Las Vegas Police Department’s homicide’s Lt. Ray Spencer warned the public in late July that as the water level continues to drop in Lake Mead, “it’s likely that [they] will find additional bodies that have been dumped.”
Spencer’s prophecy, reported in The Dallas Express, proved accurate last weekend as more human remains were found at the drought-stricken Lake Mead National Recreation Area east of Las Vegas, authorities said.
The discovery marks the fourth time since May that human remains have been uncovered. A drought in the region forces the shoreline to retreat to the shrinking Colorado River reservoir behind the Hoover Dam.
National Park Service officials said park rangers were called to the reservoir between Nevada and Arizona around 11 a.m. recently after skeletal remains were discovered at the Boulder Swim Beach, a 1/3-mile area along the Boulder Basin of Lake Mead.
In Early May, human remains were discovered at Lake Mead, following the discovery of different human remains in a barrel at the newly exposed bottom of the lake.
As the pumping continues, human remains continue to be discovered on what was once the lakebed of a megadrought-ravaged Lake Mead. People wonder if more bodies will be found and if the circumstances of their deaths will be revealed.
In May, Las Vegas detectives discovered the body of a male who died from a gunshot wound stuffed in a barrel, potentially lending credence to the murder being mob-related. Later, another body was located, but there was no evidence of murder in that case.
A third body was discovered at Lake Mead outside of Las Vegas in early August after water levels dropped to historic lows due to the region’s worst drought in decades, according to The Dallas Express.
Mob Museum vice president of exhibits and programs in Vegas, Geoffrey Schumacher, said there is “a long history of the mob using this technique to get rid of bodies. They dump them, they…put them in barrels, and dumped them in the ocean, a river, or a lake. This goes back to the late 1800s. It’s just something that has been a thing.”
Authorities contacted the Clark County Medical Examiner to determine the cause of death of the latest human remains found. An investigation is ongoing. And there is no further information at this time.