Nearly four decades after a young woman once crowned Suncoast Playboy Bunny of the Year was found dead, St. Petersburg detectives are taking another hard look at the case, hoping modern forensics can finally unmask her killer. Carolyn Merricks was 28 when relatives discovered her stabbed inside a South St. Petersburg apartment in 1984, leaving behind a 10-year-old son and a family still waiting for answers. Investigators say preserved evidence and new laboratory methods now give them investigative options that simply did not exist when the case first went cold.
Detectives Revisit Scene And Old Leads
Cold-case detective Wally Pavelski said relatives went to check on Merricks after they could not reach her and found her on the floor just inside a doorway in what officers described as a violent struggle. "She was located on the floor just inside a doorway. It looked like a struggle," Pavelski told FOX 13. He told the station detectives have gone back over earlier leads and now believe Merricks likely knew the person who killed her.
Club Ties And A Violent Early-’80s Stretch
The Suncoast club’s spotlight collided with a particularly violent run across Tampa Bay in the early 1980s: photographer Linda Lansen and 19-year-old Barbara Grams were killed in 1983, and later reporting says DNA evidence eventually linked those crimes to two incarcerated suspects. The Tampa Bay Times has documented how the DuBoise exoneration and subsequent DNA work reshaped investigators’ view of multiple unsolved cases from that era. That history has helped fuel questions about whether the same kind of modern testing could finally break open the Merricks homicide.
New Lab Work On Old Evidence
Friends say Merricks performed as "Bunny Chandra" at the Suncoast Playboy Club and was named Suncoast Playboy Bunny of the Year in 1983; detectives now want to know whether any traces from that period, or from the crime scene itself, can point to a suspect. Investigators told FOX 13 that labs have conducted individual hair analysis on preserved evidence and are combining those results with forensic genetic genealogy in hopes of identifying relatives of an unknown contributor. Authorities note that microscopic hair testing paired with family-tree DNA techniques has helped crack other long-stalled cases and could give detectives fresh leads here as well.
How To Help
For Merricks’ family, investigators say solving the case would be about accountability as much as closure. Anyone with information about Carolyn Merricks’ death is asked to contact the St. Petersburg Police Department Homicide Unit at 727-893-4823 or submit an anonymous tip via the department’s Unsolved Homicides page. The St. Petersburg Police Department provides details on how to share tips and preserve confidentiality for callers.
