Lake Mead Dead Bodies: New Human Remains Found, But Police Fear There's More as Water Level Recedes

Authorities said on Sunday that further human remains had been discovered in the very dry Lake Mead National Recreation Area east of Las Vegas. As a result of the Western drought, the coastline at the Colorado River reservoir, which is behind the Hoover Dam, is receding for the fourth time since May.

According to representatives of the National Park Service, at 11 am, rangers were called to the reservoir between Arizona and Nevada after skeletal remains were found at Swim Beach on Saturday.

More Human Remains Discovered at Lake Mead

To recover the remains, Rangers and a dive team from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department went, ABC News reported. The Clark County Medical Examiner's Office will attempt to ascertain when and how the individual passed away as detectives review files on missing persons, according to park service officials.

Near Hemenway Harbor, a barrel containing human bones was discovered on May 1. According to police, the corpse was that of a man who died from a gunshot wound. The body was most likely abandoned between the mid-1970s and early 1980s, according to police.

Authorities claim that human skeleton remains were discovered near Calville Bay less than a week later. Recently, on July 25, fragmentary human remains were discovered in the Boulder Beach region.

According to police, as Lake Mead's water level continues to drop, more remains could be found. The findings have sparked discussion regarding decades-old murder and missing persons cases, as well as organized crime and the founding of Las Vegas, which is only a 30-minute drive from the lake.

Lake Mead Water Levels Continue to Drop

When a man's body was discovered inside a rusting barrel at Hemenway Harbor on May 1, he initially came to light. The man was shot, according to the police, and his attire was from the middle of the 1970s to the beginning of the 1980s, therefore the case is being looked into as a homicide.

The second pair, which Todd Kolod thinks could be his father, was found six days later. On July 26, a third set of human remains was discovered. Since the 1930s, nearly 300 individuals have drowned in Lake Mead, but that number does not include those whose corpses were never found, like Daniel Kolod, Daily Mail reported.

As the lake's water level drops in the summer, people's bodies, sunken vessels, including a World War II landing craft, and other objects have been found there. When the third corpse was discovered, the coroner stated that her office was still working to identify a man whose body was discovered May 1 in a rusting barrel in the Hemenway Harbor region and a male whose bones were discovered May 7 in a recently uncovered sandbar close to Callville Bay.

Per Fox News, the shorelines of the park have changed as a result of the continuous drought in the West, and as of June, Lake Mead's depth is at its lowest point since 1937. Lake Mead in Nevada has rapidly lost water since 2000, according to NASA pictures published last month. According to NASA, the reservoir's capacity was last achieved in the summer of 1999. The biggest reservoir in the United States, which can contain 9.3 trillion gallons (36 trillion liters) of water when full, may be found at an altitude of 1,220 feet.