Human Remains Found at Lake Tahoe Identified as Missing Nurse Donna Lass

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – After decades of mystery, human remains discovered near Lake Tahoe have finally been identified as those of Donna Lass, a nurse who went missing in 1971. The Placer County Sheriff’s Office recently confirmed the identification in a Facebook post.

Donna Lass was only 25 years old when she was reported missing to the South Lake Tahoe Police Department. According to a local newspaper clipping shared by the sheriff’s office, Lass was last seen on September 7, 1970, walking with a young blonde man near her apartment.

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The case of Lass’s disappearance had remained unsolved for years, with all investigative leads exhausted. However, in 1986, an unidentified human skull was found off Highway 20 near Interstate 80, close to Lake Tahoe. This skull was preserved at the Placer County Coroner’s Office for several decades.

Recently, a cold case team formed by the Placer County Sheriff’s Office and the district attorney’s office dedicated additional resources to investigate unsolved missing persons and suspicious death cases. As part of their efforts, the team sent the skull to the California Department of Justice for DNA testing.

The California Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services successfully matched the DNA of the skull with a sample obtained from a member of Donna Lass’s family, which had been collected by the South Lake Tahoe Police Department during their missing persons investigation. This breakthrough allowed the authorities to conclusively identify the skull as Donna Lass’s remains.

Last week, the South Lake Tahoe Police Department notified Donna Lass’s surviving relatives about the identification, bringing some closure to the family. The Placer County Sheriff’s Office expressed gratitude for the collaborative effort that led to this discovery and hoped that the cold case detectives would continue to make progress in similar cases.

The cause of Donna Lass’s death remains unknown, adding another layer of mystery to her disappearance. The South Lake Tahoe Police Department is actively continuing the investigation and encourages anyone with information related to the case to reach out to the detectives at cybertips@cityofslt.us.