Sylvia June Atherton ID’d as “Trunk Lady” murder victim

Sylvia June Atherton and the trunk where her body was discovered more than 50 years ago (St. Petersburg Police Dept.)

After over half a century, investigators in St. Petersburg, Florida, say they have learned the identity of the city’s oldest and most notorious cold case victim. Sylvia June Atherton, a 41-year-old mother of five from Arizona, was the woman whose body was discovered in a wooden trunk 53 years ago on Halloween, authorities announced.

According to a press release from the St. Petersburg Police Department, two officers found a black steamer trunk in the woods behind a restaurant on Oct. 31, 1969, in the 4200 block of 34th Street South.

Inside, officers found a woman wrapped in a large plastic bag. She had visible head injuries, was strangled with a man’s Western-style bolo tie, and was partially clothed in a pajama top. The unnamed victim was buried as “Jane Doe” in Memorial Park Cemetery.

The case quickly gained notoriety, with the victim being dubbed the “Trunk Lady,” and was featured in various television shows, articles, and cold case conferences.

Forty years after discovering the “Trunk Lady,” a doctor with the University of Southern Florida’s Department of Anthropology assisted authorities in exhuming her remains. Efforts to identify the victim using teeth and bone samples over the years proved challenging due to their degraded state. However, earlier this year marked a breakthrough when a St. Petersburg police cold case detective discovered original samples of the victim’s hair and skin, which had been taken during the victim’s initial autopsy.

The samples were sent to Othram Labs in Texas for further analysis. Using the original samples, the lab created a DNA profile of the victim, identifying her as Atherton. Her identity was further confirmed using DNA profiles from several of Atherton’s surviving children.

Investigators found Atherton’s daughter, Syllen Gates, who currently lives in California, to piece together the circumstances surrounding her mysterious death. At the time of her mother’s disappearance, Gates was 9.

According to Gates, Atherton left Tucson and traveled to Chicago with her husband, Stuart Brown, their 5-year-old daughter Kimberly Anne Brown, adult son Gary Sullivan, 19-year-old daughter Donna, and Donna’s husband, David Lindhurst.

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Gates and her 11-year-old brother did not make the journey and were left in Tucson with their father from Sylvia’s previous marriage.

Gary Sullivan eventually returned to Tucson to live with Gates and his younger brother.

Stuart Brown died while in Las Vegas in 1999. Police say there was no mention of a wife in his court records, and he never reported her missing.

While the identification of Sylvia Atherton marks a significant milestone, there remain unanswered questions in the case. Investigators are still yet to identify a suspect in Atherton’s murder and have been unable to locate the two daughters who traveled with her to Chicago and may have information vital to the case, police say.

Gates, who appeared at a Tuesday news conference with police, said that besides her mother, she never heard from either of her sisters, who left for Chicago.

“This is where amateur sleuths will come in,” St. Petersburg Assistant Police Chief Michael Kovacsev said during the news conference. “This is where we’re asking for assistance to kind of put the pieces together and the gaps together. We do know that this trunk was their property. We do know that she was remarried. We do know that her husband at the time passed away in 1999 and never listed her as missing. We do know that he never listed her on any bankruptcy records, so you can see there are some inferences there where we have to go and fill in the gaps.”

Authorities are urging anyone with information regarding their whereabouts or any other details relevant to the case to contact Detective Wallace Pavelski at 727-893-4823.

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