Anitra Gunn’s killer was once a spurned boyfriend whose telephone knowledge might sink him, prosecutors say
In a brazen however imminently bungled effort to hide his tracks, prosecutors say the boyfriend now on trial within the 2020 killing of Castle Valley State College scholar Anitra LaShay Gunn went as far as to textual content her buddies from her telephone within the hours after he strangled her, however later confided to a chum that he was once the person who’d slain Gunn.
Now it sounds as if the good friend, at the side of Gunn’s telephone and his personal mobile phone’s knowledge pings, will play main roles within the case towards Demarcus Devantae Little.
Different revealing main points of the alleged crime additionally emerged for the primary time publicly on Tuesday as testimony started right here in Little’s homicide trial.
Little, 25, an Augusta-based Military sergeant who grew up in Castle Valley and who met Gunn, 22, whilst she was once a faculty scholar in his homeland, faces homicide and annoyed attack fees. Benjamin Davis, Little’s lawyer, has maintained his consumer’s innocence.
Gunn’s Valentine’s Day 2020 disappearance attracted statewide information protection because the government and her family members looked for her. 4 days after she vanished, a Peach County sheriff’s investigator, upon noticing some disturbed brush and grass alongside a rustic highway lower than two miles from Little’s house at the north facet of Castle Valley, discovered Gunn’s frame in pine thicket.
Gunn, a faculty senior majoring in agriculture, was once from Atlanta.
Her demise and the investigation into it is without doubt one of the highest-profile homicide instances in contemporary Heart Georgia historical past. However till Tuesday no longer a lot was once well known about what the government believed came about to her.
Then again, prosecutor Neil A. Halvorson, in his opening remark to jurors in Peach Awesome Courtroom, described an at-times “poisonous” dating between Little and Gunn, a dating “stuffed with regulate, threats, manipulation (and) possessiveness” on Little’s phase.
Halvorson mentioned the case towards Little will come with testimony from a detailed good friend of Little’s, Jaivon Abron, who has informed the government that Little admitted to killing Gunn.
Apparently that statements from Abron — who has himself been charged with concealing Gunn’s demise and making false statements to the police — have provided prosecutors with their principle of why Gunn was once killed.
Halvorson on Tuesday morning informed jurors to wait for proof towards Little to turn that within the small hours of Feb. 14, 2020, “Demarcus had poured his middle out to Anitra, and she or he spurned him. She laughed. Demarcus Little then struck Anitra, hit her, and choked her — choked her to demise, strangled her along with his palms.”
Halvorson mentioned that whilst Gunn was once nonetheless lacking, Little took Abron to the pine thicket in neighboring Crawford County the place her frame was once dumped. Halvorson mentioned the buddies went there in order that Little may just retrieve the entrance bumper of Gunn’s 2013 Chevy Cruze. The bumper, Halvorson mentioned, have been banged off when Little drove it into the woods to offload Gunn’s frame.
The white bumper was once discovered miles away, ditched by way of Little in an obvious try to distance it from Gunn’s stays, the prosecutor mentioned.
Extra allegations
Different allegations Halvorson spoke of in court docket on Tuesday incorporated prosecutors’ contentions that:
— At the evening of Gunn’s demise, she and Little have been at a birthday celebration in Castle Valley with mutual buddies, together with Abron. Within the wee hours of Feb. 14, 2020, Gunn and Abron went by myself to a Waffle Space in within sight Byron, leaving there at about 2 a.m. and returning to the home the place Little was once staying along with his aunt at the north facet of Castle Valley. The aunt, Halvorson mentioned, noticed the pair cross right into a bed room, and it was once there prosecutors consider Little killed Gunn.
— Later, Little allegedly positioned Gunn’s frame within the trunk of her automotive. Then, in a while earlier than midday on Valentine’s Day, Little drove a 2019 Toyota Corolla into Castle Valley. He left his mobile phone charging at his aunt’s position.
However with him, prosecutors contend, was once Gunn’s mobile phone. Early that afternoon, Halvorson mentioned, a few Gunn’s buddies started receiving “peculiar, atypical” textual content messages from Gunn’s telephone. A pal of hers mentioned Little denied sending the messages when faced, pronouncing as a substitute that Gunn, by way of then lacking, had long past out the morning of Valentine’s Day for a task interview.
One of the crucial peculiar textual content messages from her telephone had been won by way of a male good friend of Gunn’s. The messages surprisingly requested the place the man lived and what he gave the impression of. Earlier than lengthy, the good friend would later inform the police, a automotive matching the outline of Little’s Corolla — black with a crimson pinstripe — rode previous him.
The good friend was once “so involved” that he made positive to get its tag quantity, which Halvorson mentioned became out to be Little’s automotive, or no less than one Little had get right of entry to to. In a while earlier than midday on Valentine’s Day, messages and calls from Gunn’s telephone ceased. The telephone was once later present in a drainage pipe close to South Camellia Side road, a location that Little has additionally been related to.
— Someday after 1 p.m. on Feb. 14, 2020, Little were given into Gunn’s automotive and left his aunt’s position at 420 Chestnut Hill. Her frame was once within the trunk, Halvorson mentioned, and Little’s telephone, now charged, was once with him. The prosecutor mentioned government would later use mobile phone knowledge to pinpoint the telephone’s location, which for some 45 mins was once within the patch of woods the place Gunn’s frame could be discovered 4 days later. “Little’s telephone will in reality be one of the most major witnesses towards him,” Halvorson mentioned.
— The prosecutor additionally famous that at the day earlier than Gunn’s demise, earlier than the birthday celebration that she and Little attended, Little had referred to as or texted Gunn “no less than 60 instances.” He informed jurors to notice how such communications had been “few after that.”
Testimony within the trial, which might closing into the weekend, was once set to renew Wednesday.
