Picture courtesy of the McClinton household
On the chilly morning of January 16, 1987, 35-year-old Lita McClinton Sullivan tied a bathrobe round her waist and headed downstairs to reply the door of her Buckhead townhouse. It was an enormous day—the day of the courtroom listening to that might be one of many last steps in securing her divorce from her husband, James Vincent Sullivan.
For nearly two years, Lita and her husband had been engaged in a contentious battle. Sullivan, a Boston native who owned a liquor retailer in Macon, was a philanthropist with an explosive mood and severely controlling and emotionally abusive to Lita. He spent months making an attempt to color his spouse as a drug addict, a thief and an adulteress so as to not adjust to the phrases of the postnuptial settlement.
That January morning, simply hours earlier than the courtroom dominated on the distribution of the Sullivans’ substantial marital belongings, a person stood on the litter door holding a big white field crammed with pink roses, tied with a pink ribbon, and rang the bell. the doorbell
As Lita answered the door with a pleasant “good morning,” the person crossed the edge and pushed the field of roses into her hand. Earlier than realizing what was occurring, he pulled out a 9mm Smith & Wesson and fired two pictures. Lita misses the primary bullet. The second did not, piercing the flower field earlier than hitting the left facet of his head. He died in hospital simply an hour later.
Though Sullivan was the prime suspect from the beginning, it could take almost twenty years for Lee’s mother and father—Emory McClinton, former head of the U.S. Division of Transportation’s regional civil rights workplace, and his spouse, former Georgia state consultant Joan McClinton—to long-haul trucker Philip Anthony “Tony” Harwood. To see him stand trial for paying $25,000 to kill their daughter.
Courtesy of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation
Courtesy of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation
Deb Miller Landau’s new ebook, A satan has descended on Georgia (Pegasus Books), investigates the assassination of Lita McClinton. Landau, a former Atlanta resident who now lives in Oregon, can be right here this month for 2 writer talks: Aug. 12 on the Atlanta Historical past Middle and Aug. 13 at First Baptist Church in Decatur, a ebook in a program offered by the Georgia Middle.
Landau first wrote concerning the assassination via a contract project atlanta From the second he started investigating the newspaper, Landau discovered himself drawn to the story – not simply Lita, a lovely, clever, completed girl cherished by all who knew her, the Lita household, grieving however relentless of their pursuit. justice
Courtesy of the writer
His characteristic story “Social Humiliation” was revealed in 2004, 17 years after Leiter’s homicide and shortly after Sullivan was arrested in Thailand, the place he had been hiding. The next 12 months, Harper composed the perennial article The Finest American Crime Writing.
Over the subsequent few many years, he carried on with Lita’s story. He carted his recordsdata throughout the nation in numerous states and thru life modifications. Then, in 2020, amid a world pandemic, the excessive fever pitch of Black Lives Matter and the turmoil of the #MeToo motion, Landau finds himself enthusiastic about Lita. Coping with these points in his personal life introduced Landau again to “social shame”.
“I all the time had the sensation that the unique story I wrote did not go deep sufficient,” she says. “I felt that there have been questions that had not been adequately answered by me or anybody else prior to now and I needed to ask these questions. I needed to search out out what Lita’s life was actually like as a part of an interracial couple residing in Macon and Palm Seashore, Florida. What was her life expertise with James? Why did it take so lengthy to get justice for the household?
He started work on a ebook that tried to lastly and totally reply these questions. Landau knew that true crime is a problematic style that may flip tragedy into spectacle and infrequently flip violent crime victims and their households into thinly drawn, two-dimensional caricatures.
It’s a style that capitalizes on violence towards ladies and ladies and favors tales of white ladies. “The most effective of American crime writing That 12 months 25 authors had essays or essays, and I used to be the one girl chosen,” Landau mentioned. “In researching this ebook, each single investigator I knew or talked to was a person. Besides within the DA’s workplace, most legal professionals had been males. The choose was male. So, simply as we are likely to see tales via a white lens, we additionally are likely to see tales via a male lens. And that was very true of crime on the time.”
Picture by Matt H. King
Deeply researched and thoughtfully mentioned, A satan has descended on Georgia Describe with cinematic readability the occasions main as much as and following the brutal homicide of Litter in 1987. It additionally paints a fuller, extra human image of Lita and her household.
The ebook obtained nationwide consideration. individuals The journal is publishing a quote. Newsweek Run a private essay by Landau about homicide. Publishers Weekly Praising the ebook, “Demonstrating the talent of a veteran, Landau peppers the narrative with cliff-hangers and vertigo-inducing twists. It provides as much as a chilling and infuriating act of true crime.”
A satan has descended on Georgia Form of a testomony to what gritty and deliberate true crime tales can do. They will carry to the middle the tales of marginalized, oppressed and abused ladies and provides them again some company, their voice, even after dying.
They will, of their highest type, be their very own sort of justice.
This text appeared in our August 2024 subject.
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