Millionaire James Sullivan met Atlanta socialite Lita McClinton in 1975 while she was working in a Georgia mall and a few years later they were married, after James divorced his first wife, which he lost considerable money and property from. Lita’s family feared that James married her only because of the high power that the family had. In the early 1980s, Lita left James after several arguments and in 1985 she filed for divorce and moved to a townhouse in Buckhead. They were in the middle of nasty divorce proceedings to end their marriage when on the morning of January 16, 1987, Lita opened her door to a delivery man who was delivering her a dozen of roses when he shot her once in the head and she was killed instantly. Several witnesses saw the man fleeing the scene of the crime, but could not identify him. Although James was at their home several miles away, authorities believed that it was possible that it was a contract hit. The flowers were ordered by three unidentified men who were at a hotel using false identification. A flower vendor remembered a nervous man buying the flowers, and authorities learned from associates that James did not want to deal with another divorce, and said that he wouldn’t be surprised if Lita suffered a ‘tragic accident’. Also, the day that Lita was killed, she was scheduled to testify in court later that day. Wikia Unsolved Mysteries online article
SULLIVAN, MAD DOG: Mad Dog Sullivan - Mobsters: Mad Dog Sullivan TV -
It was a game in the beginning. Then it went to become a nightmare. And you become a monster. Mad Dog Sullivan
I felt like I was becoming the Grim Reaper. Mad Dog Sullivan
Over the next few years Joe bounced from one reform school to another. It was brutal. Mobsters s1e4: Mad Dog Sullivan, Biography 2007
When he was nineteen, after six years in juvenile detention, Joe was released. He returned to Queens to live with his family ... After a couple of weeks he took off hitchhiking with a friend but they quickly ran out of money and to get by they began mugging people. ibid.
At the age of twenty-six Joe was paroled. ibid.
Returned to New York and convicted of manslaughter for the bar shooting. This time he got up to thirty years and was sent to one of America’s toughest prisons – Attica. ibid.
A massive search was launched for the one man who’d escaped Attica. ibid.
Sullivan was seized in Greenwich Village and returned to prison. Four years later in 1975 Sullivan was paroled. He was thirty-six years old. ibid.
The killing marked the beginning of Joe’s double life. ibid.
Mad Dog was beginning to tire of his profession. ibid.
Joe went into hiding but the heat was on. ibid.
22nd February 1982 Sullivan was arrested. ibid.
SUTCLIFFE, PETER: Frankie Boyle TV - Inside the Old Bailey TV - Manhunt: The Search for the Yorkshire Ripper TV - Murders that Shocked Britain TV - Yorkshire Ripper Hoaxer: The Hunt for Wearside Jack TV - Yorkshire Ripper Hoaxer TV - Great Crimes & Trials TV - Revealed: The Yorkshire Ripper TV - Crimes that Shook Britain TV - Crimes that Shook the World TV - Serial Killers: Yorkshire Ripper TV - Born to Kill? The Yorkshire Ripper TV - Left For Dead: Yorkshire Ripper TV - This is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper TV - World’s Most Evil Killers TV - Riding Trilogy: Nineteen Eighty TV - The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story TV - The Ripper TV - The Ripper Speaks: The Lost Tapes TV - Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders TV - World in Action TV -
Peter Sutcliffe was an excellent truck driver. Frankie Boyle’s American Autopsy, BBC 2016
On 29th April 1981 Peter Sutcliffe arrived for one of the most anticipated trials in the Bailey’s history. People had queued overnight for a seat inside. Inside the Old Bailey s1e6, Channel 5 2018
Maureen Long survived the Yorkshire Ripper. The killer hit her with a hammer and slashed her with a knife. Mrs Long was left for dead in 1977. The Yorkshire Ripper haunted the streets of the north of England for another five years. By the end Peter Sutcliffe had murdered thirteen women. Manhunt: The Search for the Yorkshire Ripper, 1999
Interviewed nine times. Lost in the system. ibid.
The first victim of the Yorkshire Ripper died within sight of the home she shared with her four young children. Her name was Wilma McCann. ibid.
This time the killer left a single clue: a boot print on Mrs Jackson’s leg. ibid.
The dead women were both prostitutes. ibid.
In pitch darkness Marcella Claxton staggered half a mile to the road clutching her knickers to her head to staunch the blood. ibid.
Nine months later a bearded attacker went back to Roundhay Park with another woman in his car. ibid.
The fifth body was found: she died in the children’s playground at Reginald Street in Leeds. She was not a prostitute; she was a shop assistant. And she was only sixteen. ibid.
Police faced a classic Ripper attack: he didn’t rape her or rob her, he hit her over the head with a hammer and stabbed her repeatedly in the body. ibid.
Jean Jordan: twenty-one-years-old, mother of two children, she lay undiscovered for ten days. During that time her killer went back to the body: he slashed her again; he tried to cut off her head with a hacksaw. ibid.
A man with size seven boots, and a gap in his teeth, a man with oil on his hands, and one boot more worn than the other, an engineer, a factory worker, a lorry driver. ibid.
George Oldfield got it wrong. For him and Dick Holland this was the voice of the killer. ibid.
Three more women died. Four years in to the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper the police were no closer to catching the killer. ibid.
For the first time the Ripper had killed a university student. ibid.
Frustrated detectives began to re-examine old leads ... They managed to narrow down the list of workers whose pay packet could have included that note from 8,000 people to just 241. After four and a half years the hunters had their quarry within reach. ibid.
The body of the twelfth victim was found in a garden in a leafy suburb of Leeds. ibid.
Swamped by work, the police effort was now hopelessly compromised by mistakes: the ninth interview which failed to identify the killer; the criminal records which didn’t mention a hammer; the belief that the Ripper had a north-eastern accent. In five and a half years the killer had made only one mistake when he left a traceable £5 note in a victim’s handbag. ibid.
He stole a set of number plates and fitted them on his car. ibid.
Confronted with the evidence Peter Sutcliffe now confessed to killing thirteen women. ibid.
His childhood was unremarkable. And he left school at fifteen. ibid.