FORT VALLEY, Ga. — It was an emotional day in court for Anitra Gunn’s family. The prosecution presented gruesome photos of her body found in the woods and detailed testimonies of her autopsy report.
Gunn went missing on Valentine’s Day in 2020 and was found dead four days later. Her boyfriend Demarcus Little is on trial for her murder.
Gunn’s relatives left the courtroom several times Thursday as details of her death became too much to handle.
Lt. Brian Stewart with the Peach County Sheriff’s Office found the body. He described finding a path into the woods off Greer Road, just minutes from the home of Little’s aunt.
“Off to my right in a wooded area… I noticed what looked like a previous road or a path back up in the woods and it looked as if a car had possibly been in there recently, so I backed up and drove up in there,” said Stewart.
He then walked about 200 yards into the woods and found a car part. He looked up the part number and saw it was part of a Chevy Cruze. Then, he saw signs of a car hitting a tree. He looked to his right and found a body – he knew it had to be Anitra’s.
“Prosecutor: What was going through your mind at this point?
I think the biggest thought I had was it was a relief to be able to bring some closure to the family. I obviously had to contact the rest of the team and have them en route to the area,” said Stewart.
Prosecutors then showed a photo of Gunn’s body in the woods, and it was an emotional moment for both the family and jurors. The judge warned the family in advance and said they should leave if they felt they needed to.
Some family members wiped away tears, while another left and had an emotional outburst outside of the courtroom.
Dr. Andrew Koopmeiners, a GBI medical examiner, discussed Gunn’s autopsy.
“I noticed there was a contusion or a bruise on the forehead and I noticed there was something called a subconjunctival hemorrhage, which is bleeding into the white parts of the eyes,” he said.
Koopmeiners says she was dark purple and there were bruises to her face and body that could mean she was dragged. Her cause of death was ruled to be manual strangulation.
"Sometimes if someone is being strangled, they will attempt to remove the hands from around their neck. So, in some cases you can get fingernails or imprints of the deceased individual's own fingernails in their neck. I can't say for sure that's what these are, but they do have that appearance,” he said.
He also spoke about injuries to her mouth and upper lip area, and how it could mean someone hit her or put a hand over her mouth.
Hailie Patterson with the GBI also says she noticed a pair of shoes in Demarcus Little’s car during the investigation.
“Upon further examination, once I photographed the leaf debris coming out of the shoes and the socks, I noticed there was some hairs attached. I believe they were on the left shoe,” she said.
As part of evidence, jurors were able to go outside and physically see the 2013 white Chevy Cruze that belong to Anitra Gunn, which also had debris from the woods.
The trial could run into the weekend. Little is charged with felony and malice murder, and he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.