Doe ID: Donna Lass

DNA: ID

AbJack Entertainment

True Crime, Society & Culture

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Episode 181 Doe ID: Donna Lass

In 1986, a human skull was found along Highway 20 and Interstate 80, 45 miles northwest of South Lake Tahoe, CA. At the time, investigators couldn't come to many conclusions other than the fact the skull belonged to a young woman, likely in her 20s, and she had been murdered. Years later DNA & genealogy would finally reveal the truth; the skull belonged to Donna Ann Lass, a 25 year-old nurse who vanished on September 6,1970 after finishing her shift at the Sahara Hotel Casino. An unknown man called Donna's employer to tell her Donna had left town for a family emergency, which turned out not to be true. Donna Lass was never seen again. It didn't take long for an infamous serial killer, 'The Zodiac', to seemingly latch himself to Donna's case, possibly providing clues, and taunting investigators. For decades, Zodiac's possible involvement muddied the waters in the Lass investigation. All these years later, we may know what happened to Donna, but we don't know who was responsible.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to DNAID.
0:03.8	Brought to you by Abjack Entertainment, be sure to check out some of the other great
0:08.2	true crime podcasts from this network, including The Murder in My Family, Missing Persons,
0:14.5	Scene of the Crime, Zodiac Speaking, Beyond Bizarre True Crime, Campus Killings, below the surface, and killer communications.
0:24.6	All of these podcasts are available for you to binge on right now, wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:30.2	Subscribe where you're listening to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. The
0:57.0	The I don't usually do this, but I'm starting today's Joe episode off with a quote from a July 1986 newspaper clipping.
1:32.5	It reads,
1:33.6	The skeletal remains of an apparent homicide victim were found by a fisherman on his way to Long Valley Reservoir at Yuba Gap,
1:39.7	according to Placer County Sheriff Donald Nunes.
1:42.4	He said the jawbone and all teeth in good repair were found in two inches of snow,
1:46.5	alongside a mountainous county road, a mile northeast of Interstate 80, by Melvin Bennett,
1:51.6	who was on route to fish at the Lake Valley Reservoir with his sons, end quote.
1:57.4	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.
2:02.7	The case files reflect something quite different, although the records are spotty, undetailed, and often speculative.
2:09.4	On August 1st, 1986, a surveyor marking lines for a property company found a human skull with maxillary teeth in California's Sierra Nevada
2:18.7	Mountains, in a drainage area or wash inside the fork where Highway 20 and I-80 split off
2:24.6	near Lake Spalding.
2:26.7	Early reports in the press were that deputies believed the person who owned the skull had been
2:31.3	murdered elsewhere and dumped somewhere in the mountains where the skull possibly could have washed down and away from the remainder of the body.
2:38.5	I asked Detective Sergeant Nick Carlquist of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department how a
2:43.5	determination of homicide was made from just the skull, and he told me he was not at liberty to
	...

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