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Parle tu francais habla sepanol Parle italiano. If you've used Babbel, you would Babbel's conversation based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at Babbel.com listen spelled B A B-B-E-L.com listen rules and restrictions may apply. Well, the holidays have come and gone once again, but if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now. You call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch limited time 50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required $45 for three months, $90 for six month or $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See terms. It really is an example of a modern day Trojan horse. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Beware of a man coming to your door bringing you flowers. If you want to get a woman to the door, all you have to do is bring flowers. On January 16, 1987, Lita Sullivan was preparing for her day when the doorbell rang. She called to her friend Poppy, who was staying over with her young child Ingrid, and told Poppy she would get the door. She said, I'll get it. She opened the door. I heard her say good morning. He handed her the flowers. He produced a 9 millimeter handgun. I heard the gunshots. I was stunned for a minute. I took my daughter out of the bed and into a bathroom and into a closet because I thought that whoever it was would come through the house. When I heard the police radio, I came out of the door and I asked the police officer if Lita was okay. He said she was barely alive. The bullet penetrated her, almost left temporal area of her head. They transported her to Piedmont Hospital where she was pretty much pronounced dead. Upon arrival, Our daughter was taken away from us at the age of 35. At the age of 35 it was an assassination. The day she decided to divorce Jim Sullivan was when her life ended. Millions of dollars were at stake. My name is Sheila Ross. I'm an assistant district attorney with the Fulton County District attorney's office. I'm one of four prosecutors assigned to the case of state of Georgia versus James Vincent Sullivan. Jim Sullivan plotted and hatched the idea himself and then hired a hitman to kill his wife. What I think is so disgusting is that Jim sul years lived as a free man. He was living in Palm Beach. He was a social climber. He was wooing other women. It seemed that he was untouchable, that no one could stop him, that no one could hold him accountable for his murderous act. In January of 1998, a woman named Belinda Trahan came forward with what could only be described as astonishing information. My name is Belinda Trahan and I broke the Sullivan case wide open. Millionaire manhunt. Understanding the remarkable saga of Lita Sullivan requires turning back the clock back to 1975, to the days of disco. In those days, Lita was still Leta McLinton, living the good life of an attractive, single 23 year old, the daughter of a prominent family in Atlanta. Lita was a happy, likable person. We had a lot of fun. Poppy Maribel was perhaps Lita's best friend. She was very sweet person, so she loved entertaining her family and friends. It was a close knit family welcome. Lita being the oldest child of Joanne and Emory McClinton, Lita is missed at every gallery. Lita was working in an upscale women's boutique. And one day Jim Sullivan walked in. Well, Jim was quite charming. Initially, Lita was enthralled. Lita thought he was a nice person and a gentleman. Sullivan was a dashing businessman from Macon, Georgia, who'd inherited a business worth millions. And he lavished attention on Lita. On first glance, he's a gentleman. He knows how to play the part. And he played the part very well. He wined her and he dined her. She fell in love with him. She did. She truly did. But Lita's parents were worried about how a biracial couple might fare in Macon and about the different side of Jim Sullivan that they were beginning to see. He's a pathological liar prone, the McClintons say, to omit even inconvenient information. It was the night before her marriage, before he told her that he had been married before and had four kids. That's correct. It was the night before. So you can imagine we were not happy campers. But the next day, December 29, 1976, Lita McLinton became Lita Sullivan, which was a very small family. Wedding, and the newlyweds settled in Macon, Georgia. Sullivan seemed delighted. I think Jim thought he had a Barbie doll with no brains. But Poppy began to worry. I was a bit concerned. I didn't like the way Jim spoke to Leta. In what way? Sometimes it was in a belittling way. Plus, says Poppy, millionaire Sullivan was a cheapskate, once even scolding Lita for spending too much of, of all things, Girl Scout cookies. So he was quite annoyed with her that day that she had bought too many Girl Scout cookies. And then there were the affairs. Were you aware during their marriage of his cheating on her? Yes, I was. Lita hoped he would change when the couple moved to ritzy Palm Beach, Florida, To an oceanfront mansion, Casa Eleda. But Jim continued his old ways throughout their marriage. He was unfaithful. And finally, in 1985, after nine years of trying to make the marriage work, I think it just became intolerable. Lita gave up, filed for divorce, packed up the Mercedes, and moved to an Atlanta townhouse the couple had purchased. She had planned the divorce. She didn't just wake up one day and say, I'm divorcing Jim Sullivan. She made sure she had copies of his important papers. Before long, Sullivan had a new woman in his life, a local socialite named Suki Rogers. And Lita was getting ready for a rough court fight. She knew that he was the type of guy who just wasn't going to give up any of his money, and she knew he was going to play dirty. He had played dirty their entire relationship. Assistant district attorney Sheila Ross says In January of 1987, financially, everything was coming to a head. So time is running out for this man. It really is running out. An Atlanta judge was due to decide if Lita could challenge an agreement the couple had made about dividing Sullivan's roughly $8 million fortune. If Lita lost, she was going to get around $200,000 total. But if the judge ruled in Lita's favor, she could get anywhere from zero to all of his estate. She may have underestimated him in terms of how much he loved his money, but he also underestimated just how smart she was. On the very day the judge was to make his ruling, Lita's good friend Bob Christiansen, who knew all about her troubled marriage. This is your house, right? The White house? Yes. Noticed a stranger in the courtyard near Lita's front door. That's the wall I hid behind. The man was carrying a box of flowers. I started to walk toward him, and I just Got a very bad feeling about him. So Christiansen turned and went back into his garage, just waiting to go to work. Just waiting to go to work, right? Seconds later, he heard shots. All of a sudden, bang, bang, bang. Just about like that. What did you think had happened? I thought son of a bitch had it done. The second you heard those shots, you thought Jim Sullivan. Oh, yeah. No other earthly reason for something like that. Christiansen rushed outside, saw the shooter run off and disappeared around here and went up the street and then raced to Leta's side. She had been shot in the head. A dozen long stemmed pink roses lay nearby, still in their box. She was pronounced dead. And my husband said he knew who did it. We knew him, we knew him, we think a lot better than our daughter. And he did it because of money. Of money. But Sullivan had an alibi. When Lita was shot, he was 600 miles away in Palm Beach. Despite that, police started taking a long, hard look at Jim Sullivan. Suppose, the investigators wondered, he had hired someone to do his dirty work for him. A hitman with no murder weapon. They were left with only one real clue. A suspicious phone call made de Sullivan about 40 minutes after Lita was shot. It wasn't just the phone call. It was where it was placed from and where it was placed to. The call came from this rest stop, coincidentally about a 40 minute drive from Leta's home. The theory, the hitman called Sullivan to tell him the deed was done. What did you think was going to happen? We thought he was going to be arrested. But the phone call wasn't enough. And not only was Sullivan not arrested, within months he had married his girlfriend, suki Rogers. The McClintons were appalled. He's just taken something that he had no right to take and we are here to see to it that he's going to pay for this deed. Confronting high credit card debt can feel scary. But the good news is if you owe $10,000 or more in credit card debt, financial relief options are now available. National Debt Relief is currently offering debt relief designed to reduce what you owe and put you on the fast track to becoming debt free. If you qualify for debt relief, you may be able to pay back less than what you owe and save thousands of dollars. Just visit nationaldebtrelief.com Imagine only paying one low monthly program payment you can afford and saving money as you become debt free. 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He'd soon divorced his third wife, Sukie, and began taking up with other women, lots of other women, one of whom gave these pictures to police. Sullivan's personal record of his many conquests. He exhibits this pattern of targeting women, finding women and and pursuing them aggressively and insistently and just not taking no for an answer. But analyzing Sullivan's social life didn't get authorities any closer to proving their theory that he had hired a hitman to kill Leta. They just didn't have enough hard evidence to charge him with murder. Then in 1992, five years after Lita's death, her frustrated family filed suit against him and eventually did win a $4 million judgment. But they didn't see a dime of it. Sullivan had long since stashed his millions safely offshore and out of reach, as was he living the good life now in Costa Rica. The files accumulated. The years passed. Then in 1998, 11 years after the murder in a small town in rural Texas, fate intervened in the person of one Belinda Trahan. Belinda worked as a receptionist for lawyer Ed Leake and out of the blue one day told him she needed to speak with him urgently. Belinda comes in and says, I've got a story to tell you and I need you to listen really carefully. What is he doing? Her tale began back in the late 80s when she was living in North Carolina with one Tony Harwood, a mover for North American Van Lines. We were together about three years, off and on. She said she would never forget the bizarre story he told her after an overnight run to Palm Beach. There's this rich white man that wants to have his black wife taken care of. But Tony loved to Brag. And Belinda's reaction was more or less, oh, sure, some guy wants you to kill his wife. I never believed him. Never. Never did I believe this. Harwood insisted his story was true, explaining that there were other people in on the job, too, and that it would come off the next time he went to Georgia. I was like, oh, okay, the story's getting real good. But Harwood came back disappointed, saying the intended victim hadn't cooperated, refused to answer the door. Whereupon Belinda joked that, well, if you want a woman to come to the door, take her flowers. I wish I never said that, because that's exactly what happened. When Harwood returned from a second trip to Atlanta, he said the job was done. Did you believe him this time? No. I still didn't believe him. By now, Harwood was determined to prove he wasn't making it up, telling Belinda to get in the car. He drove overnight to a roadside diner. She has no idea what it was called or even what state it was in, but she remembers clearly what happened there. This guy comes in, and he looked right at me, and then he looked over at Harwood, and he says, what is she doing here? Then the man pushed a newspaper across the table. Harwood put his hand on it and pulled the newspaper towards him. It wasn't until they were back in the car that Belinda realized the newspaper had an envelope in it. That's when he opened the newspaper. And there was an envelope in there containing money. Lots of money. Yeah. In fact, half of what Harwood said was the $25,000 payoff for the murder of Leta Sullivan. Now, finally, Belinda believed him, and she split, moving to Texas to start over. Eventually, she got married. But Harwood never let her forget what she knew or what would happen if she told. Yeah, he threatened me pretty much the whole time. He never stopped. No, for 11 years, it worked. Belinda kept her mouth shut. But By January of 1998, she had had it with the threats, and she finally challenged him. And I even bluntly said it on the phone. I said, did you kill that woman or what? And he says, I don't want to discuss that right now. And that's when Belinda decided to go to the cops. Her boss, the lawyer, knew that they would have two big questions. Why had she stayed silent for so long? And was she perhaps also involved, since she was the one who had suggested those flowers? But in the end, the authorities were so blown away by Belinda's story, they agreed that in return for her testimony, they would not press charges. She provided details that only someone that was associated with the crime would know. Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent John Lang, now retired, got the case. She was very, very nervous, very concerned for her safety. His question after so long, could she still ID the man who had paid Harwood off? He showed her a photo array. And does she say, oh, my God, that's him? No, she says, I'm 40% sure this is the guy. But after a few minutes, she again pointed right to the picture of Jim Sullivan. And then I turned around to John Lang and I said, I'm 100%. Once he had her positive ID, Lange set out to verify the rest of Belinda's story. We went to the North American van lines and just by the grace of God, were able to find in the attic these records that had not been purged. The first box I opened was the moving invoice with James Sullivan's signature on it, Tony Harwood's signature on it. It was a huge breakthrough. The first hard evidence linking Harwood and Sullivan in the months before Lita was killed. I was just ecstatic when I found out, because then we knew what she was saying was true. There was that connection right there. Belinda is the only person that saw these two men together. And she's the only person that saw the exchange of money. It was crucial. But was it enough to nail Jim Sullivan? It's all right, Gil. Today, Belinda and her husb, Tim Trahan, share a picture perfect life in rural Texas. A far cry from 1998, when Belinda feared for her life and literally went underground. I lived up underneath here for about four months. She retreated in fear to this crawl space, barely fall 4ft high. Living deep under her house with a TV, a bed and a loaded.357 Magnum, she knew she was a target. She was hiding in terror from her ex boyfriend, Tony Harwood, and from Jim Sullivan. He could hire a professional hitman. He could take me out at any time. I felt that if he paid $25,000 to kill his wife, that what's $100,000 to kill the eyewitness that could put him away for Life. In the 11 years since Lita's murder, Sullivan had been a free man. And yet, even with Belinda's story, police still didn't have enough solid evidence to charge him. Hoping Harwood would provide more, they told Belinda, call him up and get him talking. Why don't you just turn around, turn that Sullivan guy in? I thought about that, too. But see, all he can do is testify that I was the one especially incriminating Harwood's answer when Belinda recalls that at first she didn't believe him. I never figured it was really real. You know that. Oh, yeah, it was real. I live it every day. Jeez, sometimes I cry myself to sleep at night thinking about it. The next day, Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent John Lang knocked on Harwood's door. Tony came out, got in the front seat of the car, and he said, I've been waiting for you boys for a long time. To Lang's delight, Tony Harwood just couldn't shut up. He immediately started telling us about it. He mentioned Sullivan's name first. I didn't mention his name. I said, we want to talk to you about an incident in 1987 involving a murder of somebody. And he said, you're talking about that Sullivan guy. This is a gift, right? Yeah. And it kept on going. I told him, I said, well, you know, I know somebody could probably take care of that for you. And he said, well, about how much would it cost? And I quoted $25,000. Belinda's boss, attorney Ed Leak, assumed that with Harwood providing the missing link, police now finally would arrest Jim Sullivan for his wife's murder. I turned around and I told the gentleman from the GBI or the Atlanta Police Department, go get him. They said, well, no, we've got a deal with his defense attorneys. They're going to bring him in. I said, son, this wouldn't happen in Southeast Texas. But the Atlanta District Attorney didn't know where Sullivan was. We are here today to announce the issuance of a warrant for the arrest of James V. Sullivan. After issuing the warrant, DA Paul Howard privately told Sullivan's attorneys that he'd be going for the death penalty. A guy with unlimited resources is going to run or already had run or already had run. In fact, Sullivan had been sunning himself for some time in this lovely Costa rican seaside community 1600 miles away. And within a day of his attorneys learning about the death penalty, he hot footed it to Panama in a very big hurry. He was out of Costa Rica. He left his dog. I mean, you know, here's a person who professes to love his dog, Coco, and he leaves it with a neighbor there. But Jim Sullivan's disappearance did not affect the case against Tony Harwood, the alleged hitman. He eventually cut a deal and pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter. But all the while, he insisted that he was not the actual shooter, who was. Well, over the years, he's blamed the Mafia, a stripper named Tracy, and some guy nicknamed John the Bartender. Despite his changing Stories. Prosecutors agreed to a 20 year prison sentence for Harwood in exchange for his future testimony whenever Sullivan eventually faces trial in the murder for hire. International fugitive Jim Sullivan, meanwhile, was on the move, said to have been seen in exotic locales in Guatemala, Venezuela, Ireland, even Malaysia. And finally in this idyllic Beach Resort 100 miles south of Bangkok. How did you determine then he was here? Well, we began receiving reports of possible sightings of Sullivan in Thailand. Bob CAHILL, Then the FBI's legal attache in Bangkok, says tips from local viewers of the TV show America's Most Wanted led right to Sullivan's hideout. This swanky condo complex on the beach. He spent all his time in that room right up there. Yes, with both his name and that of his new fourth wife, Nana, right there on the door. Local authorities put him under surveillance. And in July 2002, four years after Tony Harwood's arrest, they moved in. The Royal Thai police took this video of Sullivan's arrest. He was completely shocked. Completely shocked. Yes. No idea. No idea. His new home became this squalid, overcrowded Bangkok prison. Back in Atlanta, Lita Sullivan's parents couldn't have been more pleased. Jolly good. Jolly good. We both had a good, good cry. But Sullivan was in no hurry to come home. He fought extradition fiercely. Mr. Sullivan, I'm Susan Spencer from CBS. Could I just talk to you for just one minute? Do you have anything to say to the Clintons at all? Two years later, Thailand's highest court rejected his last appeal. And in 2004, nearly two decades after Lita Sullivan's murder, and showing the effects of his long stay in prison, Jim Sullivan was returned to waiting prosecutors in Atlanta, the city where it all began. After 19 years and over 13,000 miles of running. We've been waiting for you. How do you like being on us soil? Ms. Sullivan? Don't stand by one. Leta was very special. She was a very giving person. She enjoyed people. Lita Sullivan's parents have prayed for this moment. Jim Sullivan on trial for their daughter's murder. He could get the death penalty. So we're ready to begin, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Prosecutor Sheila Ross previews her case. Jim Sullivan killed his wife. The state is going to prove it. We asked the that you find him guilty at the close of all this evidence and end 19 years of waiting for her family. Sullivan's lawyers are not impressed. There will not be a shred of physical evidence. They scoff at the star witnesses painting Sullivan's mover, Tony Harwood, as a con artist. Mr. Harwood has never told the same story twice. And his ex girlfriend, Belinda as a dupe. The only thing Belinda Trahan knows is what Harwood told her first on the stand for the state. Leta's mother, who tells prosecutor Kelly Hill that Jim Sullivan never even went to Lita's funeral. Did you get a lot of sympathy calls? Yes. Did you get one from the defendant? No, we never heard from. His only communication, a telegram to the funeral home. Sullivan listens expressionless through all this, even when the state presents its most damning evidence. It's 305-6557. Phone records of calls to and from his Florida home. Conversations with the alleged hitman Harwood. And it's a number that you'll see at four to five important times at the trial. It's actually five. The most important call one Harwood made from a payphone a 40 minute drive from Lita's house 40 minutes after she was shot. And the message was just two words. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you, Mr. Sullivan. Your problem has been taken care of. Sullivan's lawyer, Don Samuel. Jim Sullivan doesn't have a clue what these phone calls were 19 years ago. He's simply not able to say, oh, I remember making a phone call 19 years ago. I remember like it was yesterday. But Belinda Trahan clearly remembers her own unwitting role in Lita's death. And she tells the jury of that casual remark she made to her boyfriend Harwood. I said because anyone knows that if you wanted to get a woman to answer the door, all you would have to do is take flowers to the door. Okay, you need to sit right here. You would be me. Prosecutors set up a mock diner and Belinda reenacts Sullivan's payoff to Harwood. The money in a newspaper stuffed with ca. For 11 years, she says she was too afraid of Harwood to speak out. Until finally I couldn't live like this anymore. No more. And now the state asks her to speak out one last time. Tell me if you see the person that you saw in that restaurant back in 1980. Yes, I do. Please point him out. It's right there. He can't even make eye contact. Here she is, this, you know, uneducated, hard working, blue collar woman from Texas calling this millionaire a murderer in open court. He's wearing glasses, light gray hair, and he won't even look at her. Mr. Garland, you may proceed. Sullivan's other lawyer, Ed Garland, challenges Belinda's memory. So much was asked of me. Do you remember to try to remember from way back in 1987. It's really hard, isn't it? Yes, it is. Do you remember and ridicules her story of the payoff? Did you tell those police officers that after you made this trip on the road, you don't know where to the state, you don't know where leaving when you don't know when you left, and returning when you don't know when you arrived, that you left the next morning. Did you make that statement to them? If it's in that pipe work, I'm sure I did. But Belinda insists to the end she met Jim Sullivan and saw the payoff at the table in the diner. But I know what I saw, and you can't take that from me, no matter what you do. Defense counsel Don Samuel, that anybody, anybody could remember someone who they said they saw, you know, for just a sec, as she put it in her notes, for just a second, years and years and years earlier, I found the whole notion of her identification testimony lacked credibility. I'll call you next witness. But her credibility is stellar compared to that of the state's other star witness, Tony Harwood. He cut a deal and already is serving time for his role in Lita's murder. Tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. First problem. His truth about the payoff differs from Belinda's. He says he got the cash in the men's room. Mr. Sullivan and I went into the restroom and he handed me the money. He. He said it was on a moving job in 1986 that Sullivan asked him to take care of Lita. I assumed that he meant to kill her. And how exactly had Sullivan put it? You know, I've got this wife of mine up in Atlanta, and she is just trying to take everything I've got. Do you know anybody can possibly take care of my problem for me? Because I need some help here. That's about the best I can do from what I remember. More than his testimony adds to the impression that Harwood is an odd duck. Inexplicably, he returns from one break with his hair parted on the opposite side. But prosecutors have bigger problems with Harwood than just his hair. They have to acknowledge that he may very well be lying when he says that he just doesn't know who actually shot Leda. Look these jurors in the face and you tell them that you did not shoot and kill Lita Sullivan. I did not shoot and kill Leader Sullivan. But they want the jury to believe him when he insists Jim Sullivan was behind it all. First of all, I didn't Agree to kill his wife. What I agreed to do was find someone to do it. Defense lawyers emphasize their contempt for Harwood by not even bothering with cross examination. We have no questions for this witness. Take them back. Rolling the dice that the jury will find this star witness simply not believable. They call Special Agent John Wayne. In closing arguments, prosecutor Clint Rucker pulls out all the stops. The doorbell rings loud. It rings clearly. And in this case, it rings true. Reminding the jury that this case is about a young woman who opened her door simply for a box of roses. It's the last thing she touched. She used it as a shield to try to block the path of the bullet. She turned her head. Good afternoon. But defense lawyers insist there is no proof that Jim Sullivan had anything to do with it. The story is they were in an envelope. And Garland mocks Belinda's story. The envelope was inside a newspaper saying that was one big payoff for one small envelope. See? Oops. Some of it fell out. There's more. It won't fit in an envelope. That just doesn't make sense. Sullivan never takes the stand. The jury is left with reams of circumstantial evidence and two very unusual witnesses. How do you know Tony Harwood is lying? His lips are moving. If you believe Belinda Trahan, you would be authorized under the law to find this defendant guilty. So will the words of a convicted felon and his remorseful ex girlfriend be enough to convict? I'm gonna ask you, through your verdict of guilty to each and every count, to tell James Vincent Sullivan for whom the bell tolls. Tell him that it tolls for thee. Shopping is hard. I can never find anything in my size. I don't even know my size. 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There is plenty of evidence out there that we can't explain, and it certainly seems suspicious, but I don't believe the evidence is sufficient to warrant a conviction. The jury's verdict comes back in less than five hours. We, the jury, find the defendant, James Vincent Sullivan, guilty. Malice, murder. It's a bittersweet moment for the McClintons and a sweet one for the prosecution. There's no way to describe what it felt like to look at them. I looked over my shoulder and locked eyes with them, and it was the best feeling in the world. Not, of course, for Don Samuel, who thinks the jury just couldn't. Couldn't get past those damning phone calls. You have these series of phone calls that are absolutely inexplicable. I've never been able to describe these phone calls to anybody and have them think anything other than he must be guilty. The sentence is still to be decided for Sullivan, life or death. If there was something else I could do to Jim or the state could do to Jim that would be worse than the death penalty, I would go for that. Lita's family is allowed to testify to the suffering that Jim Sullivan has caused. I have looked forward to this day for many years. Should I forgive him? I cannot. Should I forgive him? I will not. No one from Jim Sullivan's own family steps forward to defend him. He's been estranged from his four children for years, and his eldest son, James, hardly can contain his contempt. He's my father, but he's not my dad. Meaning he's not. He's not a human. He doesn't have a human relationship. So there's just something about this person that's inherently evil. Yes. Sullivan's brother Frank definitely agrees. The best man at Jim's first wedding. He is certainly not in his corner today. My brother has this raw, numbing evil that very few people in society fortunately, ever have to confront. And I've met this kind of evil in him. But this is your brother. Well, I'm telling it like it is. Does Ms. Sullivan want to say anything before sentence is imposed? No, thank you. We, the jury, unanimously fix the sentence at life imprisonment without parole, not the death penalty. But without a successful appeal, Jim Sullivan certainly will die in prison. And prosecutors give Belinda Trahan a lot of credit for the verdict. Have you been sorry at any point that you stepped forward with this? No, I don't regret it. There was justice served. The McClintons finally got their justice. They're wonderful people. What did they say to you. They said thank you. They gave me a hug. Just really great people. It was a long journey to justice. This quest for a one time dashing millionaire undone finally at age 64 by his own greed. He's taken something that we can't ever get back. There is no closure. When you've lost a child, you can live with it better, but there is no closure. A Superior court judge denied Jim Sullivan a new trial. 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