Pod Insights Park Predators The Gate About this episode When a beloved mother and grandmother working part-time as a gate attendant at a popular Atlanta-area park is gunned down during a late-night robbery, authorities are quick to make an arrest… But somehow, 20 years later, her case remains unsolved.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Hi park enthusiasts! 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 3,200 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
0:44 Speaker 00 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
1:28 Speaker 00 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.
2:26 Speaker 00 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 Redman, who was working the visitor window alone, and she managed to yell into her phone, "44, 44, 44", 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
3:10 Speaker 00 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,
3:54 Speaker 00 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 onboard from day one, investigators got to work trying to piece together what had occurred
4:38 Speaker 00 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 one-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,
5:22 Speaker 00 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
6:05 Speaker 00 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 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.
6:47 Speaker 00 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 pool 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.
7:31 Speaker 00 She was very much liked by her coworkers 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, 11 Alive 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.
8:13 Speaker 00 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.
8:35 Speaker 00 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.
9:16 Speaker 00 In fact, she 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 surmised 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 Doraville 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.
9:59 Speaker 00 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 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.
10:38 Speaker 00 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 19th, 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.
11:23 Speaker 00 Even though she was living in Lilburn when she was killed, many of her former coworkers and friends in Dora Ville 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
12:07 Speaker 00 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.
12:31 Speaker 01 My name's Jack Wagner, host of Other World, a podcast featuring real people who experience something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained. I have no idea how I got there.
12:40 Speaker 02 I don't think I've ever seen anything that looked like this. It felt like Electric Stars on Fire.
12:44 Speaker 01 I started Other World to take a grounded approach to the paranormal, help people tell their own stories, and encourage more to come forward. I certainly don't have the answers, but maybe one day we will. Join me as we explore our world's greatest mysteries. Listen to Other World now for free wherever you get your podcasts.
13:06 Speaker 00 According to coverage by the Associated Press, on Thursday night, July 21st, 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,
13:51 Speaker 00 Mark was heard allegedly remarking that the west gate 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.
14:34 Speaker 00 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
15:16 Speaker 00 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.
16:01 Speaker 00 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.
16:45 Speaker 00 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 ahold 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.
17:27 Speaker 00 He confirmed to me that he was at a family reunion in Stone Mountain Park on July 4th, 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.
18:10 Speaker 00 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, but investigators wouldn't relent. For many hours between July 20th and July 21st, 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.
18:51 Speaker 00 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.
19:35 Speaker 00 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.
20:15 Speaker 00 I feel like this is obvious, but it's also worth emphasizing: He's never been charged with Anita Redman'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
21:00 Speaker 00 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 said 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
21:44 Speaker 00 why only one of the two composite sketches is still displayed on the GBI's website.
21:51 Speaker 00 Unfortunately, it seems like things kind of went quiet in Anita's case after the charge against Mark 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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23:45 Speaker 01 My name's Jack Wagner, host of Other World, a podcast featuring real people who experience something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained. I have no idea how I got there.
23:53 Speaker 02 I don't think I've ever seen anything that looks like this. It felt like Electric Stars on Fire.
23:59 Speaker 01 I started Other World to take a grounded approach to the paranormal, help people tell their own stories, and encourage more to come forward. I certainly don't have the answers, but maybe one day we will. Join me as we explore our world's greatest mysteries. Listen to Other World now for free wherever you get your podcasts.
24:21 Speaker 00 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 Redman: 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
25:04 Speaker 00 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.
25:47 Speaker 00 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 this episode. Sharp'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.
26:24 Speaker 00 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 mom, 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,
27:08 Speaker 00 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,
27:51 Speaker 00 "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 to the case and working on it for some three weeks.
28:33 Speaker 00 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 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.
29:15 Speaker 00 In 2018, 11 Alive 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,
29:57 Speaker 00 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 the 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.
30:40 Speaker 00 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 Redman, 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.
31:24 Speaker 00 Park Predators is an AudioChuck 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, @parkpredators. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
31:49 Speaker 04 One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene: a dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids. It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory. Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived. Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp. That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.
32:31 Speaker 00 I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?
32:37 Speaker 04 I'm Eva Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
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