A fourth body was discovered Saturday in Lake Mead, Nevada. While the drought has significantly lowered the water level, several bodies have already been found in the area.
At the bottom of what is said to be the largest reservoir in the United States lies dead fish, cracked earth, shipwrecks and… corpses. For several months, the water level of Lake Mead between Nevada and Arizona has been falling significantly due to the severe drought. As a result of this extreme climate, several bodies have surfaced since last May, including a fourth on Saturday. The find was reported in the lake’s National Recreation Area late this morning, the National Park Service said in a statement quoted by NBC News. Little information has been released about this body, whose causes of death have yet to be determined and which has been included in the list of the first three dead found in recent months.
A dead fish in Lake Mead, an area that has been dry for months. ©UPI/Newscom/SIPA
According to the Chron, the body discovered on Saturday could belong to Daniel Kolod. His son Todd told the British tabloid he was three years old in 1958 when his father drowned on a boat trip with a friend. Todd Kolod believes it could be his father as teeth are missing and a prosthesis is present on the bones found, which would match Daniel Kolod’s description. In addition, the coroner announced that the body could be that of a person between the ages of 23 and 28, which would be closer to his father’s 22-year age when he died. But the police have not confirmed anything and DNA analyzes have yet to be carried out.
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“The underworld tended to can people”
These various dramas highlight the area’s troubled past, which in the past would have been used by the Mafia to get rid of unwanted characters. On May 1, a metal drum containing a corpse with a gunshot wound reappeared at the edge of the embankment. Investigations revealed that this crime probably dates back to the 1970s or 1980s, seven days later another body was found, also in a barrel. Then, on July 25, partial human remains were recovered.
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From mafia to drowning all traces are open. Lt. Jason Johansson told CNN that organized crime rumors are “pure speculation” at this time. However, he added, “Anytime you have a corpse in a barrel, it’s obvious someone else is involved.” “The underworld tended to put people in cans, whether it was putting them in a lake or throwing them in a field,” says Geoff Schumacher, vice president of the Mob Museum, the “Museum of the Underworld,” of Las Vegas. He himself has some theories about the identity of the very first victim found in the barrel. CBS says it could be Jay Vandermark, who worked at the Stardust Hotel, run by Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal on behalf of the Chicago mob. Rosenthal – played by Robert De Niro in the movie Casino – wired the money to his bosses until he caught the attention of local authorities. Some time later, Jay Vandermark disappeared.
Another possible victim: Harry Pappas, who also worked for the Chicago underworld. “One of the added perks to visiting Las Vegas if you were a high roller…was they took you to Lake Mead by boat. The Stardust had a boat there and Harry Pappas was in charge of this whole operation. Just before he disappeared, he told his wife he was going to have lunch with someone interested in buying his boat. We never saw Harry Pappas again,” says Geoff Schumacher. “The mafia played a pretty big part in the development of Las Vegas from the 1940s through the 1980s. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes activity where they controlled the management of casinos, but also built and expanded those casinos.” After World War II, this small Nevada town became the gambling capital of the world.” “In reality, these guys were cold-blooded killers , Thieves. If you crossed paths with the mafia for one reason or another, there were definitely consequences,” says Geoff Schumacher.
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This September 8, 1961 file photo shows Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal at a testimony table before the Senate Criminal Investigative Subcommittee in Washington during a gambling investigation. © AP Photo/File/SIPA
Another name has surfaced in the media as one of Lake Mead’s possible victims. Jimmy Hoffa, known for his Mafia connections and listed as a prime suspect in masterminding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, mysteriously disappeared on July 30, 1975 while due to meet Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone, a wealthy well-known henchman of the Detroit mob and suspected New Jersey mob figure Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano at a restaurant in suburban Detroit. His body was never found and he was pronounced dead in 1982. The investigation into his death is still ongoing and rumors about the whereabouts of his body, most recently Lake Mead, regularly surface in the American media. But Oscar Goodman, mob lawyer and eccentric former Las Vegas mayor, joked to CBS, “I’m fairly certain the body doesn’t belong to Jimmy Hoffa.” More seriously, however, he added that some of his former clients — he particularly defended Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro – were particularly invested in “climate control”, especially to keep the water level of the lake at a high level. “Not a bad place to dump a body,” he commented.
Former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman surrounded by showgirls in 2018. © MediaPunch/REX/Shutterstock /SIPA
“I can say there’s a good chance we’ll find new human remains as the water goes down,” Las Vegas Police Lt. Ray Spencer warned last May. In addition to the bodies discovered, the lake also recently uncovered a WWII boat. The boat would have been used during the Normandy landings before being surveyed the Colorado River and then sold and scuttled in Lake Mead. A B-29 plane that crashed in 1948 is still underwater but may soon resurface, reports 8NewsNow. The western United States has been plagued by a historic drought for several years, threatening the water supply of a large part of the population and causing the levels of lakes and rivers to drop dramatically. Fed by the Colorado River, Lake Mead, a giant reservoir at the Hoover Dam, has reached its lowest level since 1937.
A WWII boat recently turned up in Lake Mead. © Shutterstock/SIPA