Who is Anitra Gunn’s boyfriend? ‘My son didn’t do it,’ dad says after court.
The jailed boyfriend of Anitra Gunn, the Fort Valley State University student who vanished on Valentine’s Day and whose slain body was found five days later, made his first appearance in court Friday on charges unrelated to her death.
Demarcus Devantae Little, 23, who has been questioned by authorities at least three times in connection with her disappearance, was in Peach County Superior Court to hear accusations that he slashed the tires on Gunn’s car and used a brick to smash windows at her apartment on Feb. 5.
Judge David L. Mincey III, after hearing arguments from prosecutors that Little be held without bond as the investigation into Gunn’s slaying continues, set bond for Little at $10,000 with stipulations that he wear an ankle monitor.
Little’s relatives said they expected to post bond for him sometime Friday afternoon.
Gunn, 23, a senior agriculture major from Atlanta, was reported missing on Feb. 15 after relatives couldn’t get in touch with her.
Law enforcement officers from across the region led a search for the student. The search ended Tuesday afternoon in southern Crawford County, not far from the Peach County line, roughly four and a half miles north of the college campus.
Investigators have yet to say how Gunn died, just that her body had been found lying in a pine thicket under some tree limbs by a Peach sheriff’s investigator. The scene was about 150 yards off Greer Road, about a mile and a half west of where Gunn was last seen on Valentine’s Day.
The investigator who discovered her body, Brian Stewart, had been scouring the miles of farmland surrounding the area north of Fort Valley where Gunn was last seen — at the house where Little lived with his aunt on Chestnut Hill Road.
Stewart, according to Peach County Sheriff Terry Deese, had combed the countryside there east of U.S. 341 looking for brush and roadside vegetation that matched grass and bushes found in the grille of Gunn’s damaged 2013 Chevrolet Cruze.
The car, its front bumper broken, was found near her apartment after she was reported missing.
After Friday’s court proceeding, Little’s father, Andre Little, said his son had been cooperative with investigators in their search for Gunn and in the subsequent probe into her death. The authorities have described Little as a person of interest in the homicide case.
Family members described Little as someone who stayed out of trouble. They said he is serving in the Army and stationed in Augusta. He grew up in Peach and Houston counties and met Gunn a year or so back in Fort Valley.
Andre Little told reporters that his son had paid for the damage to Gunn’s apartment and taken care of the matter with her apartment’s landlord.
“He’s a good son, a sergeant in the United States Army, serving our country proudly,” Andre Little said. “And he didn’t do this. He always loved Anitra. ... I pray that they find the killer. ... But my son didn’t do it.”
Andre Little said his family has evidence that Gunn “communicated with friends” after she left his son’s aunt’s house on Feb. 14.
“She was alive when she left the residence and she had texted friends that she was gonna meet some of them and spend the weekend with them,” Andre Little said.
The father went on to say that his son had turned over his car, his cellphone and a gun to investigators along with items of clothing.
“He didn’t do it,” Andre Little said of his son, referring to Gunn’s slaying. “I mean, they have all of the evidence there. I’m pretty sure that forensic scientists would match his clothes or whatever to the area where the body was found. And by now, if he was guilty, I feel like they already would have brought charges.”
Andre Little went on to say that his son has been sad in the wake of Gunn’s death but that “it’s hard for him to grieve because he’s been accused of this. He can’t even go to the funeral. He loved Anitra. He can’t even go to the funeral ... because of thoughts of him being guilty.”
Demarcus Little’s aunt, Lashanda Mathis, testified during the bond-hearing portion of Friday’s proceeding. She said her nephew, who was a native of neighboring Taylor County, was raised in Warner Robins and Fort Valley and that he wasn’t a flight risk. She said he often traveled home from his military post.
“Demarcus hasn’t been in no trouble, and he’s a good kid,” Mathis said, adding that Demarcus Little’s mother died of colon cancer in 2005. “We raised him.”
District Attorney David Cooke asked Mathis a couple of questions about where she and her nephew lived and then asked, “And you aware that that place where you live is the last place where Miss Gunn was seen alive?”
Mathis nodded yes.
Cooke later addressed the judge, saying that it appeared Demarcus Little “was jealous” over Gunn when Little allegedly smashed her apartment windows and slashed her tires earlier this month.
The DA said investigators probing Gunn’s death worried that if bond were set in the case, Little would “interfere with our ability to interview witnesses.”
“We believe there is a significant risk of flight,” Cooke went on, saying that Little “is aware of evidence that implicates him possibly (in Gunn’s) death. ... He knows that as we gather that evidence there could be a likelihood that he’d be arrested for that crime.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 3:32 PM.