waiting on you boys for a long time." They take Tony to the Albemarle Police Station. Lang interviews Tony for three hours in this tiny room. But at the end of the day, Tony admits to

taking money from Jim, $25,000, to take care of Leta. He also tells the detectives that he wasn't the one to pull the trigger, but that he was there the day of the murder. He went through the whole case. And throughout the interview, he incriminated himself even more. I mean, admittedly, he was there. He knew what happened. So he was arrested for murder of Leta Sullivan. We took him back to Atlanta that day.

After Tony's arrest, things moved pretty quickly. We are here today to announce the issuance of a warrant for the arrest of James V. Sullivan. They got enough to get Sullivan. And now, boom, Sullivan hears of this and blows. He takes off. We have reason to believe that he's outside the country. He's just gone. Vanished. Investigators say he could be anywhere. He is nowhere to be found.

We certainly do not know where Mr. Sullivan is. We have reason to believe that he's outside the country. More than a decade after his wife Lita was murdered, Jim Sullivan seems to be playing a game of "catch me if you can" with authorities. There is an international manhunt for James Sullivan.

Well, Jim had moved to Costa Rica, actually bought a home there. In 1998, after an arrest warrant was issued for him, he immediately, like that night, went to Panama. If you have any information concerning James Sullivan, you should contact the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate. We didn't know exactly where he had flown from Panama, and we didn't know exactly where he had gone. His trail goes cold.

They put him on Interpol and it was just cold. They've tapped phone lines, anybody that he might have called, and he's called no one, not even his mother. There was a few tips that came in, the tips are just dead ends. The McClintons, they're dumbfounded that this guy could, you know, get away again.

But in late 1999, with Sullivan still completely off the grid, the heartbroken Emery and Joanne McClinton do get some good news. Last week came this, a court decision reinstating a $4 million judgment against Jim Sullivan in connection with a wrongful death case brought in effect by Lita's estate. Lita's family and law enforcement officials hope that a renewed hunt for Sullivan's money will help smoke him out.

Where you find Sullivan's money, you're gonna find him close by. But even this goes nowhere. Fast forward to 2002. There is no sign of Jim Sullivan. We tried every effort in our arsenal to try and locate him, to put him on the FBI's wanted list, but to also put him on the top ten list, which is very unusual. You don't get on the top ten list very easily. Then we also featured him on America's Most Wanted.

The most recent picture we have of Sullivan is at least five years old, so the FBI age-enhanced this photo, which may bear a closer resemblance to Sullivan's appearance today. If you recognize James Sullivan from either of these photographs, call us now at 1-800-CRIME-TV. A man sees America's Most Wanted on television and goes,

I know that guy. He lives in my condo complex in Chiam, Thailand. And sure enough, he calls the authorities. He went to Panama, to Venezuela, and eventually to Thailand, where he got a beachfront condo. He spends his days walking on the beach, sitting by the pool, occasionally playing tennis, as though no other troubles in the world.

The Thai police knock on Jim Sullivan's door on July 2nd, 2002 and say, "You're under arrest." The McClintons can hardly believe it. We found out from the FBI, and that was a moment of jubilation. Fifteen years is a long time to concentrate on the loss of a daughter. And we had determination

and we had the will, we also had all of these individuals behind us.

Almost as soon as Jim Sullivan is arrested for murder, Tony Harwood, who has continued to deny being the trigger man, agrees to a plea deal. Tony kind of sees the writing on the wall. Harwood just decided that he would plead guilty, the negotiated plea for manslaughter. And in turn, that he would testify against Jim Sullivan. It took two years, but he finally was extradited back to Atlanta in 2004.

He got off the plane. He was wearing a single shoe because he had such terrible gout in his foot. But he gets off and gets taken to Fulton County Jail, and there's this sort of cumulative sigh of relief.

To be clear, Sullivan being tried for murder in Georgia is not double jeopardy. For one thing, it is a state case, and the previous one was a federal case, and that specifically was for arranging Lita's murder-for-hire over the phone.

The elected district attorney appoints me along with a couple of other lawyers to prosecute the case. This was a huge puzzle of a case. Right. How did your puzzle-solving skills come into play? There's no cutting corners.

and you spread the pieces out, and then you figure out what fits and what doesn't fit. And that's kind of what the prosecution of James Sullivan was like. It was putting together all these different pieces so that we could make sure that the prosecution of the case was done accurately and with integrity. What concerned you going into this trial? He was rich. He was a white male.

He had escaped the federal authorities before, and he had two of the best criminal defense attorneys representing him. They are sharp, and if they can find a way out, they're going to find a way out. There will not be one shred of physical evidence that links Jim Sullivan to this crime. Jim has eluded justice so many times that there's a real palpable fear that he's going to get away with it, that he's going to elude justice.

justice again.

After nearly 20 years, Jim Sullivan is finally on trial here in Fulton County for the murder of his wife, Lita. For her heartbroken parents, this day couldn't come soon enough. The pain, believe it or not, it increases. It does not decrease. The shock decreases. The depression decreases. But the pain continues. It was an A-team of prosecutors, great courtroom performers.

Clint Rucker was the lead prosecutor and Anna Graham, Kelly Hill, Sheila Ross. And the evidence will show that the person who sent that hitman to Lita's door is the only person in the world who could have profited from her death. It is the only person in the world who met Tony Harwood and paid him off for killing her.

And is the only person in the world who fled halfway around the world to avoid facing you. The jury was nine women and three men. The jury is also racially mixed. Jim Sullivan had Ed Garland and Don Samuel. Again, the people who won that big courtroom victory against the feds. What the state relies on is two types of evidence. Circumstantial evidence and then the testimony of con men.

The state initially started out the nature of the crime and what happened that morning. I heard two sounds. They sounded to me like steel hitting steel. I just didn't want to believe that it was a gun. And so I hesitated for a second and then I really knew that it was a gun. She was able to squeeze my hand each time I spoke with her like she understood what I was saying. And for many, many years after this,

I thought that's all it was. Then one day I realized that she was comforting me more than I was comforting her. That was the sort of lady I thought she was. They had the phone calls that the FBI had found. There was a call from this room to Mr. Sullivan's home at 7.44 in the morning. But all this testimony notwithstanding, it's Belinda Trahan and Tony Harwood who everybody wants to hear from.

Belinda Trahan was the most important witness in the case. He told me that some white guy wanted to take out his black wife. I didn't believe it. Why not? I've been with him for three years. Over three years, I mean, I figured he met someone.

because we were on the outs. Most chilling about Belinda's testimony is that she confirms that there was at least one failed attempt on Lita's life. She testifies that when Tony had gone to Lita's house on January 13th, that she didn't come to the door. They drove back to North Carolina and told Belinda that

you know, it didn't work. But Belinda testifies that hearing that from her boyfriend left her incredulous. I said, just don't even lie to me. I said, because anyone knows that if you wanted to get a woman to answer the door, all you would have to do is take flowers to the door. Did you in any way mean...

for that to be a suggestion as to how to get the job accomplished? No, not at all. Here's Belinda Trahan, and she is falling on a sword about what she did. She suggested the flowers. She suggested the flowers, and she admitted that on the stand. You brought in the diner booth where they sat. Why couldn't you just tell the jury and show pictures? I want you to see the puzzle once it's all put together.

Yeah, I can show you the box. I can show you a photograph of it. But when I put it together and I show it to you, you'll never forget it. Push the paper across the table like this and then Tony put his hand on it and took it from there. And there was a particular moment when she is asked to stand up in court and identify the person she witnessed give Tony Harwood an envelope full of money. Please, point him out.

Sweat there. He can't even make eye contact. Your Honor, may the record reflect, the witness has identified the defendant, James Sullivan. But if prosecutors feel like Belinda Trahan's testimony is helping their case, they have to know that it's just as big a risk to put Tony Harwood on the stand. Can you show the jurors the body language Mr. Sullivan used and the tone of voice, if it's possible, that he used when he was explaining to you that his wife, Lita, was a problem?

You know, I've got this wife of mine up in Atlanta and she is just trying to take everything I've got. And I don't know what to do about it.

I need someone to take care of my problem. Do you know anybody that's possible to take care of my problem for me? Because I need some help here. We could prove Tony Harwood and James Sullivan actually met each other. So I spent the first part of Tony Harwood's examination confirming his signature on the hotel receipt. And I put signature, John Kerr. The fact that he actually went to the flower shop. Who actually went inside the flower shop to purchase

The flowers. I did. They had Tony Harwood saying that he was the one who made the collect call to Jim Sullivan's house. What did you say to him? I said, Merry Christmas. And he said, I understand. And that was it. What would you try to convey to Mr. Sullivan by giving him that signal, those code words? That his problem was taken care of.

The defense had their chance to cross-examine Harwood. Not a single question. The two key witnesses were, of course, Belinda Trahan and Tony Harwood. And so, in closing arguments, the defense assailed their credibility. You should reject everything that came out of his mouth.

Harwood says, "An envelope in the bathroom." She says, "An envelope at this booth over here." Garland presents to the jury a letter-sized envelope stuffed with bills. Harwood had said it was all cash in $20 bills. See, oops, some of it fell out. There's some more. It won't fit in an envelope. The whole story just doesn't make sense.

In your closing arguments, you actually brought in a doorbell. Why? What was the point? I wanted the jurors to have that sense of what Lita Sullivan experienced right before her murder. An ordinary moment. In an ordinary moment. The second reason why I did it is because James Sullivan liked to read books.

And one of his favorite authors wrote a book called "For Whom the Bell Tolls." I'm going to ask you through your verdict of guilty to each and every count to tell James Vincent Sullivan for whom the bell tolls. Tell him that it tolls for me. To you. To you. And then I rang the doorbell.

Three times. As the jury goes out to deliberate, I think there's a real fear. Are they going to do it this time, or is it going to be like every other time? I do not see this as a slam dunk for the state. There's this anxiety. You're worried, but you're hopeful. I don't care who you talk to that does this kind of work as a litigator. They will tell you, oh, I can look at the jurors, and I probably can tell you what they're going to do. No, you don't. You don't.

This is breaking news. We do have breaking news at this hour. The jury having reached a verdict in the trial of Jim Sullivan. The jury came back within a few hours on the same day. It was so silent and the tension, the tension was just palpable.

There's this anxiety. You don't know what it's going to be. You don't know how it's going to turn out. And you're worried, but you're hopeful. It's hard not to think of Lita's family, her parents especially, after so many fits and starts to win justice for their firstborn child. It comes down to this moment. The judge says, "Ma'am, would you publish the verdict?" And then from that moment until they get finished, nobody is breathing.

Count one malice murder. We the jury find the defendant James Vincent Sullivan guilty. Malice murder. I got a chance to hug Emory McClinton. I had never been hugged so tight before. This was his baby and we had finally after 19 years brought that man a sense of satisfaction. I'll never forget it. The conviction of James Sullivan was the biggest

puzzle that I had solved in my career and it is one that gave me the most satisfaction that I had ever experienced as a prosecutor. The court hears victim impact statements. What a loss it was to have Leta gone from their lives. I dream of Leta often. She is smiling and walking in my direction and I in hers. But we never reach each other.

The jury came back and gave him life in prison without the possibility of parole. I am so very pleased and I'm happy. What we were waiting for was something in our judicial system, something to happen and to bring it all together and that's what you see today. Why did it take 20 years, do you think? It goes back to the resources. He had privilege? White privilege. Completely.

He knew how to manipulate people, and he had the resources to do that. You've got a black victim. You've got a white defendant. Did race hover in this courtroom over this case at all? I think in our criminal justice system, unfortunately, race always permeates throughout a case. But I'm thankful to say the evidence in the case overcame

that racial component. They never received any money. Is there money? Where is this money? He's been able to secret his money. For the McClintons, seeing him rot in a prison in South Georgia brings them a whole lot more satisfaction. This is a woman who you never met, I've never met, most of the people involved in this case never met her, and yet her life really made an impact. When somebody

dies in this kind of manner. They don't stop being a member of the family. They don't stop being a member of the community. They never stop mattering.

David Tony Harwood was released from prison in 2018 after serving his 20-year sentence. Jim Sullivan remains behind bars with no possibility of parole. As for the other two men who were seen at that flower shop, no one else was ever charged. That is our program for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm David Muir. And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night.

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