Las Vegas authorities said they had identified a man whose remains were discovered in a barrel at Lake Mead in 2022, and expected to release his identity at a news briefing later on the date of the report. The source material does not provide the victim’s name or any details from the planned briefing.
The Clark County Coroner and Medical Examiner’s Office said a group of boaters found the barrel at Hemenway Harbor on May 1, 2022. Authorities suspected a homicide after finding a gunshot wound on the man’s body. Police at the time estimated that he had been killed sometime from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, citing the clothing he was wearing.
The discovery came amid falling water levels at Lake Mead. The report says receding water had exposed the barrel and contributed to the discovery of other human remains in the lake, including remains authorities associated with suspected drownings and missing-person cases. It does not provide further details about those cases or establish a connection between them and the barrel victim.
Randy Sutton, a retired Las Vegas police lieutenant who has followed the case, said the discovery brought to mind the city’s past. Sutton and other experts cited by the report have suggested the victim could have been killed in a mob-related attack. That possibility remains a theory in the supplied material; authorities are not quoted confirming a motive or organized-crime connection.
Sutton also pointed to development outside the city, saying construction of new housing projects had uncovered human remains in places that were previously beyond Las Vegas’s built-up area. The report does not say those remains were connected to the Lake Mead investigation.
Authorities scheduled a news briefing for 3 p.m. Pacific time, or 6 p.m. Eastern. The information provided ends before that briefing, so it offers no confirmation of the identity or any additional investigative findings.
