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Book

A devil went down to Georgia : race, power, privilege, and the murder of Lita McClinton

Call Number

  • 364.1523 L2538 (CEN)

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Edition

First Pegasus Books cloth edition.

Publication Information

New York : Pegasus Books, 2024.

Physical Description

xii, 244 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm

Summary

"The 1987 murder of Lita McClinton Sullivan sent shockwaves through the affluent Atlanta suburb of Buckhead, Georgia like few other crimes before it. The neighborhood, with its stately mansions and top-tier schools, was simply not the kind of place where women were gunned down in cold blood in broad daylight. How many socialites had enemies so dangerous they would be murdered by a hitman pretending to deliver roses on an early winter morning? Lita was an intelligent, accomplished, and stunning Black woman from a respected Atlanta family. Her interracial marriage to white millionaire Jim Sullivan, who hailed from working-class Boston, was a newsworthy occurrence in 1970s Georgia. For a while, the couple made the marriage work, but it wasn't long before Jim's roving eye and controlling nature put Lita on edge. When he bought a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida (without telling her), the façade of their life together began to crumble. Finally, after a decade of marriage, she loaded her belongings in a U-Haul and never looked back. But as the legal battle over the divorce raged and Jim's financial outlook grew precarious, he had a chance encounter with a long-haul trucker, a smooth-talking ex-con who said he could he'd "take care" of Jim's wife problem. . . . In A Devil Went Down to Georgia, award-winning writer Deb Miller Landau details the shocking events that followed Lita's murder in 1987, including the surprising lack of evidence, racial bias in the justice system, and the international manhunt for Lita's killer. Full of twists and turns, legal battles, and the McClinton family's unrelenting dedication to justice, Landau's rigorous investigation is the first complete account of this tragic American crime"--

Notes

Includes "A note on sources" (page [241]).

Contents

  • Prologue
  • The doorbell rings (January 16, 1987)
  • Lita : back to the beginning (1952-1976)
  • Jim (1941-1976)
  • The wedding (1976)
  • Macon (1976-1983)
  • Palm Beach (1983-1985)
  • Coming home (1985-1986)
  • Free & uneasy (1985-1986)
  • Tony & Belinda (1986)
  • Three days before (January 13, 1987)
  • For whom the bell tolls (January 16, 1987, again)
  • The aftermath (1987)
  • Early investigation (1987)
  • Truck stop (February, or maybe August 1987)
  • For love or money (1987-1989)
  • The feds (1988-1989)
  • Ticking timebomb (1990)
  • Uncivil war (1990-1991)
  • I spy with my little eye (Summer 1991)
  • Justice league (Fall 1991)
  • Goose chase (Winter 1991)
  • Federal fiasco (1992)
  • Unreasonable doubt (1992)
  • Wrongful death (1993-1998)
  • Belinda (January to April 1998)
  • On the run (1998-2002)
  • Thailand (2002-2004)
  • Preparing for justice
  • The stripper and the bartender
  • The trial (2006)
  • The trial, part 2 (2006)
  • The verdict (March 2006)
  • Where's the money?
  • A trucker and a millionaire (2023)
  • Epilogue (Race, power, privilege)

Subjects