The Final Arrangement

Hey, glad you could make it. Before you head into the bar for today's true crime story, just a warning that TCB might contain disturbing content, so it's not for kids. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to True Crime Brewery. I'm Jill. And I'm Dick.

So on a quiet January morning in Atlanta, Georgia, Lita McClinton opened her front door to accept a delivery of pink roses and was quickly shot dead. The shocking murder of this vibrant young socialite sent shockwaves through the community and started a decades-long pursuit for justice. Join us today for The Final Arrangement. Lita McClinton's story is a haunting example of love turned lethal, lies and betrayal masked by wealth, and a mother's unshakable fight to uncover the truth behind her daughter's murder. So today we're unlacing this tangled web of lies that was spun by Lita's estranged husband, Jim Sullivan. The investigation spanned years and Lita's family suffered, but they persisted in their relentless efforts to get justice for nearly 20 years after the crime. And with me as always is Dick with a beer that I'm really looking forward to today. Yeah, you like these types of beers more than I do. Yep. We're going to talk about Pumpkin Fest from Terrapin Beer Company in Athens, Georgia. As the title says, it's a pumpkin beer. And my experience with pumpkin beers is either that all you can taste is pumpkin or all you can taste is pumpkin pie spice. It's rare to find a nice mix. This one's pretty close.

So it's 6% alcohol by volume poured from the can. The beer was amber color with a small tan head. Nice aroma of pumpkin and spice. Ditto for the taste. So this was fairly balanced. I would drink it again. Okay. Open one up for me, will you? Okay.

I just love the smell of a pumpkin beer. Well, you know, I like a pumpkin spice latte, too, so it's just kind of something I enjoy seasonally, not all year round. For sure, not all year round. Well, you know, I know you're more into the, like, Oktoberfest this time of year. And more fest beers. Yeah, but I think a pumpkin beer is fun, especially this time of year, so I hope some of our listeners will go out and get some and enjoy it. I don't turn them down. No, absolutely not.

OK, well, come on down and let's talk about this. This is an African-American woman, which I feel like we don't have enough cases about African-American women and not because they're not victims. That's the problem. But just because they don't always get the attention. No, they don't. No, they don't. So I'm glad that we're able to cover one today. So Lita L. McClinton was born on January 7th, 1952 in Atlanta, Georgia, into one of the city's most prominent African-American families. So she was the eldest of three children who were born to Joanne McClinton.

a future Georgia state representative, so that's impressive, and Emery McClinton, a high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Transportation. And he really focused on civil rights in transportation. These were some smart, civilly active people, people who were interested in civil rights and doing their part to try and help. So her upbringing was privileged, and it was based on motivation, excellence, but she also had a real strong sense of civic responsibility. Lita grew up in an environment that really emphasized the values of education, culture, and social engagement.

She was a member of Jack and Jill, an elite African-American social club for children of these well-established families. And she regularly attended events for Atlanta's upper-class black society. So she and her sister were among the first black students to integrate into an all-white Catholic high school in Atlanta. So I see this as a real example of her family's commitment to progress and civil rights and equality. The eldest of three children, Lita, Valencia, and Emery Jr. Lita was one of the first black students to attend St. Pius X High School. Then she attended Spelman College, but she also had a love of fashion.

She dreamed of opening her own boutique one day and her parents had instilled in her a strong work ethic, which she would carry into adulthood. So Lita's future husband's background really couldn't have been much more different. Jim Sullivan grew up in South Boston, playing stickball in the streets of his neighborhood. His life's mission was to become someone different than the men in his blue collar neighborhood, to become someone he would see as important. I can't think of any more different matching than a white guy from Southie and a black upper class woman from Atlanta. No, it's very different. Huge difference. And many people saw it as an odd pairing. But sometimes that's part of the attraction, right? Oh, sure. I can see that a little bit. But boy, having a taste of both worlds.

I know plenty of kids from Dorchester and I've been to Atlanta tons of times. So it's just a big difference. Yeah, absolutely. Now, I'm sure Jim found her attractive, but I think he was also attracted to the fact that she came from an upper class family because that's where his goals lie, right? Well, if you want to be kind of mean to poor old Jim. Yes, I do. Yeah, he probably quickly figured out how things worked. Yeah. So growing up in the Irish Catholic rough streets of Dorchester, Jim Sullivan learned early that if he ever wanted out, he'd have to be shrewd, smart and a real standout. Despite his working class roots, he got himself a pretty impressive education.

He went to high school at the academically challenging Boston Latin School and was awarded an academic scholarship to College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. Two good schools. Very good schools. And he graduated with an economics degree in 1962, later studying finance at Boston University. So he was doing pretty well for himself right there. Yes. You'd probably consider this an upwardly moving young man. Yeah. It's a success story so far. So far. So three years after completing school, Jim got married. He married Catherine Murray. And the couple had four children. So there's a family for you.

Sullivan worked in the comptroller's department at Jordan Marsh, a Boston department store, and later at Pete, Marwick, and Mitchell accounting firm. So Sullivan moved to Macon in 1973, and that's because his childless uncle, Frank B. Nert, asked him to help run Crown Beverages, a successful wholesale liquor distribution company that his uncle had founded in 1962. So once in Macon, Jim's charm and ambition really helped him to find a place among that city's upper class. Although many people in Macon found his brash personality offensive to their traditional way of doing business, he did make headway in the community by working with the Chamber of Commerce and charitable organizations. So then, just a few years later, when his uncle Frank Wienert died in 1975, Jim became the sole heir to the distributorship. Then, less than one year later, he and Catherine got a divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. So I'm not sure completely what went on there, but there were rumors of infidelity on Jim's part. So not surprisingly, Catherine got custody of the kids, and he had to pay her child support. And then she and the kids moved back to their home near Boston.

So he wouldn't see these kids very often. He's in Georgia and they're in Massachusetts. I would think that visitation would not occur too often. No, and I don't think he was very committed to it either. Well, he's probably not father of the year. No, no. And he won't be husband of the year, just to give you a little tip off here. Oh, okay. So Jim Sullivan and Lita McClinton met in early 1976 when she was working as an assistant manager at T. Edwards. And that's an upscale clothing boutique that was in Lenox Square. So he was, you know, kind of goofy looking. He wore polyester pants, which I guess in the 70s was normal.

Yeah, didn't everybody? I don't know. He had thick horn-rimmed glasses, and he had this big head of curly, thick hair. But he was also very charming and seemed good-humored. He also had a thick New England accent, which Leta found attractive, maybe kind of connecting it to the Kennedys, and that would be something, you know? Well, yeah, except the Kennedy accent was a lot different than the Dorchester accent. Well, certainly, but if you live in Atlanta, maybe they don't seem that different to you. Possibly not. Yeah. So like we said, these two were quite the odd match.

To Lita's friends and family, it seemed like a very strange union. So we know Jim was white, he was an outsider, and he was pretty rough around the edges. Lita, on the other hand, was from this prominent, politically active African-American family in Atlanta. She was a former debutante, and she looked polished and trim. She had attended private schools and cotillions. So she was a very social girl who made a lot of friends, and she'd recently graduated with a degree in political science from Spelman College. Also, at this time, Jim was 35, and Lita was only 24.

So pretty good age difference there, especially considering she was never married and he'd already been married and divorced with four children. Yeah, that's 11 years isn't that big a deal. But I also think the younger you are looking at that age difference, the more it magnifies the differences. Right. And also the lifestyle differences. Yeah. Seemed like he'd lived a lot more life, had more life experience like that. Right. But always impeccably dressed and a real expert on the latest fashions, Lita soon got to work updating Jim's wardrobe. So she taught him how to style his hair and convinced him to exchange his glasses for contacts.

So although Sullivan lived in Macon and Lita was in her hometown of Atlanta, they did begin dating seriously and then exclusively. He would bring her gifts and he would take her out to dinner, dancing, movies and sports games. The relationship seemed like a happy one. And just a few months after they met, Jim proposed marriage to Lita. So their interracial marriage got mixed reactions in Macon, which I think Macon would be even more of a problem with a discrimination than Atlanta would be because it's more in the country, right? Yeah, I think it's fair to say the further you get from cities, the more likely you're going to see the typical prejudices. Right. And it's down south. And it's the 70s. So some who disapproved even would throw garbage on the Sullivan's front lawn. But Lita, you know, she kind of had to grow up with some of this, which is really sad to think about. And she knew how to persevere.

She'd grown up during the height of the civil rights movement, so unfortunately she really wasn't a stranger to these racial tensions. Even though he was a northerner and she was a black woman, the couple did attend fundraisers and charitable events, and they did become popular among some of Macon's wealthy society. Leta did work with the American Heart Association, counseled unwed mothers, and helped in the Macon beauty pageants. So with Leta's guidance, future Georgia Court of Appeals judge Yvette Miller was the first African-American woman to be crowned Miss Macon in 1979. To outsiders, Lita's marriage seemed really good, but then inside their house, things were already beginning to fall apart. The initial generosity that Jim had shown toward Lita was beginning to fade, and he was kind of showing his true colors, which weren't great. No, he turned out to be pretty controlling. Yes. And I'd have to say stingy. Yeah, and a cheater. Well, we're getting to that. Yes. So in December 1982, just six years into their marriage, Lita found a Christmas card sent to Jim from another woman, and it was signed, Missing Your Kisses at Christmas.

That's not subtle. No. Now, and this woman maybe wanted to be found out, it seems like, but Jim was away in Florida at this time, and Lita was very distraught. She really didn't want to believe the rumors that Jim had been seeing other women, but now she had this overt proof of it. Leta later testified that she drove to the return address on the envelope where she waited for the other woman to come home. And this was in divorce trial when they finally did go for a divorce. She would testify about his infidelity. But at this point, her worst fears were realized when the woman confirmed that she had been having an affair with Jim since that summer, so several months. So this was quite devastating. Leta traveled to Atlanta and met with attorney John Taylor, who was an acquaintance and an old friend of the family. He suggested that she confront Jim.

So when she did that, he denied the allegations, and he even showed anger that she had the nerve to accuse him of infidelity. How dare you, right? I am an upstanding man. How dare you even say that to me? How could you think that? The best defense is a good offense. We've all heard that, yeah. So she really wanted to trust her husband and wanted to make the marriage work, and Jim told her that he did too. So John Taylor suggested, well, why don't you guys sign a post-nuptial agreement, one that would supersede the prenup, and then it would supposedly give Lita more financial security if the marriage did end up in divorce.

So the agreement would give her $300 a week plus $30,000 for three years. Without reading any of the details, Lita signed the agreement. So its validity, and whether she was coerced into signing it, would definitely become a contested issue later on. Despite her instincts to leave Jim, Lita had come from a home where family values and loyalty were of utmost importance. And it's the late 70s. Divorce was less common than it is now. Oh, absolutely. So she stuck with the marriage the best that she could. Her parents, Joanne and Emery, had strong misgivings about Jim Sullivan from the beginning of their relationship. Jim really was not readily accepted by members of the family, but Lita had wanted to marry him and her parents trusted her judgment because she'd been a good kid and a really great young woman so far.

Her father Emery was immediately suspicious, though, of Jim Sullivan's arrogance and the way he bragged. You didn't like Jim from the start. No, and I could see why, really. I don't think he's the kind of guy I would like either. Kind of, you know, the arrogance, the bragging, that's enough right there to turn you off. Well, and I get the impression that Emery was a straightforward guy who wouldn't tolerate a lot of bullshit. Exactly. That's what Jim was throwing at him. Yeah, I think both the parents were just smart people, but down-to-earth people who weren't buying into that nonsense. Also, the parents were worried about the 10-year age difference. And, of course, the stress that a mixed-race couple would inevitably face.

So there was a lot to deal with. So one red flag right off the bat was that Lita had already accepted Jim's proposal when she did find out about his ex-wife and children. So hadn't told her before then at all. By the way, I used to be married. Yeah. Oh, and I have a few kids. Which is four. That's a huge red flag. That was probably enough for her to call it off, but she didn't. She was really shocked. But, you know, this was really just the beginning of his deceit. So she married him. It was December 29th, 1976, when Lita and Jim were married in a small ceremony in Macon. Now, not long before this, Jim had surprised Lita over drinks and dinner with the prenuptial agreement.

And Lita's divorce lawyer, Richard Schiffman Jr., would later describe this agreement as rather one-sided. So he said, you know, in essence, Mr. Sullivan receives everything, and Mrs. Sullivan receives virtually nothing. But, you know, she was in love and pretty naive. Without reading the details, she had signed the prenuptial agreement. Lita worked as a buyer for Rich's department store in Atlanta, commuting back to Macon on the weekends. She later quit her job and moved to Macon. The Sullivans moved into a really spacious southern-style mansion at 1276 Nottingham Drive in the mostly white and affluent neighborhood of Shirley Hills.

They filled the home with Louis XVI furniture, Gorham Silver, and Beccarat Crystal. Although he was making a good living as the owner of Crown Beverages, the couple were living beyond their means, and they were spending money that they didn't have to keep up with society, which they both aspired to belong to. And really, Lita did not know all the details of their finances either. So in 1983, Jim Sullivan sold Crown Beverages for $5 million, but he never discussed it with Lita. So this working-class kid from Boston had really hit the big time. Now he felt really rich, and now he's free of the distributorship, and he was eager to leave Macon.

So we bought a beachfront mansion for $2 million in Palm Beach, Florida. Built in the 1920s by a famous architect, the home was considered historic, and it overlooked the ocean. But their neighbors, unlike the Sullivans, came from old money, and many still had old southern prejudices. So Lita never even got to visit or see the house before they moved into it. And she later said, I did not intend ever to make Palm Beach my home as I was not accepted in the social community there. I told my husband on many occasions that I did not want to live in Palm Beach. Then when my husband purchased the Palm Beach home, he did so over my objections and I told him I could never make it my permanent residence. So in Palm Beach, she was facing a lot more prejudice and it was very difficult for her. During the move from Macon to West Palm Beach, Jim met truck driver Tony Harwood. Now at first they were just chatting while the movers packed up the truck.

a real ladies' man who wore tight jeans, cowboy boots, and had a pack of Lucky Strikes rolled in his T-shirt sleeve. Harwood had a very checkered past. He'd served time in a North Carolina prison, first for burglary and later for escaping. But something about him led Jim to confide in him. Well, sure. Jim has ideas of doing away with his wife. And here's this rough-looking guy who's been in prison before.

What better person to approach with my plan? Yeah, you're right. He told me he had a problem with an ex-wife and she was going to take him through the hoop, Harwood later told the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. He said he really needed somebody to take care of her, get her out of the way. I said, I'll take care of her for you for $25,000. Then he kind of looked at me and said, you have somebody that can do it? And I just winked at him. So Sullivan later mailed Harwood a certified check for $14,000 to his home, which was a double wide trailer in Finger, North Carolina. Sullivan told him the rest of the money would come later. So Harwood waited for that.

So in West Palm Beach, Jim Sullivan, who was then 42 years old, was really focused on making his way up the social ladder in Palm Beach. Although his mansion's address at 920 South Ocean Boulevard gave him some clout, he soon realized that acceptance in the Palm Beach community was really going to require some strategy and effort. So he played tennis, he took flying lessons, he attended cocktail parties, and he hosted extravagant parties. Then he won a coveted appointment on the city's Landmark Preservation Commission and thought he'd secured his place in the jet set. But what he didn't realize is that the Palm Beach elite would not trust a man with new money.

and especially one with a black wife. Sullivan began going out without Lita, either alone or even more often, he would take another woman out with him. And then Lita began finding clues to her husband's many ongoing affairs. When she would confront him about this, he'd react by cutting off her money because he had her on an allowance. They had some really vicious fights. Some were so bad that the police were called to break it up. Sullivan became increasingly stingy with Lita then, telling her to keep the air conditioning turned off and giving her an insufficient amount of cash for even groceries or gas. He wore his dead uncle's underwear so he didn't have to buy his own.

But then he would spend thousands on custom-made suits. So it was all about appearances, right? Because no one's going to see the underwear, but the suits are going to be seen. At least that's the way I look at it. Well, he's frugal. Okay, but in a strange way. Very. So he would tell new acquaintances that his father worked in the Hearst Publishing Empire, but then deny saying that when the truth came out that his dad actually was a typesetter who had struggled just to make ends meet. As his marriage with Lita worsened, Lita became depressed and kind of reclusive. Then she saw a psychologist trying to figure out how to save her marriage. But by then, it already seemed pretty hopeless.

In 1984, she convinced Jim to buy a second home in Atlanta so Lita could at least go back there when she wanted to. And surprisingly, he agreed, and they bought a four-bedroom townhouse on Slayton Drive in Buckhead, and it was in the mid-400s it cost, which a lot in the 1980s, right? 40 years ago. It's like a multi-million dollar house today, I'm sure. Absolutely. So then on August 12, 1985, as their 10-year anniversary approached, Lita decided she'd had enough. While Sullivan was out, she rented a U-Haul trailer, hitched it up to the back of her 1973 Mercedes, and packed it up full of her belongings.

The maid would later say that Lita packed canned goods, paper products, household items, antiques, and more than 20 cartons of crystal, porcelain, and sterling silver. And much of that was from the wedding or from her parents, so she had a right to do that. But I think it's interesting she packed canned goods. That makes me think she really didn't have a lot of money, because Jim wasn't sharing. No, she didn't. Just look at the car she's driving. It's a 73 car, and it's 1985. Right. So she's driving a 12-year-old Mercedes. That's right. Jim didn't really care about her, as long as he could go out on his own and win people over. So once out of Palm Beach, Lita really enjoyed her life back in Atlanta.

She enjoyed being back with close friends, and she liked having her family nearby. She did date a few different men and had people over to her townhouse once in a while. She worked for several charities and was involved in arranging decorations and entertainment for the 1986 New Year's Crescendo Ball for Cystic Fibrosis. And this was held at the Ritz-Carlton in Buckhead, so a very fancy place. So the dark cloud over Lita's head was her pending divorce. That was still going on. There were new motions, new court dates, and she had persistent fear of Jim.

Though she had no contact with him, their lawyers continued to argue back and forth. Sullivan attacked her character saying that she was an adulteress, a thief, and a drug addict. He said he found dollar bills with cocaine residue sitting in the curve of a shoehorn inside her medicine cabinet. He said she stole two diamonds that were hidden in the bottom of a shoe closet. So it was just one thing after another. It got so bad that her lawyer even had her take a monthly urine test just so they could refute any of these drug allegations. She often feared that someone was spying on her, and she often felt like she was being followed. These were reasonable fears, right? They're not just paranoia. No, she might have been correct. So now March 1986, Lita's longtime friend and former Spelman classmate, Poppy Marable, discovered that her husband, Marvin Marable, had wiretapped Poppy's phone.

listening in on her conversations, and many of these were with Lita. Poppy filed for divorce from her husband, who was later indicted on invasion of privacy charges. And according to the FBI, Jim Sullivan, who was coincidentally, or not, a good friend of Marvin Marables, admitted that he'd received copies of these tapes at his Palm Beach home. So Marvin would be questioned about having an eavesdropping device. And, you know, obviously things weren't great in that marriage either. So on January 16th, 1987, the court was scheduled to address a pretrial motion on division of property and to determine the validity of the Sullivan's post-nuptial agreement.

So if judged in her favor, Lita would be entitled to half of Jim Sullivan's assets. The day before, on January 15th, Lita's mother and sister, Valencia, were visiting Lita and discussing the upcoming court decision. So Sullivan had scheduled to have someone take a video inventory of everything in the Atlanta home that day, but Lita got a call canceling the appointment. So isn't that interesting? What do you think of that? It is kind of suspicious. Because this was something he really cared about doing with the money, and if he canceled it, why, you know? Yeah, well, it delays him getting the money. It would, except we know he had an alternative plan. He did.

So that night, Lita ate with her friend, Poppy Marable, that's Marvin's wife, at our Thomas Deluxe Grill. And later, Poppy and her young daughter came over to spend the night. She wanted to be with Lita and support her, and her daughter was like a toddler, maybe three years old. So the women planned to stay up chatting, but they ended up falling asleep late while watching TV. Now, if you're a fan of True Crime Brewery, and you're here, so hopefully you are, maybe you can't get enough of our storytelling and our analysis of crimes. You can satisfy your itch by subscribing to our premium show at tiegrabber.com slash subscribe. So once you're a subscriber, you can enjoy every episode without ads, so you can just stay immersed in the details without any interruptions. This will also give you access to exclusive bonus episodes that really dive into some of the most fascinating and disturbing cases. And this is content you can't hear anywhere else, of course. So your support will not only help keep the beer chilled and the stories flowing, but it also allows us to continue delivering the content that you love.

So whether you're into True Crime Brewery for the psychology, the mystery, or even just the craft beer pairings, subscribing is an effective way to show your appreciation and to get yourself more of what makes True Crime Brewery so addictive. So why wait? Head on over to tiegrabber.com slash subscribe and you can join the Tie Grabber community. We would appreciate it and you'd be very welcome. january sixteenth began as a quiet day with some light rain that morning a friday two men drove up to the botany bay flower shop this was located about half a mile from lita's house they were driving a white toyota one guy came inside and said he wanted a dozen roses and he didn't care what color The clerk, Randall Benson, felt anxious because something about this guy made him uneasy. He worried that he was going to get robbed by him, truth be told. The customer told Benson to leave the shop sticker off the box, so the clerk just tied it with a pink ribbon. Then he let out a sigh of relief when the men left the store just after 8 a.m. Holding this white long flower box with a pink bow, a tall white balding man wearing a green work jacket and gray pants stood outside of Lita's front door. After he took a look around, he rang the doorbell at 3085 Slayton Drive. Lita woke up in her Buckhead townhouse.

And she was likely feeling nervous about the court visit coming up that afternoon. She was due in Superior Court at 2 p.m. to hear the pretrial ruling. The trial was scheduled to begin in just 10 days. So maybe Lita didn't think that it was odd that the doorbell was ringing so early in the morning. She put on her robe, went downstairs, and answered the door. It was 8.20 a.m. Now, Lita must have seen the flower box because she opened the door wide, and normally she was really careful because she was nervous with this divorce, you know?

So now she sees the box, so she's thinking, oh, I'm getting a flower delivery. So she took the box that the man handed to her, but she must have immediately noticed the gun because she instinctively lifted the box to her face to protect herself. And we'll never really know if she fully realized what was happening or how much fear she felt. But she did, you know, at least have a couple seconds there to know this was bad. It wasn't just a flower delivery. No, not at all. Now there was a next-door neighbor who made eye contact with this guy before he heard two shots. One of the bullets passed Lita and entered the living room, but the other hit Lita's temple on the right side of her head.

the gunman ran away on foot like a bat out of hell said another neighbor who almost hit him with her car so leta's neighbor bob christensen said that after he heard the shots he walked up and saw that the door was ajar it was open about six or eight inches now he was afraid to go inside but felt really that he had to he opened the door wider and saw leta lying in the foyer with her head covered in blood He immediately went into the kitchen, which was just a few feet away, and he called 911. Then he came back to see if he could do anything to help her. But it was obvious to him that she was in really bad shape. So meanwhile, Lita's friend Poppy and her toddler daughter were still upstairs when the shooting happened. Poppy hid her daughter in the closet to protect her. And then she was just hysterical, so she called Lita's parents. Joanne McClinton, Lita's mom, quickly got dressed to go to her daughter. But first she called Lita's father, Emery, and he got to Lita's house before Joanne did. When Joanne pulled into the driveway, they were putting Lita into an ambulance.

Emery drove his car and Joanne followed him to Piedmont Hospital. But they were there only for a very short time when Lita was pronounced dead. And Emery immediately said, that son of a bitch did it. So there's really no question in his mind that Jim Sullivan was behind their daughter's death. Not much so ever. So 40 minutes after the shooting at 9 a.m., Jim Sullivan accepted a collect call at his Palm Beach home from a payphone at the northbound rest stop on I-85, about 34 miles from Lita's house. And this call lasted one minute. So we're going to determine that he was being notified that Lita had been shot.

Well, the timing suggests that. Yes. So back a few days on January 13th, three days before the shooting, three men had checked into the nearby Howard Johnson's motor lodge and registered under fake names. So they were driving a white Toyota, and Southern Bell phone records later showed that a call was made at 744 a.m. from room 518 to Jim Sullivan's house in West Palm Beach. Sullivan called the room back at 1033 a.m.

and minutes later he called leta's neighbor bob christensen and asked him what did you hear this morning did you hear any loud knocking so we know what this was this was their first attempt police later determined that the murder was planned for january thirteenth actually but that leta must not have answered the door you know she had been feeling really cautious since she was in the middle of a settlement with jim and the shooter would need a way to get to her and get in her home. So then they had come up with this flower idea. In Sullivan's day planner, FBI Special Agent Todd Letcher, who described Sullivan as a meticulous note taker, later found a note from January 14th that read, get flowers. So the idea was the day after that, that if they go to the door with flowers, she'll open the door. Oh yeah, I think that's unfortunately a reasonable assertion. Yeah. So in a phone call to a friend a few days after the murder, Sullivan described the gun that killed Lita, a nine millimeter semi-automatic pistol, but information about the gun was never publicly released.

This information had been intentionally withheld by Atlanta police. So how would Jim know that if he wasn't involved? Well, he wouldn't. Simple answer. Yes, exactly. So Sullivan was in Palm Beach when Lita was shot. He had an alibi. We know he didn't physically shoot her. On the morning of the shooting, his lawyer called him to tell him that Lita was dead. But that same day, Sullivan went out to lunch with a business associate. And then that night around 8 p.m., he had dinner with his girlfriend. So he didn't really seem to care. So he went to dinner with his girlfriend. His girlfriend was Suki Rogers.

and they ate at Joe's, a very fancy French restaurant. He mentioned Marvin and the recordings of his wife and Lita, so then Marvin would be questioned early on as a person of interest in Lita's shooting, but it would turn out Marvin had nothing to do with it. So even though Sullivan did have an alibi, of course he was a suspect. Later, according to the prosecutor, investigators found a note in Sullivan's diary that read, Suki and I celebrate with champagne and caviar at Joe's. So that's pretty horrible. Celebrating her death. Can you believe it? And we don't know how much Suki knew, but that's horrible. Another note, which she wrote on December 12th, 1986, about a month before the shooting, read Pistol. So what the heck was going on with that? So it was only eight months after Lita's death when Jim Sullivan married Suki Rogers. This was her fourth marriage and his third. She was a very recent divorcee. She was very attractive, but just as ambitious as Sullivan. So maybe not the most moral person. Perhaps not. He'd been seeing Suki while he was still married to Lita, of course. And as a couple, they were able to make progress on becoming accepted by Palm Beach High Society.

Because remember, they were prejudiced against Lita. Suki's Asian, isn't she? Yes. So I guess they don't have the same. I don't think they do, honestly. I mean, I don't know why, but I don't think they do. And Sullivan wasn't the type of guy to back up his wife. He just kind of dumped her and moved on to someone who would be more acceptable. So, you know, he's just an awful person. So Lita's parents spoke to the media about their daughter's murder, and they put up a $25,000 reward.

But Jim Sullivan was quickly becoming the only real suspect. Detectives back then didn't have DNA, and there was really no CCTV or cell phone data. They investigated the murder by interviewing the people in Lita and Jim's life. But the pink roses found in Lita's foyer became a very important piece of evidence. They canvassed all the nearby flower shops, and the clerk told them about the guy who had bought the roses just before Lita's murder. So that was a big tip-off. Very big. Now remember I said the neighbor, Bob Christensen, had seen the shooter before he ran away, and he was able to help the police artist put together a sketch. So it was obvious that Sullivan was not the shooter, but they knew that three different men had been involved. And it wouldn't be long before the life Sullivan had so carefully put together began to fall apart piece by piece.

In March of 1990, three years after Lita's death, he got into a three-car accident while driving his Rolls Royce. His driver's license had been taken away back in 1989 due to more than a dozen unpaid traffic violations. And rather than dealing with the fines, he took the case to court. And he and Suki said that she had been the one driving. So he almost had the case thrown out for that reason. But the traffic cop told the court that Suki wasn't even in the car. In fact, Jim had been driving alone, so that wasn't going to fly. Not going to work. So not only did he get into trouble, but he got his wife into trouble. He was convicted of two counts of perjury and sentenced to house arrest for one year.

He was confined to his home, except he had this tennis court therapy, which was prescribed by his doctor so he could go play tennis. Stupid, huh? Incredibly. Yeah. Now, during that year, still investigating Lita's death, federal agents searched his house and they found four guns, and that included one sawed-off shotgun. So convicted on felony charges now for firearms possession, Sullivan was sentenced to spend the remaining nine and a half months of his house arrest in the Palm Beach County Jail.

So by this point, Suki had already filed for divorce, and at her divorce trial, she testified that after they got arrested for perjury, Sullivan admitted to her his role in Lena's death. So she explained how he had turned the TV volume up so high so no one could listen to their conversation. And then he had told her that he had hired someone to kill Lita. He said that they should sell their house as soon as possible and go anywhere in the world that she wanted to. Now, she later told her lawyers that he mentioned how he could hire someone to kill whoever he wanted if he just went to rural Georgia. So apparently Suki was not on board anymore. So it seems. So while he was in jail, Sullivan got into a jailhouse fight with a convicted robber who broke his nose.

In January of 92, federal agents indicted him on interstate murder conspiracy charges in Atlanta. Now Sullivan spared no expense. He hired Ed Garland and Don Samuel, two of the top criminal defense lawyers in the country at this time. Their long list of clients included Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who was acquitted of involvement in a post-Super Bowl buckhead bar fight where a man was killed, and Jim Williams, the protagonist in the nonfiction story Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, who was acquitted of murder in his fourth trial. There's a case we think we're going to do some. Yeah, we've talked about that many times. We should.

So the federal charge of interstate murder conspiracy, despite a good deal of circumstantial evidence, was difficult to prove. And the prosecution could never prove the content of the phone conversation in that collect call that Sullivan received on the day of Lita's murder. So the case was dismissed for insufficient evidence on November 23rd, 1992. But it would not be double jeopardy if they brought him to prosecution again because there was no trial. So he wasn't acquitted. It was just dropped before it really began. I see. I was going to ask you. Yeah, that's something that I thought about as well. But no, he actually would try and use that too later on, but it didn't work.

Whatever ammunition you have. Well, sure. So he's a free man. He's back in Palm Beach, and he had to get around town on his 12-speed bicycle. He doesn't have a license, remember? Right. You know they'll be looking for him. Right. So he became a recluse because he was now shunned by Palm Beach society. So this all kind of backfired, which is good. One neighbor said Sullivan had lost weight and looked visibly stressed. His face was pale and gaunt, and he even described him as looking almost like a ghost.

so sullivan would end up selling his palm beach mansion for three point two million dollars and he moved to a more modest house but still a very nice house near boynton beach in nineteen ninety four the mcclintons and their lawyer and i'm talking about leta's parents took sullivan to west palm beach civil court in a wrongful death suit In civil court, judgments are based on the weight of the evidence, whereas in criminal court, a defendant must be deemed guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So this is done quite often. It was done in the OJ case. Many times, if people can't get a conviction criminally, they can at least get a wrongful death suit. They can. And any evidence gathered in the wrongful death suit can be used if there is a murder case coming up. Yes, in the criminal case, yep. So a few days before that case went to trial, Sullivan fired his lawyers and decided to represent himself. So this was surprising because he had the money. But without representation, he said,

And by saying he didn't have the funds to hire an attorney, he was hoping the jury would feel sorry for him and that might get them to rule in his favor. So he thought that might work. Now, in his opening statement to the jury, Sullivan said, it is terrible to be wrongly accused of murder, to have to live through that. And with that is another form of death, another form of murder, murder of the spirit. Oh, my God. I don't think the jury liked that. I wouldn't like that. Then he added to be a husband and to lose your wife violently is the worst thing that can happen to a husband.

So what do you think? So are you going to buy it? Well, I think it's going to be tough for them to buy that. So because Sullivan represented himself, he was the one who questioned Lita's parents, Joanne and Emery, when they were on the witness stand. So Lita's dad Emery said, it was horrible being questioned by the killer of your daughter. And I could see that would be really hard to sit there and let him question you when you know what he did.

That takes a lot of inner strength, self-control. Sure does. Yep. So the jury heard testimony from Suki and from Paul O'Brien, the convicted robber who'd broken Sullivan's nose in jail. O'Brien told the court that Sullivan confessed to arranging Lita's murder and that the only thing he couldn't explain was the collect call made to Sullivan from someone off the interstate. So it didn't take long for the jury to reach its verdict in the civil trial. On February 25th, 1994, Sullivan was found guilty in order to pay the McClintons $4 million in compensation and punitive damages. The McClintons were thrilled with this.

for us it was never about the money said joanne we wanted jim to be held accountable for what he did to our daughter so now sullivan was suddenly able to hire lawyers and he appealed the court's decision In 1995, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the 1994 verdict, ruling that the court case hadn't been filed soon enough. So unlike in criminal cases, where of course there's no statute of limitations on murder, civil court has a two-year statute for wrongful death, and those two years had long since passed. So Leta's parents were just heartbroken by this decision, but they certainly weren't going to give up either. Joanne and Emery's attorney counter-appealed, arguing that the statute shouldn't apply when Sullivan had concealed his involvement in the shooting.

Finally, the Supreme Court agreed with them, and in 1997, they reinstated Sullivan's guilty verdict and ordered him to pay the money to Lita's parents. So this decision earned a lot of media attention. After a story about Sullivan appeared on TV's Extra, authorities got a break in early 1998. So there's a woman in Texas named Belinda Trahan, and she called the Atlanta police and told them she recognized Jim Sullivan. So her ex-boyfriend, Philip Anthony, Tony Harwood, remember him? He was with the moving van. He was the guy who said he could help Jim out. Exactly. He was the same truck driver that Sullivan had met when he first moved to West Palm. So according to Tony, when he and the movers were at Jim's house two months before Lita's murder, Jim had asked him if he knew anyone who could take care of his black wife who was going to take his money. So Belinda told the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that Tony Harwood had met up with Jim Sullivan in a Florida diner shortly after Lita's death. And she had seen Sullivan hand an envelope full of money to Harwood.

She was able to pick Jim out of a lineup. The envelope was the final payment for killing Lita. So this was a link that investigators really needed so they could move forward with prosecution. They also searched North American Van Lines files. This was the moving company that Tony Harwood had worked for. And they were just really thrilled because they were able to find the receipt showing that Tony Harwood had moved Jim Sullivan. So now they were ready to arrest Jim. But there was one teeny tiny problem. They had to find him first because now Jim had gone on the run. He has. Ran a good way of the way. Well, he had the money to do it, right? Yeah.

So for well over a decade, Sullivan was a prime suspect in Lita's murder, at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list for four years. He led investigators on an international manhunt as he traveled throughout Central America, and he eventually ended up in Thailand. Then in 2002, America's Most Wanted ran a segment on Sullivan, and it's really kind of amazing, but someone in Thailand recognized him. He was living in Cha Am, a luxury condo community about 150 miles south of Bangkok, and he was living with a Thai divorcee he had met back in West Palm Beach. So the Thai police arrested Sullivan and took him to Lard Yau prison outside of Bangkok. And there his lawyers fought his extradition. They were really hoping to use international laws to avoid the death penalty to keep him from getting extradited. Now one thing to know about Thai prisons, Dickey, is they are notoriously overcrowded. Amnesty International says that more than 50 inmates are held in cells that are built for 20, and that the prisons are plagued by rats, disease, and rotting food.

And there's also a lot of brutality by the guards. That's just kind of the norm. So on his two visits to see Sullivan in Thailand, his attorney was actually surprised. He found that the prison situation was better than he had feared. On one visit, Sullivan got married to his girlfriend. So now this was his fourth wife. That's true love. I'm sure it is. Now, because of his parentage, Sullivan had dual citizenship in both the United States and Ireland. Like other Western European countries, Ireland opposes the death penalty and the extradition of Irish citizens to any country that enforces capital punishment.

When the Thai courts denied the citizenship motion, Sullivan's lawyers appealed to the Thai Supreme Court, saying that prosecuting Sullivan for Lita's death was a case of double jeopardy because Georgia's constitution states that a person cannot be tried for the same crime twice. And this is what we hit upon earlier because he wasn't really tried. He'd been arrested, but there had never been a trial. So quite reasonably, the Thai courts denied that appeal. So in March 2004, extradition was finally granted. A thin and disheveled 62-year-old Jim Sullivan limped off the plane at Hartsfield Airport before he was taken to the Fulton County Jail.

Sullivan wore handcuffs and shackles, a face mask, and just one shoe. He couldn't wear a shoe on one foot because he had a severe case of gout. So one U.S. marshal said he was being difficult. The fugitive read Newsweek the whole trip while complaining about returning to Atlanta. Then a few days after Sullivan's arrival in Georgia, Fulton County D.A. Paul Howard Jr. served Sullivan notice of the state's intent to seek the death penalty against him. Sullivan's lawyer, Don Samuel, said Sullivan's foot had swollen on the flight over and that the face mask was just a precaution because at that point SARS was kind of a big thing.

he said that sullivan had a serious dental problem too which needed the care of a dentist sullivan's defense was that he had nothing to do with leta's murder so absolute denial he argued that he did not flee the country but that he just happened to move at the time of his indictment so coincidental He had left the country long before there was a warrant for his arrest, and he claimed he was unaware that he was ever the target of an international manhunt. The McClinton's lawyer, Brad Morse, said that when Sullivan fled to Costa Rica back in 1998, he'd hired a private banker in Palm Beach who worked with a Swiss bank to hide Sullivan's money in offshore accounts. That money was funneled through a corporate trust account in the small country of Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein. I just like saying that. So all statements from the corporation, Nikola Resources, were sent to Sullivan in Thailand.

A lawyer in Liechtenstein managed the funds and sent Sullivan money whenever he needed it. So he's still quite wealthy, right? He is. And the McClintons had not seen any of the $4 million judgment that they'd won back in 1994. Big surprise. And it was now calculated at $8.8 million due to accrued interest. No, it's not a big surprise. Their lawyer was trying to find Sullivan's hidden money. And while the McClintons believed in Sullivan's constitutional right to a lawyer, they said he shouldn't be able to use the money from the Florida lawsuit to pay for his expensive criminal lawyers. And Joanne even called it blood money. So I agree with that.

If he owes them $4 million, he shouldn't be able to spend a bunch of money on defending himself before paying them. No, he should pay the money. Then he can use what's left to pay for his defense. Yeah, I think in Dorchester they would call this bullshit, complete bullshit. Yeah. D.A. Paul Howard Jr. believed Sullivan should have been court-ordered to pay his civil court judgment. And he said, it's really obscene that you could take somebody's life, profit from it, and then use the proceeds from it to defend your life in a trial involving that same person.

And I agree, that's outrageous. Well, it just doesn't sound right. It's not right. So the hired hitman, let's talk about him a bit. He was arrested while Jim was still on the run. Then once Jim was in custody, Harwood took a plea deal. So he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and he agreed to testify at Jim's murder trial. He admitted to making the collect call to Jim's house. He said when he called him, he said, Merry Christmas. And this was code to let Jim know that his problem was taken care of. And, you know, that's how he referred to his beautiful wife. A problem. A problem. Sickening. Tony's ex-girlfriend, who was really important to this, Belinda Trahan.

She testified and she had the most chilling testimony. She testified that Tony told her he had gone to Lita's door on January 13th, but that Lita didn't answer the door. So he'd gone back three days later with the flowers. She was able to identify Jim Sullivan during the trial as the person who gave him the envelope of money at the diner. But, you know, Belinda had a really hard time because when he had told her that the woman didn't answer the door, she didn't realize that this was a murder. And she'd said, well, if you bring flowers, she'll answer. So I think he had told her he was like delivering some papers for the court.

but he was actually going there to murder her. And Belinda said, oh, well, if you're there at the door with flowers, I bet she'll open the door. Then she finds out that's how they got her to open the door to kill her. And she had a lot of guilt to live with. So in closing arguments, the prosecutor played a doorbell for effect and said, the bell tolls for thee, referring to Sullivan. So it was pretty eerie because it was silent in the court and he would ring the bell and wait a minute. And you could kind of, you know, envision being in your house and hearing the doorbell, right? So it really did kind of hit home with a lot of people and probably the jury, because the jurors took less than one day to convict Jim Sullivan for Lita's murder.

during his trial the prosecutors presented several incriminating pieces of evidence against him while the defense claimed that he had had no part in leta's murder so sullivan did not get the death penalty he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole leta's parents read their victim impact statements at his sentencing sullivan is now incarcerated at the augusta state medical prison in grovetown georgia Tony Harwood, the gunman, was released from prison in 2018 after serving his full sentence for manslaughter. And he got that manslaughter charge by testifying against Sullivan, which I don't know if I feel great about that either because he shot her in cold blood. But if you want to get the person behind it, I guess that's how you do it a lot. You've got to deal with it. Yeah. And sadly, the McClintons have never received any money from Sullivan from that civil suit. As far as we know, he's still alive and he's in the medical prison because he's old and probably kind of frail and sickly. Well, and gout.

That's true. Yeah, I wonder if he would have gout in prison because isn't that from like a rich diet or something? Yeah, it's diet related. I don't know. But he's just kind of a horrible person and still alive as far as we know, which is kind of shocking. Didn't we do a case recently where the killer was still alive in his 90s? He's 96 or something? Yeah, crazy. Because you think in prison you wouldn't live that long, but I guess you can. I mean... I think being in prison isn't conducive to a long life. No, but I mean you are taken care of. In that sense, yeah. Yeah, you are. But you don't want to piss other inmates off. No, no.

I'm not sure how that works with elderly people. I always think that probably in the prison, there's a section for these old frail people, right? I don't know. They can't just be out in the general pop. I mean, I guess they could, but I don't see it happening.

especially if they need medications and all this stuff, or if they're using a walker or a wheelchair. I think they have nursing homes for prisoners. Yeah, look at it that way. Maybe. I'm going to look into that because I've always wondered. If anyone knows, let me know because I'm curious. Okay, so that's it for this story. I think it's pretty interesting. I hope everyone else thought it was interesting as well. And we have some feedback here. Instead of doing our letters and voicemails, which we're going to save for next time, we have to talk about the Donna Adelson trial. This is something we are watching intently. We are watching this trial.

We found this wonderful YouTube channel, Lawyer Lee, that we really like because she's, well, she's a lawyer, which helps, right? But she's also very objective and really tells you what's going on with the law. So we enjoy that a lot. Can't watch it all day, but of course, if it's on YouTube, you can watch it whenever you want, rewind. And she also gives summaries each night if you would just want to spend an hour a day and not be like over the top, like we might be, you know, having it on all day. But anyway, fascinating. We know that the two killers, the go-between, Katie, and then Donna's son, Charlie, have all been convicted for the murder of Wendy Edelson.

Dan Markell. Yeah, let me give you a quick synopsis of that, okay? That would be great, yeah, because not everybody knows it, surprisingly. I'm always surprised when someone says, what are you talking about? But it's true. Well, it turns out that in March of 2023, we did an episode on the murder of Dan Markell. Dan was a law professor at Florida State University School of Law, and he had been shot in his car as he was returning from a workout. He was killed in 2014, and it appeared to the police that Markell's death had been a murder for hire. And in 2016, Sigfredo Garcia, Luis Rivera, and McBenoa were arrested for Markell's murder. Garcia was found guilty of first-degree murder.

and conspiracy to commit murder. Rivera, in a plea deal, was found guilty of second-degree murder. And McBenua was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation to commit murder. Then we'll go forward a little to 2022. And this is when Markel's former brother-in-law, Charlie Adelson, was charged with the murder of Markel. He was felt to be the mastermind of the murder with Naganoa the go-between. Then on November 5th, 2023, Charlie was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation to commit murder. And then a week later, November 13th, Donna Adelson, who was Markel's former mother-in-law, was arrested at the Miami airport just as she was about to take a flight to Vietnam. It was a one-way ticket. And interestingly, Vietnam does not have an extradition. So you're thinking, well, maybe that's what they're doing.

Now they've charged Donna with the same charges as Charlie. Murder, conspiracy, and solicitation. Right. So her trial began when? On the 22nd? Her trial began on the 22nd. And we've been following it. And we thought the defense had a pretty poor opening argument. So maybe if you haven't heard it, you want to listen to it and see what you think. But she started out her opening argument by really talking up Dan Markell. Yeah. Which he did seem like a great guy. He'd gone to Harvard, Harvard Law School, seemed like a very devoted dad. Some people said he was a little abrupt. But other than that, he just seemed like a pretty great guy. He did seem to be a nice, okay guy. Yeah.

But these Adelson's are just kind of awful, at least from what we've heard. So the thought here is that Donna, the matriarch, Wendy and Charlie's mother was behind this whole thing. So now she's on trial. Prosecution spoke for one hour and gave a lot of evidence in that hour. And the defense, that opening argument I was telling you about was only 20 minutes. And it really didn't offer any evidence. It just said how great he was, how sad it was. But basically that those four people had been convicted and that Donna didn't know anything about it. She was not part of it, which sounds reasonable until you start hearing the phone calls and the texts and the things she said and did, which really do make it sound like she hated Dan Markell.

Surely does. Yep. But I'm listening to the opening argument. It almost seemed to me as if the defense realized they had a really crappy case and they're not going to put much effort into it. That's probably wrong. I don't think they really think that, but I think that they didn't have a lot to work with. Yeah. I would agree with that. I'll go with that. Yeah. So not a lot to work with. They really wanted to make it look like Charlie acted alone with Catherine and the two hit men. And then there are a lot of audio tapes, right? Introduced as evidence. Not good for Donna. She can be heard talking with Charlie about the murder and they're using all these weird code words.

So trying to see if they could get a reaction from Donna, the police had given her this bump where an undercover policeman approached her with a demand that she pay $5,000 for his friend in jail in order to buy their continued silence. But Donna denied any involvement. Still, what did she do after this encounter? She didn't call the police. She called Charlie. And they said some very incriminating things, even though they thought they were being clever. They really weren't. So Wendy Edelson testified at Donna's trial for the prosecution, as well as the older brother of Charlie and Wendy, who has nothing to do with these people. He seems like a decent person. He testified basically about how his mother reacted to the murder.

and what kind of person his mother was, because of course the defense is trying to present her as just this sweet little old lady, because she's 75. Then other people would portray her as Lady Macbeth. Right. Also, another interesting witness was Jeffrey LaCasse, who was dating Wendy for a time after her divorce, and he felt like they were setting him up, framing him for Dan's murder. Now, another thing about this is it was interesting to watch him testify, but if you go on YouTube and find the unredacted interviews between Jeffrey LaCasse and the detectives, there's a lot more, he says, and a lot of it's about Wendy. So I'm thinking after Donna's trial, they're going to arrest Wendy.

And they have a lot more stuff on her than we even know of at this point. A lot more evidence against her. And of course, a lot of people want her to get arrested because most people feel like she was involved. And I'm not going to go into all the details right now about why, but definitely it's interesting, isn't it? Well, it is. And not to give too much away, but on the day Markell was murdered, Wendy conveniently had a broken television set that needed fixing. And she was, alibi-wise, at home with a repairman. Now, it turns out that the TV had just been smashed in. Yeah, who thinks that you're going to get that repaired? It wasn't something that was repairable.

The other thing on that same day, the day of the murder, Wendy had driven over to the scene. She was trying to drive by possibly to see what was going on. And she said, actually, she was out there looking to buy a bottle of bourbon. Which wasn't the route she really needed to go to. And it wasn't the closest liquor store to her home either. Well, the real weird thing about that is she sees this tape where her children had been staying with her ex-husband. Their house is taped off. A couple of houses were not just that one house, but she didn't ask the police what's going on. She didn't try and call Dan. She didn't call the children's daycare. She didn't check on them at all. She went on to have lunch with her friends. And that's just the tip of it. I mean, there's a lot more that she's done that's very suspicious. There is a lot more. Yeah. We'll see.

We'll see. So by the time you hear this podcast, we'll probably have a verdict on Donna Stryle. Yeah. Because it's wrapping up now with the defense as we record. So we'll talk about that on our next feedback. Yes, we will. And we'd love, if anyone has anything to say about the Adelson case, we would love to hear it. Call and leave a voicemail, send us an email, because that's something we're really kind of focused on right now. We find it very interesting. We do. Fascinating. It really is. I think that it's something that would fascinate most true crime people, but I bet most of our listeners are well aware of it. Most of our listeners are very up on the true crime. Okay. Well, I think we're going to wrap it up for today.

Yep, we're turning in. Yep, finish this beer, and we'll see you next time. Come on down, got plenty of seats. All right, bye-bye. Bye, guys.

Okay, a quick addendum, because we just got a verdict on the Donna Adelson case. Yes, while we were taping this episode, the trial was winding down, and the closing arguments were given. The judge instructed the jury, and off they went. And it was quick, quick verdict. Three hours. Yeah, very similar to the time it took them to convict Charlie Adelson. Yeah, I think they were both roughly the same. Yeah, I think so, but she had quite the reaction. Well, she did, because she's just been found guilty of first-degree murder. I know, but still, the judge told her, you've got to rein it in. I know. Which, you know, I think if you're getting life in prison.

I would give her a little leeway there. I would think so because it would be upsetting regardless of how bad you are or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So she has life in prison and we heard the victim impact statements from Dan Markell's parents, which I was really impressed with his because not only did he talk about his own family and loss, but he talked about how Charlie's son doesn't have a father because he's in prison.

That's right. Yeah. And how the kids don't have a father because Dan was killed. So it was really good the way that his father put it, I thought. Yeah. It made difficulty for both families. Well, yeah. It destroyed lives. Yeah. So now we will just wait and see if Wendy gets arrested. Do you think she will? Well, that's the next big question, right? Yes. And I don't think they will, but we'll see. Really? You think they'll just quit now? Just a gut feeling. Okay. Well, I'm going to bet you a dollar because I think she'll be arrested by the end of the month. Okay. That's a deadline. All right. We'll see what happens. Yep. All right. Let's close out the show again. Again. See you guys later. All right. Bye-bye. Bye.