Donna Lass Related Information

The following letter was sent to Donna Lass' older sister, Mary Pilker, from Police Reporter Dave Peterson. He had written a letter to Harry Martin to inform him about the Lass grave site and he thought Lass' sister should be made aware of it.

Peterson was always giving out information, even to those he disagreed with, because he wanted the case solved. He wished to promote any and all material in the hope that someone would come forward with vital information on the Zodiac case. Or at least on some cold case that was possibly connected to the Zodiac.

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Donna Lass Biography

came as a surprise.

But it was not completely unexpected.

We are grateful to Donna's sister Mary Pilker for providing these details.

Santa Barbara, California

The distance from Lass' place to the hospital where she worked is 3.19 miles by way of the freeway with a driving time of 8 minutes. Manson's address was only 2.05 miles (7 minutes) away from her.

705 Bath Street

Picture from Google Maps.

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The following documents have been kept in a 3-Ring binder by Mary Pilker. The white areas

along the left sides of them are where the holes were punched to put them in the binder.

Here is Donna Lass' Application for Employment with the Veterans Administration.

Here is Donna's copy of a Notification of Personnel Action issued by Letterman General Hospital.

Again you can see where the holes are punched.

It can be seen here that Donna worked at Letterman General Hospital in the Presidio of San Francisco. Zodiac, as is well known, went into the Presidio after killing Paul Stine - and vanished.

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This is the 1968 Chevrolet Camaro that Donna had purchased from a young man in San Francisco. She was very proud of this car.

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This is the envelope that contained the 2007 letter to Mary Pilker. This is exactly how it appeared when it arrived in the mail. There is no return address. The images on the right side have a yellow background to them. The address was also written in yellow and was very hard to read. It is virtually invisible on this scan of a photocopy. Enhancements are necessary to see what is written.

By darkening the whiteness of the envelope the handwriting begins to appear.

The address area was then further sharpened and enhanced.

The yellowish coloring was then changed to black.

This is half of what was inside the envelope.

Note that the letter says "It's been almost 27 years . . ." In April 2007 it had actually been almost 37 years since September 1970 when Donna disappeared. ZodiacMurders.com is the URL (name) that this website used until April 2007. Also, invisible in this scan of a photocopy, there is a very thin vertical blue line (not yellow) between the words "booksabout" in the second to last line. There is some handwriting visible below the type-written portion. Again it is in yellow. Following the same procedures as above, this is what it looks like.

Of the two men pictured, the one on the right is Theodore Dehone Judah who in 1860 originally surveyed the route through Donner Pass for the Transcontinental Railroad. He soon became Chief Engineer for the Central Pacific Railroad. The other man is Lewis M. Clement who was Assistant Chief Engineer for the Central Pacific and who actually oversaw the construction of the railroad through the pass. The lower picture is of the pass itself.

We superimposed the Zodiac's Symbol to see if it would fit the horizon of Donner Pass.

And this is the other half of what was inside.
You can see where the holes are punched along the bottom edge.

This is the back of the envelope. There were no other markings.

And here is an enhancement of this image.

(Dave's note: Deb Silva provided the following images of the Donna Lass reward poster and cipher solution. They were not originally on Howard's site.)

(Dave's note: Notice the similar wording in the "Confession Letter" below)

(Dave's note: Deb Silva provided the following article about Donna Lass. Click to enlarge.)

(Dave's note: The following are some additional documents not included in Howard's original site)

• Private Investigator's report on Donna Lass disappearance (PDF)
• Mary Pilker's report 1 (PDF)
• Mary Pilker's report 1 transcription (PDF)
• Mary Pilker's report 2 (PDF)
• Mary Pilker's report 2 transcription (PDF)
• Donna's letter to her mother, May 2nd 1970, page 1 (JPG)
• Donna's letter to her mother, May 2nd 1970, page 2 (JPG)

View the Donna Lass Victim page

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