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Body of missing college student found in Georgia, her boyfriend arrested

Anitra Lashay Gunn was a senior studying agriculture at Fort Valley State University. She was found in a wooded area in Crawford County.

Police found the body of a missing college student in Georgia and the young woman's boyfriend has been arrested on other charges, authorities said Wednesday.

Anitra Lashay Gunn, a senior studying agriculture at Fort Valley State University, was found Tuesday afternoon in a wooded area off Greer Road in Crawford County near the border of Peach County, according to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation statement.

Anitra Gunn
Anitra Gunn.Fort Valley Department of Public Safety

Gunn was first reported missing on Friday and an autopsy has been scheduled for Thursday.

"The body was partially covered," appearing that someone had tried to hide it, Peach County Sheriff Terry Deese told reporters at the scene on Tuesday.

Her boyfriend, 23-year-old Demarcus Little, has been arrested on unrelated offenses, state authorities said. He's been charged with criminal damage to property, stemming from a Feb. 5 incident at Gunn's residence.

"In this incident the windows were smashed at her apartment and tires were slashed on her vehicle," according to a statement by university police. "More charges may be forthcoming."

Sheriff Deese stopped just short of calling Little a suspect but labeled him a "person of interest."

"I think it's pretty common sense who our person of interest is," Deese said. "It's the boyfriend, we've talked to him three times."

Gunn's father said he last spoke to his daughter on Thursday, as he wished her a happy Valentine's Day.

"She has a big, big family so she's always contacting somebody," dad Christopher Gunn told Atlanta NBC affiliate WXIA. "She has some close friends too. I called some of her close friends to have some of them do the same thing, and she never texted them back, didn't call them back. That's when we just knew something, something was definitely out of whack."