A few days later, she filed for divorce.

Once free of Palm Beach, Lita enjoyed her life in Atlanta. She cherished close friends, having her family near. She dated some men and entertained at her townhouse. She worked for different charities, and was heavily involved in arranging decorations and entertainment for the 1986 New Year's Crescendo Ball for Cystic Fibrosis, held at The Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead.

The only constantly hovering cloud was her divorce. New lawyers, new motions, new court dates, new fears. Though she had almost no contact with Sullivan, their lawyers volleyed back and forth. Sullivan had attacked her character, alleging 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 in her medicine cabinet. Said she stole two diamonds that were hidden in the bottom of a shoe closet. It was one thing after another; her lawyer even had her taking monthly urine tests so they could refute the drug allegations in court. She often feared someone was spying on her, and that she'd been followed.

In 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, many of which were with Lita. Poppy filed for divorce from her husband, who was later indicted on invasion of privacy charges. According to the FBI, Sullivan, a friend of Marvin Marable's, later admitted that he'd received copies of the tapes, sent to him in a big box to his Palm Beach home.

On January 16, 1987, a judge was going to address a pretrial motion on division of property and determine the validity of the Sullivans' postnuptial agreement. Judged in her favor, Lita stood to get half of Sullivan's assets.

On January 15, 1987, Lita's mother and sister Valencia were visiting Lita and discussing the upcoming trial. 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.

That night, Lita grabbed a bite to eat with a friend at R. Thomas' Deluxe Grill. Later, Poppy and her young daughter came over to spend the night, to be with Lita before the trial. Though the women planned to stay up chatting, they fell asleep late while watching TV.

January 16, 1987, began as an unspectacular day, one of those postholiday days when the chilly wet air and steady drizzle keep one in bed a little longer than usual.

That morning, a Friday, two men drove up to the Botany Bay flower shop, then located on Peachtree at Pharr Road, about half a mile from Lita's house. They drove a white Toyota. One guy came in and said he wanted a dozen roses; he didn't care what color. The clerk, Randall Benson, felt anxious and hurried; he worried that he was going to get robbed, and so only wired five of the twelve roses. The customer told Benson to leave the shop's sticker off the box, so the clerk tied it with a pink ribbon. He let out a sigh of relief when the men left. It was just after 8:00 a.m.

Armed with the white, long flower box, a tall, white, balding man wearing a green work jacket and gray pants stood on Lita's stoop, looked around, and rang the doorbell at 3085 Slaton Drive.

Lita woke up that day in her Buckhead townhouse likely nervous about the coming afternoon. She was due in Superior Court at 2:00 p.m. to hear the important pretrial ruling. The trial was due to start in just ten days.

Maybe Lita didn't have time to think about anything that day, except perhaps that it was odd that the doorbell was ringing so early in the morning. She put on her housecoat, went downstairs, and answered the door. It was 8:20 a.m.

Lita must have seen the flower box because she opened the door wide, unsuspecting of anything more than an early-morning delivery. She took the box. She must have immediately noticed the man held a gun because she instinctively lifted the box to her face. Did she have time to think? Did she have time to taste fear?

Neighbors heard two shots. One bullet veered wildly into the family room, the other hit Lita's temple, on the right side of her head. The man fled on foot, "like a bat out of hell," said a neighbor who almost hit him with her car.

"I walked up and the door was ajar; it was probably opened six to eight inches, and I really didn't want to go in there but I knew I had to," Lita's neighbor Bob Christenson later told police. "I opened it up and Lita was lying in the foyer… I immediately went in and into the kitchen, which was just a few feet away, and called nine-one-one and then came back to see if I could-if I could make her more comfortable. But it was obvious to me that she was in pretty bad shape."

Poppy and her daughter were still upstairs when the shooting occurred. Hysterical, Poppy called Lita's parents.

"Poppy called me and she was screaming and crying saying Lita's been shot," says Jo Ann McClinton. "I was getting dressed to go visit my mother in the hospital. I called Emory and he got there before I did." Jo Ann pauses as she recounts that day. "They were putting her in the ambulance when I drove up. Emory drove his car and I followed to Piedmont Hospital. We were there a short time when they pronounced her dead." Jo Ann's voice trails off and she says quietly, "And that's when Emory said, 'That son of a bitch did it.' We knew right away it had something to do with Jim."

Forty minutes after the shooting, at 9:00 a.m., Sullivan accepted a collect call at his Palm Beach home from a pay phone at the northbound rest stop on 1-85 in Suwanee, about thirty-four miles from Lita's house. The call lasted a minute.

On January 13, 1987, three days before the shooting, three men checked into the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge at Roswell Road and I-285, at 7:24 a.m. They registered under phony names, and were driving a white Toyota. Southern Bell phone records later revealed that a call was placed at 7:44 a.m. from room 518 to Sullivan's house in West Palm Beach. Sullivan called the room back at 10:33 a.m. Minutes later, he called Lita's neighbor, Bob Christenson, and asked, "What did you hear this morning? Did you hear any loud knocking?"

Policelater figuredthatthe murder wasplanned forthatday, January 13, and that Lita must have not answered the door. The shooter needed a way to gain entry. In Sullivan's day planner, FBI Special Agent Todd Letcher, who described Sullivan as a meticulous note-taker, later found a notation on January 14. It said: "Get flowers."

In a phone call to a friend a few days after the murder, Sullivan described the gun that killed Lita-a 9mm semiautomatic pistol. But information about the gun was never publicly disclosed, intentionally withheld by Atlanta Police.

On the morning of the shooting, Sullivan's lawyer called him to announce that Lita was dead. That day Sullivan lunched with a business associate. At about 8:00 p.m., he dined with his girlfriend, South Korean-born Hyo-Sook Choi "Suki" Rogers at Jo's, a posh French restaurant.

Later, according to prosecutor Brad Moores, authorities found a note in Sullivan's diary that said, "Suki and I celebrate with champagne and caviar at Jo's." Another note, scrawled on December 12, 1986 (a month before the shooting), simply said, "pistol."

Eight months after Lita's death, Sullivan married Suki Rogers, her fourth marriage, his third. A recent divorcee, sexy Suki was reportedly as ambitious as Sullivan, and together they made progress on the Palm Beach social circuit.