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.
"A highly readable account of murder and systemic racism. This title is a compelling example of how to take stories that made headlines and find the deeper, more nuanced narrative strains that rarely come across in the media."
“Deb Miller Landau’s heartbreaking true crime tale of murder and greed is a meticulously researched portrayal of an accomplished young Black woman’s extraordinary life and cruel death. Obscured behind the lies and manipulations of her charming, obsessive, white millionaire husband, the breathtaking narrative unravels the facts behind the investigations and multiple trials to finally reveal the shocking truth."
"Journalist Landau probes the killing of Atlanta socialite Lita McClinton in her riveting debut. Landau vividly conjures the casually racist world Lita inhabited with Sullivan, describing how she was ignored at parties in Palm Beach, Fla., and rankled Sullivan’s peers in Macon. Displaying a veteran’s knack for pacing, Landau peppers the narrative with cliff-hangers and vertigo-inducing twists. It adds up to a chilling and infuriating work of true crime."
"Deb Miller Landau writes with compassionate eloquence about the murder of Lita Sullivan, one of the most haunting and horrific murders in the history of Atlanta. You’re there with her on the harrowing morning when she meets the hitman in a deserted parking lot, and then as she takes you deep into the winding investigative odyssey that eventually resulted in the conviction of Lita’s husband. This is a deeply researched, smartly written book."
