Millionaire Manhunt

Wanted For Murder, A Man Evades Authorities For Nearly Two Decades

(CBS)  To Lang’s delight, Harwood couldn’t shut up. "And he immediately started telling us about it. He mentioned Sullivan's name first. I didn't mention his name. I said 'We ‘wanna talk to you about an incident in 1987 involving the murder of somebody.' And he said 'You're talking about that Sullivan guy.'"

"I said, 'Well, you know, I know somebody who can probably take care of that for you,'" Harwood told police in a videotaped interview. "And he said, 'Well, about how much would it cost?' and I told him '$25,000.'"

Lieck, Belinda Trahan's boss, assumed that with Harwood providing the missing link, police now would arrest Sullivan for his wife’s murder.

"I turned around the I told the gentlemen from the GBI or the Atlanta Police Department, 'Go get him,'" Lieck recalls. "And they said 'Well, now we’ve gotta deal with his defense attorneys they’re gonna bring him in.' I said ‘Son. This wouldn’t happen in southeast Texas.'"

The Atlanta District Attorney didn’t know where Sullivan was, but issued a warrant for his arrest. After issuing the warrant, D.A. Paul Howard privately told Sullivan’s attorneys he’d be going for the death penalty.

But with unlimited resources, Lieck says, a guy is going to run.

In fact, Sullivan had been sunning himself for some time in a lovely Costa Rican seaside community, 1,600 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, OK," Lang says.

But Sullivan’s disappearance didn’t affect the case against Harwood, the alleged hit man. He eventually cut a deal, pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter, but always insisting that he was not the actual shooter.

Who was? Over the years, Harwood has blamed the Mafia, a stripper named Tracey and some guy nick-named "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 would eventually face trial for murder for hire.

Sullivan, meanwhile, was moving — said to have been seen in exotic locales including Guatemala, Venezuela, Ireland, and even Malaysia — and finally in an idyllic beach resort, 100 miles south of Bangkok, Thailand.

Bob Cahill, then the FBI’s legal attaché in Bangkok, says tips from local viewers of the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” led right to Sullivan’s hideout.

With both his name and that of his new, fourth wife, Nana, right on the door, local authorities put him under surveillance. In July 2002, four years after Harwood’s arrest they moved in.