A metal barrel containing the remains of a man killed in the 1980s was found Sunday on the shores of Lake Mead in Nevada, a discovery that the Las Vegas Police Department said was made possible by the ongoing drought.
“It’s really weird in the sense that if the lake had never receded, we would never have found the body,” Lt. Ray Spencer told police by telephone Monday.
Lieutenant Spencer said police were trying to identify the victim. He declined to share details about the victim, including possible age, gender or specific cause of death. It is clear that the person “died as a result of murder”, he said, but did not share how this was established.
Based on items found in the barrel, investigators believe the victim was killed in the 1980s, Lieutenant Spencer said. He declined to say what the items were.
A drop in the water level in the lake could lead to the discovery of other bodies in the lake, said Lieutenant Spencer. Rangers from the National Park Service find one or two bodies in Lake Mead each year, he said, “so it’s not uncommon to kill in the lake.”
Experts from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will help them identify the remains and determine the age of the barrel metal, said Lieutenant Spencer.
As the victim was killed in the 1980s in an area near Las Vegas where mafia-related casinos dominated the Strip, investigators “will definitely not rule out” that the murder may be mafia-related, the lieutenant said. Spencer.
“We will look at this potential,” he said.
The barrel was discovered around 3 pm on Sunday afternoon by people walking on the shores of Lake Mead, the largest artificial reservoir in America, located about 40 miles east of Las Vegas and formed by the construction of Hoover Dam.
They saw the corroded, rusty pipe buried in mud, its beige exterior covered with shells, Lieutenant Spencer said. As the sun shone on nearby boatmen floating in the water, they peered inside and found a skeleton.
“We had moored our boat to get home and heard a woman screaming,” Sean Hollister, a witness to the discovery, told KLAS-TV in Las Vegas. “My husband went and found the body. His shirt and belt were the only thing we could see above the decaying bones.
Pictures of the barrel taken by KLAS-TV show it from the side, near the receding shoreline, with a floating boat in the background.
Witnesses called the National Park Service, which responded and confirmed that the contents inside were in fact human remains, said Lieutenant Spencer. The National Park Service then called the Las Vegas Police Department, which is investigating.
Investigators also plan to scan cases of missing people from the 1980s to look for clues, Lieutenant Spencer added.
The investigation could take years because the police start “first,” said Lieutenant Spencer.
“In the 1980s, we didn’t have any of the DNA databases, so there was no DNA collection,” he said.
If investigators can find DNA samples from the remains, extensive genealogical work will be needed to determine the identity, Lieutenant Spencer said.
Since 2000, Lake Mead’s altitude has dropped by nearly 150 feet due to “drought and climate change,” according to the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
Recent conditions have led to a more significant drop in water levels. On Sunday, the Southern Nevada Water Authority issued mandatory summer water restrictions.
In August, the federal government for the first time declared a shortage of water in Lake Mead, which caused cuts in water supply in the region.
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