Due to record-setting droughts, a barrel containing the remains of a man was discovered on the bottom of Lake Mead near Las Vegas.
The body, reportedly of a man who died from a gunshot wound in the late 1970s or into the 1980s, probably was loaded into the barrel and then dumped into the lake from a boat, Las Vegas Homicide Lt. Ray Spencer told the Las Vegas Review-Journal May 3.
"The water level has dropped so much over the last 30 to 40 years that, where the person was located, if a person were to drop the barrel in the water and it sinks, you are never going to find it unless the water level drops," Spencer said. "The water level has dropped and made the barrel visible."
The body was discovered by boaters May 1, according to an 8 News Now report. Police used clothing and personal items found in the barrel to give the approximate date. In the 1970s or 1980s, much of the current beach in that area was "several dozen feet underwater."
According to an April 30 AP News article, the Southern Nevada Water Authority announced its Low Lake Level Pumping Station is operational. The uupermost intake is visable at 1,050 feet above sea level at the lake behind Hoover Dam.
"We will look into our missing person cases from that time frame to see if we could get a lead even prior to the DNA," Spencer said, according to a number of news sources, including NBC 12. "There are some items we recovered that we will look through missing person cases to see if there's even a potential. Granted, it's a needle in a haystack, but right now we have nothing to go on."
