Mary Jane Burke was 19 when her body was found in an open field near the Dale Mabry Strip in St. Petersburg, Florida, on April 18, 1977. Investigators determined she had been strangled. Burke was known to hitchhike frequently and to visit local bars; she had reported a year earlier that she had been raped by a man in a pickup truck while hitchhiking.

Her murder was linked by law enforcement to a series of violent killings of women in the Tampa Bay area in the 1970s that came to be associated with a possible serial offender dubbed the Gulf Killer. Authorities noted commonalities among victims’ lifestyles and the manner of death, though alternative theories, including violence tied to pimp rivalry, were also considered.

No arrests were ever announced in Burke’s case, and it remains officially unsolved. Does anyone who knew Mary Jane or spent time along the Dale Mabry Strip in the 1970s have information that could help this cold case?