True Crime with Kimbyr - The Flower Delivery Murder of Lita McClinton: Betrayed at Her Own Front Door: Part 3

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

In Part 3 of this heartbreaking case on True Crime with Kimbyr, the shocking truth behind Lita McClinton’s tragic death finally comes to light. On the morning she was supposed to finalize her divorce, Lita opened her front door and was gunned down—murdered by a hitman posing as a flower delivery man. But who hired him? And why did justice take nearly two decades to arrive? Kimbyrleigha walks us through the tangled investigation, the years of silence, and the moment Lita’s killer was finally brought to justice. This is a story of betrayal, perseverance, and a family’s fight for truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just off I-85, that's 19 miles northeast of Atlanta, maybe a 40-minute drive from Lita's townhouse. And to police, that call looked a whole lot like a confirmation, like someone had just done what they were paid to do and made a quick call to let the boss know. It's done. Because the call crossed the lines. Investigation moved from local to federal, and now the FBI took over. And that came with more tools and more reach. They went through every single call made from James' phone going back six months. And one of those calls jumped off the page.

January 13th, just three days before the murder. James called Robert Christensen. If that name sounds familiar, that was Lisa's next-door neighbor, the one that called 911. See, they weren't in touch. He hadn't spoken to Robert in a very long time, but all of a sudden he's calling out of nowhere? Robert said the whole conversation was strange. James asked if anything unusual had been happening around the neighborhood. if there had been any unusual cars parked nearby, maybe a green car.

And then he asked for Lita's unlisted phone number that James didn't have. Robert said no, and that was that. But that date stuck with the investigators because that same morning on July 13th, Lita had told her friends that she was woken up just after 6 a.m. by a knock on her front door. She didn't answer. She said it made her really uncomfortable. She even made a comment later that day that said,

this is Atlanta. Nobody's opening their door at 6 o'clock in the morning. Now the pieces were starting to fit together. What if that knock wasn't random? What if it was a first attempt? And she didn't answer. And what if the call to the neighbor that James was trying to make was to find out whether anyone had seen anything go down?

When they lined up the dates, the times, and the conversations, it felt like a dry run. Three days later, whoever was sent to that door came back, and this time with flowers. Before the FBI could move forward, one more detail jumped out from James' phone records. There had been a call made on that same day, January 13th, three days before the murder, not from his Palm Beach mansion,

but from a Howard Johnson's hotel in Atlanta. But not just anywhere in Atlanta, five miles from Lita's townhouse. James was the man who dined in private clubs. He lived in a mansion called the Hammond Cheese House. He wasn't exactly the motel off the highway type of guy. So the fact that a call came out of that location, straight to his Palm Beach line, was weird. It was worth digging into.

An FBI agent drove out to that motel in person. Of course, they didn't have any, like, computer records, just a shoebox full of old check-in cards. It was very low-tech and low budget. But buried in that stack were three names that didn't make sense. One of them was listed Johnny Fur with a North Carolina address. They traced a call made from Room 518 one minute long, directly to James's Palm Beach House. Three people had checked into that room.

And according to Motel staff, that room was where they put guests who made them nervous. So everything lined up. Witnesses near Lita's home had already described seeing a white Toyota with North Carolina plates that morning of the murder. Now they had proof that people connected to James were nearby days before it happened.

And a man from North Carolina under a fake name Johnny Fur? Was that the hotel? they had to look into it. There were over 150 people by that name in North Carolina, which I thought was weird because I was like, Johnny Fur. F-U-R-R-R-F-R-F-R-J-Joney. Really?

150 people by that name in North Carolina. But they were ready to start knocking on doors. And then politics got in the way. North Carolina told the FBI to back off that they would take it from here, local cops. The lead agent was reassigned shortly after that, and the trail was cold again. Nothing was being done.

And in March, a $15,000 reward was posted. In September, they raised it to $20,000, but nothing came in. And by the time, the first anniversary of Leda's murder rolled around, James Sullivan had moved on. Eight months after her murder on September 26th of 1987, he actually got married to a woman named Suki Rogers. The wedding was held at the Royal Pointeiana Chapel in Palm Beach. It was small, it was quiet, and very deliberate. his best man was George Bissell, the same guy who helped him climb the Palm Beach social ladder. The friendship wouldn't last, though.

James would go on to lose a million dollars, actually over a million dollars, investing in Bissell's failed orchid business. But that's a whole other story that I'm not telling this video. But just like that, another year passed, and the trail was still dark. But let's backtrack a minute because you're probably thinking, wait, James got married to someone else? You're probably thinking, who is this woman? Where does she fit in? How long had they known each other? I'll explain. Suki, whose full name was Hayaosuk Rogers, was a Palm Beach socialite. She was Korean, outspoken, and kind of a wild card. Her friends described her as spicy.

She described herself as someone who didn't really have any traditional skills, but she knew how to move through high society. At the time she met James, Suki was married to a man named a Leonard Rogers, an investment counselor who was frequently at a town. for work. And it was during one of those trips that James started showing up. They met at a cocktail party and James was instantly locked in. This was not after the divorce, not even after the murder. This was while Lita was still very much alive, still in court with James, still fighting to be heard, still trying to protect herself. While she was doing all that, James was sneaking around Palm Beach, staying overnight at another woman's house, driving his Rolls Royce into her garage while her husband

was gone for work. Leonard noticed something was off with his wife and he hired a private investigator, and that private investigator caught it all. He watched James park his car in the garage overnight, and he had surveillance. He spoke to the housekeeper. He knew that James had been over there. There were footprints on the carpet, two glasses left out, cigarette and cigar ashes and sukey. She would never let the maid change the sheets after those nights. She always insisted that she would do it herself. And when asked why, she said, oh, I'd eaten chocolate in bed or, oh, I had my period. Well, it didn't take much to know what was really going on. Did Lita know Suki or about her? She might have suspected it, but there's no record that confirmed whether she ever knew who Suki

was. And by October 1986, just a few months before Lita's murder, Suki's divorce from Leonard was finalized. And exactly eight months later, Lita was killed. James was married. But James, can get a new wife, but the new wife doesn't get a new version of James. If Suki thought she was about to live happily ever after her in that Palm Beach mansion, she was wrong. Because almost immediately, the relationship started showing signs, the same patterns, the same manipulation, the same control, the same emotional playbook the Alita had quietly lived through. At first, it was subtle. James seemed intense but protective, involved, but demanding. But over time, Suki said it became something else entirely. She felt watched, monitored, tracked. James needed to know where she was at all times

and what she was doing and who she was with. He would randomly show up at places that he wasn't invited and he would question her every move. He was paranoid and possessive, but always in a quiet, methodical way. Nothing chaotic, just constant pressure. And years went on like this. And just like I said with Lita, you know, it was a slow progression into it. But it was like Suki just stepped right into lead of shoes. When she tried to push back, he would insult her, he would cut her down, he would make her feel small, like she owed him her image, her loyalty, her silence, and eventually she broke. In 1990, just three years after they married, Suki filed for divorce, and her petition didn't hold back. She asked the court for restraining order. She said she was afraid of him, not because he

hit her or anything, but because he had told her flat out, you're dealing with a dangerous person, you're playing a dangerous game. She said he warned her to be careful, that she constantly felt on edge and she was afraid that with one wrong move, she could set him off. On September 19th of 1990, Suki took the stand and dropped

what would be the biggest bombshell of their entire divorce. She told the court, she got arrested for trying to lie to cover for James over something as dumb as a traffic charge, but to him it was big. He had close to 20 traffic tickets and had his license revoked.

He wasn't supposed to be driving, but he was, and they got in an accident. And he told her to lie and say she was behind the wheel. When they were sitting in their living room and she was crying and panicked that she might actually go to jail, and James was desperate for her to help him, or maybe to scare her into doing so,

he made a confession. According to Suki, James turned up the volume on their TV in case somebody was listening, and he leaned in and he said, I made a terrible mistake. I hired someone to kill Lita. Suki said he told her he needed to leave the country, sell everything, and they needed to disappear. And for a moment, she actually considered going with him.

But she didn't go. Instead, she told everything to her lawyer and her investigators. And she repeated again under oath during the trial. Her story matched everything detectives already suspected. And when she laid it all out, how he isolated her, tracked her a minute, manipulated her, the parallels were undeniable. He'd done it again. He used his charm as a weapon and money as leverage to control her. This time, the woman walked away before it was too late, but she was still afraid of what he could do. But the thing is, not only did James' attorney

tried to get all of his thrown out of court before she actually was allowed to say it, but the judge denied that, but James actually took the stand himself in his defense. He spent hours trying to convince everyone in that courtroom that she was lying, that Suki just wanted to make him bend and give her everything, so she was just making it up. While Suki's courtroom bombshell went on to make headlines, and the divorce itself was already raising eyebrows, it wasn't just for the drama. Authorities back in Georgia had started to tune back in to everything that was happening in Lita's case. James' behavior in his second divorce was familiar. It was controlling, vengeful, strategic, the kind of person who would rather

burn everything to the ground than let someone walk away with what he thought was his. For the detectives on Lita's case, the red flags were starting to stack up. Here was another woman, afraid, backed into a legal corner, fighting for control over her own life, and being met with the same tactics that Lita was up against. They never forgot about Lita's case. They just had no way of going forward. But now, with Suki, saying what she did, dropping that confession, now they had a reason to dig again. But then things took a wild turn. In November right in the middle of the divorce trial, James' attorney dropped an accusation that no one even saw coming. He didn't just deny what Suki said. He flipped the whole story. He told the court that Suki was the one behind Lita's

murder. Yeah. He claimed that Suki had orchestrated the entire hit. And the motive, according to him, she wanted Lita gone because she saw her as a threat to her place, to her estate, to her future, and her money. It was ridiculous. But it did delay things even more. But let me tell you what happened in June of 1991 because this part is wild. James Sullivan was still free. He was officially found guilty, but not for murder. It was for perjury. Two counts because he lied at his divorce trial. And you would think, okay, maybe they're getting somewhere now. Maybe he's going to go to jail, right? But instead, no, he got house arrest, a full year followed by your probation. And where did he have to serve it in his mansion in Palm Beach with the air conditioning and the chef's kitchen

and the ocean views? And he also had an exception by his doctor that he could leave his house for what they referred to as, I swear to God, tennis court therapy. You heard that right. He was convicted of perjury and he was allowed to leave his house arrest to hit balls on the tennis court because essentially this was good for his health. But while he was doing that, the FBI, the GBI, and the authorities in Palm Beach, they were not done with him. They were working quietly on Lita's case, but they knew they couldn't rush it. They also knew that there was more in that house than just luxury furniture and they were right. They had a search of his premises and they found guns. He was a convicted felon. He wasn't legally allowed to have weapons at all, let alone the kind that they found. There was a

sought-off shotgun. But that wasn't all that they found. They found his day planner. Now James had always been obsessed about keeping records. He wrote everything out, calls, appointments, lunch meetings, tennis matches. So agents hope the planner might give them something, some kind of clue, some kind of timestamp trilled to what he was doing around the time of lead his death. And, The entries were weird. There were tons of references to Suki from November 1986 through January of 1987. He was logging lunches with her events, plans, all carefully noted. But Lita? Nothing.

Not her murder, not her funeral, not even one scribble about her. In January 16th, the day that Lita was killed, he wrote that he played tennis at 11 a.m. Then had an appointment at Smith Barney at one. Then went to the Society of the Four Arts at three and had dinner with Suki that night. It said Suki with me tonight until 6. Saturday. It was like he was logging a weekend brunch. But the one detail that made investigators stop was January 14th, two days before the murder. There was a single note. It said, get flowers. They already believed that there was a failed attempt on Lita's life on the morning of the 13th,

that someone had come to her door, but she didn't answer. So now they were wondering, was that note get flowers actually code? A signal to try again, but this time bring something sweet, something disarming a gift. Because Lita wasn't the type to just open the door to a stranger early in the morning, but for a box of red roses on her doorstep, that looks thoughtful, innocent, safe. Maybe it's a last-minute gesture from one of her friends or family members to hang in there at your divorce proceedings that everything would go okay and it was going to be all right. But he did end up going to jail and of course they revoked his house arrest deal. They ordered him to finish the last nine and a half months of his sentence in Palm Beach,

But still not for Lita's murder. And he served less than a year. And when he got out, he was right back to living his old lifestyle. Investigators just kept going in circles with his case. And Lita's family said, okay, if he's not going to face criminal charges right now, we'll come at him civilly. So in 1991, they filed a wrongful death lawsuit. And in 1994, they actually won. The court awarded them $4 million in damages. Finally, a win. A real win. But it didn't last. because in 1995, James' legal team managed to get it thrown out because of a statute of limitations technicality. It's just, ugh, it makes me so frustrated. He walked away owing them nothing. He was just selling off everything. He was selling his mansion. He was quietly moving into a little apartment

in Boyan Beach, which wasn't exactly luxury. But he was at least still in Florida, still coasting along. And then he just started liquidating everything. He was moving a lot of money around. He was downsizing and he was doing it very strategically. Even his kids from his first marriage started speaking up about him. They said that he always mishandled their trust fund, money that he had been in charge of for years. But let's finally fast forward to 1998. That's 11 years after Alita was murdered. 11. The case was cold. But then out of nowhere and I mean absolutely nowhere. This woman, Belinda Tron, casually drops the story that no one would have seen coming. Here's what happened. Belinda's working as a receptionist at a tax attorney's office in Texas, she's living a normal life, going about

her day to day, probably thinking about lunch and during one of those breaks, she's just telling her boss something she thought was kind of funny or interesting about her ex-boyfriend, that he once told her he was involved in a murder for hire. Excuse me, like, why would you be telling your boss that? And her boss, Ed, kind of stared at her like, what did you just say? She's just talking about it, like it's a weird memory from a bad date, not like it's a literal, hit job as if a person died. She tells him that the man said he helped kill a black woman in Atlanta and had something to do with money and some rich guy who didn't want to be married anymore. But now here's where it gets even crazier. That same week, Ed's wife Cheryl had been watching

the TV show Extra. You know, it's a true crime segment back in the 90s. And there was an episode she watched and it was about Lita McClinton's case. What are the odds? So Cheryl hears her husband retelling what Bolinda said to him, and she's like, wait a minute, hold on, that's Lita. That's the case I just watched. The details matched exactly. Black woman, Atlanta murdered at her front door, received flowers, got shot, no one was arrested, no closure. It was eerie.

Belinda had no idea that her ex-boyfriend's weird confession from years earlier was connected to a real case, let alone this case. I guess she thought he was kidding. So now everyone's on alert. Belinda agrees to sit down with investigators. and what she tells him is straight out of a movie. But of course, art imitates life, so what do you expect? She said years ago, she was dating this guy named Philip Anthony Harwood,

a truck driver from North Carolina, rough around the edges, not exactly a stable guy, and he liked to act bigger than he actually was. He was always flexing, always hinting that he had these deep dark secrets, and then one day he came home acting weird, just distant and off. And she finally asked him, what is going on? And that's when he told her. He just got back from Florida where he'd been helping a man who wanted his wife dead. Belinda didn't believe him at first.

She thought he was just being dramatic, like he was trying to sound dangerous. But he was actually shady. He told her there had already been one failed attempt, that someone had went to this woman's house but didn't get inside. And this is where it gets very dark. Unintentionally dark because Belinda said, oh, maybe you should bring flowers next time. women always open the door for flowers.

She said it as a joke. But when her boyfriend left and then a few days later came back and told her the job was done, no details, no name, just it was done. It didn't stop there. He told her to get in the car, no explanation, just drive. She just brought a blanket, climbed into the back seat, fell asleep,

probably thinking they were just going on a long-call job. He was a trucker. But when she woke up, they were parked outside a diner, some random place, not fans, see at all. This man walked in, and I swear this sounds like it's scripted out of like a true crime show, but this guy had on a linen suit, boat shoes, folded newspaper under his arm, he looked like Palm Beach money, smooth, nothing out of place. He sat down, didn't say much, just looked at her boyfriend and said, what is she doing here? Belinda remembered that sentence exactly,

and her boyfriend played it cool. He said she's fine, she's with me. The man didn't argue. He just slid the folded newspaper across the table and left, and inside that paper was an envelope full of money. Belinda didn't open it, but she saw enough to know what this was. It was a payment. It wasn't a gift. It wasn't a loan. It was a payout. She didn't need to see a contract or hear a confession. She knew what she just watched. And now, more than a decade later, she's telling all of this to investigators, the flowers, the payment, the drive. The name James had never come out of her ex's mouth, but the pieces were all there. And law enforcement was listening. But who was this guy? Who was this Philip Harwood?

while they pull up his background check and on the surface, he looks like an average guy. Small town North Carolina, a truck driver, no paper trail. But now with Belinda talking, they start checking everything. In their first big break, they tracked down the moving company used to work for North American van lines. An agent drives out to this dusty warehouse where they kept archived records and literal boxes like shoeboxes, paper files. And right there in one of those boxes, they've got to. find an old moving contract that Harwood had been assigned to. It was a job for James Sullivan. There you go. It was dated a couple months before Lita had been murdered and Philip had moved

furniture for James. So this wasn't just a name in Belinda's story anymore. James was connected to Philip and they go deeper. Remember that mysterious pay phone call? The one placed by the rest stop near Atlanta 45 minutes after Lita was shot. The one minute call straight to James's Palm Beach home? We knew it had to do with something like, it's done. And now that they had Philip's identity, they compared the phone records and guess what? It was him. He made that call. It was a quick update, a confirmation.

The FBI later said, they used a two-word code, Merry Christmas. Like Philip was giving him a gift. That's chilling. And when they finally found Philip, this part might surprise you, but he didn't fight it. When they showed up to arrest him, he didn't run, he didn't deny it. He just looked up and said, I've him. waiting for you guys for a long time. Of course he was. He knew they would catch up to him someday. So now Philip Harwood is in custody. And the agents sit down with him and he starts talking.

And it's not vague. He's giving dates. He's giving names. It's like he's rehearsed it in his head for years. He says he met James Sullivan while he was doing a moving job for him in Palm Beach. And James approached him about a problem that he needed taking care of in Georgia. The problem was Lita. Philip said that James didn't want to go through with the divorce. He didn't want to pay alimony. He didn't want to give up the townhouse, his asses, that's nothing. He figured the only way out was to take her out. He offered him $25,000 to get it done, and Philip agreed. But he wasn't a shooter. He was only the getaway driver, he said. He said he did buy the roses. He planned the route and he picked up the man who had pulled a trigger, but he claimed he didn't kill Lita himself. The way he told it,

there were three people involved, just like the investigators initially thought. He said he and the shooter had made the first attempt on January 13th, but Lita never opened the door. That's when they made the call back to James, asking for more money to try again. James refused. So three days later, they came back this time with flowers. Philip said he parked the car down the street. The shooter walked up to Lita's door with the box. Philip never saw her, but he heard the shots. And when the guy came running back, he had blood on his face. That's when Philip drove to the payphone and made that call saying, Merry Christmas to James. But even now in his confession, Philip refused to name the shooter.

He only knew him by the name John. He described him as a bartender from the Carolinas, claimed he didn't know his last name, couldn't remember him at all, but it was enough. Now authorities had what they needed, a timeline, a motive, and a money trail, a confession, and the one person that Philip said said it all in motion was James Sullivan. And now it's his turn to be arrested, right? Well, you would think so. But when they signed the arrest warrant, James was already gone. No one could find him. Not his lawyer, not his family, and not the police, and not even the media. They wondered, did he already leave the country? Turns out, yes, he had. And not just recently. He had a plan this whole time. He slipped out of Florida, he crossed the border, and he started living his life overseas. He bounced around from Ireland to Costa Rica to Panama. And then finally, he had to landed in Thailand. The thing that helped him was his Irish passport. He had already traced his lineage back to Ireland and legally claimed dual citizenship. They tried following a paper trail.

They started tracking his phone records, his financials, his real estate documents, everything, but nothing. He had gone dark. No calls to his family, no bank activity, just radio silence. So the FBI did something big. They put up a $500,000 reward. One of the largest for a single victim murder case at the time and guess what? They got lucky. The FBI puts out this half million dollar reward and people started paying attention again. The case gets featured on America's Most Wanted and they even used this age progression sketch of James Sullivan since no one had seen him in years. His only photo at that point was outdated. He didn't look like that anymore. But the second that episode aired, a viewer in Thailand called in the tip line. They said, hey, I think that guy lives

in my condo building. Even though it was vague and they didn't think it was real, they went there and guess what? James Sullivan had been living there for a while. Low key, not in a mansion this time. He actually married a local woman and he was just blending in trying to keep his head down. But people remembered him because, you know why? He was mean. He got mad at people for just little things. He would just lose it over the lights being too bright or someone parking too close to him. And honestly, that's what got him caught. Once that tip came in, Thai authorities started watching him carefully and quietly, and then one night they moved in, and four undercover officers dressed like tourists with board shorts and flip-flops waited. For him and his wife to return, and the second they got inside their house, they arrested him. He was 61 years old.

No surprise. He had gout. He was grumpy and he was absolutely not going to go quietly. But it was finally over. After years of avoiding responsibility, hiding behind passports and private chefs and fake names, James Sullivan was finally in custody. And now all that was left was bringing him home and, of course, justice. Wow. I mean, the story is just insane. He really thought he was going to get away with this. Of course he did.

And finally on July 26th of 2004, nearly two decades of slipping through the cracks, James Sullivan finally landed back in Atlanta. And in 2006, the case finally went to trial. Nearly 20 years after Alita McClinton was murdered. It was way too long. And the trial was intense. Witnesses flew in, journalists packed. the entire courtroom, and Lita's family showed up every single day.

Of course, James' attorney tried to discredit every angle they could think of, but the prosecution came in ready. They had the confessions, the phone records, the Merry Christmas call from the pay phone, the day you planter entries, the missing entry on Lita's murder day, the cherry on top was Suki's testimony. She took the stand and repeated exactly what she said before, that James told her he hired someone to kill Lita, and then he wanted to run. And when Philip Hartwood testified, he pointed directly at James and said, that's the man who paid me. The jury didn't need long. James Sullivan was found guilty of arranging the murder of Lita McClinton. He didn't even react. And before his sentencing, he had nothing to say. Just like that,

the man who spent his life trying to climb control and cover his tracks was sentenced to life in prison without parole. And for Lita's family, it wasn't about revenge. It was about finally seeing accountability. But wait, you might be thinking, this is not resolved. What about the shooter? What about the man who actually pulled the trigger. He was never officially identified. Philip Harwood claimed he wasn't the one that killed Lita. He was just the getaway driver, remember? The other man's name was John. No last name, just a nickname, a bartender from North Carolina, someone he met through this woman named Tracy. That was it. There were no fingerprints. There was no evidence. And there was never an arrest. And here's what's crazy. Robert Christensen, the neighbor actually IDed Philip Harwood as the

and he saw on the porch that morning, the one holding the flowers when Lido was shot. The one who walked away seconds later after the shots were fired, but Philip stuck to his story. He never changed it. So to this day, the identity of the actual shooter remains unsolved, or is it? I guess that's what makes this case so hunting, because even with a mastermind in prison, even with a confession, even with justice finally served, I guess, there's still a piece of the story missing. Joan McClinton later went on to say that she didn't believe in forgiveness, not for someone like James. She couldn't forget what he had taken from her family,

what he had done to her daughter, and honestly, who could ever blame her? Valencia, Alita's sister said, she smiled when the sentence was read. Not because it made things better, but because it meant he wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else again. He was finally going to spend the rest of his life with people who, as she put it, were more like him.

James Sullivan is now in his 80s. He's still serving out a sentence in Georgia. He's still alive, but he's still locked up. And for once in his life, he's not able to spin a story his way. And Lita, she didn't get the life that she really deserved. She did get justice against this man who promised her a good life, but he ruined her life and stole it away.

But you know what really hits me hard about this case? It's how little things have changed. Lita was murdered in 1987, and here we are decades later, and women are still being targeted by the people who claim to love them, who claim to protect them. Behind closed doors, they're being isolated, controlled, and in some cases even killed. And it's not always obvious on the outside.

Lita's life looked perfect. She lived in a mansion. She wore diamonds. She had a nice car, the social circle. But behind all that was fear gaslighting of financial control and betrayal. And for years, no one saw it. Or if they did, they didn't know how deep it went. And it's still happening.

And I can't help but think about Valeria Marquez. I told you about her in the beginning. The beautiful woman who built a following online, hundreds of thousands adored her. adored her. She was murdered on a live stream, shot while waiting for what she thought was a gift, a delivery, a surprise. And the delivery was real. The danger was real. She was being watched. In her case, still unsolved. We're still opening our doors for things that feel harmless, sweet and romantic and thoughtful. And sometimes it's that exact thing that gets us hurt.

Sometimes people are still performing that perfect life for social media, still curating the aesthetic feed, smiling in photos with people who might actually. be manipulating when the cameras are turned off. Lita might not have had Instagram, she didn't have TikTok or YouTube, but her life, her story? It's still painfully familiar, isn't it? So here's the warning. Just because someone looks like they have it all, I know you know, that doesn't mean they're safe. Just because someone's charming, wealthy, respected, or put together doesn't mean they're

incapable of violence. Look deeper, pay attention to the patterns, things that don't make sense. Because the warning signs are usually there just like they were for Lita. She was strong, she was brilliant, she was raised in a family that taught her grace and resilience, and she deserved so much more than the way her life ended. So please don't forget her. Let her story be remembered and let this be a reminder that we can't always control how evil shows up in our lives, but we can refuse to let it in.

So thanks so much for being here for Lita Story. I will see you in my next one. Bye.