Unsolved Florida: The 1969 Murder of Sylvia June Atherton
Unsolved Florida murder: The lady in the truck
A murder from 1969 is still unsolved but detectives now know who the victim is. FOX 13's Genevieve Curtis revisits the mystery that has been sealed for decades.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A trunk sealed for decades. Inside, a mystery St. Petersburg police couldn’t name—only label.
For more than 50 years, she was known as "The Lady in the Trunk." But, three years ago, detectives finally gave her back her name: Sylvia June Atherton.
But the question of who killed her is still unanswered.
What we know:
On Halloween night in 1969, a man found a black steamer trunk dumped in a field off 34th Street South in St. Petersburg.
Inside was the body of a woman. She was wearing a nightgown. A bolo tie was wrapped around her neck.
She had no purse. No identification. And the trunk itself offered no clues.
What they're saying:
"All they had back then were fingerprints, blood typing and just eyewitness accounts. There’s no video like we had today, no DNA," said St. Petersburg cold case detective Wallace Pavelski.
"It was just a non-descript trunk… nothing personalized to her or anybody," Pavelski said.
Newspaper headlines gave her the nickname "The Trunk Lady."
Investigators hoped someone would come forward. No one ever did.
Dig deeper:
In 2021, Pavelski reopened the case.
He turned to a tool that investigators didn't have in 1969: genetic genealogy.
But the case nearly stalled again as the bones were too degraded.
"We couldn’t get DNA out of them. So right there, we’re like, we are done," Pavelski said.
Then detectives discovered something critical: tissue and hair samples that had been preserved from the original investigation.
Those samples were sent to a private lab, where scientists built a DNA profile and used genealogy to track down possible relatives.
Eventually, detectives found a woman who had been searching for answers for decades.
"She’d been looking all these years," said Pavelski.
That woman was Sylvia’s daughter, Syllen Gates.
"She’s been looking all these years for her mom and no one’s been able to tell her what happened," Pavelski said.
In 2023, police announced they had identified the victim: Sylvia June Atherton, 41 years old.
"I was shocked. I’m still shocked. It’s heartbreaking," Syllen said.
Sylvia’s children say their last memories of her date back to the late 1960s in Tucson, Arizona.
One day, she was simply gone.
"I remember going to the door and nobody answered… everything was gone," her son, Leonard Smith, said.
She had left with her husband, Stuart "Bunny" Brown, a baby daughter, and two older children.
Leonard was 12 at the time.
"I assumed I’d see her soon… it just never happened," he said.
After learning how their mother died, some details stood out to Sylvia’s children.
Leonard said the trunk she was found in was the same one he used to watch cartoons on.
"That color TV was sitting on top of that trunk… the same trunk her body was found in," he said.
He also pointed to the bolo tie found around her neck—something he says his stepfather was known to wear.
Detectives said Sylvia’s husband never reported her missing.
"It’s open and shut for me… the trunk, the bolo tie, and the lack of reporting," Leonard said.
But investigators have never named a suspect.
Today, Sylvia Atherton is no longer an unidentified victim, but her homicide remains unsolved.
Detectives say they are still seeking funding for additional testing, hoping future technology could uncover new evidence.
"I still have hope that they’ll be able to solve this," her daughter said.
What we don't know:
There are still unanswered questions, including what happened to Sylvia’s young daughter, Kimberly.
"That is so important to me, to find my little sister," said Syllen.
For decades, she was known only by a nickname tied to how she was found, ‘The Lady in the Trunk."
Now, her family wants people to remember her for who she was.
"I would like people to drop that term and call it ‘The Murder of Sylvia June Atherton,’" said Leonard.
The Source: Interviews with SPPD Detective Wallace Pavelski, interviews with Sylvia Atherton’s family, newspaper archives and previous FOX 13 reporting.