I hope Donna did not suffer, but I have a feeling she was quickly murdered around the time she vanished, and dropped in a shallow grave someplace.

Sadly, I agree morf. Maybe not even placed into a grave…just dumped somewhere. I still hold out hope one day she will be found. It happens all the time.

I’d like to say too that I think it is WONDERFUL of those involved who actually went and looked and followed what they thought could be the path that led to Donna. The team (D. Peterson and others) near Donner Ski Ranch, the South Lake Tahoe Police along with Col. Calvez…good for them they followed through.

I have thought more than once that maybe "peek through the pines" was the writer’s way of injecting humor. Like you stated there’s billions of options there. The entire Sierra Mountains are nothing but pines. She could be in the Lake, or one of the hundreds of lakes around Tahoe. I’m hopeful someday someone is going to find some remnant of Donna.

Was thinking about Donna earlier, and I too wish her body to be found and not because it may help in uncovering who Z was, but because it must be absolute hell for her family. Not knowing what happened and where she is I can imagine her family has imagined the worst of the worst happening because that’s what not knowing will do. I really cannot understand how her killer could do that and sit back and watch without empathy. She’s legally been declared dead long ago but that’s no closure for her family, and I think it overwhelmingly likely she met her end via foul play, whether at the hands of Z or another.

But, I was thinking earlier, if she is a Zodiac ‘victom’ then surely she has to be connected in some way or other with Zodiac himself. It’s just too far a stretch to believe that Donna is residing in S.F the entire time Z is running around ‘doing his thing’ and just as she decides to up and move, Z also vanishes, and Donna moved to Lake Tahoe where, just by sheer coincidence, Z happens to also now be and of all the potential victims in Tahoe, chooses the one person that’s moved there from S.F a couple of weeks before.

I honestly think he has links to Donna and that’s why he stopped short of naming the victim, or where she could be found etc because this time he knew the victim has ties to him. That’s also probably why he seems to have made extra sure she would not be found.

Was thinking about Donna earlier, and I too wish her body to be found and not because it may help in uncovering who Z was, but because it must be absolute hell for her family. Not knowing what happened and where she is I can imagine her family has imagined the worst of the worst happening because that’s what not knowing will do. I really cannot understand how her killer could do that and sit back and watch without empathy. She’s legally been declared dead long ago but that’s no closure for her family, and I think it overwhelmingly likely she met her end via foul play, whether at the hands of Z or another.

But, I was thinking earlier, if she is a Zodiac ‘victom’ then surely she has to be connected in some way or other with Zodiac himself. It’s just too far a stretch to believe that Donna is residing in S.F the entire time Z is running around ‘doing his thing’ and just as she decides to up and move, Z also vanishes, and Donna moved to Lake Tahoe where, just by sheer coincidence, Z happens to also now be and of all the potential victims in Tahoe, chooses the one person that’s moved there from S.F a couple of weeks before.

I honestly think he has links to Donna and that’s why he stopped short of naming the victim, or where she could be found etc because this time he knew the victim has ties to him. That’s also probably why he seems to have made extra sure she would not be found.

Well that may be easy…Donna used to work at Letterman Hospital, close to the Stine scene where Z may have disappeared to..also she had some southern hospital connection, hadn’t she?

QT

Welsh Stated….

"Was thinking about Donna earlier, and I too wish her body to be found and not because it may help in uncovering who Z was, but because it must be absolute hell for her family. Not knowing what happened and where she is I can imagine her family has imagined the worst of the worst happening because that’s what not knowing will do. I really cannot understand how her killer could do that and sit back and watch without empathy. She’s legally been declared dead long ago but that’s no closure for her family, and I think it overwhelmingly likely she met her end via foul play, whether at the hands of Z or another.
But, I was thinking earlier, if she is a Zodiac ‘victom’ then surely she has to be connected in some way or other with Zodiac himself. It’s just too far a stretch to believe that Donna is residing in S.F the entire time Z is running around ‘doing his thing’ and just as she decides to up and move, Z also vanishes, and Donna moved to Lake Tahoe where, just by sheer coincidence, Z happens to also now be and of all the potential victims in Tahoe, chooses the one person that’s moved there from S.F a couple of weeks before.
I honestly think he has links to Donna and that’s why he stopped short of naming the victim, or where she could be found etc because this time he knew the victim has ties to him. That’s also probably why he seems to have made extra sure she would not be found."

You’re absolutely right Welsh. I can’t imagine what Donna’s family went through and still do. I’m sure it never leaves them for very long. All of the families involved, the Why? would drive me crazy. I think any of us who frequent these Z boards would probably be the biggest pain in the asses to LE. And rightly so. I’m not sure Donna has been legally declared dead. I know S. Lake Tahoe Police Dept. still lists her as a missing person. It’s impossible I think for any of us to understand how someone like Z, or any killer, can just go about their lives, or continue their deeds. It just doesn’t compute.
I believe if Z was Donna’s abductor, then you would have to come to the conclusion that somehow he knew Donna in SF. I believe Donna was in S. Lake Tahoe, working at the Sahara for about 3 months, before she was abducted. A very short time. Hopefully someday soon someone will find something.

Yeah I know all the families of his victims must have lived through hell having to see random letters appear now and then in the Chronicle sent by him and I imagine all the hurt, pain and loss comes flooding back to them each time as if their loved one was only murdered the day before. He’s victimising the families over and over again.

There’s no way of saying this without it sounding kinda heartless and cold but hopefully the meaning will be clear….At least with the victims like Stine, His widow Claudia knows exactly what happened to Paul, how he died and she has a place to go and visit his place of rest to mourn him. With Donna I can only imagine the not knowing is worse than if they knew the details of her death and it was quite horrific because as it is, they have an absolute endless amount of possibilities to go over in their heads and every day they wake up, closure is not there.

In fact the first case of serial murder that I ever took an interest in (when I was about 10) was that of Larry Gene Bell, who abducted a murdered young blonde girls in S.C in 85. He was particularly evil in that he abducted Shari from her own front drive and for 5 days phoned her parents telling them they will soon have their daughter back and that she is fine. She was dead the first night he took her, and before he callously wrapped duct tape around her head suffocating her he told her to pick her method of death, shooting, strangulation, or suffocation. Then he made her write a ‘last will and testament’ and mailed it to her family. Anyway, to get to the point, he was captured and after being charged with the two S.C deaths he said ‘God has given me visions of Denise Porch and where she is, when you find her, her hands will be as if she is preying placed on her chest." Denise had been missing since 1975 and he was, in a roundabout way, telling them he had killed her. He then said that there is another vision of Sandee Elaine Cornett, who went missing the year before his capture in 84. He described the terrain where her body is but careful never to give enough detail to allow charges to be brought. He was found guilty of Shari and Deborah’s murders in 86 and sentenced to death.

Skip forward A decade to 1996 and it’s October 4, and Bell is hours away from his demise in the Chair. Two detectives spend hours with him rite up to literally minutes before guards came to get Bell and had been pleading with him to give the families some closure and their daughters remains back to them. Bell was walked to the chair, strapped down, and the switch thrown sending the lethal electrical surge through his body and along with Larry Bell, the electricity also killed any hope or possibility of the two families finding their daughters.

Now that to me is, well, there are no words. Excuse the language here but….. What a bastard! How can they do that to another human being? These people simply cannot and do not possess the ability to feel empathy. Bundy did similar.

On the off chance that any members are interested, here’s the Larry Bell case featured on ‘On the case’ with PZ. The two missing girls are not mentioned here because he was never charged with their kidnap, rape and murders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM-yms4JGWg

What is interesting to me is that so many are so sure of where she is buried yet there isn’t even the slightest HINT at Donna written on the Pines card yet she gets written in as a Zodiac victim…almost like it’s a fact of this case.

Phillip Garrido (the man who kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard) was in Reno around that time, and later kidnapped and raped a casino worker from South Lake Tahoe…took her to a storage unit in Reno. She’d probably be dead if a diligent police officer hadn’t found them. Donna’s sister Mary discusses it here: http://www.rgj.com/article/20090831/NEW … ished-1970

We have Philip Arthur Thompson with ties to Lake Tahoe who had also committed crimes like this in the area:
http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topic/3 … zxPQ0nn8eg

Zodiac claims Kathleen Johns, who got away, but makes no mention—even slightly, of the girl in South Lake Tahoe.

I think the only reason she is associated with z, is because the mystery postcard with the z clues. Even if Z did not kill her, if he was the sender of that card, he chose to make her seem as if she was his victim for some unknown reason. There were lots of murdered & missing women all over CA in those days, yet for some reason, Z or somebody pretending to be Z, mailed that card linking Lass to Z. There must have been some reason for that.

I think the only reason she is associated with z, is because the mystery postcard with the z clues. Even if Z did not kill her, if he was the sender of that card, he chose to make her seem as if she was his victim for some unknown reason. There were lots of murdered & missing women all over CA in those days, yet for some reason, Z or somebody pretending to be Z, mailed that card linking Lass to Z. There must have been some reason for that.

Nothing on that card links Donna.

"What is interesting to me is that so many are so sure of where she is buried yet there isn’t even the slightest HINT at Donna written on the Pines card yet she gets written in as a Zodiac victim…almost like it’s a fact of this case."

I see what your saying, it’s similar to a point I made about it seeming to be Universally accepted as if a fact, that Zodiac was out on Lake Herman in a vehicle. The only ‘evidence’ given for this to be the case is James Owen’s statements, and they are inconsistent at best, highly suspicious at worst. But in regards to Donna, I think that she’s linked to Zodiac so strongly for two reasons, the first being Z’s card and even though he doesn’t give any specific name or details of victim, there is a girl Missing from that area who, and here’s the 2nd reason I think people connect the two, has recently moved to that area from San Francisco where she worked at Letterman Hospital which is located on the grounds of the Presidio…..The same Presidio that San Fran’s own Zodiac Killer had last been seen heading toward on the street adjacent to the Grounds itself.

That’s just my opinion as to why people generally accept that ‘Victim 12’ is Victim Lass.

I was surprised to learn earlier that, according to claims made said to be from people that knew her, Donna had a gambling problem. Apparently, it’s claimed, this was one of the deciding factors in her decision to move and take the job down at the Sahara Hotel.
Wonder if she was in debt to the wrong type of individual….Loan Shark maybe and when she couldn’t pay with cash, decided that he’d accept her life as payment? Lot of Mob activity around the casino’s back in the 60’s and 70’s.

No evidence for that at all, just throwing it out there as an idea.

I have spoken with her friend on several occasions, and while she said Donna enjoyed gambling, she never told me Donna had a gambling problem and I don’t recall anyone else saying that. If you have a link…please share.

The Pines card was dropped off (not mailed) pushing 7 months after Donna’s disappearance. With no mention of her (or even a woman for that matter) who is to say what, or who they were referring to. It’s all just a guess. I’m not saying to rule out the possibility. Just as we should consider Zodiac, we should consider it could have been some other creep as well.