Detective Links Missing Nurse, Zodiac Killer

On Labor Day 30 years ago, Donna Lass disappeared from her job at a Tahoe casino first-aid station. The 25-year-old registered nurse was never found.

Information presented to authorities Thursday suggests she was a victim of California’s Zodiac killer, believed to have slain several people in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Officers from El Dorado County, Calif., and Douglas County, Nev., met with two members of the Lass family and Harvey Hines, a retired detective from Groveland, Calif., who believe 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 Sgt. Tom O’Conner. “But we haven’t actually ever established that she was murdered. We haven’t even found the body.”

Hines, who retired from a 30-year police career in 1992, has been investigating the Zodiac serial murders since 1973. He was accompanied by Mary and Don Pilker, Donna’s sister and nephew.

“What I’ve wanted to do for a long time is hand my case over to some agency and let them run with it,” Hines said. “I don’t care if I don’t get a dime’s worth of credit as long as someone closes it out.”

Lass was working a swing shift at the nurse’s station. The last entry in her log at work was listed as 1:45 a.m.

Hines thinks she was abducted at work. He said she left behind personal items including an opened letter and a dirty uniform.

Lass was never seen again.