Donna Ann Lass was born on November 3, 1944 to James ‘Peter’ and Frances (nee Kukar) Lass in Beresford, South Dakota; when she was born her mother was 43 and her dad was 47. Mr. Lass was born on August 25, 1897 and was the second of three children. He served in WWI and spent most of his career farming in the areas of Beresford and Worthing in South Dakota. He married Frances Mary Kukar in Aurelia, Iowa and the couple had eight children together: two boys (Raymond and Eugene) and six girls (Donna, Marjorie, Mary, Karen, Joan, and1992

Patricia). Mrs. Lass was born on November 24, 1900. They eventually divorced, and on October 18, 1951 James married his second wife, Petrine Horstad, in Worthington, MN.

In high school, Donna was a member of the Future Homemakers of America and sang in the mixed chorus. In an interview during her senior year, she shared that her future plans were ‘to go college or be a nurse,’ and after graduating from Beresford High School in 1962 (there were only 52 kids in her graduating class!) she went on and earned her RN. Described by friends as ‘quiet and shy,’ Donna had blue eyes, was 5’4” tall, and had light brown hair that she dyed blonde and wore short and parted on the side. At the time she disappeared in the fall of 1970 she weighed 139 pounds, wore contact lenses, and wasn’t in a committed relationship; she wore size eight shoes and a size 13 dress. Donna didn’t smoke or imbibe in any drug use, and drank infrequently and very little. She was Roman Catholic and attended church every Sunday at St. Mary’s of the Pines. According to her sister Mary, she had perfect teeth and took excellent care of them. She had pierced ears, a white gold wrist watch with a ‘small chain’ and wore a ring on her right ring finger. Lass was reportedly saving for a trip to Europe she planned on taking in 1971.

In May of 1970 Donna had moved from 4122 Balboa Street in San Francisco to Stateline, Nevada, settling down in the South Lake Tahoe area. She previously worked as a nurse at the Letterman General Hospital in the Presidio Army Base (it’s worth mentioning that the base was north of the site where Zodiac victim Paul Stine was murdered). After relocating she briefly resided with friends Ann and Larry Lowe before getting her own place at the Monte Verde apartments; when she disappeared on September 6 she had only spent one night there. Mrs. Lowe worked with Donna from 1967 to 1969 in Santa Barbara but relocated to South Lake Tahoe with her husband, and it was her that encouraged Donna to move there. After Lass disappeared the young couple set their plans of moving and returning to college aside so they could stick around and help LE with the investigation.

In early September 1970 Lass had recently moved into her new apartment located on 3893 Pioneer Trail Road, which was just a three minute drive from her new POE. On June 6 she started her job as a nurse at the Sahara Tahoe Casino in South Lake Tahoe, Nevada (now called the Golden Nugget Lake Hotel & Casino). On September 5, 1970 Donna was scheduled to work an overnight shift at the first aid station  from 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM, although her last notation in the nursing log was right it was scheduled to end at 1:50 AM (I’ve see a lot of back and forth about the exact time, I’ve seen it vary from 1:15 to 1:50). A pen mark dragged from the last letter of the final word she wrote (which was ‘patient complains of’) and went all the way down to the bottom of the page. I did read on a Reddit comment that Donna’s sister Mary said that the handwriting didn’t belong to her. That entry was for a San Francisco resident named Joan Bentley, who was also the last confirmed person to see Donna alive (at approximately 1:15 AM). A Websleuths user suggested that the ‘drag mark of her pen indicates being grabbed from behind, by perhaps the person who tore out two pages of her notebook, which may have held his name, and then adding the name Joan Bentley.’ I think they were on the right track, however Joan was a real patient that LE spoke with. Ms. Bentley shared with them that she enjoyed making small talk with her pretty young nurse, who appeared to be in a good mood and was ‘very congenial.’ Donna shared with her that she was looking forward to skiing that upcoming winter and that she enjoyed her new job and had plans on staying there for a while.

After Donna left Mrs. Bentley she was never seen alive again, and reportedly no one ever saw her leave the Casino grounds. Her red, 1968 Chevrolet Camaro convertible was found undisturbed in its assigned parking spot at her apartment building, although it’s speculated that she walked to work that day, as it was just a 8-10 minute walk away. ​If Lass walked to work the night that she disappeared it was less likely that her left behind car would attract attention from concerned coworkers. Donna’s vehicle was completely paid for and it appeared that she had an impressive wardrobe and little to no debt. Her uniform was found stuffed in a bag in the nursing office and had mud all over it, and it’s speculated that she may have changed into a blue pants suit with white stripes and a rust colored raincoat. Does Donna changing out of her work outfit and into her street clothes hint at a planned meet-up with someone after her shift was over, maybe a date? Was it with the same person that would ultimately take her life? Since Lass was abducted at the end of her scheduled shift when she wouldn’t be missed as much, was this evidence that her abductor knew her routine and schedule? On a semi-related note, in a press release from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, in the weeks prior to Lass’ disappearance two female employees at the Sahara Tahoe were physically assaulted in the parking lot, although there were ultimately no connections established between the incidents.

Unfortunately police didn’t seem very interested in investigating Lass’ disappearance and her case wasn’t taken very seriously in its early stages. On September 25, 1970 Sargent Bezanson from the South Lake Tahoe PD reached out to her friend and former roommate/coworker from San Francisco Jo Ann Goettsch, who shared that she made plans with Lass to visit on September 7th but when she arrived was unable to get in contact with her. The friends made plans for Goettsch to meet up with Lass at her POE and from there she would follow her back to her new place. I should note, there does seem to be some uncertainty on the exact date Goettsch arrived: I’ve seen it reported as the 7th or 8th, but according to a PI report (more on that later) it’s the 7th so I’m going with that. After Donna vanished without a trace, multiple members of her family as well as her friends, acquaintances, and coworkers were interviewed and polygraphed, but unfortunately nothing of value was obtained. After she vanished Lass’ family flew in from Sioux Falls for a week to help look into her disappearance (her sister Mary stayed for two). According to her loved ones, Donna had a lot of friends and ‘would never just run off without telling someone.’

After searching a bit for Donna with another friend, Jo Ann eventually went spoke with one of her coworkers Victor Johnson, who was unable to provide much helpful information about her missing friend. The two stayed with him until around 4 AM, and he kept repeating over and over that he knew nothing about where Lass was or what happened to her. After no luck in finding her friend, Goettsch booked a motel room for that night and drove back to San Francisco the following day. After interviews with friends, family, and acquaintances of Johnson, investigators determined he had an ‘evasive manner,’ which left him as the individual they felt was most likely responsible for Lass’ disappearance as far as motive, opportunity, and reason were concerned. Despite multiple interviews and a polygraph examination, the suspect was never charged in relation to Donna’s disappearance.

Investigators spoke with Dorothy Cullison, who was employed at a local storefront called ‘Tahoe Paradise. She shared with them that she saw Lass the day after she was supposedly last seen on September 7th at roughly 3-4 in the afternoon. She was walking south on Pioneer Trail and was in the company of a young, clean shaven blonde man. Mrs. Cullison was unable to give LE any additional information regarding either individual, however she was insistent that the woman she saw was Donna Lass. She also claimed that they briefly spoke as well. If this is true, then Mrs. Cullison would be the last known person to see Lass alive. According to PI Miller’s report (again, more on that later), on October 21, 1970 the South Tahoe PD spoke with Joe Hershey from the Des Moines FBI office, who reported that he helped expedite a civilian stop order for Lass’ ‘file in Washington.’ Roughly a week later on October 27 a long distance call was made from LE to Jeremiah Murphy, a lawyer in Sioux Falls. Mr. Murphy shared that he was in contact with former FBI Director Herbert Hoover with the request that he help intervene on behalf of the Lass family in order to put the case more in the spotlight; no return call was ever received, however it does appear that Hoover did at one point attempt to help with her case (although I’m not exactly sure what he did).

On September 21, 1970 law enforcement contacted Tahoe National Bank, where Lass had an account and spoke with Clarise Chapman. Mrs. Chapman reported that they received no checks from Donna after September 1 and flagged her account for activity. She also had an account at the Bank of America in Tahoe, and there was no suspicious activity related to that one either (it was flagged as well). Additionally there was no suspicious activity before or after September 6, 1970 that had shown up on her credit card; her drivers license was flagged for activity as well.

George Victor Johnson, a security guard that worked with Donna during her final shift at the Casino, shared with investigators that he interacted with her on multiple occasions the evening she disappeared. Despite no criminal record, there is a notation in the private investigator’s report that he was ‘unstable and a heavy drinker, also not to be believed all the time.’ Another new acquaintance of Donna’s from the casino said that they were friendly and went out for drinks on occasion after work but she didn’t consider her a ‘close friend.’ The unidentified woman also shared that she saw Lass on September 9, 1970 when she went with Lass and another friend Dwight Stogsdale to take a third friend named Teke Holland to San Francisco to join the Army, but investigators determined that she had her dates incorrect and meant to say September 2nd. Additionally, two days before the friends went to San Francisco Lass was seen with two males that were employed at Barney’s Department store. Mrs. Tooker, who worked for the Lake Tahoe Ambulance company, looked into her log from September 6 to the 23rd and didn’t come across any reports of Jane Doe’s that matched Lass’ description.

The Lowe’s shared with law enforcement that the last time they saw Donna was on September 4, 1970 at around 11:30 PM. They also said that she was newly acquainted with a young man named ‘Dave’ that was employed at a local Chevron Station in Stateline. She reportedly went to see him a few times while on her way to work dressed in uniform, and that he went to her POE to visit with her on multiple occasions, but the pair never dated. The couple also volunteered that their friend dated a Maitre D named Ramon Vasuez that also worked at her POE. Apparently at one point during their time together the young man ‘went in for a kiss’ but was rejected; he did apologize to her the next day. Vascuas told investigators that he saw her ‘several times’ that Labor Day weekend but was ‘very busy at the time.’ He also said that he ‘never took her anywhere outside of their place of employment’ and his relationship with her didn’t go beyond a friendly occasional drink and conversation after their shift ended. Just as a side note, I was reading some comments from an interview posted on YouTube that an amateur true crime sleuth did with Larry Lowe, and some viewers pointed out that they felt his demeanor was suspicious and that he appeared to be visibly nervous. Although another commented that these were signs of Parkinson’s disease, so who knows? Lowe was looked into by LE but was eventually cleared.

Before she disappeared Lass briefly dated a writer from Keno, Oregon named Tony Chapman. When LE tracked him down Chapman shared with them that he never really ‘dated’ her but they did get together a few times to talk after she got out of work (on occasion they would end their night at around 5 AM). They went out on three different occasions but never even kissed. The last time he saw Donna was on September 2, when he and another friend named Vern Lauflin went out with her after work for about two hours.

There was a popular rumor floating around (and it was reported on by The Bee) that the day following Donna’s disappearance an unknown male made sinister telephone calls to her employer and landlord claiming that she had returned home to South Dakota due to a family illness (or emergency, I’ve seen it reported as both) and would ‘not be available.’ However, it was eventually determined that no such call was ever received by the landlord, and it cannot be confirmed nor denied whether or not a misleading call was ever received by her employer. Where this story originated from has yet to be identified, and there was no illness in the Lass family at that time. On page three of the Millers PI report there is a notation that a security guard named Gordon Petrovich at the Sahara received a call from a ‘Mr. Davis’ related to Lass. Petrovich claimed that he left a note on the security desk regarding the call; he did not recognize the voice and didn’t remember what time the call came in. When investigators searched Donna’s apartment it was tidy and undisturbed with no signs of a struggle, and there was a pile of neatly folded clothes on her bed, waiting to be put away.  The only unusual thing worth mentioning about the scene was there was a light left on in her bathroom. All of her personal belongings were left behind, including her purse, expensive clothing, and cosmetics bag. No fingerprint samples were taken from Donna’s apartment or vehicle.

A security guard that worked at the same casino as Lass filed a missing persons report for her three days after her disappearance. Less than a month after she disappeared on October 2, 1970 her sister Mary Pilker contacted a Private Investigator named John Miller to help look into her sister’s disappearance. According to the PI report, earlier in the day Lass disappeared she walked through her new apartment with both its old and new managers of the complex (a Nick Davis and Frank DeSimone, respectively) and completed a general move-in checklist. The two men reported her living space was neat and clean, with her bed made and her nurses hat on her dresser. On September 11 DeSimone went into her apartment and noticed it was in similar fashion to the first time he was there, and the only thing unusual was that the bathroom light was left on. After Donna disappeared Sargent Turker picked up her mail at the post office and gave it to Pilker, who drove her car back to California, taking with her Donna’s possessions from her apartment: ‘we drove her convertible home, packed all her things, and we were scared the whole way home.’ A few personal items that belonged to Donna were discovered in a shallow grave, but where that site was and what those items were I don’t know.

In September 1970 when Lass disappeared it looks like Bundy was employed as a delivery driver for Pedline Supply Company, a family owned medical supply company; he worked there from June 5, 1970 to December 31, 1971. In mid-1970, he re-enrolled in the undergraduate psychology program at the University of Washington and was living at the Rogers Rooming House on 12th Avenue. Additionally he was in the early stages of a long-term, committed relationship with Liz Kloepfer at this time, so he had a lot of established roots in the general Seattle area. Although attractive, Lass didn’t really fit Bundy’s typical victim profile: she had blonde hair that she wore short, which obviously doesn’t fit the whole ‘long brown hair parted down the middle’ narrative we are all familiar with (which I think it all just a coincidence and was simply a popular hairstyle in the 1970’s). She was also 25, which (although not entirely out of the question) is definitely on the older end of Bundy’s victims. Additionally, she was taken from her apartment that was in no way related to a college campus. But at the same time, we have to keep in mind that Donna was attractive and well educated, which we ALL know is absolutely Bundy’s type.

When analyzing the logistics of Bundy killing the pretty young nurse, the scene of the abduction was about 12 hours and 55 minutes away (or 764 miles, one way) from where he lived in Seattle… but let’s think about it, he had a lot on his plate at the time Donna disappeared, did he really have time to drive all the way to Nevada to commit a murder? Well, in this instance, it turns out he may have: although not on the ‘the FBI TB Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992,’ according to Redditor ‘triddy6,’ Ted got a speeding ticket in Lake Tahoe a week before Lass was abducted. At first I was hesitant on believing this, because I could’t find it anywhere else, then I found the following in Rob Dielenbergs ‘Ted Bundy: A Visual Timeline,’ for the date August 20, 1970 ‘Jerry Thompson logged a call from Detective Pat O’Neil from the Sheriff’s Office in Sacramento, California on October 21, 1975. He informed Thompson that Mr. Bundy had a traffic citation on August 20, 1970 in Marin County, the Bay area, and he was driving an old white pick up truck. Liz stated that ‘he purchased a white Ford pick up truck he has presently in the SLC area around one year ago before he left for SLC.’ (Ira Beal report post Liz Kloepfer interview, September 17, 1975).’ So he was at least in the same area in the general time frame that she disappeared. A few entries down in the same text, on September 4, 1970 it’s reported Bundy returned home to Seattle with Liz after returning from vacation: they traveled all over the place, first to the Watastch Mountains in Utah, then to Ogden, then to Yakima, WA then Baker, Oregon then back to Ogden again. His whereabouts for September 6, 1970 seem to be unaccounted for. September is the most popular time of the year to go to Lake Tahoe, and it is a popular area that skiers flock to as well, and we know at least one of Bundy’s victims was abducted from a ski resort (Caryn Campbell on January 12, 1975 from The Wildwood Inn in Snowmass Village near Aspen). Playing devil’s advocate, we know he was an avid night person and had no problem driving long distances when looking for prey. As we know he didn’t mind traveling far to help throw police off his trail, and it didn’t hurt that he was aware that police agencies were reluctant to share information with each other. Was Donna just another one of Ted’s ‘murders of opportunity?’ It’s worth noting that not only do we have confirmed kills from Washington, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Florida, and Idaho, I’ve also written about numerous other states he could have been active in as well (New Jersey, Arizona, and Vermont). I will say that September 1970 is definitely on the early side of when Ted may have started killing: he told psychologist Arthur Norman that he killed two girls in New Jersey in 1969 (most likely the Garden State Parkway Murders, Susan Perry and Elizabeth Davis), but when he was doing his death row confessions he told Dr. Keppel that he committed his first murders in 1972. Before his execution Bundy was never questioned about Lass’ disappearance.

It’s often wondered if Lass is the final victim of the Zodiac Killer, and she is included in the list of his potential 37 victims. Although I’ve seen that number as high as 48, law enforcement have only confirmed four attacks took place: five victims were killed and two survived. I mean, the Zodiac wasn’t known to abduct his victims, but he was known to contact LE to taunt and anonymously take responsibility for his crimes, as he wanted recognition for what he did. There was a possible link though to Donna and the very first majorly suspected Zodiac suspect: William Joseph Grant, who (like Ted Bundy) got a speeding ticket in his white Chevrolet at roughly the time Lass disappeared. Grant (who is referred to as ‘Andrew Todd Walker’ in Robert Graysmith’s true crime classic, Zodiac) was fifty-seven in September 1970, had glasses, and wore his dark hair combed into a pompadour. He served in the military from January 1942 through November 1945 and allegedly taught cryptography and received code training. Walker lived in Suisun, California and was employed as a real estate salesman in Fairfield. According to a report by the Solano County Sheriff’s Office, he was seen ‘hanging around the rest stop area on Hunters Hill engaging in homosexual activities.’ Sergeant Les Lundblad, who investigated the Zodiacs first confirmed ‘Lake Herman Road murders’ that occurred in the outskirts of Benicia, spoke with the suspect and noted his ‘hostile manner towards a CHP officer.’ Sergeant Lundblad reported Walker to authorities after he played a game of ‘cat and mouse’ with his vehicle on a freeway one evening. One-time California Highway Patrol Officer Lyndon Lafferty was the first to suspect Grant, and he later published his own book titled ‘The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up (aka The Silenced Badge).’

Another serial killer suggested in the strange disappearance of Donna Lass is Joseph James DeAngelo, who is also known as the Golden State Killer. Looking into DeAngelo it appears that he began ransacking homes in 1968 but he didn’t begin his murder spree until April 1974, plus he operated mostly in California’s Sacramento County, so Donna disappeared quite a bit before he started.

A popular name I saw thrown around in relation to the disappearance of Donna Lass was Richard Joseph Gaikowski. A newspaper editor at the time of the Zodiac murders in the late 1960’s, Gaikowski was initially considered a person of interest largely because of his training as a medic in the Army. This is because victim Paul Stine’s shirt was ripped, which was a common bandaging technique taught to medics in the military. In addition to this, Stine’s sister also remembers seeing him at her brother’s funeral. He also had a tendency to shorten his surname to ‘Gike’ or ‘Gyke,’ the latter of which was used in several Zodiac cyphers. Police dispatcher Nancy Slover, who the Zodiac spoke with after his attacks on Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau (Ferrin was killed but Mageau survived), claimed that the voice of Gaikowski matched that of the caller. Strangely rough, in 1971 Gaik was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward, and the Zodiac communications ceased for roughly three years. Redditor ‘AllyNC’ commented that he ‘had a widows peak, knew about codes, and had been questioned by police.’ Nothing official has ever linked Richard Gaikowski to Donna Lass’ disappearance.

On March 22, 1971, Paul Avery from the ‘San Francisco Chronicle’ received a postcard (with no postmark) from a person claiming to be the Zodiac and insinuated that Donna Lass was one of his victims (Avery was a well known reporter that frequently wrote about the murders). The postcard was an altered advertisement for ‘Forest Pines at Incline: Lake Tahoe’s Forest New Condominiums located in Include Village, Nevada.’ The correspondence contained five phrases glued onto the advertisement: 1. ‘Sierra Club’ 2. ‘Sought Victim 12’ 3. ‘Peek through the pines’ 4. ‘pass Lake Tahoe areas’ 5. ‘Around in the snow (pasted upside down).’ The meaning behind the messages have yet to be determined. It’s thought that it was designed and sent by the Zodiac sometime in between March 19 and March 21, 1971, and was mailed out either on March 22/23.

The Pines postcard never made any direct reference to Lass, and only hinted at a possible connection through the ‘Lake Tahoe’ and ‘Sierra Club’ references. If she was murdered by the Zodiac and this was set by him then the correspondence may hold an important hidden message… or, it may simply be a hoax. Additionally, if the postcards creator was in fact the Zodiac, then there’s always the possibility that he was a resident of the South Lake Tahoe area at the time of Lass’ abduction and that he was connected to her somehow or knew her in some way. The authenticity of the correspondence has divided the true crime community ever since it was received, but according to the creator of the website ‘zodiackiller.com,’ ‘in 1999 a retired detective revealed to me that a former Zodiac investigator had admitted to forging the Lass postcard.’ I want to point out that I only found this information in a single source, and there was nothing of substance to back that up. I mean, there’s so much back and forth with this case, who knows what’s truth and what’s fiction.

Donna’s sister Mary got a strange Christmas card on December 27, 1974 with the signature ‘Best Wishes, St. Donna and Guardian of the Pines.’ The card’s picture was an array of snowy pine trees on a beautiful winter’s day, and its postmark was 940, meaning it was mailed from San Mateo County or an adjacent section of Santa Clara County. Pilker immediately turned it over to law enforcement, and it was eventually determined to be a fake. It was a hoax sent from a couple who read about the Lass case, and had no connection to the Zodiac.  

Before she moved to Nevada Lass lived in the same area where the Zodiac operated out of, and even worked at a hospital in Presidio Park close to where their final (confirmed) victim Paul Stine was killed on October 11, 1969. Did he stalk Lass while she lived in San Francisco but maybe she moved away unexpectedly and prematurely, and he followed her to Nevada to finish what he started? I did read somewhere that if Donna was killed while employed on a military base then her case may have become Federal and would have been under a microscope even more. But on the flip side, there is always a chance that the Pines postcard wasn’t sent by the Zodiac, and was designed by a different assailant in an attempt to deflect attention away from the South Lake Tahoe region and towards the San Francisco Bay area where the Zodiac operated out of?

The search for Donna Lass would be negatively affected by the poor weather conditions in the months following her disappearance: South Lake Tahoe experienced record breaking amounts of snow in November and December 1970. From the onset, former South Lake Tahoe PD Chief Ray Lauritzen said that: ‘we don’t know where we’re going to begin. There’s a four or five foot pack of snow out there and it’s still snowing heavily.’ The Pines postcard made a reference to snow, in an almost sinister way by putting the phrase ‘around in the snow’ at ground level and upside down. By doing this, the creator may have hinted that Lass was buried under snow. A newspaper article stated that ‘the site depicted on the ‘Pines Card’ was from an advertisement published last Sunday by several newspapers. It was an artist’s rendition of houses among the trees at a Boise Cascade Company project at Incline Village, where construction has just begun on the development. While much of the Sierra area is under several feet of snow, Incline Village has only two feet on the ground. Police went to the area to determine if a search is possible.’ ​Chief Lauritzen added that ‘there’s no point to a search at this time. It’s unlikely a victim would be uncovered before spring.’

In his book ‘Zodiac,’ Robert Graysmith interviewed Jo Anne Goettsche, a former roommate of Donna Lass when she was living at 225 Malorca Way in San Francisco. They worked together at Letterman General Hospital at the Presidio Army Base, and lived together until June 1970 when Donna moved to South Lake Tahoe. Just as a side note, the ‘Presidio’ is close to where taxi driver and Zodiac victim Paul Stine was killed on October 11, 1969, and it was where a man that was strongly suspected to have been the Zodiac, was seen walking away immediately afterwards. Goettsche said that she and Donna used to go flying with two men from Riverside when they lived in San Francisco (a bit more on that later). There’s also a comment on a podcast about the Zodiac made by user ‘Sandy Betts’ that Lass ‘feared the dark, and would stay up all night gambling. Before walking home. But then we have the PI who said she walked home when it was dark.’ I didn’t listen to the podcast itself but this is the only source I’ve come across that mentions Donna gambling, but maybe it was fairly new behavior, as she had only recently begun working at a casino. Maybe she was just experimenting.

In August 2000 ​former detective Harvey Hines began to investigate the abduction of Donna Lass. Retired from the Groveland, California police force since 1992, Hines had an avid interest in the Zodiac case and has studied it since 1973. He even became friends with the Lass family, and along with Mary and Don Pilker (Donna’s nephew) became convinced the Zodiac was responsible for Donna’s disappearance. In an interview with The Tahoe Daily Tribune, Hines stated that ‘there was a lot of evidence inside Sahara Tahoe Casino that she left directly from there. She was a very personal person and she left a lot of personal items behind; an opened letter, a dirty uniform and on her log, a pen was dragged from the last word she wrote to the bottom of the page.’

Hines firmly believes that Lass was abducted from her place of employment right at shift change: according to her friends and colleagues, she was a conscientious and reliable worker and would never just take off. This coupled with the strange pen mark (and unusual handwriting) on the nursing log suggests that she was either physically assaulted here, or was possibly distracted and lured away with the ruse of needing help in the casino’s car park (where she was most likely abducted from). Despite the overwhelming evidence that suggests Lass walked to work the evening she disappeared and never left the Hotel on her own, many true crime fans strongly feel that she may have made her way back to her apartment in her Camaro, where her abductor was waiting for her. Or, maybe he followed her from the hotel to the Monte Verde apartments and attacked her there, or even en route. Hines strongly speculated that Lass was buried on the Donner Ski Ranch, which was actually searched after an anonymous tip was mailed in about a suspected dump site. Bomb sniffing and cadaver dogs were taken to Mount Diablo near Donner Canyon to comb the area, but came up with nothing. The following is from an unreleased, 120-page investigative report completed by Hines: ’after studying the card, I drove to Nordin, located on old Highway 40, north of Lake Tahoe, and found the SIERRA CLUB. I learned the club was not called the Sierra Club. It was named the Clair Tappaan Lodge and it was a private club for Sierra Club members only. I believed if I followed the directions on the postcard I would find Donna Lass’ grave. I believe she was buried near the Sierra Club and most likely on the Donner Ski Ranch. I would later have the pictures of the Sierra Club developed. Then using a copy of Zodiac’s card, I cut out the phrases he had pasted on his card. Using these phrases, I overpasted them on the copy of the Sierra Club picture. It was strikingly similar to the original card.’

On April 20, 1970, a cipher was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle that contained only 13 letters, widely known as the ‘My Name Is…Letter.’ Hines felt that he successfully solved it, revealing the name ‘Lawrence Kane.’ Looking into him, Kane worked with Donna at the Letterman General Hospital at the Presidio Army Base, and lived next to her in San Francisco. He was a known peeping Tom and was in the Navy. According to Redditor ‘MozartofCool,’ he moved to Nevada around the same time as Lass and even got a job at the same hotel that she was employed at. Hines also claimed that Kane sold Arizona real estate from an office located across the street from the apartment building where Donna lived. I couldn’t find any proof of any form of relationship between the two, but there is a theory that he became obsessed with her after seeing her when they worked together in California, and ‘grabbed her when he knew she would be alone.’ The former detective drew additional parallels to Kane and the Zodiac, including similar penmanship styles and physical appearance. A former military man, Kane suffered a traumatic brain injury in 1962 and as a result was diagnosed as being able to control his urges and related to ‘self-gratification.’ Nothing of substance ever linked him to the disappearance of Donna Lass. Zodiac killer or not, Kane was a career criminal, even going so far as to rob a bank at one point in his life. Reading through the Zodiac Reddit pages, it seems that he is one of the more heavily discussed suspects. An interesting tidbit about him: in 1992 suspected Zodiac victim Kathleen Johns picked his photo out of a line-up and identified him as the man who attempted to abduct her and her baby in March 1970.

In a YouTube video made by the creator ‘BlackBoxOnlineRadio,’ user ‘captainj1339’ mentioned a possible suspect of James Richard Curry. Curry was a rapist and serial killer that murdered either four or five people in California and Nevada from 1982 to 1983. A few days after he was arrested he hung himself in his cell. He was most famous for posthumously being Id’ed as the killer of Mary Silvani, who was formerly referred to as the Sheep Flats Jane Doe. Looking into him it does appear Lass’ disappearance took place quite a bit before he was active, as his earliest suspected murder took place in 1978. Another YouTube video discussed another potential Zodiac suspect I never heard of before named Don Harden. A school teacher by trade, Harden broke the Zodiacs first (and longest) cipher, the 408 code (sent on July 31, 1969). The code was split into three pieces of equal length: two were mailed to newspapers in San Francisco and one to a paper in nearby Vallejo. He demanded they be printed or he would go on a ‘kill rampage.’ I mean, most of the information I found related to Harden was related to the fact that he solved the cipher, and there’s just a few small niche groups of amateur Zodiac researchers that suspect he created the cipher and is also the best suspect. It doesn’t hurt that his wife Bettye was a graphologist. Yet another new name I came across is Joseph Stephen Holt, a murderer and suspected serial killer who in 2019 was posthumously linked via DNA to two murders committed in South Lake Tahoe that occurred between 1977 and 1979. He was a real estate agent and died in 2014 without ever being considered a suspect. Since he was identified, authorities have been investigating whether he could be responsible for more violent crimes that were committed in the state, including the disappearance of Donna Lass.

I came across another potential suspect one night scrolling through Facebook looking for anything additional I might have missed. A Facebooker named Randall Higgins claims that it was his father, Robert Melvin Higgins that was the Zodiac and the killer of Donna Lass. On his page he goes over a few reasons why he feels this is the case, it’s all mostly cipher related and how he feels they’re particular to his Dad and his life (I’ll include screenshots below), but in a different post he claims that his dad became a much kinder and more caring  person after he quit using amphetamines in 1980. Higgins also said that both of his parents were users of the prescription drug Thalidomide, which he felt might have contributed to his Dads altered mental state and what turned him into the Zodiac. He said his mother took the drug for 2-6 weeks when she was pregnant with him but his Dad took it anytime he could get his hands on it. Looking into it, Thalidomide is used to treat and prevent ‘erythema nodosum leprosum,’ a painful skin disease associated with leprosy and when paired with dexamethasone treats multiple myeloma. It works on the immune system and helps to reduce inflammation. So, I don’t really understand the need to take it with such urgency, it’s not a narcotic and won’t get you high. I was also able to find a TikTok video Mr. Higgins made where he broke down his rationale as to why he feels his dad was responsible for Lass’ death: apparently the weekend she disappeared in September 1970 he sat his entire family down and told them that he was going to Modesto to help take care of his adoptive parents, as his ‘father’ had recently been diagnosed with colon cancer. However Higgins suspected that his father never made it to Modesto and instead went to South Lake Tahoe and killed Donna Lass. He also said his father is DB Cooper so… I don’t know. At this time I’m taking this guy’s tale with a grain of salt.

On one of my final days of doing research, I came across a YouTube Channel of a PhD named ‘David Gold’ who claims to have found the body of Donna Lass in an unmarked grave on some uninhabited land in Lake Tahoe. Looking into this guy, he’s absolutely hellbent that the Zodiac killer is a Alcatraz escapee named Frank Morris as well as DB Cooper, the guy who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft on November 24, 1971 (but oddly enough, he isn’t the only person that feels this way). It appears policing agencies didn’t take his claims very seriously and never even looked into the site. The grave, decorated with an array of glued together rocks and pine cones, was obviously deemed not to be the final resting site of Lass, as it was recently announced that her remains were actually recovered in early 1986 (but more on that later). As of January 2024 there is nothing linking Morris or Cooper to the disappearance of Lass (or any other Zodiac murder).

One time Orange County Sheriff’s Inspector Stanley Parsons said that ‘if the Zodiac claims he killed the missing nurse at Lake Tahoe, and if in fact he did slay her, then there is a very good chance he also killed Miss. Hakari and Miss. Bennalack.’ About six months before Lass disappeared on March 7, 1970 23 year-old Judith Hakari had just finished her shift at the Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento. It’s suspected she was abducted shortly after pulling into the parking lot of the Markston apartments where she lived at around 11:30 PM. The young RN had made plans to see her fiance, Raymond Willis, who was planning on meeting her at her home at around 11:45 PM. Willis waited for Hakari and became concerned when she didn’t show up. It was around 1:45 in the morning that he walked around the complex’s parking lot to check if her Mercury Cougar was there. It was, and after seeing it parked in its usual spot he immediately contacted the police. Upon investigating, Hakari’s vehicle showed signs of a struggle: the passenger’s side door was left open, her keys were found on the floorboard, and ripped up strips of a Cannon-brand towel were strewn all over the inside. Her remains were discovered roughly 40 miles from her apartment by hikers in a shallow grave near Ponderosa Way in Weimar on April 25, 1970. The pretty young nurse experienced an absolutely brutal death: her nose was smashed in repeatedly and her hyoid bone was fractured. Her jaw was broken in two places and she had several teeth knocked out. She had also been strangled and raped.

Twenty-seven year old Nancy Bennallack was found stabbed to death in her residence at the Tahitian Apartments on October 25, 1970. She lived just one block away from the Markston Apartments where Judith Hakari lived before she vanished. The attractive young court reporter lived alone in an upstairs apartment and was last seen alive by her fiance on October 25, 1970 at approximately 11:30 PM. When she didn’t come into work the next morning, her coworker called her son to check on her. The friend’s son explained the situation to Nancy’s apartment manager, who was sympathetic and gave him a spare key. After letting himself in, the young man came across a gruesome sight: Nancy had been brutally murdered and was stabbed so viciously that she was nearly decapitated. In 2021 advancements in genetic genealogy helped to identify Bennallack’s killer as Richard John Davis, who lived in the apartment building across from her. Sadly, Davis will never face justice because he died of an alcohol related illness on November 2, 1997.

On July 24, 1977, Brynn Rainey vanished after she was last seen at the Bittercreek Saloon in Stateline, Nevada. Originally from Ohio and employed at the Sahara Tahoe Casino, when the 27-year-old didn’t arrive at work for her usual shift the next day she was reported as missing. After walking through her apartment, investigators determined that there were no signs of a struggle and nothing had been stolen. Rainey was missing for slightly less than a month when a horseback rider found her remains in a shallow grave near a South Lake Tahoe horse riding area called Stateline Stables on August 20. From the small amount of forensic evidence investigators were able to gather from the scene, it was determined that she had been raped and then strangled to death. Less than two years later on June 30, 1979 Carol Andersen traveled from her parents house in Stateline to a party at Regan Beach, which was close to South Lake Tahoe. When her good time was over she declined a ride home from her friends, and it’s speculated that the 16-year-old most likely walked for a bit before eventually thumbing a ride from a passing motorist. The following morning, someone driving by the Pioneer Trail (which is where Donna Lass lived before she disappeared) came across her lifeless body; her killer made no effort to conceal her corpse. After her remains were sent for an autopsy in Sacramento, the coroner determined that she had been bound, gagged and strangled to death by her assailant. Although these murders happened near to where Lass had recently moved to there was nothing linking them to her disappearance.

A name that came up fairly frequently in my Lass research is Charles Hollingsworth, a doctor with a successful practice that lived in South Lake Tahoe. In fall 1970, Dr. Hollingsworth was recently divorced with two young daughters, and his marriage had recently fallen apart after years of infidelity. His ex-wife remarried, but he found himself alone and experiencing financial concerns; members of his family shared that they felt he may have had undiagnosed Manic Depression. On October 26, 1970, Charles left his practice after a disagreement and was never seen or heard from again. His vehicle was found abandoned in a desolate area 24 miles away from where he was last seen; inside it were several of his personal belongings, including a gun and his running shoes. It’s strongly speculated that his case is somehow related to the disappearance of Donna: at one time they may have worked together at Letterman Hospital when she was still living in San Francisco. Charles was also a known gambler, and it’s speculated that he spent a good amount of his spare time at the casino where Lass worked. As I mentioned earlier, the young RN enjoyed going flying with her friend Jo Ann, and Charles had his pilot’s license and owned his own plane (although there is no proof they were ever on an airplane together). Aside from this, they both worked in the medical field and Donna’s new apartment was less than a mile away from where Charles lived (she resided at 3893 Pioneer Trail and he lived at 3840 Pioneer Trail), there really isn’t anything substantial tying the two disappearances together.

In July 2007 the Sierra Sun reported that amateur Zodiac sleuth Clifton Calvez went to South Lake Tahoe PD and told them that he may have located the final resting place of Donna Lass using satellite imagery. After initially being dismissed because of the ‘Angora fires’ that were taking place at the time, Calvez said ‘screw it. I was fed up,’ and took off to check out the site on his own. He brought with him two disposal cameras he bought from a local pharmacy and a printout of the Google Earth map he used in his investigation. A retired colonel in the Air Force, Calvez admitted that he wouldn’t mind receiving the monetary reward for solving the Lass disappearance. According to the article, ‘as he ventured into the woods, Calvez said he saw a baboon and satyr etched into the bark of two trees. The baboon is the guardian referenced in the message to Lass’ sister in the Christmas card that read: ‘Best Wishes, St. Donna & Guardian of the Pine.’ After relentlessly contacting authorities and media representatives via phone calls and emails, investigators gave in, and went to check out the site with him. Retired Lieutenant Marty Hale with the South Lake Tahoe PD said investigators remained interested in what Calvez had to say and were ‘planning on seeing what leads we have there.’

After waiting around for about an hour waiting to get permission to dig from the California Tahoe Conservancy, they started digging. Investigators dug a good four feet into the ground looking for the remains of Lass but sadly found nothing (except for a pair of sunglasses). It was then that Calvez shared that he knew of a second possible site nearby where Lass could have been buried, but this also resulted in nothing. Investigators quickly called off search efforts. Using a house built in 1976 as a reference point, Calvez still believes the young RN is buried somewhere in the same general area, and: ‘I was disappointed, but even at this point I think that’s the place. Somewhere around that tree, no doubt about it.’

On December 31, 1985 a jawbone complete with all of its teeth was found by a fisherman in a drainage ditch as he was traveling towards Lake Valley Reservoir near the I-80 and Highway 20, near the Yuba Gap in Placer County. During a follow-up search of the area conducted by (retired) deputy Lowell Carleton in January 1986, the rest of the skull was discovered near where the mandible was found. No additional body parts or evidence were found at the time. After its discovery investigators kept the skull stored away, waiting for the day where forensic technology would be able to identify the remains. In recent years the sheriff’s office teamed up with the Placer County District Attorney’s office to form a cold case team, and they sent the skull to the California Department of Justice for genetic testing. In December 2023 it came back a match to Lass after a DNA profile was created in 2018 when Mary Pilker gave investigators a sample.

So what took so long for the skull to be identified as belonging to Donna? South Lake Tahoe Police Chief David Stevensen said that at that time it was found DNA evidence just wasn’t advanced enough to get a sample. Despite the positive ID, LE aren’t any closer to solving who it was that took the young nurse’s life, and didn’t share if they think foul play is suspected or how Lass died. South Lake Tahoe police are still actively investigating the case.

One interesting thing I came upon in my research is a comment in a YouTube video by the creator ‘BlackBoxOnlineRadio:’ user ‘colonelreb12014’ said that in an interview on the Peter Turner podcast with the Case Breakers, it was shared that Donna Lass reportedly dated and then dumped their Zodiac suspect Gary Poste’s brother. Some background: in October 2021, a team of cold case investigators calling themselves ‘The Case Breakers’ named US Air Force veteran Gary Francis Poste as the Zodiac killer. The video’s creator replied that he heard the same thing but had to wonder about the authenticity because the same group reported that victim Paul Stine owed Poste some money and that’s why he killed him. The creator said they were going to look into this further but I never saw anything additional from them about this. Despite their ‘discovery,’ the Zodiac investigation remains open to this day.

Interestingly enough, at one point Mary Pilker wondered if maybe Phillip Craig Garrido was responsible for her sister’s disappearance. Although Garrido infamously kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard in June 1991 (which is almost 21 years after Lass disappeared), he had an extensive criminal history that began well before then. A frequent drug user (primarily crystal meth and LSD), in 1972 he was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, but the case fell apart after she declined to testify. The following year, Garrido married his high school classmate Christine Murphy, but they later divorced after claims that he was abusive. Murphy also alleged that her husband kidnapped her when she attempted to leave him. While incarcerated at Leavenworth Prison in Kansas, Garrido met Nancy Bocanegra, who was there visiting her uncle, who was another prisoner. He and Bocanegra were married at Leavenworth on October 5, 1981. In 1976, Garrido kidnapped 25-year-old Katherine Callaway in South Lake Tahoe. He then drove her to a warehouse in Reno, Nevada where he brutally sexually assaulted her for five and a half hours. When a cop noticed an unusual vehicle parked outside the unit as well as a broken lock on the warehouse door, he knocked and was greeted by Garrido. The young woman then emerged and asked the officer for help. He was immediately taken into custody and was convicted of felonies in both federal and state courts.

In a 1976 court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, Garrido was diagnosed as a ‘sexual deviant and chronic drug abuser.’ A court appointed doctor recommended he undergo a neurological examination because of his chronic drug use, which may have been ‘responsible in part’ for his ‘mixed or multiple sexual deviations. During the examination, he shared that he enjoyed masturbateing in his vehicle on the side of elementary and high schools while watching young girls. The diagnostic tests came back that he had a: ‘normal neurological examination.’ On March 9, 1977 he was given a 50-year federal sentence on June 30, 1977, and was sent to Leavenworth Penitentiary; he was released only ten and a half years later on January 22, 1988. From there he was sent to Nevada State Prison, where he served only seven months of a five-years-to-life sentence and was granted federal parole on August 26, 1988. Upon his release, Garrido wore a GPS-enabled ankle bracelet and lived with his wife and elderly mother, who had dementia. In an interview with the ‘Reno Gazette Journal’ on April 5, 2014, Pilker said ‘as soon as I heard the Dugard case last week I thought that this could have something to do with my sisters disappearance.’ As of January 2024 nothing has ever officially linked Lass to Philip Garrido. He was apprehended along with his wife on August 26, 2009 and was sentenced to 431 years to life in prison. Nancy was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison.

Just as an interesting side note, according to true crime researcher Tom Voigt fingerprint comparisons were made in February 1989 after Bundy was executed which eliminated him as a person of interest in the Zodiac murders. I’ve seen whispers and rumors about Ted being a possible suspect in the slayings, which took place in 1968-1969… but I guess this confirms it.

Both of Lass’ parents have passed away, as well as the majority of her siblings. Mr. Lass died at the age of 75 on March 30, 1973 and Frances passed away on August 5, 1982; she lived in a nursing home for the last seven years of her life. Donna was listed as a survivor in her dads obituary but was listed as deceased in her mothers. Her brother Raymond died on July 18, 1988 at the age of 69. He was a Master sergeant in the US Marine Corps in World War II and is buried in Riverside, CA. Marjorie (Bellach) died at the age of 77 on July 31, 2006. She loved spending time with her daughters and enjoyed cooking, gardening, and babysitting her grandchildren. Eugene Lass died on March 5, 2014 at the age of 90. He worked in farming and trucking, and enjoyed being outdoors. Mary (Pilker) passed away at the age of 85 on November 17, 2019. Like Donna, she was a nurse and got married to her husband Zane on August 29, 1959. They had four children together before he passed away from cancer only five years later on December 29, 1964 (Mary’s life is especially tragic). Karen (Lounsbery) passed away on February 10, 2020 at the age of 77. After graduating from cosmetology school, she ran a salon out of their home for several years. She raised a family with her husband Gary, and everyone loved her snickerdoodles and pie.