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

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victoriarobinson642 said:
Since I have a large chunk of time this winter vacation, I've taken it upon myself to try and update Pinellas Jane Doe's reconstruction, as this one of the cases that I'm most sad to see hasn't gotten a more recent one yet.
FCvZZyv.jpg
Click to expand...
Beautiful recon, TYSM!
 
Ralph Golden, "Body Discovered In Trunk," Tampa Tribune, 1 November 1969, 1B.
Body Discovered In Trunk_.jpg
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]
Body Of Woman Found In Trunk_.jpgBody Of Woman Found In Trunk,_ pt. 2.jpg
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.
Murdered Woman's Identity Still A Mystery To Police_.jpg
"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.
Still Unidentified_ Murder Victim Buried_.jpg
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.
Police Report No New Leads In Trunk Murder_.jpg
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.
Lab Data In 2 Murders Awaited_.jpg
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]
They refer to her as an 'unidentified white female,'_ pt. 1.jpg
They refer to her as an 'unidentified white female'_.jpg
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."
 
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...
Summary of important information from the above articles:

- The body was found under a tree near a restaurant parking lot, 10 feet away from a dirt car trail (Tampa Tribune, 1 Nov 1969)
- She was likely killed between dinnertime and midnight on October 28, as the food in her stomach was only partially digested (Tampa Bay Times, 3 Dec 1969)
- She had mild gallbladder disease and had suffered a severe case of pleurisy at one point (Tampa Tribune, 7 Nov 1969)
- Her blood type was A-Rh positive, which is shared with 1.9 percent of the population (Tampa Bay Times, 6 Nov 1969)
- Her killer had likely put her body in the steamer trunk within four to six hours after death (Tampa Bay Times, 3 Dec 1969)
- Her body had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.38 per cent -- up to half of that could be the result of putrefaction, but she is still believed to have been intoxicated at the time she was killed (Tampa Bay Times, 3 Dec 1969)
- Her body was wrapped in plastic bags, which were filled with a "vast quantity" of blood. There was also a bloody towel placed over her head. (Tampa Tribune, 1 Nov 1969)
- She had not been raped, although she is believed to have had sexual intercourse a few hours before her death (Tampa Bay Times, 3 Dec 1969)
- Police believe she was killed by someone she knew because she did not have defensive wounds, even though it appears she was attacked from the front. She had been beaten in the head and shoulders before being strangled with a "bolo" tie found around her neck. (Tampa Bay Times, 3 Dec 1969)
- The FBI laboratory analyzed the steamer trunk and the plastic bag her body was found in (Tampa Bay Times, 15 Nov 1969)
 
(I couldn't find a thread on her. @othram with another huge solve!)

We don’t have a resolution on who killed her yet. This is where amateur sleuths will come in," stated St. Petersburg Assistant Police Chief Michael Kovacsev. "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."

www.fox13news.com

St. Pete ‘trunk lady’ murder victim identified after 53 years, search continues for her 2 daughters

After 53 years, Syllen Gates finally knows what happened to her mother who disappeared in 1965 from Tucson, Arizona when she was just nine years old.
www.fox13news.com www.fox13news.com

After 53 years, Syllen Gates finally knows what happened to her mother who disappeared in 1965 from Tucson, Arizona when she was just five years old.

According to the St. Petersburg Police Department, two juveniles called police after they saw two white men put a trunk in a field behind what was the Oyster Bar, located at 4300 34th Street South, on Halloween day 1969.

Inside the trunk, officers found the body of a woman wrapped in a large plastic bag. Detectives say she had visible injuries to her head and was strangled with a Western-style bolo tie and was partially clothed in a pajama top.
 
After her body was found, Atherton was buried as a Jane Doe at Memorial Park Cemetery, 5750 49th St. N. Her body was exhumed in 2010 by Dr. Erin Kimmerle and the anthropology department at the University of South Florida. Investigators tried to use samples of her teeth and bones to identify her, but they were too degraded.

Investigators are still trying to determine who killed Atherton. Her husband, who died in 1999, never reported her missing.

One of Atherton’s children, Syllen Gates, attended a police news conference via Zoom on Tuesday. Gates’ mother and stepfather left her with her father in Tucson in 1969. Gates never heard from either of them again, and she still hasn’t been able to track down two sisters who left with them.

Before their family was contacted about the cold case update, Gates had never heard of the “trunk lady.”

“It was so shocking,” she said. “We had no idea, none whatsoever.”
www.tampabay.com

St. Petersburg police identify ‘trunk lady’ in 1969 murder case

Detectives also say they have identified a suspect in the 1997 murder of an 18-year-old man.
www.tampabay.com www.tampabay.com
 
Puzzleworth said:
Identified as Sylvia June Atherton, 41, of St. Petersburg, formerly of Tucson, AZ. She was a mother-of-five and had recently moved to Florida with her second husband. Her murderer is unknown; however, her husband never reported her missing.

Rest easy, Ms. Atherton.
Click to expand...
Wonderful news. Rest in peace, Sylvia.

Screen Shot 2023-05-30 at 3.19.05 PM.pngScreen Shot 2023-05-30 at 3.19.27 PM.png
 
megs1477 said:
(I couldn't find a thread on her. @othram with another huge solve!)

We don’t have a resolution on who killed her yet. This is where amateur sleuths will come in," stated St. Petersburg Assistant Police Chief Michael Kovacsev. "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."

www.fox13news.com

St. Pete ‘trunk lady’ murder victim identified after 53 years, search continues for her 2 daughters

After 53 years, Syllen Gates finally knows what happened to her mother who disappeared in 1965 from Tucson, Arizona when she was just nine years old.
www.fox13news.com www.fox13news.com

After 53 years, Syllen Gates finally knows what happened to her mother who disappeared in 1965 from Tucson, Arizona when she was just five years old.

According to the St. Petersburg Police Department, two juveniles called police after they saw two white men put a trunk in a field behind what was the Oyster Bar, located at 4300 34th Street South, on Halloween day 1969.

Inside the trunk, officers found the body of a woman wrapped in a large plastic bag. Detectives say she had visible injuries to her head and was strangled with a Western-style bolo tie and was partially clothed in a pajama top.
Click to expand...
Late to the thread today but here is our story: After 53 years, "Trunk Lady" is Identified
 
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