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(Trends Wide) — After police found a body in a black trunk in a wooded area of Florida 53 years ago, the mystery of the “trunk lady” became a cold case that captured public attention for decades. But thanks to DNA evidence, police have just identified the victim as Sylvia June Atherton, a mother of five born in Tucson, Arizona.
On Halloween 1969, St. Petersburg police received a call to a wooded area behind what was then a restaurant called the Oyster Bar, Deputy Chief Michael Kovacsev said at a news conference Tuesday. According to him, two children reported seeing two white men in a pickup truck unload the trunk in the field and drive away.
When officers opened the trunk, they found the body of a woman wrapped in a large plastic bag, police said in a statement. She had visible head injuries and was partially dressed in pajamas. She was strangled to death with a tie, according to police.
Investigators were unable to identify the woman, who was buried under the generic name “Jane Doe” in St. Petersburg’s Memorial Park Cemetery.
The mystery of the “trunk woman,” as she came to be known, captured the attention of crime shows, journalists, and amateur detectives over the years, but even after her body was exhumed in 2010, detectives were not They were able to solve the case. The tooth and bone samples they collected were too degraded, according to police.
When a sample of the victim’s hair and skin taken during the original autopsy turned up earlier this year, St. Petersburg cold case detective Wally Pavelski sent it to a lab for DNA testing, and police were soon able to identify Atherton. They say that he was 41 years old when he died.
“He has a name, after 53 years. His family closed the case,” Kovacsev said.
A family continues to search for answers
Pavelski tracked down Atherton’s daughter, Syllen Gates.
“It was shocking, because many years had passed,” Gates said at the news conference via video call from California, according to video of the event posted by 10 Tampa Bay. “We had no idea what had happened to him.”
Gates was about 5 years old when his mother left Tucson for Chicago in 1965, he said. Police said Atherton left with her husband, Stuart Brown, and three of her children: Kimberly Anne Brown, adult son Gary Sullivan and adult daughter Donna Lindhurst, along with Lindhurt’s husband, David Lindhurst.
Gates and his 11-year-old brother stayed in Tucson with their father, Atherton’s ex-husband.
“We thought at some point we would hear from them, but life goes on. I was young,” Gates said. “It’s a sad relief to have found her at last. Of course, it’s a terrible way to die, just a few years after she left the state.”
Gary Sullivan eventually returned to Tucson. Gates used ancestry.com to try to find his mother and his sisters, but had no luck. He said that he had not heard of the “trunk woman” case until Pavelski contacted her.
Stuart Brown died in 1999 in Las Vegas. He never listed Atherton as missing and did not include her name in the bankruptcy filings, Kovacsev said.
Although the police managed to identify her, they still do not know who is responsible for her death.
“This is where amateur detectives come in,” Kovacsev said. “This is where we ask for help putting the pieces together.”
Police say the two daughters who left Tucson with Atherton have not yet been located. Kimberly Anne Brown, who was about 5 years old at the time of the disappearance, and Donna Lindhurst, who was in her 20s, may have helpful information, police said.
“We would like to see the case resolved. We would like to find out who did it, and also find my sisters,” Gates said. “That’s my hope. Maybe this will get out, maybe they’ll find out, and maybe we can track them down.”
