Identified! FL - St Petersburg, WhtFem 661UFFL, 25-35, in steamer trunk, Oct'69 - Sylvia June Atherton

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Wow, 53 years! Rest peacefully now Sylvia.

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After 53 years, "Trunk Lady" is Identified

St. Petersburg Police Department Teams with Othram to Identify 1969 "Trunk Lady" Jane Doe
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(RBBM) According to her daughter, Sylvia Atherton, left Tucson, AZ, with her husband, Stuart Brown, five-year-old daughter Kimberly Anne Brown, adult son Gary Sullivan, adult daughter Donna and her husband David Lindhurst, and went to Chicago. Nine-year-old Syllen and her 11-year-old brother were left with their father from a previous marriage, in Tucson. Adult son Gary Sullivan also eventually returned to Tucson to live with them.

2fa3862a-ff29-11ed-98a6-0242ac150003.jpeg


Syllen never spoke to her mother or her stepfather, again. Detective Pavelski was able to learn that Stuart Brown, died in 1999 in Las Vegas, NV, but there was no mention of a wife in his court records. Syllen's brother confirmed that his mother used the black steamer trunk for a "tv stand" at the house in Tucson, AZ.
 
So leaving Tucson Az to go to Chicago:

Sylvia Atherton - dumped in trunk in Florida 1969
Stuart Brown -Sylvia 2nd (?) husband, not father of her kids, dies in 1999 in Las Vegas without record of a wife.
Kimberly Anne Brown, age 5 and Sylvia’s daughter, not located
Gary Sullivan - Sylvia’s adult son, at some point return to father and siblings in Tucson
Donna and David Lindhurst -Sylvia’s adult daughter and husband, Donna not located, David unknown

Left in Tucson with their father, Sylvias first husband:
Syllen and her brother, 9 and 11- children of Sylvia and her first husband
 
Looks like I cannot edit.

They all left Tucson in 195.

Donna Liindhurst gave a ‘cryptic’ message to her grandparents in 1969 that somehow connected to St Petersburg FL.

Kimberly would be 9 in 1969 when her mother was found, and Donna would be 24ish.
 
citizen_sleuth said:
Ralph Golden, "Body Discovered In Trunk," Tampa Tribune, 1 November 1969, 1B.
View attachment 392530
A shiny, new trunk was discovered by a city parks official shortly after 1:30 p.m. in an area about 100 yards off 34th Street South (U.S. Highway 19) and 42nd Avenue.

Dr. John Shinner, state medical examiner, said the body was wrapped in a plastic bag, and a woman's head was wrapped in a bloody towel.

[...]

Shinner said there was a vast quantity of blood within the plastic bag, but some could have come naturally after death.

Don Starr, "Body Of Woman Found In Trunk," Tampa Bay Times [St. Petersburg, FL], 1 November 1969, 1B, 3B.
[part 1] [part 2]
View attachment 392516View attachment 392517
The body of an unidentified woman, clad in a filmy green nightgown, was found stuffed in a trunk yesterday about 3 p.m. within view of a bust St. Petersburg restaurant parking lot at 4200 34th St. S.

The black, steamer-type trunk had been placed under a tree about 50 feet from the southeast corner of the parking lot, and about 10-feet from a well-worn car trail that winds through the heavily-wooded area to the south.

A preliminary medical examination revealed the woman had been dead "from 48 to 56 hours, and had been beaten in the area of the head and possibly strangled."

Detective Lt. Charles Meyers said there were no immediate clues to the woman's identity.

He said the woman was white, in her early twenties, about 5-feet-9 and weighed about 130 pounds.

[...]

An autopsy was to be performed last night by Dr. John Shinner, assistant South Pinellas medical examiner.

He said the woman "was curled up on her side" inside the trunk and a towel had been wrapped around her head. He said other marks or scars were hard to discern because "she was pretty badly decomposed."

[...]

About a dozen detectives searched the area for clues and questioned restaurant employes and patrons.

Apparently no one had noticed the trunk under the tree, detectives said, or had noticed any suspicious activity.

"Murdered Woman's Identity Still A Mystery To Police," Tampa Bay Times [St. Petersburg, FL], 3 November 1969, 9B.
View attachment 392523
"We've checked out over two dozen leads and none of them have panned out so far," said Lt. Charles Meyers, head of the Criminal Investigation Bureau. "All we've done so far is eliminate possible identities."

Don Starr, "Still Unidentified: Murder Victim Buried," Tampa Bay Times [St. Petersburg, FL], 6 November 1969, 4B.
View attachment 392527
The trunk in which the woman's body was found has been sent to the FBI laboratory in Washington for detailed analysis.

Police Lt. Charles Meyers said "we've received about 100 telephone calls" from persons who have friends or relatives missing. He said "many of them" (the calls) have been eliminated by detectives checking them out, and some we're still working on."

[...]

Shinner's report said the woman had neither tonsils nor adenoids and at one time "had a mild gall bladder disease." Scar tissue on the right lung indicated the woman at some time had pleurisy, the report stated.

Her blood type was A-Rh positive, a rare type which Shinner said "puts her in a class with about 1.9 per cent of our population."

[...]

A dental examination showed the woman wore a partial plate containing horseshoe-shaped, plastic, front teeth and two side teeth. She had six other teeth extracted.

[...]

The woman was clad in a thin, green shortie nightgown. A cord, similar to a string-tie, was found loosely wrapped around her throat, but police would not say if it was the murder weapon.

"Police Report No New Leads In Trunk Murder," Tampa Tribune, 7 November 1969, 4.
View attachment 392524
The unknown, white woman, between the ages of 25 and 35, was buried in a simple, unmarked grave here Wednesday as only 12 persons looked on -- police, newsmen, funeral home and cemetery employes.

[...]

A medical report said the woman had a mild gall bladder condition, at one time and suffered a severe case of pleurisy and had delivered at least one child, but not within the last six months. She had A-positive blood.

A dental report showed the woman had a partial upper dental plate made of plastic. It was horseshoe shaped with four front and two side teeth.

"Lab Data In 2 Murders Awaited," Tampa Bay Times [St. Petersburg, FL], 15 November 1969, 14B.
View attachment 392531
A steamer trunk and a large plastic bag were shipped a week ago to the FBI for analysis in connection with the murder of an unidentified young woman.

Jack McClintock, "They refer to her as an 'unidentified white female' or 'white female X,'" Tampa Bay Times [St. Petersburg, FL], 3 December 1969, 1D, 4D.
[part 1] [part 2]
View attachment 392533
View attachment 392536
Her brownish-black hair, about 10 inches long, was natural and untreated, rolled and pinned with hairpins.

[...]

She was wearing a thin, inexpensive, light green shortie nightgown when they found her in the new black steamer trunk with her head and shoulders beaten and a cord wrapped around her neck.

Somebody had strangled her.

And somebody had bent her body and placed it in the trunk.

[...]

The FBI report came back Monday, but police will not disclose its contents. "I don't want to go into that," said Lt. Charles Meyers of the St. Petersburg Police Department. "But it looks like it will be of value to us."

[...]

"Within 10 days we mailed 2,000 circulars out to police departments around the country, giving them the background, circumstances, information on her, the print classification, pictures of the dental chart, and we asked them to check their records.

"This also has been unsuccessful.

[...]

"We've interviewed about 250 people so far, personally, as well as a good number by phone."

Meyers will not say who the people are that the police interviewed.

"There's a certain amount of things that we know about that are to our advantage in the case and we can't release."

Other sources, however, reveal:

For some reason the police "took most all of the hair." It was in curlers as though "she was about to go to bed."

"I don't know why. They were really quite anxious to get the hair," said one source.

The murder weapon was very likely the cord which was found wound around the girl's neck. Shinner, the pathologist, says "The police have asked us not to give any further details of how she was strangled." But sources describe the cord, about which the police will say nothing. It was a maroon "bola" string tie, the sort of neckwear that has two metal pieces at the ends and is fastened with a clasp. The clasp was not found.

Shinner says:

The girl's blood contained a high percentage of alcohol, .348 per cent. "Intoxication is about .1 per cent."

"Some, maybe half of this, may be due to putrefaction. But I'd say she was intoxicated when she died."

[...]

And he says she was hit from the front. "It doesn't look like she fought -- there were no bruises on her arms or hands."

Shinner says he would guess the time of death some 50 hours before her body was found the afternoon of Oct. 31, or between dinnertime and midnight Oct. 28. The food in her stomach was only partially digested.

She had not been raped, he says.

But, he says, evidence suggests she had sexual intercourse within a few hours of her death.

[...]

"This is the first murder I've handled, as far as I know, that was really probably premeditated," says a man who has been involved in the investigation.

"It was a man -- I'd guess it was a man; she was a big girl.

"He put her in the trunk within four to six hours.

"You'd guess someone who knew her killed her. She was hit from in front. It doesn't look like she fought. There were no bruises on her arms or hands.

"And I don't think that trunk would fit in a car; it was too big."
Click to expand...
I’m bringing these old newspaper articles forward.

I was listening to a press conference held by the StPPD and heard some information I don’t recall seeing/hearing before. Although there are quite a few conflicting stories as to how she was discovered and by whom. He says (I’m paraphrasing) two juveniles witnessed two white males in a pickup truck place the trunk where it was eventually found. That’s interesting to me.

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Last edited:
I wonder especially about what happened to her younger daughter she left with. The older one apparently chose to only communicate cryptically ( perhaps out of fear?) with her grandparents and was old enough obviously to just move on with her life if bad things happened and to choose not to communicate with relatives. Not every one communicates with much younger half siblings so it could not even be significant that the older sister just kind of vanished and stopped being in touch. Maybe that's just how she chose to handle it or the was the only way she could. I hope they find out what happened to them, though.
 
MadMcGoo said:
I’m bringing these old newspaper articles forward.

I was listening to a press conference held by the StPPD and heard some information I don’t recall seeing/hearing before. Although there are quite a few conflicting stories as to how she was discovered and by whom. He says (I’m paraphrasing) two juveniles witnessed two white males in a pickup truck place the trunk where it was eventually found. That’s interesting to me.

www.facebook.com

St. Petersburg Police Department

St. Petersburg Police Department, Saint Petersburg, Florida. 65,086 likes · 1,758 talking about this. This page is monitored M-F 8am-5pm. It is not monitored on weekends or holidays. Call 911 or 893-7780
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
Click to expand...
I found that interesting as well –– I wonder if the teens were able to provide any more details about the men and/or the pickup truck (i.e., make, model, color, etc.) which could help identify the men seen dumping the trunk.
 
fascinating, and what is left of that family has my heart . I think Gary must know more maybe without even knowing. Highly possible that Donna may have remarried and could even be passed now. Kimberly had Stuarts last name, was she his child?
 
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