Former neighbor says millionaire sought his wife before slaying

<p>Millionaire James Sullivan was anxiously looking for his estranged wife and asking about suspicious activity outside her home three days before she was killed by a gunman posing as a flower delivery man, a former neighbor of the victim testified Tuesday.</p><p>Robert Christenson told jurors at Sullivan's murder trial that he thought the calls from Sullivan were strange because he hadn't talked to him in a while and he knew that Sullivan and his wife Lita were separated and going through a bitter divorce.</p><p>Lita Sullivan was shot to death on the doorstep of her town house in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood on Jan. 16, 1987. Her husband is charged with hiring a hit man to kill her so he wouldn't lose money and his Florida mansion in the couple's divorce. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.</p><p>Christenson testified that after Lita Sullivan was murdered, he immediately thought there might be a connection to the Jan. 13 conversation he had with the defendant.</p><p>"I was suspicious that Jim had been involved in killing her," said Christenson, a lawyer.</p><p>Prosecutor Sheila Ross said in her opening statement Monday that Sullivan was looking for his wife on the day he called Christenson because his hit man told him the victim wasn't home during his first attempt to kill her.</p><p>Defense lawyers have argued that there is no physical evidence tying Sullivan to the murder and have insisted that prosecutors have nothing but circumstances and innuendo.</p><p>Sullivan, 64, a Boston native, was once one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives before he was captured in Thailand in 2002.</p><p>He is accused of paying triggerman Phillip Harwood $25,000 to kill his wife. The 35-year-old socialite was shot to death by a man carrying a dozen long-stemmed pink roses.</p><p>A hearing to discuss property distribution in the divorce was scheduled for the same day Lita Sullivan was killed.</p><p>Sullivan fled around the time of his 1998 indictment on state murder charges.</p><p>Related charges against Sullivan were thrown out at a federal trial in 1992, but the Georgia Supreme Court has ruled that double jeopardy does not prevent Sullivan from being tried again in state court.</p><p>Harwood, of Albemarle, N.C., and a second man who claims he was also asked to commit the murder are both expected to testify during the trial, which started with jury selection on Jan. 5.</p><p>Harwood is currently serving a 20-year sentence for manslaughter after pleading guilty to killing Lita Sullivan. However, in letters written to the court over the last two years year, he has denied being involved in the killing.</p><p>Sullivan lived in luxury as he eluded authorities on an intercontinental run _ from Palm Beach to Costa Rica to Panama to Venezuela, and then to Thailand, where he married a local woman and bought a condominium in a posh beachside neighborhood. He was extradited to the United States in 2004.</p><p>Christenson, the neighbor, also testified Tuesday about finding Lita Sullivan on her back in the foyer of her home after she had been shot. He said he saw the flower delivery man _ white, 6 feet tall, wearing a green jacket and khaki pants and greasy dirty blonde hair _ walk up to the house just a minute before the shooting.</p><p>He said he heard two shots in rapid succession.</p><p>"As soon as I heard them I knew what happened," Christenson said. "I think it was obvious. I had just locked eyes with this guy a minute before."</p><p>Christenson said he couldn't positively identify Harwood from a lineup he viewed after Harwood's arrest as the man he saw deliver the flowers at the time the victim was shot.</p>

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