Devil Went Down to Georgia: The race and sex-filled murder scandal that shook Atlanta society
nypost.com“A Devil Went Down to Georgia: Race, Power, Privilege, and the Murder of Lita McClinton.”Just hours before McClinton and her wealthy businessman husband, James Vincent Sullivan, were due in an Atlanta courtroom — where a judge would determine the outcome of their multimillion-dollar divorce case — she would be shot to death in broad daylight, in cold blood, by a hired amateur killer.
Friday, Jan. 16, 1987 — the beginning of the weekend before America’s second-ever Martin Luther King Day would be celebrated on Monday — was cold and dreary.
McClinton, who recently celebrated her 35th birthday, was concerned and nervous about the approaching court date. As Landau writes, her decade-long marriage to her born-and-bred blue collar south Bostonian husband had become tortuous, marked by his infidelity, along with his “lies, manipulation, and cruelty.”Puttering around in a white satin nightgown early that Friday morning, McClinton was surprised when the doorbell chimed in her home in Atlanta’s affluent Buckhead neighborhood.Opening the door, she was met by a deliveryman described as “rough and grubby looking,” attired in green work pants and a faded flannel shirt.
His hair was curly, his beard unruly, writes Landau.The man handed McClinton a box holding a dozen long-stemmed pink roses that he had purchased minutes earlier for $30.And then the bearer of the bouquet fired two shots from a 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol at the startled woman.
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