Every one of these cases started with an explanation that made sense. A hunting accident on a lake he knew by heart. A car crash on a Florida highway. A friend who just hadn't come home yet. Reasonable. Believable. The kind of thing you hear and move on from.
Wrong.
In every single one of these cases, the truth was much closer than anyone thought. Not across the country. Not hidden somewhere no one could find. In a trunk.
Every detail in these four cases comes from court records, law enforcement statements, medical examiner findings, and credentialed news reporting. These are documented cases. Not assertions. Not speculation.
Her parents were not wealthy. Her father was a civil servant. Her mother stayed home. They had saved over a hundred thousand dollars to send their only child to study in America. They chose Iowa specifically because they believed it was safe. Quiet. The kind of place where nothing bad happens.
Shao Tong enrolled at Iowa State University in Ames in 2012, majoring in chemical engineering. There was a young man named Xiangnan Li — 23 years old, also Chinese, also a student at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, about 140 miles away. He had transferred from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. People who knew both of them told investigators the transfer was to be closer to Shao Tong. Her friends did not like him. Her roommates did not like him. By his own account he believed they were in a relationship. The people around her described things differently.
On September 3rd, 2014, Li called Shao Tong. She appears to have picked up accidentally. For approximately thirty minutes he listened to a conversation between her and another man. What she said about Li was not kind. Shortly after that call, he posted to his social media page. The post translated roughly to — his life was over. It was his last post.
Two days later they drove together to a Budget Inn near Nevada, Iowa. Hotel staff observed Shao Tong on September 6th — she was seen coming to the front desk alone. That was the last confirmed sighting of her alive. The following morning, Li checked out alone. He drove her car to the parking lot of his apartment complex in Iowa City and left it there. Then he boarded a one-way flight from Cedar Rapids to China. Court records confirm that ticket had been purchased before the weekend.
On September 26th — nineteen days after she was last seen — Iowa City police opened the trunk of her 1997 Toyota Camry, which had been sitting in an apartment complex parking lot the entire time. Shao Tong was inside, placed in a large suitcase. A 15-pound barbell was found alongside her. The cause of death was asphyxia.
Security footage showed Li purchasing the suitcase and the weights at a TJ Maxx in Ames four days before she was last seen. There is no formal extradition treaty between the United States and China. For months Li was simply gone. A CNN investigation in April 2015 drew international attention. In May 2015 he walked into a police station in his hometown and surrendered.
At trial in March 2016, he bowed to Shao Tong's parents and told the court the killing was not planned — irrational, impulsive. The court found otherwise. On June 22nd, 2016, Xiangnan Li was sentenced to life in prison. His family paid Shao Tong's parents the equivalent of approximately three hundred thousand dollars. Her father told CNN he felt compelled to accept. He said it changed nothing.
Her parents had saved over a hundred thousand dollars and sent her to Iowa because they believed she would be safe there. She was 19 years old. For nineteen days they waited to hear from their daughter. She had already been gone for all of them.
A friendship that had lasted more than ten years. Two young men from Virginia who grew up together, played sports together, and when they got older started making music together. One of them was Robert Coltrain. The other was Brian Trotter.
Brian lived with his father in Triangle, Virginia — about 30 miles southwest of Washington D.C. He went by the name Kent Won't Stop. He was building a catalog, working toward something. And Coltrain was part of that picture.
On the morning of Saturday, October 17th, 2020, Coltrain drove to the Trotter house to pick Brian up. The plan, he said, was to go to Washington D.C. for promotional photos. Brian's father answered the door. He later told the Miami Herald that something felt wrong the moment he saw Coltrain standing there — distant, nervous, antsy. He stood at the door rather than coming inside the way he always had.
Father and son said goodbye. Brian Trotter Sr. told his son he loved him. His son said it back. Then Brian got into Coltrain's silver 2009 Acura and drove away.
When Brian did not come home that night, the family called Coltrain. He told them he had dropped Brian off in Washington and another friend had picked him up. That friend had not seen Brian. They called Coltrain back. The story shifted. Nothing added up.
On October 20th the family filed a missing persons report. Friends organized a search for October 24th. His family, his friends, his community — all of them looking. Meanwhile, according to investigators, Coltrain was driving south.
On the afternoon of Sunday, October 25th, Florida Highway Patrol troopers responded to a single vehicle accident on the Palmetto Expressway southbound near Miami Lakes. The car was a silver Acura. The driver was Robert Coltrain. The highway was rain slicked. At first glance it looked routine.
The car was towed to a mall parking lot in Hialeah. Troopers noticed flies clustering near the rear of the vehicle. They noticed an odor — the kind experienced law enforcement officers recognize immediately. When Coltrain was given the opportunity to retrieve his belongings, troopers watched him remove a Glock gun case. Inside was a firearm.
Troopers opened the trunk. Brian Trotter was inside, wrapped in a piece of fabric. He had been in that car for eight days. In Florida. In October heat.
Coltrain was arrested on the spot. He made a spontaneous statement without being asked — volunteering that the person in the trunk was male. At the police station he called Brian Trotter's sister. On that recorded call he apologized. He told her the incident had happened on October 17th. In Virginia. The same day Brian left the house.
Which meant that for every day Brian's father was calling Coltrain looking for answers — for every day friends were posting, organizing searches, holding onto hope — Brian was already gone.
On June 28th, 2022, Coltrain pleaded guilty to first degree murder in Prince William County Circuit Court. On July 7th, 2023, the court sentenced him to 75 years, with 30 suspended. He will serve 45 years. Commonwealth's Attorney Amy Ashworth said publicly at sentencing — this was such a troubling case because of the lack of motive and the friendship that the victim and defendant shared. The court never answered that question. No one ever did.
For 53 years, nobody knew that. Her name was Sylvia June Atherton. She was 41 years old. For more than half a century she was known only by a nickname — the Trunk Lady. A label tied entirely to how she was found, because for over 50 years that was the only thing anyone could say about her with certainty.
On the night of October 31st, 1969 — Halloween — two police officers in St. Petersburg, Florida responded to a wooded area behind a seafood restaurant on 34th Street South. Two children had reported watching two men arrive in a pickup truck, carry a trunk into the field, set it down, and drive away. When officers reached the trunk — a plain black steamer trunk — they opened it. Inside was a woman who appeared to be in her 40s. Around her neck was a Western-style bolo tie. She had no identification.
Investigators checked missing persons reports. Nothing matched. No one had reported her missing. No one came forward. She was laid to rest in Memorial Park Cemetery under the name Jane Doe. The case went cold.
In late 2022, St. Petersburg Cold Case Detective Wally Pavelski was going back through the original case file when he found something preserved from the 1969 autopsy — never tested in over 50 years — a sample of the victim's hair and skin. He sent it to Othram, a private forensic laboratory in Texas specializing in forensic genetic genealogy. In April 2023, Othram developed a full DNA profile and ran it through a genealogy database. The database returned a match to living relatives.
On May 30th, 2023, the St. Petersburg Police Department held a press conference. Her name was Sylvia June Atherton. She was 41 years old when she died. She was a mother of five. She was originally from Tucson, Arizona.
Sylvia had left Tucson in 1965 with her husband, a man named Stuart Brown, who went by the nickname Bunny. She took three of her children. Two — Syllen and her brother Leonard — were left behind in Tucson. Sylvia told them she was moving to Chicago. Syllen assumed she would hear from her mother again soon. She never did.
When Leonard Smith learned how his mother had died, two details stood out immediately. The black steamer trunk photographed by St. Petersburg police in 1969 — he recognized it. That was the family's trunk from the house in Tucson. There had been a color television sitting on top of it and he used to watch cartoons on it. She had been placed in a piece of furniture from her own home.
The second detail was the bolo tie. Leonard told FOX 13 that his stepfather Stuart Brown was known to wear bolo ties. That was his signature. The item used in her death was a man's Western-style bolo tie. Stuart Brown died in Las Vegas in 1999. He never reported Sylvia missing. He never acknowledged her absence in any document investigators could find.
Investigators have never officially named a suspect. The murder of Sylvia June Atherton remains unsolved. The St. Petersburg Police Department is still asking for help from the public.
If you have information about the 1969 murder of Sylvia June Atherton in St. Petersburg, Florida, call the St. Petersburg Police Department at 727-893-4823.
But here is what is no longer unsolved. Her name is not Jane Doe. Her name is not the Trunk Lady. Her name is Sylvia June Atherton. Her son Leonard said he would like people to stop using the term Trunk Lady. He said he would like people to call it what it is. The murder of Sylvia June Atherton. She deserved her name back. It just took 53 years to give it to her.
The next case is the opposite. The suspect told police exactly what happened. He told them where the body was. He even told his own father. He just did not expect anyone to show up that morning.
Victor Clark was 57 years old, originally from Fayetteville, North Carolina. By the summer of 2018 he had no permanent fixed address. What he had was a house in Winder, Georgia — about an hour northeast of Atlanta — where he had been living in and out for years. The house belonged to Paul Woschula. Paul's son, 34-year-old Anthony Woschula, also lived there. Neighbors knew Victor Clark. He was a tenant, a family friend, a person who came and went but always came back. That house in Winder was the closest thing he had to a home.
On the evening of June 19th, 2018, Victor Clark was last seen alive.
The following morning at approximately 7:30 a.m., the Barrow County Sheriff's Office received a missing persons call at the house. When deputies arrived they encountered Anthony Woschula — and Anthony Woschula ran. He bolted out of the house on foot the moment he realized deputies were there. A K-9 unit was deployed. He was caught a short time later.
Once in custody, after waiving his Miranda rights, Woschula told investigators where to find Victor Clark. He told them Clark was in the trunk of a vehicle. He gave them the location. A gold Toyota Camry, parked on a rural county road about six miles from the house.
When deputies opened the trunk, Victor Clark was inside, wrapped in a blanket. Blood was found both at the rural location and inside the residence. Investigators believed the incident had occurred inside the home before Clark was placed in the trunk of his own car and driven to that road.
The case went to trial in 2021. Woschula testified in his own defense, claiming Clark had harmed him as a child and tried to harm him again on the night of June 19th. His defense argued the killing was not premeditated. The prosecution pointed to what happened after — wrapping Clark in a blanket, placing him in a trunk, driving six miles to a rural road. The Georgia Supreme Court's written opinion later noted those actions reflected a series of deliberate decisions, not a loss of control.
The jury convicted Woschula of malice murder, concealing the death of another, and related charges. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 18 years. He appealed. In 2025 the Georgia Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion upholding every count. Justice Andrew Pinson, writing for the court, found that the evidence of guilt was — in the court's own words — overwhelming.
Victor Clark was 57 years old. He had no permanent address. The house on Chimney Trace Drive was the last place he was ever seen alive. He was found six miles away. In the trunk of his own car.
Four trunks. Four completely different roads to the same ending. One case took 53 years to crack. One took eight days. One took less than 24 hours. One is still open. But in every single one of these cases, the truth found its way out.