Gwendolyn Ann Gwen Turnbough, a 40-year-old Black woman and mother, was murdered on June 5, 1985, in the Stone Mountain, Georgia suburbs. She had divorced her ex-husband, Joel Grimmette, after a history of domestic abuse and was trying to rebuild her life with her children. In the days before her death the harassment and threats from Grimmette intensified; at the district attorney’s suggestion she began recording their telephone calls to document the threats.

A warrant for Grimmette’s arrest was issued the night before her killing, and police were posted outside her apartment, but the officer left his post in the early morning hours. In that window Grimmette confronted Turnbough in the apartment complex parking lot on Memorial Drive and shot her twice at close range. Her daughter, then a 19-year-old college freshman, later made her mother’s story a central theme of her memoir.

Does anyone have personal recollections from Stone Mountain in 1985 or information about the events leading up to that morning?