A Devil Went Down to Georgia

Race, Power, Privilege, and the Murder of Lita McClinton

Deb Miller Landau

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781639366842
• Edition: 0
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies

Oprah Daily ranked #1 of the “best true crime books of all time.”

A riveting narrative that pieces together the life and murder of Black socialite Lita McClinton Sullivan—and the journey to bring her true killer to justice.

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Prologue
• Chapter 1: The Doorbell Rings (January 16, 1987)
• Chapter 2: Lita: Back to the Beginning (1952–1976)
• Chapter 3: Jim (1941–1976)
• Chapter 4: The Wedding (1976)
• Chapter 5: Macon (1976–1983)
• Chapter 6: Palm Beach (1983–1985)
• Chapter 7: Coming Home (1985–1986)
• Chapter 8: Free & Uneasy (1985–1986)
• Chapter 9: Tony & Belinda (1986)
• Chapter 10: Three Days Before (January 13, 1987)
• Chapter 11: For Whom the Doorbell Tolls (January 16, 1987, again)
• Chapter 12: The Aftermath (1987)
• Chapter 13: Early Investigation (1987)
• Chapter 14: Truck Stop (February, or maybe August, 1987)
• Chapter 15: For Love or Money (1987–1989)
• Chapter 16: The Feds (1988–1989)
• Chapter 17: Ticking Timebomb (1990)
• Chapter 18: Uncivil War (1990–1991)
• Chapter 19: I Spy with My Little Eye (Summer 1991)
• Chapter 20: Justice League (Fall 1991)
• Chapter 21: Goose Chase (Winter 1991)
• Chapter 22: Federal Fiasco (1992)
• Chapter 23: Unreasonable Doubt (1992)
• Chapter 24: Wrongful Death (1993–1998)
• Chapter 25: Belinda (January to April, 1998)
• Chapter 26: Tony’s Arrest (April 1998)
• Chapter 27: On the Run (1998–2002)
• Chapter 28: Thailand (2002–2004)
• Chapter 29: Uncle Frank (March 2005)
• Chapter 30: Preparing for Justice
• Chapter 31: The Stripper and The Bartender
• Chapter 32: The Trial (2006)
• Chapter 33: The Trial, Part 2 (2006)
• Chapter 34: The Verdict (March 2006)
• Chapter 35: Where’s the Money?
• Chapter 36: A Trucker and a Millionaire (2023)
• Epilogue: Race, Power, Privilege
• Photographs
• A Note on Sources
• A Note on Style
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright