The murder of Lita LaVaughn McClinton Sullivan
Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia · 1987
Overview
Lita McClinton Sullivan, 35, was shot to death at the door of her Buckhead townhouse in Atlanta, Georgia on January 16, 1987 by a man posing as a flower deliveryman, on the morning a hearing in her contentious divorce from millionaire James Vincent Sullivan was set to begin. Investigators long suspected Sullivan had hired the killing, but a 1992 federal murder-for-hire trial ended in a directed acquittal. The case broke only in 1997-1998 when the criminal accomplice was identified and flipped: truck driver Phillip Anthony Harwood, the man who had taken Sullivan's money, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for a 20-year sentence in exchange for testifying against Sullivan. Sullivan fled the country in 1998, was captured in Thailand in 2002, extradited in 2004, and convicted of malice murder in March 2006 and sentenced to life without parole.
How it was solved
The conviction of James Sullivan was built on the cooperation of the criminal accomplice who carried out the killing. For a decade the case was unprovable: a 1992 federal murder-for-hire prosecution collapsed when a judge directed a verdict of acquittal for lack of evidence. The break came in late 1997, when Belinda Trahan of Beaumont, Texas contacted Atlanta investigators and identified the man who had used the alias Johnny Furr as her former boyfriend, North Carolina truck driver Phillip Anthony Harwood. Harwood was arrested in 1998 and admitted to detectives that Sullivan had paid him to have Lita killed, describing the envelope of cash handed over at a restaurant and the call he made to Sullivan afterward; he insisted he was only an intermediary and not the shooter. Rather than try him for murder, prosecutors allowed Harwood to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter for a 20-year sentence in return for his testimony against Sullivan. The state re-indicted Sullivan, and at the 2006 trial the prosecution's case centered on Harwood's and Trahan's testimony, corroborated by phone records linking Harwood and Sullivan around the date of the murder. It was the flipped accomplice, not forensic evidence, that finally produced a conviction.
Sources
- Lita McClinton
“Lita McClinton Sullivan ... was murdered on January 16, 1987 ... shot dead while receiving a box of pink roses at her doorstep. Her husband Jim Sullivan was arrested in Thailand in 2002.”
- Sullivan v. State (2008)
“Sullivan propositioned Harwood to take care of his wife in exchange for $25,000, half to be paid in advance ... the jury found Sullivan guilty of malice murder.”
- Triggerman in socialite Lita Sullivan's murder released from prison
“Harwood pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter ... He agreed to testify against James Vincent Sullivan ... He received a 20-year prison sentence.”
- Lita McClinton Sullivan's Murder at the Hands of Her Husband
“In 1998, the girlfriend of North Carolina man Phillip Anthony Harwood approached investigators and disclosed that he had accepted $25,000 from Jim Sullivan to commit the murder.”
- The James Sullivan Murder-For-Hire Case
“prosecutors allowed Harwood to plead guilty to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. In exchange for his testimony against Sullivan, Harwood received a 20-year sentence ... On March 13, 2006, the jury deliberated less than an hour before finding Sullivan guilty.”
- Judge orders acquittal of Florida millionaire
“A federal judge in 1992 ordered the acquittal of James Sullivan after ruling the government failed to prove its murder-for-hire case in the death of his estranged wife Lita.”
- The deadly delivery that shook Atlanta and the long road to justice for Lita McClinton Sullivan
“She wasn't robbed. Somebody came to the door with roses and shot her dead ... 2006: Convicted; sentenced to life without parole.”
- Social Disgraces: The murder of Lita McClinton
“Lita McClinton Sullivan was shot to death at the front door of her Buckhead townhouse by a man who delivered a box of flowers, on the morning her divorce was to be settled.”