Lacking Lake Tahoe On line casino Employee As soon as Linked to Zodiac Case ID’d
A human cranium discovered alongside a freeway in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains has been recognized as having belonged to Donna Lass, a girl who went lacking from the Sahara Lodge On line casino in South Lake Tahoe in 1970.
A picture of a 1971 Sacramento Bee article protecting the disappearance of Donna Lass, whose cranium has now been recognized by DNA testing. (Picture: Sacramento Bee)
Lass was a 25-year-old nurse on the on line casino whose disappearance has been related to the Zodiac killer case. The unidentified serial killer terrorized northern California within the late Sixties and despatched messages to police taunting them with cryptograms and ciphers. The case is arguably essentially the most well-known unsolved homicide case in US historical past.
Lass’ final entry within the nurses’ logbook was at 1:50 a.m. on Sept. 6, 1970. She disappeared after her final shift on the Sahara, which is now the Golden Nugget Lake Tahoe.
DNA Breakthrough
In 1986, the Placer County Sheriff’s Workplace discovered the unidentified cranium within the Lake Spaulding space. With no proof to go on, the case was filed as a Jane Doe investigation which may in the future be reopened pending additional developments in forensic know-how.
Final yr, a chilly case workforce despatched the cranium to the California Division of Justice Bureau of Forensic Companies. Fifty-three years after her disappearance, the bureau was in a position to match the DNA of the cranium to that of certainly one of Lass’s sisters. The South Lake Tahoe Police Division instructed the Lass household final week of the identification.
“We’re extraordinarily grateful that this workforce effort was in a position to deliver closure to the Lass household and are hopeful that chilly case detectives can proceed to make advances in these circumstances,” the Sheriff’s Workplace stated in an announcement.
Zodiac Message
Hypothesis that Lass was a sufferer of the infamous Zodiac killer stemmed from a postcard despatched to The San Francisco Chronicle in March 1971. It depicted the Sierra Membership in Lake Tahoe and bore the Zodiac’s infamous calling card, a signature consisting of a circle with a cross by it.
“Sought Sufferer 12,” it learn. “Peek by the pines… move Lake Tahoe space… round within the snow…”
A handwriting skilled with the California Bureau of Felony Investigation and Identification instructed The Sacramento Bee on the time that the writing was “in step with all different Zodiac writings I’ve examined.”
The Zodiac killer murdered 5 recognized victims within the San Francisco Bay Space between December 1968 and October 1969, however claimed to have killed many extra. Written communications from the killer ceased in 1974.
Sgt. David Smith of the Placer County Sheriff’s Workplace instructed The Bee that investigators weren’t at present linking Lass’s demise to the Zodiac case.
