Detectives searching for answers in a 53-year-old murder case have finally identified the victim who was found in a truck.
Cops in St Petersburg, Florida, have identified Sylvia June Atherton, 41, as the woman who was found in a trunk behind The Oyster Bar on 34th Street on October 31, 1969.
Sylvia was a mom-of-five when she disappeared – later being found and buried as Jane Doe before her body was later exhumed in February 2010.
She had head injuries and signs of strangulation when she was found – leading to a mystery that has lasted over half a century.
Atherton left Tucson with her husband and three of her children in 1969 and then was never heard of again, according to her daughter Syllen Gates.
READ MORE: Woman shocked as she could sell her old £12 storage trunk for nearly £6,000
Her identity was unearthed by the cold case division of the local police department when a sample of the woman’s hair and skin and sent it off to a Texas lab in order to see if there were any matches on the system.
The lab created a DNA profile of the victim and then confirmed Atherton’s identity using profiles obtained from her.
St Petersburg PD said in a statement: “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.”
Detective Pavelski also discovered Stuart Brown had died in Las Vegas in 1999 – but his curiosity was piqued when Sylvia did not show up in his court records.
Atherton’s daughters, Kimberly and Donna, also didn’t appear to have returned to Tucson after leaving with the family and police are now appealing for information to locate them.
St Petersburg Assistant Police Chief Michael Kovacsev said: “This is where amateur sleuths will come in.
“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.”
Appearing at the press conference confirming her mother was the woman found in the trunk, Gates said: “We’d like to find out who did this.
“Also, finding my sisters. I mean, the younger one was only four years old. Of course, we’re concerned about what’s happened to them, why haven’t they reached out?”
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