Photo: Scott Wiseman/Palm Beach Post/ZUMAPRESS.com
A man whom authorities said was paid $25,000 to kill the estranged wife of a Florida millionaire more than 30 years ago was recently released from prison following the completion of his sentence for the hit, PEOPLE confirms.
State prison records show Phillip Anthony Harwood left Georgia’s Coastal State Prison on Friday.
He had been serving 20 years (with four years’ credit for time already served) for voluntary manslaughter in the Jan. 1, 1987, death of 35-year-old Lita McClinton Sullivan, described invarious news reportsas an Atlanta socialite.
Media reportsthrough the yearsdetail the case’stwist and turns, including an 11-year gap between the slaying and the arrests of those responsible.
Prosecutors said the man ultimately to blame was James Sullivan, Lita’s husband and a noted personality around Palm Beach, Florida.
Wealthy from a liquor distribution company that he inherited and sold, James ordered Lita’s murder to protect his finances and property in their divorce, according to authorities. Harwood, identified as the gunman despite his protest of innocence, worked as a trucker and had once moved furniture for James.
Georgia Department of Corrections
The homicide — and the money and plotting involved — drew national attention and years of headlines as James avoided legal repercussions for his crime. A 1992 federal indictment against him was thrown out for lack of evidence and a 1994 civil judgment for wrongful death was initially overturned on appeal,though it was ultimately reinstated.
A break in the investigation came in 1998, when Harwood’s then-girlfriend reported being with him when James paid out the $25,000 for Lita’s murder.
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Harwood pleaded guilty in 2003, to voluntary manslaughter, and agreed to testify at James’ ensuing murder trial. On the stand, however, he claimed he was innocent; and at closing James’ defense decried what they called a case built on circumstantial evidence.
James remains in custody in Georgia’s Macon State Prison serving a life sentence without parole, detention records confirm.
Allen Eyestone/Palm Beach Post/ZUMAPRESS.com
PEOPLE could not immediately reach Harwood or Lita’s family for comment on Monday.
In an email to PEOPLE, Harwood’s defense attorney in Lita’s slaying, Tom West, confirmed that his client “proclaimed his innocence” in the case, but “we would not have entered a plea if we did not believe that the state had sufficient evidence of guilt to sustain a conviction.”
“However as in any case where the state’s potential punishment is the death penalty or life in prison, the sentence Mr. Sullivan received, the pressure to accept a plea deal is strong,” West wrote.
Requests for comment from the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, who prosecuted Harwood and James, were not immediately returned.
“I’m just happy and elated that finally after 19 years the person we knew was guilty, our courts have found him guilty,” Lita’s mother said in 2006, after James was found guilty,according to the Associated Press. “It’s been a long time coming.”
More recently Lita’s parents have continued to work to get the money owed to them for her wrongful death, arguing that they believe James had hidden some of his wealth abroad,thePalm Beach Postreported in 2015.
“Back when we started on this odyssey, James Sullivan was full of himself,” an attorney for the family said then. “I don’t think being in a maximum security prison in Georgia is very good for your health.”
source: people.com
