Police used DNA from an original hair sample to identify Sylvia June Atherton - known for years only as the 'trunk Lady' - in what St. Petersburg police called the city’s “oldest and most infamous cold case'.
Following the breakthrough, police have launched a fresh appeal for anyone with information regarding Ms Atherton's death or the whereabouts of two of her daughters, who have not been located."The victim had visible injuries to her head and had been strangled with a man's Western-style Bolo tie. She was partially clothed in a pyjama top," police added.
Witnesses said two white men left the case in the area after they carried it from a pickup truck, according to St. Petersburg Police's Assistant Chief, Michael Kovacsev.Over the years, police tried multiple times to identify the victim - even exhuming her body from an unmarked grave in 2010 - but samples of teeth and bone were"too degraded".
That was until this year, when a sample of the victim's hair and skin taken during the original post-mortem was found and tested. Detective Wally Pavelski contacted the victim's children, including Syllen Gates, of California, who was nine years old at the time of her mother's disappearance. Ms Gates told police that her mother left Arizona for Chicago with her husband, Stuart Brown, five-year-old daughter Kimberly Anne Brown, son Gary Sullivan, daughter Donna and her husband David Lindhurst.
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