It’s been 24 years since Patricia Gertsch Hodges was found stabbed to death in her St. Petersburg apartment, and her killer still hasn’t been identified.
As her family continues to search for answers, Hodges is hardly alone. Her murder is among 215 unsolvedcases in St. Petersburg dating back to the 1940s.
Wallace Pavelski, the police department’s only detective in the cold case unit, hopes that improved DNA technology and partnerships with private labs will help him identify suspects in cases where physical evidence is available.
Here’s a look at 10 of the oldest cases for which detailed information exists.
On Halloween, two St. Petersburg police officers found a black steamer trunk in a patch of woods behind a seafood restaurant at 4200 34th St. S.
Inside, they discovered a woman’s body wrapped in a large plastic bag. She had been strangled with a man’s Western-style bolo tie. Witnesses saw two men in a pickup truck dump the trunk and take off.
For 56 years, the woman was known only as the “trunk lady.”
She was buried as a Jane Doe at Memorial Park Cemetery. Her body was exhumed in 2010 by 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.
Pavelski discovered an original sample of her hair and skin taken during the autopsy and sent it to Othram Labs in Texas for testing.
