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- [00:01]
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- [01:16]
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- [01:59]
Jessica Bettencourt
Sam. I don't usually do this, but I'm starting today's DOE episode off with a quote from a July 1986 newspaper clipping. It reads, the skeletal remains of an apparent homicide victim were found by a fisherman on his way to Long Valley Reservoir at Yuba Gap, according to Placer County Sheriff Donald Nunes. He said the jawbone and all teeth in good repair were found in 2 inches of snow alongside a mountainous county road a mile northeast of Interstate 80 by Melvin Bennett, who was en route to fish at the Lake Valley Reservoir with his sons. End quote I'm here to tell you that we just don't know if any of that is correct or if it even pertains to this case. The case files reflect something quite different, although the Records are spotty, undetailed and often speculative. On August 1, 1986, a surveyor marking lines for a property company found a human skull with maxillary teeth in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains in a drainage area or wash inside the fork where Highway 20 and I 80 split off near Lake Spalding. Early reports in the press were that deputies believed the person who owned the skull had been murdered elsewhere and dumped somewhere in the mountains where the skull possibly could have washed down and away from the remainder of the body. I asked Detective Sergeant Nick Carlquist of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department how a determination of homicide was made from just the skull, and he told me he was not at liberty to discuss the forensics of the skull. He did reveal that it bore signs of rodent activity, had sun damage and was located in a place that gets many feet of snow during the winter. Because it was found in a seasonal water drainage area, caught up in branches and brushes, it could have been carried by overwhelming amounts of melting snow from where its original resting place was. A pathologist examined the skull and wasn't able to determine the age or sex of the victim. Later analysis determined that the skull belonged to a white female in her mid teens to mid twenties. Estimates were that she'd been dead at least two to three years. There was nothing more that could be done to identify Jane Doe. I was told that there are dozens of John and Jane does that have been located in this remote area of California along the major I80 trucking corridor. Many were believed to be hitchhikers or transients and back in the 80s there was no way to identify them. Absent any clothing or other distinguishing elements. The Jane Doe case file contains a 1987 entry that says simply, all leads have been followed in this case for decades. The skull was maintained in the Placer County Coroner's Office as found remains. In 2023, the Placer County Sheriff's Office and the Placer County District Attorney's Office started a joint cold case team charged with identifying unidentified human remains and investigating missing persons cases in their jurisdiction. Jane Doe's skull was included in this effort and was sent to the California Department of Justice Bureau of forensic services for SNP extraction and IgG. When the SNP profile was uploaded to the open source databases, a first degree relative was located. All you IGG experts know that this typically means a very swift identification of the Jane or John Doe. And in this case the identification was quickly confirmed because it was connected to a very, very high profile missing persons case. The Lass family of South Dakota had eight children. One of them had gone missing from South Lake Tahoe, California in 1971 and was unaccounted for ever since. Her name was Donna Ann Lass. Donna's sister Mary had given a blood sample for identification purposes back in 2000, and three other family members had provided buccal swabs since that time. And that's because the Lasses were looking for Donna and had been since 1971. Donna Ann Lass was born on November 3, 1944 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to mom Frances and father James. She was the youngest of eight children born to the couple, joining older brothers Raymond and Jean and sisters Marge, Pat, Mary, Joan, and Karen. The family lived in Beresford, South Dakota, and Donna graduated from Beresford High School in 1965, one of 52 to graduate that year. According to her bio on Find a Grave quote, during high school, her activities included FHA and singing in mixed chorus. During her senior interview, she stated that her plans were to go to college or be a nurse, and Donna realized those dreams, enrolling in St. Joseph Mercy College in Sioux City, Iowa, studying nursing. After she obtained her degree, Donna was excited to start work and apparently loved her nursing jobs. From July 1965 to July 1967, she worked as a staff nurse at Mount Sinai in Minneapolis. In July 1967 to April 1969, she was assistant head nurse at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, and then she worked as a private nurse from April 69 to October 1969 for a brief period of about four months. From February 1970 to May 1970, she worked as a clinical nurse with the Department of the army at Letterman Hospital in the Presidio District of San Francisco. Donna was described as adventurous, she loved skiing, and she also loved to gamble, according to former roommate Joanne Goetche. Her good friend and co worker from the Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, Ann Lowe, persuaded her to relocate to South Lake Tahoe and in June 1970, where she could ski and gamble. Donna got two jobs at the Sahara Tahoe casino, one as a staff nurse and one as a photographer who took photos of casino patrons as they entered, the kind tourists pay for. She lived with Ann and her husband Larry during that summer. Since the lows were scheduled to leave South Lake Tahoe at the end of the summer, Donna got her own apartment, taking possession on Labor Day weekend. At some point she also bought herself a convertible, her dream car. She apparently really liked her work and was saving money to travel to Europe. After Donna went missing, her friends Ann and Larry Lowe described her to local reporters as reserved and on the quiet side. She did not smoke, drank only on occasion and did not party. She attended church every Sunday at St. Mary's in the Pines. Other close friends said Donna was dependable and self sufficient, but not someone who was super independent. She was someone who always wanted a friend with her. According to her friend and former roommate Joanne, Donna, despite being adventurous, was a bit of a scaredy cat and was afraid of the dark. Even though her shifts at the Sahara Tahoe often ended well past dark, she would stay at the casino, gambling and hanging out, not heading home to the apartment she shared with the lows until after daylight. As for Donna's love life, she had dated a few men casually, including reportedly a maitre d at one of the South Lake Tahoe restaurants. But she was decidedly single at the time she went missing. The last person documented in the South Lake Tahoe police file to see Donna in person was on September 5, 1971. This was her apartment manager. They had a conversation around noon. Then interviews with her co workers said she got off work at 2 that night, September 5th to 6th. She reported to work on the evening of Saturday to Sunday, September 5 to 6 for her 6pm shift at the Sahara Tahoe casino. Newspaper reports said she interacted with a female patient, Joan Bentley, around 1:15am Joan later testified that nothing seemed amiss and Donna was very upbeat, friendly and congenial. While treating her, they made small talk, chatting about Donna's skiing and so on. Joan said Donna was dressed in her nurse's uniform without a hat. I cannot verify that any of that is true. There have been a lot of false reports about the nurses log in the casino's clinic. The logbook for the first week of September is complete with multiple on duty nurses entering patients and signing the logbook online. I read everything from Donna last signed her log at 1.50am to she signed it at 1.30am to she started to sign it but after writing patient complains of the pen trailed off down the page. Well, according to Sgt. Carlquist who reviewed the log at my request, the log reflected a number of entries for the night of September 5th to 6th for things like one man who fainted whose wife brought him to the clinic for oxygen. But Donna signed none of these entries. She typically wrote her initials DL in neat cursive and that handwriting does not appear on the log that night. The last log entry for the night was 10:35pm Donna's initials and handwriting appear only on the log for the previous night. I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers also seem to like keeping my money too. After years of overpaying for wireless, I finally got fed up with crazy high wireless bills, bogus fees and free perks that actually cost more in the long run and switched to Mint Mobile. When you really take a look at your big wireless wireless bill, it's astounding how it adds up and adds up quick. 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- [12:11]
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- [12:32]
Jessica Bettencourt
Donna's nurse's uniform was left neatly folded in her locker in the first aid room of the Sahara Tahoe Casino. According to FBI files released on the case, this quote indicated she may have changed into civilian clothes at the termination of her shift. End quote. The police file reflects that she had told a number of co workers that she was excited to go out on a date after work. It now seems like that Donna changed her clothes to go out on her date. The first person to notice that Donna was missing was her former nursing school classmate and Santa Barbara roommate, nurse Joanne Goetche. Donna and Joanne spoke on the phone fairly often, and Donna had invited Joanne to come stay with her at her new apartment in South Lake Tahoe, and they would go do some sightseeing and check out the places they planned to ski that coming winter. It's not clear whether Joanne made the four hour drive from San Francisco to South Lake Tahoe on Sunday or Monday of Labor Day weekend. She doesn't remember since it was so long ago. But the plan was for her to drive to the area after her day shift and come to Donna's office at the Sahara Tahoe Casino to find her. Then the two would go to Donna's apartment, of which Joanne did not know the address. When Joanne arrived and went to Donna's office, she found the door closed and no one there. She tried to ask people who worked in the casino where Donna was, but no one had any information. Joanne waited around for a while and then, fatigued from her workday and long drive, checked into a local motel and went to bed. The next day, she went back to the casino and there was still no sign of Donna. So she reluctantly drove back to San Francisco. She never heard from Donna again. Joanne noted it was very unlike Donna to make plans and not see them through. But of course, her mind did not immediately go to an abduction. The next entity to notice Donna's absence was her workplace. It's unclear how many shifts Donna missed, but it took her employer, the casino, a while to become concerned about her missing work. This was because the casino received a phone call that seemingly explained Donna's absence. The best we can figure from looking at all the various reports is that this phone call came to the casino. On September 7, a security officer at the Sahara Tahoe, Gordon Petrovich, received a telephone call from an unknown male saying that Donna was leaving town due to an illness in her family. According to the report of a private investigator hired by Donna's family named John Miller, this male caller identified himself as Nick Davis, Donna's new landlord. Well, that caller was not Nick Davis, and there was no family emergency. These calls are believed to have been placed by someone who wanted to ensure that no one was looking for Donna by providing an explanation for her absence. According to a report by the family's PI Miller, Nick Davis, the then manager of the Monteverde Apartments, told the PI that he received a call from the security office of the Sahara Tahoe casino on Friday, September 11, inquiring as to when Donna would be back. So the decision was made to check Donna's apartment. Frank DeSimone, the complex's assistant manager, entered the apartment and observed the apartment was neat and clean with the bedmaid. The bathroom light had been left on. There was no sign of Donna. Donna's new car, the 1969 California registered black over red Camaro convertible, was parked in the parking lot. On September 13th at 7pm Nick Davis called the South Lake Tahoe police department and spoke with dispatcher Bob Morgan. He requested that the police look into Donna's absence. The South Lake Tahoe PD also received a telephone call from the security shift manager at the Sahara Tahoe Casino, John Schott, on September 13th. His request was for the South Lake Tahoe Police Department to make a welfare check on Donna at her apartment because she hadn't reported to work in several days. According to the PI's report, no accurate record was made of the date and time of these calls, and nothing was done. The following Friday, September 18th, John Schott finally called Donna Lass's mother, Frances in South Dakota, inquiring about her. This was the first time Donna's family had any clue that she was missing. Nearly two weeks after she was last seen, it was unheard of for Donna to just go off the grid. And her unexplained absence, as well as the story that someone had lied about an illness in the family, caused the family to jump into action. Donna's sisters Mary and Joan got on a plane from South Dakota and arrived the next day, Saturday, September 19th. They went to the South Lake Tahoe police station at 8am and demanded that the police look into Donna's whereabouts. So the South Lake Tahoe, along with Mary and Joan, did a welfare check at Donna's apartment. Unit 6 at the Monteverde Apartments at 3893 Pioneer Trail Road. Well, there was absolutely nothing amiss. Donna's personal possessions were all in the apartment. Her things were folded neatly, nothing out of place. The bathroom light was still on. Her blue purse was missing and was not found with her uniform at the casino. Apparently, Donna took meticulous care of her clothes and her sisters were able to identify one outfit that was missing. According to an FBI report, quote, all of her personal effects, with the exception of one civilian outfit, a blue slack suit, which was the equivalent of a 1970s style leisure suit, were still located in her apartment. Because there was nothing out of place in the apartment, nothing was treated as a crime scene. The apartment and car were not fingerprinted. Donna's things were not collected. No photos were taken. In fact, Donna's sisters set up residence in the apartment so they could conduct searches for Donna. They stayed for two weeks before returning to South Dakota with Donna's things packed in her car. But even from there, did not give up looking for their youngest sister. Inquiries of the residents of the complex revealed that no one had seen Donna in quite some time. She'd only taken possession of the apartment on September 1 and had spent just one night there on the night of the 5th. So residents didn't really know her and her absence triggered zero alarms. Donna's sister, Mary Pilker really drove the investigation into her sister Donna's disappearance. Mary knew that Donna was expecting her friend Joanne's visit and that Donna would not just have disappeared from the face of the earth. And Donna was not the type to just skip work and shirk her responsibilities with no explanation. Very upset and concerned, Mary filed an official missing persons report on Donna with the South Lake Tahoe Police. The description of 25 year old Donna was as. She was a petite white female who stood 5 foot 4 inches tall and weighed 135 pounds. She wore her short dark hair in a side swept style. She had straight white teeth, pierced ears and contact lenses in her eyes. She was believed to have been wearing a navy blue pinstripe leisure suit and a rust colored raincoat. She had a ring on her right ring finger, a dainty white gold wristwatch with small chain and size 8 shoes. The South Lake Tahoe police did some investigating. They sent a missing person's teletype to all Area 1 and Area 2 stations on September 23, 1970. Hospitals and Coroner's offices in El Dorado and neighboring counties were checked. Taxi companies were contacted to make sure they hadn't picked Donna up anywhere. Donna's savings account and credit card accounts were untouched, so they were flagged to notify law enforcement in the event of activity, as was her driver's license. But none of this produced results. Mary Pilker was adamant that the family needed answers. She contacted Donna's friend Joanne, who came back to South Lake Tahoe and took Mary to the casino and helped her make inquiries about Donna. They didn't learn anything useful. Mary quickly became unhappy with the pace, scope and commitment of the investigation into her sister's disappearance. She bugged the South Lake Tahoe police lieutenant in charge of the missing person's case on a daily basis. And on September 23, she got in touch with an FBI special agent and told him that she was dissatisfied with the investigation being done by the South Lake Tahoe PD and the local sheriff's office and she wanted the FBI to get involved. She said her family felt strongly that Donna had met with foul play. The FBI agent did contact the South Lake Tahoe police lieutenant who told him, quote, the matter was currently under investigation, but that sufficient facts had not been developed to evaluate the disappearance, end quote. Meaning presumably they had still not categorized Donna's case as an endangered missing person. Ultimately, the FBI agent had to tell Mary that the FBI had no jurisdiction over the case. Mary started sending letters to elected officials, governors, senators and congressmen demanding action on her sister's case. She sent a letter to the office of her senator, George McGovern of South Dakota on September 24th requesting help in getting the FBI to open an investigation. J. Edgar Hoover's response letter to Senator McGovern said that the FBI lacked jurisdiction. But a search of the identification division files of the FBI was conducted. With no information about Donna uncovered, they placed a missing person notice in the file. Eventually, South Lake Tahoe authorities acknowledged that it appeared that Donna had succumbed to foul play. Sergeant Richard Dunn of the South Lake Tahoe PD told South Lake Tahoe, now we're suspicious of foul play because of the nature of the disappearance and the type of girl she is. Desperate. In October 1970, Donna's sister, Mary Pilker hired private investigator John Miller of the Research Bureau of Des Moines. Miller got on a plane to South Lake Tahoe and consulted on several dates about the investigation with a Sergeant Bezenson. He learned that the investigators had interviewed a number of Donna's friends and acquaintances. Carol Emmerich, Mrs. Philip Lee, Mrs. Robert Jones. But none had heard from her or had any idea where she could be. Sergeant Bezenson had submitted Donna's nurse's uniform to the state lab for analysis. The lab report was finally received on January 19, 1971, and revealed very little. The garment showed normal wear, no abnormal perspiration, very few hairs, no stains, no blood, no urine, no semen, pretty much nothing. The PI Miller was able to cobble together something of a timeline for Donna's last hours. She was seen at her apartment by the apartment house manager on September 5, 1970, as they did an inspection tour together on that date. Donna is believed to have stayed in the apartment the previous night. Donna reported to work for her regular evening shift at the Sahara Tahoe casino on Saturday, September 5, 1970. She was scheduled to work until 2am But Donna's trail seemed to end at her workplace at an uncertain time. No one recalled seeing her after her shift, with one possible exception that I'll touch on momentarily. All we have to go on is Donna's co workers recall that she was excited for a date and then she vanished. There's no evidence that she returned to her apartment, although that possibility cannot be ruled out. Detective Harvey Hines told the Tahoe Daily Tribune there was a lot of evidence inside Sahara Tahoe Casino that she left directly from there in November 1970. Both Donna's extended family and her friend Ann Low submitted letters to senior officials in California expressing concerns about the lack of progress being made by the South Lake Tahoe Police Department into Donna's disappearance. The Last Family even went so far as to petition Governor Reagan for a meeting about the investigation. Finally, in February 1971, the last family offered a $500 reward for information in Donna's case. As a result, a Mrs. Dorothy Cullison reported that she saw Donna's picture in the Sacramento Bee and recognized her as the woman she saw on Labor Day, September 7, 1970 at 3 or 4pm walking southbound on Pioneer Trail with a clean shaven blond man. The PI noted in his report, quote, if this is true, Mrs. Cullison is the last known person to see the subject alive. End quote. But he also noted that it was questionable whether this woman was Donna because Mrs. Cullison described her as wearing white shorts, which Donna was not believed to have been wearing. And the timing of this sighting, 36 hours after anyone had last heard from Donna, was suspect. The official South Lake Tahoe Missing Person's website reflects that Donna went missing on September 6, 1970 and says she wasn't seen after leaving the Sahara. However, it's not clear that Donna was actually seen leaving the casino by anyone.
- [24:11]
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- [24:31]
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- [24:55]
Jessica Bettencourt
Time passed and then in March 1971, there was big news that possibly involved Donna's case. On March 22, 1971, a postcard was sent to the attention of San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery, deliberately addressed to Paul Averley and purported to be from the Zodiac. The return address was the by then well known sign of the Zodiac Killer, the cross and circle symbol. Everyone in the area was already on high alert because of the Zodiac's reign of terror in the San Francisco bay region in 1968 and 1969, in which he is known to have killed five people. Zodiac was famous for sending taunting correspondence to aerial publications containing cryptograms and mysterious messages claiming the murders and threatening to kill again. And he had sent mail to Paul avery previously in 1970. This March 1971 postcard is the reason that to this day Donna Lass is considered possibly a victim of the Zodiac. The card contained a pasted on artist's rendering of the to be built Forest Pines condo development near Incline Village on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. It was cut out of an ad for the new Boise Cascade development that had run in the San Francisco examiner on March 19. It showed the row of peaked wooden residences set among the pines and also contained glued on cutout clues such as sought victim 12, pass Lake Tahoe areas, Sierra Club Peak, through the pines and around in the snow, which was pasted upside down. Interestingly, the phrase around in the snow appeared in the examiner one time, but in early January 1971, suggesting that whoever sent it had access to a two month old newspaper. There was a hole punched in the card reminiscent of an October 1970 card mailed by the Zodiac with holes representing his victims. It's important to note that the postcard did not specifically reference Donna Lass, but because of her extremely perplexing disappearance six months earlier and the Zodiac reference to victim 12, the link was made to Donna's case. A March 27, 1971 article in the Sacramento Union says quote, the Zodiac killer returned to the headlines Friday morning with the suggestion that his 12th victim is buried under the snow near Lake Tahoe. Homicide detectives said that victim might well be Donna Lass, age 25, a nurse who disappeared last summer from South Lake Tahoe in el Dorado County. Ms. Lass disappeared after leaving the South Lake Tahoe Casino where she was employed at 2am Sept. 6. Police are convinced she was abducted and killed. The date of her disappearance coincides with with authenticated Zodiac correspondence during a time period in which he wrote of victims 10 through 13. Sherwood Morrell, a handwriting expert at the State Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification in Sacramento, confirmed that the several inked words on the address side of the postcard belonged to the Zodiac killer. End quote. Of course, it is possible that this was all the work of an extremely dedicated copycat. Perhaps someone who killed Donna who was anxious to deflect the blame for his crime. Who better to place it on than a serial killer terrorizing the region? At the same time, Sergeant Carlquist told me that at least four people not believed to be the Zodiac have claimed to have sent the postcard. And nine people have officially claimed to have killed Donna early on. Donna's family said they believed that Donna was not the victim of the Zodiac, but was killed by someone who knew her to try to hide his connection to her by making fake phone calls and sending fake Zodiac missives. However, they later became more convinced of the Zodiac's involvement, as there are some signs that Donna last could in fact have been a victim of the Zodiac. Remember that Donna had worked in San Francisco in the hospital in the Presidia, which is where Zodiac was known to have killed taxi driver Paul Stine on October 11, 1969. That's not much of a connection, but it's not nothing. And the postcard received by Paul Avery is consistent with the other mailings sent by the Zodiac and could definitely be his work. Further, three years later, on December 27, 1974, a Christmas card was mailed to Mary Pilker, Donna Lass's sister in South Dakota, portraying pine trees covered in snow. Once opened, it revealed a message that was pre printed on the card. Holiday greetings and best wishes for a Happy New Year. Followed by the handwriting, best wishes St Donna and Guardian of the Pines. The postmark on the card was from Alameda, California. To this day, no one knows who sent the card or its meaning, if any. After the 1971 supposed Zodiac postcard failed to point to Donna's location, her case went cold. It was revisited in 2001. This is a long excerpt from the Tahoe Daily Tribune. On December 19, 2001, law enforcement agents from El Dorado and Douglas county met to discuss reopening the case of Donald Lass. Information presented to law enforcement agencies Thursday may link the woman's disappearance to the Zodiac killer, a man who many believe killed at least seven people in California and Nevada in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Two members of the last family and a retired detective from Groveland, California, came Thursday to South Lake Tahoe police station to tell the agents that they believed Donna was abducted and murdered by the Zodiac killer. There are suspicions that Donna Lass was a victim of the Zodiac, said South Lake Tahoe Sergeant Tom o'. Connor. But we haven't actually ever established that she was murdered. We haven't even found the body. She was a very responsible person. For her to disappear doesn't add up, doesn't make sense. Harvey Hines, a retired detective, said he has been investigating the Zodiac killer since 1973. He retired in 1992 from a California police department, ending a 30 year career in law enforcement. He was joined Thursday by Mary and Don Pilker, Donna's sister and nephew. End quote. Mary and Don reviewed Hines reports and came to believe that he was on the right track with his Zodiac theory. Police were harder to convince. Douglas County Sheriff's Sgt. Tim Minister told the Tribune, quote, we've been in contact with the San Francisco Police Department regarding the Zodiac murders. As yet, we can't commit to say this is Zodiac related. The investigators had to consider all possibilities, of course, including those that attributed Donna's murder to the Zodiac and those that did not. In 2007, a search was conducted in Zephyr Cove using the clues on the March 1971 postcard. Nothing was found. A dig in Tahoma was conducted in 2007 after a Zodiac enthusiast in the area contacted South Lake Tahoe police with a theory about where Donna's body was, based on the clues depicted in and pasted onto the March 1971 postcard. This from the Tahoe Daily Tribune. In July 2007, using shovels and directions from an amateur Zodiac sleuth, authorities, including South Lake Tahoe police officer Chuck Owens, searched four feet into the earth for the body of Donna Lass. They found nothing. After months of investigating the disappearance of Lass, a 25 year old stateline nurse who some believe was a victim of the infamous Zodiac serial killer, Clifton Calves, believes he knows where Lass is buried. Calves, a retired Air Force colonel who lives in Morgan Hill, hounded authorities and media with emails laying out his theory. On Tuesday, Calvez and a handful of law enforcement officials broke out the shovels. A large tree off Timberwolf Drive was the focal point of the dig, and Calvez pointed to the exact spot where he believed the nurse was buried. Calves used a postcard depicting a Sierra condominium complex at Incline Village that was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle and a Christmas card sent to Lassa's sister, Mary Pilker, the crew got to the site, but had to wait for roughly an hour while determining who owned the land in order to get permission to dig. Then, after getting the green light from the California Tahoe Conservancy, they dug. When the hole revealed nothing more than dirt, Calves pointed authorities to another location. After the second hole unearthed nothing but dirt, the search was called off. So various searches were conducted at places thought to have been referred to by the plews on the postcard. But nothing ever led to Donna. It was all a giant waste of time and resources. They didn't find Donna's body in Lake Tahoe. They didn't even find it in El Dorado or Douglas counties. It had been found decades earlier, 70 miles away in Placer County. Calling into question whether the so called Zodiac missive to Paul Avery was nothing but a hoax or red herring. Yes, where Donna was found there were pine trees everywhere as one clue stated, but the whole region is covered with them. Sergeant Karlquist told me that unless they're missing something on the postcard, it's just completely wrong or deliberately misleading about where to find Donna. 2020 was the 50th anniversary of Donna's disappearance. At the time, the skull found in placer county in 1986 had not been linked to her and she was still a missing person after 50 years. SouthLakeTapHonow.com reported on a statement issued by the last family at the time, it reads, our family is still mourning her loss and seeking closure. Donna was a beautiful, responsible, caring and compassionate young lady who remains deeply missed by her family and numerous friends. We continue to request that anyone who has any information as to what happened to Donna Ann Lass please contact the South Lake Tahoe Police Department. We also want to thank everyone who has tried to help solve Donna's case over the years. End quote. Then in December 2023, the Tahoe area investigators contacted the last family with the news that Donna had been identified. By this point, five of her seven siblings were deceased, with only Patricia and Joan still alive. To hear the news of Donna's skull being found in placer county in 1986, KCRA quoted South Lake Tahoe Police Chief David Stevenson as saying, obviously it was a long time ago, but families never forget. It never gets old, it never goes away. They never heal. That unknown is very painful for them. The family is grateful for a bit of closure, South Lake Tahoe Police Lt. Jeff Robertson told South Lake Tahoe. Now, a South Lake Tahoe PD release dated December 27, 2023 reads, A new lead has developed in a cold case. Donna Lass, a female who disappeared from the South Lake Tahoe area in September of 1970, was missing until last week when a familial DNA match was made between a member of Lass family and remains located in placer county in 1986. Investigators contacted Lass remaining family members and provided resources during the holidays. Efforts to re examine the case and discover connections between the South Lake Tahoe PD case and Placer county case are underway. Donna's family issued a statement saying the family of Donna Lass is very grateful for all the efforts of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department, Placer County Sheriff's Office and others that have worked to help find our beloved Donna over the past 53 years. Donna, a 25 year old registered nurse, was a beautiful, responsible, caring and compassionate person who remains deeply missed by her family and friends. We remain hopeful that ongoing investigative endeavors will yield additional information and ultimately justice for Donna. So the new lead referenced by the South Lake Tahoe Police was, of course, that Donna had been identified. And. And we have another crime scene, one 70 miles away in Placer County. Donna's case is being treated as a homicide. It hasn't been proven to be a homicide at this point, but we're obviously treating it that way, South Lake Tahoe Police Chief David Stevenson told NBC, labeling her death as suspicious. No one thinks that Donna died of natural causes somehow up in Yuba Pass. So in the end, we're left with the question, was Donna Lass a victim of the Zodiac or of someone who knew her and targeted her? Or some opportunistic killer? After Donna's skull was identified as belonging to her in 2023, NBC reported that South Lake Tahoe Police Sgt. Nick Carlquist told the network in an email that, quote, there has been speculation about Lass being connected to the Zodiac case, but there has not been a definitive evidence based connection to support that. Having said that, we're exploring all possibilities. End quote. Detective Sergeant Karlquist told me that there's a lot of viable theories in Donna's case. He said they get as many as 20 tips daily. Everything from Donna Lass was taken by aliens to she's with Jimmy Hoffa, to many very plausible theories that are impossible to prove with such sparse evidence, spotty documentation, and the passing of more than a half century. One possible suspect unearthed by the PI working on Donna's case in the 1970s was George Victor Johansson, a blonde white male who worked as a security guard at the same casino as Donna, often worked the same shift, and was sometimes seen with her. And another suspect, a favorite of seasoned Zodiac investigator Harvey Hines, was Lawrence Kane, who had purportedly lived near Donna in San Francisco and also came to South Lake Tahoe to get a job in the same casino. No one has ever been able to link Donna definitively to these or any other suspect. Her murder is truly a mystery. Whether the Zodiac was actually involved is not known to this day. I can only theorize. Based on what we know, Donna was not found anywhere near where the purported Zodiac postcard seems to hint she could be found somewhere in the pines around Lake Tahoe. If the postcard really was from him, as many believe, then he may have just been taunting police with the notion that he abducted Donna. Or if he did kill her, he sent the letters to serve as red herrings, distracting police from the real resting place where he'd left Donna near the Lake Valley Reservoir in Placer County. My money is on the Zodiac not actually being involved in her murder at all. If Donna had finished her shift, changed out of her uniform and went out on a date, taking her purse with her, and was never seen again, it seems to me that that date might have something to do with it. And whoever he was, he took care to dump Donna 70 miles away from South Lake Tahoe and called the casino to fend off concerns over her being missing, and he got away with murder for 55 years and counting. By law, Donna's case remains open until the rest of her remains are located, so investigators are obliged to continue to hunt for clues and track down every lead, no matter how remote. Believe me when I tell you I've only broken the surface on the Zodiac stuff. If you're interested ABJAC Entertainment, the entertainment network that this podcast is part of, also features Zodiac Speaking, a podcast by Mike Morford. It includes Multiple seasons and 45 episodes to date dedicated to the mystery of the Zodiac. I highly recommend it. Thanks for listening to this episode of dnaid. Before you leave, please let me tell you about some important things related to the show. If you'd like to support this podcast and in the process get access to early and ad free episodes as well as bonus content like crime scene photos, you can sign up for a Patreon subscription for only $5 a month by heading over to patreon.com dnaid. Of course, you're welcome to contribute more than $5 a month. We rely on Patreon funds to pay for the original source materials I use to research each episode. If Patreon isn't your thing, you can also show your Support with an AbJack Insider subscription through Apple Podcasts. It costs just $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Your Abjak Insider subscription will give you the same benefits for not only DNAID but but for all of the shows on the Abjak Network, like Killer Communications and Campus Killings. Head over to Apple Podcasts and find the DNAID page or look for the ABJAC Network to get started. If you're on social media, we'd love to interact with you there. DNAID is on every major social media platform. Search your favorite platforms for DNAID podcasts to find us. We also have a YouTube channel and our website is DNAID podcast.com. you can find links to all of these anytime in our show Notes. If you need to reach the show, contact us by emailing dnaidpodcastmail.com finally, if you want to pick up some fun DNAID merch and represent the show, visit the store at www.customizedgirl.coms dnaidpodcast. DNAID is researched, written and and hosted by me, Jessica Bettencourt. It's produced by me and Mike Morford of abjack Entertainment Music by Connor Betancourt.
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