{"id":323019,"date":"2024-06-19T10:14:11","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T15:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=323019"},"modified":"2024-06-22T10:02:21","modified_gmt":"2024-06-22T15:02:21","slug":"missing-persons-website-posts-clothes-shoes-watch-of-still-unidentified-body-in-lake-mead-barrel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/missing-persons-website-posts-clothes-shoes-watch-of-still-unidentified-body-in-lake-mead-barrel\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing Persons Website Posts Pics of Clothes Worn by Still-Unidentified Body in Lake Mead Barrel"},"content":{"rendered":"

A half a century submerged in Lake Mead was too much of a licking even for a Timex.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The murder victim’s silver Timex digital watch, manufactured in South Korea, was popular in the late 1970s. Note its ironic “water resistant” etching. (Images: NAMUS.gov)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NAMUS.gov, the website of the US government\u2019s National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, has posted photographs and descriptions of the clothing, shoes, and watch worn by the only person whose Lake Mead remains have yet to be identified.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The murder victim wore a button-down Idletime short-sleeve shirt, Size 2X, manufactured in South Korea; 46″ x 30″ blue jeans with a Sasson-style pocket design; and Size 11 Trax tennis shoes. (Images: NAMUS.gov)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Between May and October 2022, four sets of remains were found when the receding Lake Mead gave up its darkest secrets due to an historic two-decade megadrought.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three of the four sets of remains were positively identified, but not the first and most famous one — the only one investigated by Las Vegas police as a homicide.<\/p>\n

Staring Down the Barrel<\/h2>\n

On May 1, 2022, boaters spotted a corroded metal barrel in a muddy spot once located 100 feet under Lake Mead\u2019s Hemenway Harbor. Inside the barrel, police said, were stuffed the remains of an adult male who died from a gunshot wound to the head.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The infamous \u201cbody in a barrel\u201d was discovered by boaters in May 2022 at Hemenway Harbor, about 30 miles away from Las Vegas. (Image: Shawna Elizabeth Hollister)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Police believe the barrel was dumped sometime between the late 1970s and early 1980s.<\/p>\n

This places the murder squarely within the vicious reign of Las Vegas mafia boss Anthony Spilotro. Tony the Ant, as he was known, was the inspiration for Joe Pesci\u2019s character in the 1995 Martin Scorsese film, \u201cCasino.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spilotro was murdered himself, along with his brother Michael, on June 14, 1986.<\/p>\n

According to the NAMUS.gov posts, the victim was between 27 and 61 years old, and stood between 5\u20326\u2033 and 6\u20321.\u2033<\/p>\n

\"\"
This face was created by the FBI based on skeletal remains recovered by Clark County Coroner\u2019s Office investigators from a barrel in Lake Mead in May 2022. (Clark County)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last-Stitch Effort<\/h2>\n

Two years of investigating by the Clark County Coroner\u2019s Office, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, and finally, the FBI, produced no credible leads, even after the FBI released a digital reconstruction<\/a> of the victim\u2019s face last year.<\/p>\n

So the NAMUS.gov posting, though standard procedure, can also be seen as the Hail Mary pass in a case that most experts expected would be long-solved by now.<\/p>\n

All Other Remains IDed<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The first set of remains discovered at Lake Mead, on May 7, 2022, belonged to Thomas Erndt,<\/a>\u00a0a 42-year-old Las Vegas resident who drowned.<\/p>\n

Remains found on July 25, 2022, were identified in April 2023 as those of Las Vegas resident Claude Pensinger, 52, who went missing on July 14, 1998.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Remains found on Oct. 17, 2022, belonged to Donald P. Smith<\/a>, 39, of North Las Vegas, a drowning victim missing since April 1974.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A half a century submerged in Lake Mead was too much of a licking even for a Timex. NAMUS.gov, the website of the US government\u2019s National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, has posted photographs and descriptions of the clothing, shoes, and watch worn by the only person whose Lake Mead remains have yet to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":323022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,81886],"tags":[91362,88970,91365,13766,82017,23,13765,82255,82002,91363,91364],"class_list":["post-323019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scandals","category-las-vegas","tag-barrel","tag-body-in-a-barrel","tag-clothing","tag-crime","tag-lake-mead","tag-las-vegas","tag-mafia","tag-mob","tag-murder","tag-skeleton","tag-unsolved"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMissing Persons Website Posts Pics of Clothes Worn by Still-Unidentified Body in Lake Mead Barrel - Casino.org<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A half a century submerged in Lake Mead was too much of a licking even for a Timex. 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He currently covers entertainment, dining and gaming news in Las Vegas. Corey spent six years covering the Vegas Strip for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where he also wrote the most popular humor column in the city\u2019s history. (For \u201cFear and Loafing,\u201d he tried out 176 Vegas jobs, including poker player, blackjack dealer and Follie Bergere dancer.) Corey has won more than 100 local, state and national awards for his journalism, which has also appeared in Rolling Stone, New York Magazine and the New York Post. Corey is a New York native whose hobbies include playing guitar, trying to be a better husband, and arguing with strangers on Facebook. 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