When wealthy Georgia socialite Lita McClinton answered her door on the morning of January 16, 1987, her face lit up as she saw a man holding a box of flowers. The joy, however, lasted only a split second before her expression turned to horror. The flowers fell to the ground and so did Lita as she was greeted with a bouquet of bullets. Shot four times, the thirty-five-year-old died at the hospital.

 

It seemed more than a coincidence that the deadly delivery occurred on the day Lita’s divorce was to be finalized. Her estranged husband was confirmed to be hundreds of miles away at the time, but investigators were certain he had orchestrated a contract killing. It would take persistent detective work to link him to her murder and a global manhunt to make him answer for the crime.

Lita McClinton

Lita McClinton was the daughter of one of Georgia’s most politically powerful black families.

Her father Emory had been a United States Department of Transportation Official and her mother JoAnn later served as a Georgia State Representative.

A Privileged Upbringing

Boston native Jim Sullivan also came from a wealthy family. Following the death of his uncle, Frank Bienert, in 1983, he inherited a $5 million dollar business, Crown Beverage Incorporated, a liquor company based in Macon, Georgia.

Much of Sullivan’s money, along with several properties, however, were lost to his first wife, Catherine, following their divorce in 1976.

Jim Sullivan

Sullivan had met Lita at an Atlanta mall the year before, while his divorce was in process. Lita was training to be a clothing buyer for a department store. Sullivan appeared instantly attracted to her. Sullivan wooed Lita; she resisted at first, but he soon won her over. After over a year of dating, they became engaged.

Against the wishes of her family and despite only learning of Sullivan’s prior marriage the night before their wedding, Lita wed Sullivan in December 1976.

Lita Marries Jim

Lita’s family found Sullivan arrogant and condescending. They believed he married Lita largely to capitalize on their political influence and improve his social standing. 

Sullivan longed to mingle with the wealthy socialites and wedding Lita was his ticket to doing so. He appeared to love her money and family name more than he loved her.

True Love: 

Of Money And Standing

The newlyweds settled in the Shirley-Hills neighborhood, an affluent section of Macon. Their biracial marriage was not welcomed by many.

Though never the victims of anything violent, the couple was harassed on multiple occasions with incidents such as having garbage dumped on their lawn and watermelons delivered to their door.

The Couple Is Harassed

After Sullivan sold Crown Beverage Incorporated in 1983, the couple moved to Palm Beach, Florida, where they purchased the Casa Eleda, a luxurious $2 million Italian villa overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Casa Eleda

Though not harassed as they had been in Macon, the couple again encountered racism in the form of shunning. They attended numerous parties and social gatherings, but the majority of the social elites were unwilling to accept an interracial couple, no matter how wealthy or prestigious.

Jim blamed Lita for their, or more specifically, his failure to climb the social ladder. He began distancing himself from his wife and engaged in several affairs. Lita learned of the dalliances but still sought to keep the marriage together. As Jim’s infidelity increased, however, she realized her efforts were futile and filed for divorce in August 1985.

Lita left Jim and returned to Georgia, moving into a townhouse they owned in Buckhead, an upscale section of Atlanta.

Lita Leaves Jim

Lita asked for half of the couple’s estate, including Casa Eleda, in the divorce. Although she and Jim were living in Florida the majority of the time, they still had their Georgia residence which allowed her to file for divorce there because it was the state in which they had been married. At the time, divorce actions in Georgia were heard before a jury rather than a judge.

Before rendering a decision on the distribution of property, the jury was scheduled to hear Lita’s testimony on January 16, 1987.

Slated To Testify

That morning, Lita’s neighbor, Bob Christiansen, saw a man come to her house, carrying a box of flowers. Shortly afterwards, he heard gunfire, saw the man race from the home to a small white car and speed away. He saw two other men inside the car.

An ambulance and police were summoned. Despite having been shot four times at point blank range with a nine-millimeter handgun, Lita was still conscious when they arrived.  She was rushed to the hospital but died shortly after arrival.

A Bouquet of Bullets

The pink roses the killer used to hide the gun lay at the crime scene.

A clerk at a local shop recalled a man buying them shortly before Lita’s murder. The man stood out because he was acting nervously and seemed in a hurry.

The Flowers Found At The Crime Scene

A composite drawing of the gunman was made based on the recollections of the flower shop clerk and Lita’s neighbor, Bob Christiansen.

Composite Of The Gunman

Several people remembered seeing three men, one of whom resembled the killer’s composite, check into a local Howard Johnson’s Hotel several days before Lita’s murder. The men arrived in a small white Japanese import car that fit the description of the car Bob Christiansen saw flee from the scene.

The identifications the men used to check into the hotel were found to be false.

Sketches Of the Suspects

Jim Sullivan was confirmed to have been six-hundred miles away at the couple’s Palm Beach home when Lita was murdered. He also did not resemble the composite drawing of his estranged wife’s killer.

During questioning, Sullivan told police Lita used drugs recreationally and suggested her murder may have been related to a drug deal. Police found no proof that Lita had ever taken drugs; instead, they were growing increasingly suspicious that Sullivan had orchestrated a hit on his estranged wife. His friends and acquaintances told police he was infuriated at the prospect of losing millions of dollars and property in another divorce.

Authorities believed Jim Sullivan had spent what was, for him, a little money on a hitman in the hopes of preserving his fortune.

Sullivan Suspected

Investigators subpoenaed Sullivan’s telephone records from his Palm Beach estate. Three calls in the days before Lita’s murder were made from the room occupied by the men at the Howard Johnson’s Hotel in Buckhead, Georgia, to Sullivan’s home in Palm Beach, Florida. Only forty minutes after the murder, a collect call was made to the Sullivan home from a rest stop forty miles outside Atlanta. Police believe the call was made by the killer, informing Sullivan the job was completed. 

Phone calls made in February, one month after Lita’s murder, showed Sullivan had called a friend in Georgia. This friend told authorities that Sullivan had discussed the murder investigation and had mentioned that Lita was killed with a nine-millimeter handgun. The gun used in her murder was never found, and its caliber had not been released to the public.

Prosecutors sought to bring murder charges against Sullivan, but a judge denied the request due to lack of evidence.

Suspicion Mounts

In September, eight months after Lita’s murder, Sullivan married thirty-three-year-old Hyo-Sook “Suki” Rogers, a thrice-divorced socialite of Korean descent. All was roses for two years as his primary hope of a higher social status was achieved after wedding the attractive and much younger woman.

A minor misdeed three years later, however, ultimately led to Sullivan’s being charged with major crimes.

Sullivan And Suki

Sullivan’s driver’s license was revoked after he racked up several speeding tickets. His registration was expired when he was pulled over for a traffic violation in 1990. Instead of paying the $50 fine, the wealthy socialite contested the ticket.

At the hearing, he and Suki both testified that she had been driving, but the claim was disproven. Each was convicted of perjury; Suki was fined and Sullivan was sentenced to one-and-a-half-years of house arrest.

Shady Socialites

Following the perjury conviction, police were granted a warrant to search Sullivan’s Palm Beach home. In the course of the search, they found four unregistered firearms.

Sullivan was then convicted of unlawful possession of the weapons and sentenced to another eighteen months of house arrest.

Sullivan’s Downfall Begins

Following his firearms conviction, Sullivan’s third marriage deteriorated. Suki filed for divorce in November 1990.

At this divorce proceeding, Suki testified that Sullivan had ordered her to lie about driving because of his revoked license. She then quietly added one more interesting bit of information: Her husband had told her he had hired someone to kill Lita and she feared she could also be killed.

Suki Drops A Bombshell

Jim Sullivan was arrested and charged with Lita’s murder in January 1992. He was extradited from Florida to Georgia and detained in Atlanta’s federal prison while awaiting trial. The federal charge was not for murder but for interstate commerce to facilitate a murder-for-hire, i.e. the phone calls made to and from his home.

Sullivan’s trial began in June. His third wife, Suki, was the key witness accusing him of murdering his second wife, Lita.

Sullivan Is Arrested . . .

Sullivan’s lawyers successfully attacked Suki’s credibility, portraying her as a gold digger. In November, a judge dismissed the case, again citing lack of evidence as the nature of the phone calls made to and from Sullivan’s Florida home could not be proven.

Despite the dismissal, Sullivan was ostracized from the Palm Beach elite. He sold his home for $3 million and moved to a far more modest ranch house in Boynton Beach, fifteen miles to the north.

. . . But The Charges Are Dismissed

In February 1994, Lita’s family won a $4 million civil lawsuit against Sullivan.

The District Court of Appeals, however, overturned the ruling, saying the lawsuit had not been filed within the statute of limitations.

Civil Verdict Overturned

In January 1998, eleven years after Lita Sullivan’s murder, her case was profiled on America’s Most Wanted. 

Following the broadcast, police received a call from a woman in Texas named Belinda Trahan. She told authorities she recognized Jim Sullivan as the man who had approached her former boyfriend, Phillip Harwood, and that she had overheard the conversation in which Sullivan agreed to pay him $25,000 to kill Lita.

Phillip Harwood

Under questioning, Harwood, a forty-seven-year-old long-distance trucker from North Carolina, said he had met Sullivan in November 1986, shortly after the latter’s move to Palm Beach. Harwood admitted Sullivan enlisted him to murder Lita, and he confirmed they agreed on $25,000.

Harwood also said he had purchased the flowers and made the phone call to Sullivan’s Palm Beach home the morning after the hit.

Harwood Confesses . . .

Phillip Harwood was charged with the murder of Lita Sullivan in April 1998.

In exchange for his testimony identifying Jim Sullivan as the mastermind, Harwood avoided being charged with murder and, if convicted, of possibly receiving a death sentence. He pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to twenty years in prison.

. . . And Fingers Sullivan

In May, a warrant was issued for Jim Sullivan’s arrest, charging him again with murder.

Sullivan, aware of Harwood’s arrest, knew the net was closing in and took flight. Investigators learned he initially fled to Costa Rica. Over the following four years, he was spotted in the Cayman Islands, Panama, Venezuela, and across the globe in Switzerland and Ireland.

It was in Southeast Asia where Sullivan’s luck ran out.

Sullivan Takes Flight

Authorities tracked Sullivan to Thailand. After a month of surveillance, he was confirmed residing in a resort community in Cha-am, just outside Bangkok, where he was arrested on July 2, 2002. He was living in a beachfront condominium with his Thai girlfriend, Nana Reynolds.

After being held in a Thai jail for nineteen months, Sullivan was extradited to the United States in 2004 to stand trial for Lita’s murder. In the photo, he is hiding his face as he walks with his latest girlfriend into a Thai courtroom.

Captured

But Still Trying To Hide

In March 2006, over nineteen years after Lita’s killing, Jim Sullivan was convicted of capital murder.

He could have received the death penalty, but his life was spared as he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Convicted

Emory and JoAnn McClinton filed a second civil lawsuit against Sullivan and were again awarded $4 million.  This time, the Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling.

Lita’s Parents

Emory and Joann

The hitman, Philip Harwood, was released from prison in 2018.

Shortly before gaining his freedom, he told a reporter he did not kill Lita McClinton without elaborating.

Hitman Released

I could find nothing indicating whether Harwood was offered any sort of deal to give up the identities of the other two men he was seen with fleeing in the white car following Lita’s murder.  They have never been identified.

Never Identified

Jim Sullivan, now eighty-two-years-old, is incarcerated at the state medical prison in Augusta, Georgia.

No statement has been made regarding Sullivan’s social standing among his prisoner peers.

A Popular Prisoner? 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/134613167/lita-lavaughn-mcclinton#

 

SOURCES

• America’s Most Wanted
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Del Rio News
• FBI
• Galveston Daily News
• NBC News
• Northwest Florida Daily News
• South Florida Sun Sentinel
• Unsolved Mysteries