Tests fail to show foul play in Sullivan uncle's death

<p>Lab tests on tissue samples from the body of the uncle of a wealthy businessman charged with killing his wife do not indicate the man was poisoned, authorities said.</p><p>The tests were performed on Frank G. Bienert, who died in January 1975. The Macon liquor dealer's business was inherited by his nephew, James Vincent Sullivan.</p><p>Sullivan, 64, is awaiting trial for murder in the 1987 slaying of his estranged wife, Lita McClinton Sullivan, who was shot at the door of her townhouse in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood by someone posing as a flower delivery man.</p><p>Test results on Bienert, who died at the age of 65, showed no indication of foul play, Bibb County District Attorney Howard Simms said Thursday.</p><p>At the request of Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, Simms ordered the body exhumed from a Boston-area cemetery in March to determine if Bienert had been poisoned.</p><p>"All the test results were negative, and that ends the inquiry as far as this district attorney's office is involved," Simms said.</p><p>Howard said Simms had "looked at all the circumstances, and he thought it was reasonable to exhume the body to determine if he could find the existence of a foreign substance. As occurs in many exhumations, the state crime lab could not identify any."</p><p>Don Samuel, Sullivan's attorney, said he was not surprised by the results. "Jim Sullivan had nothing to do with the unfortunate death of his uncle," Samuel said.</p><p>Oral arguments are scheduled July 18 before the Georgia Supreme Court on a defense motion that Sullivan's prosecution for murder amounts to double jeopardy.</p><p>In 1992, prosecution of Sullivan on charges that he violated interstate commerce by arranging a murder by hire through long-distance phone calls was dismissed in mid-trial by U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Shoob, who ruled that prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence to send the case to a jury.</p><p>Sullivan moved to Macon from his native Boston in 1973 to manage Bienert's Crown Beverages. Sullivan later sold the business to a Florida liquor distributor for $5 million.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x1cdc3a0)</p>