Bones Found in Shallow Grave Years Ago Finally ID’d as Florida Woman Who Was Never Reported Missing by Husband

Sixteen years after a woman’s skeletal remains were found buried in a shallow grave in a Florida industrial park, investigators have identified them as belonging to a 39-year-old mother whose disappearance was never reported to authorities.

Now, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s help figuring out what happened to Jeana Lynn Burrus more than a decade ago.

Back in February 2007, a 14-year-old boy found a bone in the wooded area behind an old auto body shop, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported in a 2010 look at the case. When his mother, a nurse, identified the bone as human, she called police, who found the rest of the victim’s partially decomposed body in a three-foot hole, according to the report.

She was found fully clothed, but barefoot, which led investigators to believe that she had been carried to the isolated grave, according to the 2010 report. Investigators created a general profile of the woman and noted skull fractures that suggested blunt-force trauma. 

But her name remained a mystery — until November 2022, when advances in genetic testing allowed investigators and DNA Labs International Inc. to identify the remains as those of Burrus, the sheriff’s office said Wednesday.

Burrus, who was unemployed and lived in Sarasota with her husband, James, and son, James Jr., was never reported missing, according to authorities.

In a bid to finally close the case, investigators are asking anyone who may have known Burrus or her husband to get in touch.

James Burrus Jr. attended Sarasota’s Gulf Gate Elementary School in 2005 and 2006.

Around the time of Burrus’ death, her husband worked in a body shop on the 5600 block of Sarasota’s Sarah Avenue, a short distance from the shallow grave where Burrus’ remains were buried, according to authorities. 

In recent months, investigators searched both the family’s former home and the body shop where James Burrus worked, but came up empty, the home’s current occupant and the shop’s new management respectively told local outlet FOX 13.

The outlet attempted to reach James Burrus by phone, but calls went unanswered.

Prior to moving to Sarasota, the family previously lived in Florida’s Citrus County, as well as Frederick, Maryland, according to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office.

Anyone with information is asked to contact SCSO Detective Brian Ng at (941) 861-4900.