Every year on Sept. 21, Kailyn Kaiser calls the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office to ask about her grandmother’s unsolved murder at the Circle K convenience store where she worked on that rainy night in 2009.
Fifteen years ago this week, Maryanne Humphrey was shot and killed by a masked gunman demanding money at the store in Douglasville. The suspect fled the scene without any money, and law enforcement still have not identified him.
Even after the homicide investigation went cold, Kaiser never stopped calling.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
“I’ll be OK, and then her birthday will be here, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas, and then that scab gets reopened,” Kaiser said. “Calling every year and (talking to the media), it puts it back out there. It gets people calling again, and hopefully one day I’ll have my answers, and hopefully this person will get the justice they deserve.”
The GBI, which is renewing calls for information to help solve the case, released sketches of what the suspect might have looked like in 2009 based on surveillance footage and what he might look like today.
“We have all waited far too long to be able to bring closure and peace to Maryanne and her loved ones,” Cynthia Adkins, the GBI’s investigations division director, said in a news conference Tuesday.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
When asked why the sketch from 2009 was not released sooner, GBI spokesperson Nelly Miles said she could not answer that, but current investigators “wanted to make sure that it was released since it wasn’t originally released.”
The 62-year-old woman had worked at other convenience stores in the past, Kaiser said, and had experienced robberies twice before. But this time, she was shot twice after a struggle at the store on West Stewart Mill Road, investigators said. The suspect ran away, wearing unique black-and-white Reebok sneakers that the company re-created for investigators.
“I don’t believe they were sold anywhere in Douglasville or Douglas County,” Capt. Jon Mauney with the sheriff’s office said Tuesday. “It’s not a shoe that I would say everybody had at the time. So it is a unique piece.”
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
The GBI received a request from Humphrey’s family in 2023 under the Coleman-Baker Act, a state law Gov. Brian Kemp approved last year that allows families to ask that law enforcement review and reinvestigate homicides that have gone cold.
A $25,000 reward will be given to anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case, Adkins said.
“Please call if you have any information. You could be the person who is finally responsible for solving this case and bringing justice to Maryanne, her family and the community,” she said.
