The Gate

Summary

Park Predators: Episode Summary – The Gate

Release Date: July 8, 2025
Host: Delia D’Ambra

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Introduction

In the episode titled "The Gate," Delia D’Ambra delves into the chilling unsolved case of Anita Redmond, a Stone Mountain Park employee who was tragically killed during an alleged armed robbery. This episode explores the intricate details of the crime, the subsequent investigation, and the lingering questions that have left the case unresolved for nearly two decades.

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Stone Mountain Park: A Dual Nature

Delia sets the scene by describing Stone Mountain Park in Georgia—a sprawling 3,200-acre recreation area near Atlanta. Known for its picturesque trails, historic structures, and granite quarry, the park also served as a venue for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. This juxtaposition of serene natural beauty and high-intensity athletic competition underscores the park's multifaceted character.

"It's the juxtaposition of those two scenes... One year the area is this crowded Olympic sports venue, and just a few decades later it's been transformed into a nature sanctuary teeming with wildlife."
[03:20] Delia D’Ambra

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The Tragic Night: Anita Redmond’s Murder

On July 16, 2005, shortly after midnight, Anita Redmond, a 63-year-old part-time communications operator at Stone Mountain Park, was tragically shot while working alone at the park's west entrance gate. Delia recounts how Anita, a retired police officer from Doraville, Georgia, sent a distress call using the emergency code 44444, signaling an armed robbery in progress.

"Anita's distress call immediately triggered a response from a Stone Mountain park police officer who happened to be on duty about 45 seconds away."
[03:50] Delia D’Ambra

Upon arrival, the responding officer found Anita with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Despite immediate medical attention, Anita succumbed to her injuries, leaving behind a community in shock and mourning.

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Initial Investigation and Involvement of GBI

Due to the gravity and rarity of such a violent crime in the park, Stone Mountain Park Police Chief Chuck Kelly enlisted the expertise of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) early in the investigation. The GBI initiated a comprehensive approach, including canvassing a one-mile radius around the west gate and interviewing local residents and businesses.

One significant early lead involved a woman who had interacted with Anita shortly before the shooting. According to an article by Joshua Sharp for the Gwinnett Daily Post, Anita had let a woman in a truck through the gate to retrieve a pair of shoes. This interaction became a crucial, yet unreleased, piece of information in the public domain.

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Composite Sketches and the Mark Wolf Arrest

On July 18, 2005, the GBI released two composite sketches of potential suspects. These sketches depicted two men wearing baseball caps, differing only in hat orientation and color. Shortly after, a 36-year-old man named Mark Wolf from Ellenwood, Georgia, was arrested for criminal solicitation to commit armed robbery. Mark was implicated based on a tip suggesting he had attempted to recruit assistance for robbing the park's attendant booths around the time of Anita's murder.

"Authorities learned from a witness that Mark had been at a family reunion in Stone Mountain Park on July 4, 2005, and had discussed robbing an attendant booth."
[10:15] Delia D’Ambra

Mark's background included previous misdemeanors and a 2003 conviction for child cruelty, but investigators viewed his earlier offenses as not directly related to the severity of the current case. Despite his claims of innocence and providing an alibi, Mark was held without bail and eventually released when the district attorney's office dismissed the charges in early 2006. The DA's office later destroyed all records related to Mark's case, leaving many questions unanswered.

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Mark Wolf’s Perspective and Aftermath

In a rare interview, Mark Wolf vehemently denied any involvement in Anita's murder, asserting that the accusations were false and baseless. He recounted his cooperative efforts with the GBI, including presenting alibi witnesses and evidence of his whereabouts during the time of the crime.

"I would never have been caught up in such a crime. I provided alibi witnesses and phone records that placed me at home during the timeframe of Anita's murder."
[27:45] Mark Wolf

Mark also shared the personal toll the wrongful accusation took on his life, including damaging his reputation and personal relationships. Despite his innocence, no further charges were brought against him, and he never received a formal apology from authorities.

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Ongoing Investigation and Family Advocacy

Anita’s family has tirelessly advocated for justice, employing various strategies to keep the case in the public eye. In 2010, the GBI’s crime lab retrieved touch DNA from evidence believed to be connected to the killer, although details remain undisclosed. By 2011, Anita’s daughters established a Facebook memorial page, continuously updating it with new developments and maintaining public awareness.

In 2013, Anita’s family engaged with news outlets to discuss advancements in DNA technology, hoping to revive the investigation. Despite these efforts, progress remained stagnant, and the case continued to baffle investigators.

"My mom was my best friend. We were all very close."
[25:30] Melinda, Anita’s Daughter

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Current Status and Unanswered Questions

As of the episode's release in 2025, Anita Redmond’s case remains unsolved. Advances in forensic technology have not yet yielded a definitive suspect, and the initial primary suspect, Mark Wolf, has been definitively cleared without explanation. The GBI maintains a public case page, albeit with reduced visibility, and occasional increases in reward offers have failed to bring new leads.

Delia highlights the emotional and psychological impact on Anita’s family, who yearn for closure and justice. The recent unrelated shooting at Stone Mountain Park in 2023 has reignited some public interest, but the original case remains in limbo.

"You never know what can make someone talk. Could be time. It could be that was their best friend or their significant other..."
[35:50] GBI Spokesperson

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Conclusion and Call to Action

Delia concludes the episode with a heartfelt plea for anyone with information related to Anita Redmond’s murder to come forward. She emphasizes the enduring pain experienced by Anita’s family and the community's desire to finally close this dark chapter.

"Give Anita's family the peace and closure they've waited so long for."
[36:50] Delia D’Ambra

Listeners are encouraged to contact the Stone Mountain Park Police Department or the Georgia Bureau of Investigation if they possess any pertinent information.

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Notable Quotes

• "Nature always finds a way to balance back out. And I feel the same way about justice..."
  — Delia D’Ambra [04:10]

• "Anita to us was family. She’s the sister of a law enforcement officer and a retired policewoman ourselves."
  — Chuck Kelly, Stone Mountain Park Police Chief [30:15]

• "I would never have been caught up in such a crime. I provided alibi witnesses and phone records that placed me at home during the timeframe of Anita's murder."
  — Mark Wolf [27:45]

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Final Thoughts

The Gate serves as a poignant exploration of a tragic unsolved crime, highlighting the complexities of park safety, the challenges of law enforcement investigations, and the enduring quest for justice by a grieving family. Delia D’Ambra masterfully weaves together factual reporting with emotional narrative, urging the public to remain vigilant and compassionate in the pursuit of truth.

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For more information and to possibly contribute to solving this case, please visit parkpredators.com or follow Park Predators on Instagram @arcpredators.

Transcript

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Behind every homicide case is a process, an investigation, and people seeking answers. And it takes more than reading the headlines to get to the true heart of these stories. I'm Anna Sega Nicolasi, a former New York City homicide prosecutor. And I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. Each week on our podcast Anatomy of Murder, we dissect real homicide cases from the perspective of those who have lived them, investigators, prosecutors and the people impacted most. We dive into not just what happened, but why it happened, focusing on the facts, process the decisions that shaped each case and the pursuit of justice, giving you a deeper understanding of how each case unfolds. Listen to Anatomy of Murder, available wherever you get your podcasts. My uncontrollable movements called TD tardive dyskinesia felt embarrassing.

[Scott Weinberger]

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[Scott Weinberger]

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[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

I'm your host, Delia D', Ambra, and the case I'm going to share with you today takes place in Stone Mountain park in Georgia. This recreation space is located about 40 minutes northeast of Atlanta and is roughly 3200 acres. In addition to having plenty of trails and picnic areas, there are also a lot of other unique things to check out, including an old mill, several historic structures, and a granite quarry that to date has reportedly produced more than 7.6 million cubic feet of granite from the depths of Stone mountain. During the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, which were held in Atlanta, archery and cycling athletes who were competing for top spots in their sports used a meadow in the park to facilitate their games. Today, that same plot of ground where arrows once flew fast and bikes bound over the earth is the songbird habitat and trail for the park. It's kind of wild to think about the juxtaposition of those two scenes. One year the area is this crowded Olympic sports venue, and just a few decades later it's been transformed into a nature sanctuary teeming with wildlife. I suppose that's how it should work though. Humans use a park like Stone Mountain for a specific purpose, then clear out and after some time Mother Nature does her thing. Nature always finds a way to balance back out. And I feel the same way about justice, especially when it comes to the case I'm going to tell you about in this episode. It's been 20 years since someone committed an unspeakable act against an employee of Stone Mountain park, and I for one believe it's high time the scales of justice are balanced. This is Park Predators. Shortly after Midnight On Saturday, July 16, 2005, a communications operator with Stone Mountain park overheard an alarming cry for help from a park employee who they were on the phone with. This worker was stationed inside a customer service booth at the park's west entrance gate. The panicked employee was 63 year old Anita Redmond, who was working the visitor window alone, and she managed to yell into her phone 44444, which was an emergency code that the dispatcher knew meant armed robbery. Shortly after hearing Anita shout that numeric code, the dispatcher heard what sounded like a gunshot. Anita's distress call immediately triggered a response from A Stone Mountain park police officer who happened to be on duty about 45 seconds away, so literally just down the street from the attendant booth that Anita was working in. When that officer arrived and found Anita, they immediately realized she'd been shot in the abdomen and was in need of serious medical attention. As far as the responding officer could tell, no one else was around, which indicated whoever had attacked Anita was on the run somewhere in the park or was already headed far away from the scene. The available source material on this case states that tragically, Anita succumbed rather quickly to her gunshot wound and either died at the scene or shortly after being transported to an area hospital, which made law enforcement's investigation from the jump a robbery and homicide investigation. Initially, the Stone Mountain Park Police Department, which was headed up by then Chief Chuck Kelly, was the lead agency over the case. But pretty early on, Kelly called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to help him and his officers process the crime scene, collect evidence, and conduct interviews. From what I gathered reading the early news coverage about this part of the story, basically what happened to Anita was just not the kind of crime park police were used to handling. So they needed resources and expertise from the GBI to probe into such a violent crime. And with state agents on board from day one A.D. investigators got to work trying to piece together what had occurred and learn as much as they possibly could about the crime, as well as who might have been in the area when it happened. One of the first things they did was start canvassing a 1 mile radius around the park's west gate and speaking with residents and business owners inside that boundary. One lead they managed to track down pretty quickly came from the dispatcher who'd been on the phone with Anita when she was killed. According to an article by Joshua Sharp for the Gwinnett Daily Post, Anita had been right in the middle of explaining to the dispatcher that a woman in a truck had pulled up to the west entrance gate to reportedly collect a pair of shoes she'd said she left inside the park earlier that week or sometime before then. Apparently, Anita had let this woman drive through the gate, and that vehicle was nearly out of sight when Anita then noticed a man emerge from the darkness close to her attendant booth. And it was in a matter of seconds that she'd managed to get her distress call to the dispatcher, who was still on the line when the shooting occurred. Now, at the time of the initial investigation, this information about a woman having talked to Anita and gone through the gate to get shoes wasn't something authorities released to the public. That was info that only investigators knew about. And to this day, the GBI hasn't released anything about who that woman was, if she was interviewed or like whether she's a suspect or not. But put a pin in that for now because I'll circle back around to who is or who isn't important. As far as potential persons of interest go. In just a little bit, I want to focus on what was known about the crime scene. In 2005. Stone Mountain park didn't have a reputation for being a particularly dangerous place. I mean, there were the typical incidents like car break ins and petty stuff, but. But murder was kind of unheard of. The park's then police chief Chuck Kelly told reporter Joshua Sharp that during his many decades with the department, he'd only ever known of two other murders happening. And both of those were swiftly solved. So Anita's case by most accounts was somewhat of an anomaly. Unfortunately, security cameras that were installed at the west entry gate weren't working at the time of her murder. But it wasn't just the lack of surveillance video that stuck out to investigators as problematic. It was the apparent randomness of the crime. It made the suspect pull rather large and difficult to narrow down. It also didn't help matters that by that point authorities had determined Anita had been shot once with a.25 caliber firearm. But no weapon had been recovered at the scene or in the park. So not a whole lot to go on there either. A random shooting and robbery happening in such a popular place was equally as unsettling and unfathomable to the folks who worked with Anita. A spokeswoman for Stone Mountain told the Associated Press, quote, we've never had anything like this happen in the history of the park. She was very much liked by her co workers and will be greatly missed, end quote. In response to media inquiries about the incident, a spokesman for the GBI released a statement that gave reporters some insight into what authorities main theory was, which no surprise was that robbery was the suspected motive for the shooting. However, 11Alive News later reported that no money had been stolen from the booth Anita was working in, which made the crime essentially a botched robbery. What's wild to me though, and likely something that crossed investigators minds back in 2005, is that the fee to enter the park if you didn't have a designated parking sticker for your vehicle was only $8 per car. So I mean, unless the park had a massive influx of visitors that Saturday, it's unlikely Anita's killer or killers would have even gotten away with a significant amount of money, even if they had taken the proceeds in her booth. Still, following the crime, the park beefed up security measures at the attendant booths by installing more security cameras, bulletproof glass and better lighting. Authorities learned that Anita had only been working as a part time gate attendant since April 2005, about three months before the crime. And by all accounts, it seemed like she enjoyed working the admissions window because it was a job that allowed her to interact with people on a daily basis, put a little money away for herself to supplement her pension, and it wasn't the kind of job that infringed on her ability to spend time with her three adult daughters, Melinda, Mona, and Donna, as well as her many grandchildren and nieces and nephews. Before taking her position with the park, Anita had worked for 25 years as a police officer in the nearby town of Doraville, Georgia, which is a 25 minute drive or so from Stone Mountain Park. In fact, she'd retired as a sergeant with that agency in 1999, just six years before she was killed. It was her prior career in law enforcement that homicide investigators surmise was probably the reason why she'd known to use the emergency code 444444 when she yelled into her phone before getting shot. You see, that sequence of numbers was a radio shorthand she would have learned during her time on the Dorrville police force. While authorities continued to piece together the crime, Stone Mountain park and the private company that handled its operations offered up a $20,000 reward, hoping that dangling such a large sum of cash out there would entice someone with pertinent information to come forward. Those funds were quickly increased to $25,000, thanks to a pledge from Georgia's then governor, Sonny Perdue. And it seemed, at least for the time being, that law enforcement was getting somewhere in their investigation. Investigation because around 300 tips had come in from people who claimed to either know something important or weren't sure if something they'd seen could help. And the reason I say it like that is because it would appear that one of those reports resulted in useful information. Because on Monday, July 18, two days into the investigation, the GBI released two composite sketches of men that agents said they wanted to question in relation to the crime. I've included images of these two sketches in the blog post for this episode, so take a look. Unfortunately, they're only in black and white, but they're both kind of distinct in my opinion. Both of the guys are wearing baseball caps, but one has the bill of his hat facing forward while the other has his sort of cock to the side. The one whose cap is facing forward appears to be donning a darker colored cap versus the guy who has his to the side which appears to be made of lighter colored material. On Tuesday, July 19, the day after these sketches came out, Anita's family and friends held a memorial service for her at a Christian church in Lilburn, Georgia. Law enforcement officers attended the service to honor Anita's achievements as a police officer. Even though she was living in Lilburn when she was killed, many of her former co workers and friends in Doraville mourned her death because of the many years she'd spent serving that community. You see, back in the day, Anita had been the very first female police officer to work for that city's police force. So I imagine because she'd served there for so many years and really become part of those folks lives, her loss was felt very deeply by residents there. In lieu of a burial, Anita's family chose to donate her organs and cremate her remains. On the same day that was all happening, investigators assigned to the case were busy following up on the two men from the composite sketches. Now, who these men are, how exactly authorities learned about them, who provided the information to help create their sketches, are not questions I can answer for sure. But what I can tell you is that within literally two days of these sketches going public, investigators received a tip from someone in the community that led them to search a man's home and make an arrest. Summer's here. Whether you're road tripping, beach lounging or pool floating, your wireless bills shouldn't be what slows you down. And for a limited time, Mint mobile is offering three months of unlimited premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month on the nation's largest 5G network. Say bye bye to your overpriced wireless plan's jaw dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages, Mint Mobile is here to rescue you. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of unlimited service from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month this year. Skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. 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Then I saw a swim trunk and rash guard set and that's when I knew I was sold. So what are you waiting for? Give your summer closet an upgrade with quince. Go to quints.com parkpredators for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com parkpredators to get free shipping on your order and 365 Day Returns. Quince.com Park Predators according to coverage by the Associated Press, On Thursday night, July 21, less than a week after Anita was killed, the GBI arrested a 36 year old man from nearby Ellenwood, Georgia, named Mark Wolf in relation to the crime. But officials didn't charge him with murder. Instead, they only charged him with one count of criminal solicitation to commit armed robbery, a significantly lesser offense. According to court records, investigators had learned from a witness who'd come forward that about two weeks before the crime, Mark had been at a family reunion in Stone Mountain park on the 4th of July, and while there, had reportedly asked a guy at that gathering to assist him in robbing one of the park's attendant booths. According to the arrest warrant, Mark was heard allegedly remarking that the Westgate entrance would be an easy target to rob. Now, the man Mark reportedly approached with this plan basically just told him no thanks, not interested. And that was seemingly that. However, all this information about Mark allegedly trying to recruit a person to help him rob the attendant booth on the west side of the park felt a whole lot more important to investigators now that they knew a robbery had in fact occurred there and a woman had been killed as a result. Authorities probed pretty far into Mark's background in order to learn more about him, and they discovered that in the late 80s and 90s and early 2000s, he'd been arrested and charged with a handful of crimes in the state of Georgia, some of which included things like probation violation, child cruelty, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and simple battery. However, up until the child cruelty case in 2003, none of his prior offenses were considered felonies, just misdemeanors. And like I said, that was all done and over with in 2003. So two years before Anita's murder, and to me, it's not like Mark's prior offenses were similar to what happened to her. It's strange, in my opinion, that he was suspected of going from essentially a sort of lower level offender to then being arrested for soliciting someone to help him conduct a robbery. I imagine, though, that all of Mark's prior criminal history didn't do him any favors as far as how investigators working Anita's case viewed him. At his first appearance in DeKalb County Magistrate Court the day after his arrest, he told reporters as he walked into court that he hadn't taken part in an armed robbery and he hadn't killed anyone. Despite maintaining his innocence, the judge overseeing his arraignment ordered that he be held without bail. But then at some point, the records indicate that he did eventually end up receiving a bond and getting out. Further charges were expected to come down from the district attorney's office, but that never ended up happening. After July 2005, there are no court filings or records that explain in detail what happened next in Mark's case. No press coverage, nada. And when I went searching for the court records related to his criminal solicitation to commit armed robbery case, I was informed by the DeKalb County Magistrate Court that they have no files for it like whatsoever. However, after a lengthy back and forth with that office, a deputy clerk did eventually find his arrest warrant for that charge, and they sent me a copy, but that was it. The clerk's office had nothing else related to the case, so they said simultaneously, I confirmed with the district attorney's office that they also had no paperwork related to Mark's charge in relation to Anita's case. And that's because a few months after the summer of 2005, that office formally dismissed his criminal solicitation to commit armed robbery charge. And sometime over the last 20 years, staff at the DA's office destroyed their file for it. So essentially, within a matter of months of authorities arresting and charging Mark, he was free to go. And prosecutors never moved forward with a criminal case against him for allegedly planning a robbery at Stone Mountain Park's west gate that resulted in Anita's death. I got a hold of Mark a couple of months ago, and he agreed to speak with me for this episode. He said I was the first journalist ever in 20 years to ask him his side of the story. He characterized his involvement in this case as a 100% false accusation by law enforcement and the district attorney's office. He confirmed to me that he was at a family reunion in Stone Mountain park on July 4, 2005, but he never asked anyone to help him commit a robbery. He said at the time he worked as a security guard at an apartment complex and ran his own small cleaning business. He was not hurting for money and was providing for his new girlfriend and other people in his life. He said he would never have been caught up in such a crime. He told me that when the GBI first asked him to come in for an interview, he willingly met them and offered to be as much help as he could. Shortly after that, though, the tone law enforcement took with him turned very aggressive, and he realized they dialed in on him as their prime suspect. He said he provided alibi witnesses and phone records that placed him at his home during the timeframe of Anita's murder. But the GBI kept drilling him. He said he even showed them the stub for the paycheck he'd cashed the Friday evening before the murder as proof that he didn't need money. Money. But investigators wouldn't relent. For many hours between July 20 and July 21, 2005, state agents detained him and searched his place. When they didn't turn up anything there that linked him to the crime, they took him to an apartment he'd once lived in. But nothing was there either. Somehow, though, officials still had enough probable cause to arrest him for criminal solicitation to commit armed robbery. And that's when Mark said he knew his situation was turning dire. It wasn't until about six months later that he learned from his public defender on the day he was supposed to be having a court appearance in the case that the DA's office was dismissing the charge and he was going to be let out of the DeKalb County Jail. Shortly after his release, Mark said that his lawyer told him law enforcement had tracked down the firearm that had been used in the murder and traced it to a group of men, all of whom had since been detained by authorities. And not one of those guys claimed to know Mark. After he went home, he filed a civil lawsuit against DeKalb county and several news outlets that publicized his arrest. That case, he said, eventually settled out of court. He told me that it was extremely Difficult trying to build his life back after being accused of the crime. And he wishes that he knew who'd first given his name to law enforcement. He's often wondered if it was someone who had beef with him at the time or had worked for him at some point who just wanted to see him get in trouble. He told me that he believes his prior criminal history and arrests for unrelated offenses was one reason the GBI zeroed in on him so quickly. Today, Mark is 56 years old, and according to him, at no point since 2005 has the district Attorney's office or the GBI ever reached back out to him regarding this case. He also never had his DNA taken and he's never received a formal apology. I feel like this is obvious, but it's also worth emphasizing he's never been charged with Anita Redmond's murder or formally been declared a suspect in her death. I personally think it would be nice to know more about what led officials to drop the criminal solicitation to commit armed robbery charge against him. Like Mark mentioned to me, did the GBI eventually develop another person of interest? Was the firearm involved in the murder actually found like he said his attorney told him it was? Did forensic evidence lead to some other avenue of investigation that definitively pointed away from Mark? These are all questions I want answered, but no one seems to have the answers. And like, if the system did get it wrong all those years ago with regards to Mark's arrest, then I highly doubt the entities in charge of this case now would admit that. And something else that authorities have never cleared up is if Mark is one of the two men from the composite sketches. Currently, there's a page on the GBI's website that's dedicated to Anita's case. And only one of the men from the sketches that the GBI originally put out in 2005 is still displayed. It's of the guy who's wearing a dark baseball cap with the bill facing forward. The sketch of the man who had his hat cocked to the side isn't public facing anymore, so I have no idea what's going on there. And because the GBI and Stone Mountain Park Police both declined to do an interview with me about this case, I don't know if I'll ever be able to get to the bottom of exactly why only One of the two composite sketches is still displayed on the GBI's website, unfortunately, it seems like things kind of went quiet in Anita's case after the charge against Mark was was dropped in January 2006. Stone Mountain park officials increased the reward for information in the case to $55,000. During a press conference to make that announcement, one of Anita's daughters pleaded for members of the public to come forward if they could help bring resolution to the case and give her family some closure. What Anita's loved ones seemingly didn't know, though, was that the GBI had already started testing the physical evidence that had been collected in the case. And though it would take some time for the results to be determined, agents would eventually learn some very important information. 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TaskRabbit book trusted help for home tasks According to coverage by Fox 5 In 2010, five years after Anita's murder, techs at the GBI's crime lab were able to retrieve touch DNA from evidence her killer was believed to have handled. But what that evidence was exactly or where it was found, authorities didn't say in 2010. They also didn't release whether the DNA they'd found was a match to anyone. In July 2011, right before the six year anniversary of the crime, Anita's loved ones created a Facebook page titled Rest in Peace Anita Redmond Murdered at Stone Mountain Park. The posts on that page include photos of Anita with her daughters and grandchildren, her working as a police officer back in the day, and links to news stories that Georgia newspapers and television stations have done on the case. Two posts from April 2013 state that a new GBI agent had been assigned to the case around that time, and according to what the family wrote, this agent was supposed to be good at solving cold cases. Anita's daughters spoke with WSB News at the time to try and raise awareness about the case and wrote in their post after that segment that they'd met with the GBI to learn about new types of DNA technology testing that could be used on old evidence in the case. I assume this chat they had with the GBI for that segment was a follow up conversation to maybe go over the previous DNA results that agents had gotten in 2010, but I'm not sure. The point is, though, Anita's daughters continued to put a lot of effort into meeting with authorities and speaking with Georgia based news stations to advocate for their mother and try and move the needle in the case. But despite them doing so many public appearances, the case continued to languish on the nine year anniversary in July 2014, Joshua Sharp wrote a lengthy article for the Gwinnett Daily Post, which I've referred to a few times throughout the day episode. Sharpe's piece explained how the crime still really seemed to confound investigators like Stone Mountain Park Police Chief Chuck Kelly, who'd worked on the case from the very beginning. Anita's daughters also shared their frustrations and sadness about how the case was still unsolved. They used the publication's article to describe how much of a toll the ordeal had taken on their family. When Anita was killed, they'd lost a moment grandmother, writer, painter, sewing instructor, all the things Melinda, Anita's eldest daughter, told the newspaper, quote, my mom was my best friend. I talked to her at least five, six times a day. We were all very close. We were the girls, end quote. The Associated Press and Gwinnett Daily Post reported that Anita's brother, a guy named Nick Byrd, happened to work for the Stone Mountain park police when the murder occurred, which I can only imagine how hard it must have been for him to resist getting involved. Because, I mean, if it were my sister who'd been killed in this way, and I worked for the department that had literally been first on the scene, I know it would kill me to not want to know everything that was being looked into over the years. I wish I could have reached out to Nick for this episode to get his perspective. But according to an obituary Anita's loved ones posted on the memorial Facebook page for her, he passed away in 2019. In 2014, though, when he was still alive, he told reporter Joshua Sharp that he was still holding out hope his sister would receive the justice she deserved. Stone Mountain's police chief, Chuck Kelly, stated for that same piece, quote, before I retire, I really want this case solved. To me, it's personal because, you know, Anita to us was family. She's the sister of the law enforcement officer. She's a retired law enforcement officer. And it's just very tragic. He later continued, in part, they deserve closure on this. There are people out there that know who did this and what happened to them. There's somebody that knows what happened out here, end quote. He told reporter Rhonda Cook that as of 2014, his department had followed every lead that had come in and nothing new had surfaced. At one point, he said there had been more than 20 GBI agents assigned, assigned to the case and working on it for some three weeks. A couple leads had even been looked into twice, but still nothing pointed authorities in a solid direction. At that time, another one of Anita's daughters speculated that maybe the perpetrator or perpetrators had spoken about their culpability in the years since the crime. You know, perhaps in front of a child or friend or something. And she was hopeful that person would possibly be willing to share that information. Information now that so much time had passed. But as far as I can tell, that didn't happen. To mark the nine year anniversary as they'd done every year up until then, Anita's family members left roses at the attendant booth where she'd been killed and next to a memorial garden which had been planted nearby in her honor. In 2018, 11Alive News reported that the GBI had identified an unknown DNA profile from a shard of plastic found at the crime scene. But the agency didn't have a suspect to compare that profile to. In the last few years, there hasn't been much news coverage about Anita's case, and the last post I saw on the Facebook page that her family made for her was from 2020. Earlier this year, there was a shooting at Stone Mountain park which involved a man firing multiple rounds at hikers on the mountain and then taking his own life. But even though that case is unrelated to Anita's, the sheer fact that there was such a visible police presence for that incident and the park made news headlines once again might be something that gets people thinking about Anita's case again. Which is important because back in 2014, a GBI spokeswoman told the Gwinnett Daily Post, quote, you never know what can make someone talk. Could be time. It could be that was their best friend or their significant other and all of a sudden there was a change in their relationship. It could be somebody discovers something or they overhear something. You never know what can bring that piece of information in that can solve a cold case. End quote. And I 100% believe that statement is true. My whole goal in featuring Anita's case in this episode is to hopefully bear down on someone's conscience. If that's you and your life has changed in the last two decades, maybe you're finally ready to give authorities what they need to solve this crime. Don't ignore that feeling. If you have information about the murder of Anita Redmond, which occurred on July 16, 2005, please contact the Stone Mountain Park Police Department at 770-498-5675 or the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-597 Tips give Anita's family the peace and closure they've waited so long for. Park Predators is an audio Chuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website parkpredators.com and you can also follow park predators on Instagram arcpredators. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve? Summer heat got you melting? Time to feel joyfully chill with my mochi ice cream. My mochi is little scoops of cool creamy ice cream wrapped in soft chewy dough. It comes in tons of amazing flavors like strawberry, mango and cookies and and cream. Gluten free and just 70 calories a piece. Mymoji's the perfect snack for pool days, sunsets and just soaking up the backyard vibes when the heat's on, grab a purple box of Mymoji ice cream and treat yourself to a moment of joy.

[Scott Weinberger]

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