may 26, 1973 - Rosa Maria Vasquez RAPE & HOMICIDE

Description:

Rosa Maria Vasquez, a 20-year-old Latina woman, was last seen on Saturday, May 26, 1973. She lived with her roommate, Frances Almazan, at 834 Bush St in San Francisco, ~4mi from where her body was found. Almazan last saw Rosa on Sat., May 26, with Rosa gone the entire Memorial Day weekend. Almazan reported Rosa missing on May 28.

On Tuesday, May 29, Rosa's body was found near the Arguello Boulevard entrance at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. She'd been strangled, and her body was thrown 7ft off the roadway into some shrubs.

She was a keypunch operator at Letterman General Hospital on the Presidio at the time. Before moving to South Lake Tahoe, Donna Ann Lass had lived in San Francisco and was employed as a nurse at the Letterman General Hospital in the Presidio.


- naked body found in Golden Gate Park
- key-punch operator at Letterman General Hospital

FROM THE "CA DOJ Investigation" photo on her FindAGrave:
Female, Caucasian/Latin, 4'9, 106 lbs, 20 years of age, medium length black hair, brown eyes, pierced ears


After Rosa's murder, three other young women were found strangled and dumped in public locations in San Francisco: Yvonne Quilantang, Angela Thomas, and Nancy Feusi. After Nancy's death, a spokesman for police stated at the time, "We're treating these cases as individuals. However, the similarities are sufficient that we cannot exclude the possibility we have one person involved."

All four victims — Rosa Vasquez, Yvonne Quilantang, Angela Thomas, and Nancy Gidley — were young women and girls who were found in public places in San Francisco, nude and strangled or smothered. There were no clothing articles at any of the scenes, and LE believed they had all been killed at a different location before being dumped where they were found. Several of them had "signs of minor injuries seemingly approximal to the time of death." All four also had connections to the military: in Rosa's case, it was her employment at Letterman General Hospital at the Presidio.

On August 8, 1973, Chief of Police Donald M Scott of the San Francisco PD published an information bulletin regarding the four homicides, listing the similarities and summaries of each. The bulletin ordered that "All patrol units should pay particular attention to schoolyard areas during night watches and special attention given during weekends and holidays." It also provided contact info for anyone with information. The bulletin is available in the "Photos" section of Yvonne's FindAGrave page. The summary of Rosa's case as detailed by the bulletin is as follows:

"Tuesday, May 29, 1973, the day after Memorial Day, the body of Rosa Vasquez, WFA" — white female adult — "20 years, was found in Golden Gate Park above Arguello Drive. She was nude and dumped in that location. Autopsy revealed subject had sexual relations as semen was located in her vagina, rectum, and mouth. Subject was last known to be alive on May 28 1973."

None of the four San Francisco cases were ever solved, including Rosa's.

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In February 1975 the California Department of Justice (CA DOJ) issued a special report titled "Unsolved Female Homicides: An Analysis of a Series of Related Murders in California and Western America." The report indicated that, "After evaluating more than one hundred murder cases involving female victims, it appears that thirteen of these crimes" — with fourteen victims total — "were committed by the same person. Each of the thirteen cases occurred in Northern California within the past five years. As of this writing, the suspect remains unknown and the cases unsolved" (pp4 of pdf). The report summarized all thirteen cases, noted observations and similarities, created a suspect profile, and included a map of all of the cases.

The cases were:
- The six then-known cases — with seven victims — of the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders (1972-1973): Maureen Sterling & Yvonne Weber, Kim Wendy Allen, Lori Lee Kursa, Carolyn Davis, and Theresa Walsh.
- The four 1973 San Francisco victims: Rosa Vasquez, Yvonne Quilantang, Angela Thomas, and Nancy Gidley.
- The 1969 murder of Leona LaRell Roberts
- The 1970 murder of Marie Antoinette Anstey
- The 1974 murder of Donna Maria Braun
- And possibly the 1971 murder of Linda Susan Dudley (the pdf is incomplete)

It should be noted that all fourteen California victims indicated in the report were white, with the exception of Yvonne Quilantang, who was Filipina. San Francisco victim Rosa Vasquez was the only Latina victim.

The report's summary of Rosa's case is as follows:
"On May 29 1973, the nude body of Rosa Vasquez was discovered lying in some shrubbery in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. She had apparently been murdered elsewhere and dumped at the location where she was found. All of the victim's clothing was missing except for her bra, which was found around her neck. She had been sexually molested, as semen was found in her vagina, rectum, and mouth. The cause of death was listed as strangulation."

Also included in the report was a possible out-of-state connection involving the disappearances of eight young women in Washington and Oregon since January 1974, as well as the murders of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund. The only copy of the report that I could find online has some of the last few (ten or so) pages missing, though other reports are also included in the pdf. Because of this, only a few of the Washington-Oregon cases remain: Janice Ott, Denise Naslund, Lynda Ann Healy, and Donna Gail Manson. All four of these young women were later determined to have been murdered by serial killer Ted Bundy.



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WRITE-UP COMPLETION DATE: incomplete
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MAY 26
LUNAR PHASE: last quarter
ZODIAC SIGN: gemini
DAY OF WEEK: Saturday
EVENTS: May 28 = Memorial Day (2 days later)

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