'Never reported missing': Remains found in 2007 identified as Sarasota woman Jeana Burrus

Skeletal remains found in Sarasota County 16 years ago were identified Wednesday as those of a Sarasota woman who was never reported missing.

According to the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, the remains of a female were found buried in a shallow grave in a wooded area behind an old auto body shop off Ashton Court on Feb. 6, 2007.

Her skull exhibited signs of fracturing before death, according to previous Herald-Tribune reports, and went undiscovered for as long as a year before a 14-year-old boy found one of her bones, recognized it as human, and called police.

She was lying on her side in a 3-foot hole, wearing a light-colored, medium-sized Spice Wear mini-skirt, with a rear zipper and drawstring suede belt. She also wore turquoise socks and a multi-colored cotton pullover shirt with a "Made in Italy" tag.

She had no shoes, which led investigators to suspect she was carried to the grave.

"This is not your normal homicide area," Lt. Skip Wood said in 2010. "This is an area that someone has obviously taken great care to obfuscate the fact that there is a body here."

The investigation went cold until November 2022 when advances in DNA testing positively identified the victim as 39-year-old Jeana Lynn Burrus of Sarasota.

Jeana Burrus, along with her son and husband James Burrus Jr., lived in the 6200 block of Pauline Avenue. Her son attended Gulf Gate Elementary School between 2005-06 and James Burrus worked at a body shop in the 5600 block of Sarah Avenue.

The family had lived in Citrus County and Frederick, Maryland, before moving to Sarasota County.

Complicating the investigation, Jeana Burrus was never reported missing by her family and her whereabouts weren't questioned, according to the Sheriff's Office.

The Sheriff's Office is asking anyone with information or who may have known Jeana or James Burrus to contact Detective Brian Ng at 941-861-4900.

Previous reporting: In Sarasota's morgue, her mystery persists

'Always on my mind': Images released of 2007 Sarasota murder victim

Who was Jeana Burrus?

Jeana Burrus was 39 years old in 2007, when her skeletal remains were found in a shallow Sarasota County grave.

At the time of her death, Burrus was unemployed. She lived with her son and husband, James, on Pauline Avenue in Sarasota.

Prior to settling in Sarasota, she lived in Citrus County, Florida and Frederick, Maryland.

Who is James Burrus?

James Burrus Jr. is Jeana Burrus' husband. At the time of Jeana's death, James Burrus was employed at a body shop on Sarah Avenue in Sarasota.

Initial clues led nowhere

In the months following the finding of Burrus' remains, detectives canvassed the area, including surrounding businesses. No one recalled seeing anything suspicious.

Medical Examiner Dr. Russell Vega determined that she was between 30 and 40 years old, weighed roughly 150 pounds and had been in the ground for seven to 12 months, according to a 2010 Herald-Tribune article.

She had skull fractures that were most likely caused before she was buried. Vega called in an expert on bone trauma from the University of Florida, who found that the fractures were consistent with blunt-force trauma. The case became a homicide.

Vega sought ways to identify the woman. The body was too decomposed to reveal fingerprints, but X-rays showed she had silicone breast implants and had extensive dental work.

Those clues led nowhere. The woman's breast implants were a popular model sold before medical companies serialized them. The surgery could have been done anytime between 1998 and 2007, in a number of states.

DNA samples and dental records were also taken from the woman, but without any records available for a comparison, tracking down a match was close to impossible.

Months after the discovery, measurements of her facial features were taken at a lab and analyzed by a computer program, which determined that Burrus, then called Jane Doe, was a white female of European ancestry. That helped artists at the FBI reconstruct an image of the woman's face and body.

For the first time, detectives had an idea of what Jane Doe might have looked like. They created flyers with the new information and over the next year revisited the area surrounding the woods where she was found. They went back to businesses and employees, showing her face everywhere. No one recognized her.

In 2014, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office released a new facial composite illustration. It was made using facial reconstruction software created by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

Herald-Tribune reporter Anne Snabes contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Jeana Burrus: Sarasota woman's remains identified after 16 years