She Left on Valentine’s Day — and Never Came Home: The Murder of Anitra Gunn

The last time anyone saw Anitra LaShay Gunn, she was alive on the night of Valentine’s Day 2020. A senior at Fort Valley State University, known for her voice in church and life in her community, Anitra vanished into a stretch of rural Georgia that would later reveal a brutality people in her orbit still struggle to name. When her body was finally found days later hidden under branches and leaves, investigators called it homicide; the manner of death would later be identified as manual strangulation. The quiet, ordinary rhythms of a young woman’s life — classes, church, friends — collapsed into a criminal investigation, courtroom testimony, and a community left to grieve and demand answers.

Who Anitra Was

Anitra Gunn, 22 (sometimes reported as 23), was a student at Fort Valley State University and a beloved member of the New Canaan Baptist Church in Camp Hill, Alabama. Friends and family described her as gifted and devoted — someone who sang in church, loved her studies, and carried the easy radiance that makes a sudden loss feel impossibly unfair. Her family reported her missing after she didn’t return home following an overnight interaction with her boyfriend; the search that followed opened up a complicated and painful case for everyone who knew her.

The Timeline — What Happened in February 2020

• February 14, 2020 (Valentine’s Day): Anitra was last seen with her boyfriend, DeMarcus Little, near Fort Valley, Georgia. Family members would later report her missing the following day.  
• February 15–18, 2020: Investigators searched the area after Anitra’s family notified authorities. On February 18, a patrolman searching by vehicle and on foot discovered Anitra’s body in a wooded area of Crawford County, hidden under branches and leaves about 150 yards off the roadway. By February 20, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) had completed an autopsy and ruled the death a homicide; toxicology and forensic results continued to be processed.  

That compact sequence of days — disappearance, frantic searching, the finding of a body — is what turned local alarm into a statewide investigation and ultimately into criminal charges.

The Investigation: Clues, Charges, and the Search for a Bumper

From the earliest press releases and public updates, investigators made clear they were treating the case as a homicide and were focused on piecing together where Anitra had last been and who was with her. In contemporaneous reporting, officers noted suspicious property damage and other behavior tied to DeMarcus Little: for instance, court records and police reports referenced an earlier incident in which Little allegedly slashed Gunn’s tires and damaged property at her home on February 5, 2020 — conduct that would later be pointed to as evidence of hostility in the relationship.  

Law enforcement also asked the public for help locating the front bumper of Anitra’s vehicle — a small, specific request that underscored how tiny physical details can matter in a homicide probe. Investigators likewise interviewed acquaintances and friends; as the probe expanded, additional charges and arrests followed as the GBI and local law enforcement dug deeper.

Arrests and Indictments

In February 2020 the GBI obtained an arrest warrant charging DeMarcus Little with malice murder in connection with Gunn’s death. Little, an active-duty Army sergeant at the time, was arrested and held without bond as authorities prepared their case. Another man, Jaivon Abron, was later charged with making false statements and concealing a death after investigators said he had been interviewed repeatedly about the case; prosecutors alleged he had aided in concealing aspects of what had occurred. 

Those criminal filings escalated the matter from a missing-person tragedy to a homicide prosecution in which the community, the family, and the friends of Anitra demanded accountability.

The Trial: Evidence, Testimony, and a Guilty Verdict

The prosecution’s case presented a combination of forensic detail and witness testimony intended to show that Little had caused Anitra’s death. Court testimony during the trial described the search process, the discovery site, and autopsy findings. The GBI medical examiner testified that Anitra’s cause of death was consistent with manual strangulation — evidence that the prosecution leaned on as the central violent act in the case. 

After evidence and testimony were presented, a Peach County jury found DeMarcus Little guilty of murder. In March 2022, following a trial that drew intense attention from local media and community members, Little was sentenced to life in prison — a verdict that brought legal resolution but an incomplete peace to those who loved Anitra.  

What the Records and Reporting Show — and What They Don’t

Public reports offer a number of clear facts: the timeframe of Anitra’s disappearance, the location where her body was discovered, the autopsy result listing manual strangulation, and the conviction and life sentence of DeMarcus Little. But many details — motivations, the precise sequence of events in the hours when Anitra vanished, and unanswered questions about who may have had knowledge of what happened — remain shaded or known only to investigators. The charge against Jaivon Abron for concealing a death and making false statements raised questions about whether multiple people had messy, interfering roles in the aftermath. 

Prosecutors argued their case in court; the jury delivered a verdict. Yet even with a conviction, families and communities still seek fuller explanations about why the violence occurred and whether any institutional failures — missed signs, delayed lines of inquiry, or other breakdowns — improved or worsened the outcome.

The Community’s Response

Anitra’s death prompted memorials, vigils, and a funeral that drew family and friends across state lines. Coverage emphasized both her promise — a young woman finishing her degree and singing in church — and the shock of losing someone so full of life. In public statements, family members asked for privacy and dignity while also pushing for justice. The case reinvigorated local conversations about safety, the vulnerability of college students, and the desperate need for community vigilance when someone goes missing.

Why This Case Resonates — and What It Teaches Us

At its core, the murder of Anitra Gunn reads like a rupture in everyday life: a student on a college campus, a woman at church, a family expecting her return. When that return never happens, the ripples are wide. The case also illustrates broader truths about violent crime investigations in the modern era: how quickly someone’s life can disappear into police reports and court dockets; how forensic details (a bumper, a tear in a tire, the placement of leaves and branches) can become critical evidence; and how a guilty verdict can close the legal book but not the emotional one.

This case also shows how community pressure, persistent investigative work, and careful forensics can bring a case from disappearance to conviction — even when the facts are painful to read and harder to bear.

Continued Questions

• Were there additional witnesses, unpublicized leads, or forensic elements that might shed further light on exactly what happened during those hours?
• Did institutional responses — by campus safety, local police, or others — miss early opportunities for rescue or prevention?
• What did the prosecution rely on most heavily — physical evidence, testimony, or a combination — and are there lessons for how similar cases should be handled in the future?

Those questions matter because they point to prevention as much as punishment: if the path from fear to homicide can be interrupted, then future families might never have to learn what a “scene of a murder” feels like in the first person.

Remembering Anitra

A guilty sentence does not bring Anitra back. It cannot return the years of music in her future, the graduations, the family gatherings, the ordinary days that any young person deserves to live out. It does, though, place a legal marker: someone was held responsible in a court of law for taking her life. For those who loved her, that marker is necessary but never sufficient.

If you are writing about violence, grief, or lost loved ones, do it with care. Anitra’s story is public record now — the investigation and trial are part of the archives — but what keeps her name alive is the human response: vigils, memorials, church services, and the quiet funerals that mark loss in ways statistics never can. The community that knew her keeps telling the story, and that, finally, is how we refuse to let her fade.