• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • The Magazine
  • Events
  • Partners
  • Products
  • Contact
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Advertise
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Subscribe
American Police Beat

American Police Beat Magazine

Law Enforcement Publication

  • Home
  • Leadership
    • A candid chat with law enforcement Explorer scouts
      Do you know your emotional intelligence?
      Addressing racism in the workplace
      Supervisory actions: Deliberate style or weak skills?
      Are performance evaluations worth the effort?
  • Topics
    • Leadership
      • A candid chat with law enforcement Explorer scouts
        Do you know your emotional intelligence?
        Addressing racism in the workplace
        Supervisory actions: Deliberate style or weak skills?
        Are performance evaluations worth the effort?
    • Editor’s Picks
      • The future is here
        A winding road
        Do you know your emotional intelligence?
        Law enforcement responds to tragic Texas flooding
        “Hold my beer”
    • On the Job
      • Legacy never dies
        Into the abyss
        A winding road
        Law enforcement responds to tragic Texas flooding
        I brought home a dog
    • Labor
      • Differentiation in police recruitment
        Building positive media relations
        LEO labor and community outreach — make the haters scoff
        Racing with a purpose
        Dallas Police Department drops college requirement for police...
    • Tech
      • Cutting-edge police technology
        One step closer
        New Jersey school district first to adopt AI gun detection and...
        Hawaii police harness virtual reality technology to train, secure and...
        The future is here
    • Training
      • Mentorship: Ensuring future success
        Unlocking innovation
        Training dipshittery
        Police Academy 20
        Using critical thinking to crack the case
    • Policy
      • Consolidation in action
        California lawmakers push mask ban for officers, raising safety...
        Proactive policing: What it is and how to do it
        California makes police misconduct records publicly available
        A bold idea for reducing homelessness in America
    • Health/Wellness
      • Pink patches, powerful impact
        Time and distance
        Meditation is hard because it’s not what you think
        Life off the clock
        Self-help for anxiety
    • Community
      • Back-to-school season brings out police support nationwide
        A bold idea for reducing homelessness in America
        Operation Brain Freeze keeps community cool
        Turning over a new leaf
        Bridging the Gap Between Cops and Kids
    • Offbeat
      • Not eggzactly a perfect heist
        Pizza … with a side of alligator?
        Wisconsin man charged with impersonating Border Patrol agent twice in...
        Only in California?
        Durango, Colorado, police hop into action after unusual 9-1-1 call
    • We Remember
      • York County ambush leaves three officers dead, others critically...
        Honoring the Fallen Heroes of 9/11
        Team Romeo
        National Police Week 2025
        Honoring Fallen Heroes
    • HOT Mail
      • The War on Cops Continues Unabated
  • On the Job
    • Legacy never dies
      Into the abyss
      A winding road
      Law enforcement responds to tragic Texas flooding
      I brought home a dog
  • Labor
    • Differentiation in police recruitment
      Building positive media relations
      LEO labor and community outreach — make the haters scoff
      Racing with a purpose
      Dallas Police Department drops college requirement for police...
  • Tech
    • Cutting-edge police technology
      One step closer
      New Jersey school district first to adopt AI gun detection and...
      Hawaii police harness virtual reality technology to train, secure and...
      The future is here
  • Training
    • Mentorship: Ensuring future success
      Unlocking innovation
      Training dipshittery
      Police Academy 20
      Using critical thinking to crack the case
  • Policy
    • Consolidation in action
      California lawmakers push mask ban for officers, raising safety...
      Proactive policing: What it is and how to do it
      California makes police misconduct records publicly available
      A bold idea for reducing homelessness in America
  • Health/Wellness
    • Pink patches, powerful impact
      Time and distance
      Meditation is hard because it’s not what you think
      Life off the clock
      Self-help for anxiety
  • Community
    • Back-to-school season brings out police support nationwide
      A bold idea for reducing homelessness in America
      Operation Brain Freeze keeps community cool
      Turning over a new leaf
      Bridging the Gap Between Cops and Kids
  • Offbeat
    • Not eggzactly a perfect heist
      Pizza … with a side of alligator?
      Wisconsin man charged with impersonating Border Patrol agent twice in...
      Only in California?
      Durango, Colorado, police hop into action after unusual 9-1-1 call
  • We Remember
    • York County ambush leaves three officers dead, others critically...
      Honoring the Fallen Heroes of 9/11
      Team Romeo
      National Police Week 2025
      Honoring Fallen Heroes
  • HOT Mail
    • The War on Cops Continues Unabated
  • About
  • The Magazine
  • Events
  • Partners
  • Products
  • Contact
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
Search

Offbeat

Receding water levels in Lake Mead uncover barrel containing a dead body; police expect more to come

APB Team Published May 11, 2022 @ 12:00 pm PDT

This photo taken in summer 2021, showing a white band of newly exposed rock, starkly demonstrates how the water level has dropped in recent years. (iStock.com/4kodiak)

Las Vegas police say that receding water in Lake Mead recently led them to discover a metal barrel containing a corpse, a grim find they believe will not be the last as water continues to dry up due to the region’s severe drought.

Las Vegas Metro Police homicide Lieutenant Ray Spencer said in a news conference several days later that police believed the body was that of a man who had died of a gunshot wound, probably in the mid-to-late 1970s or early 1980s, judging by the clothes and shoes he was wearing.

The body was initially discovered by boaters who found the barrel stuck in the mud.

“We heard a woman scream from the side of the beach and then my husband went over to obviously see what was wrong, and then he realized there was a body in a barrel,” witness Shawna Hollister told 8 News Now. “My husband walked over and found the body. His shirt and belt were the only thing we could see over his decomposing bones.”

Police said the body was intact when it was dropped in the lake.

The next step for police is to identify the victim, which will be a painstaking task as there were no DNA databases in the ’70s or ’80s that could help to form leads. The body has since been sent to the Clark County coroner’s office to attempt to identify the remains.

“It’s going to take an extensive amount of work,” Spencer said. “It’s going to be a very difficult case. I would say there is a very good chance as the water level drops that we are going to find additional human remains.”

Spencer said his team also reached out to UNLV experts to examine growth on the barrel to discover when it entered the lake.

According to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, a “megadrought” in the region is responsible for the drying lake. Experts say this period is the driest it has been in over a thousand years, and is likely caused or exacerbated by climate change.

Police expect that more bodies will be uncovered as water levels continue to recede.

“I think anybody can understand there are probably more bodies that have been dumped in Lake Mead, it’s just a matter of, are we able to recover those?” Spencer said, adding that rangers with the National Park Service commonly find one or two bodies in the lake each year.

In the 1980s, the section of the lake where the barrel was found would have been covered by dozens of feet of water. Lake Mead has recently dropped to 1,056 feet in elevation of late (lake levels are measured in altitude above sea level rather than depth). At its highest levels, the lake has been nearly 200 feet higher than it is at present.

“It’s really odd in the sense that had the lake never receded, we would never have discovered the body,” Spencer said.

Police are currently speculating that the killing may have been mafia-related, as Las Vegas casinos in that era were controlled by the Mob.

Categories: Offbeat Tags: barrel, Lake Mead, drought, climate change, water level, Ray Spencer, DNA database, mafia, Las Vegas, dead body

Primary Sidebar

Recent Articles

  • Cutting-edge police technology
  • Legacy never dies
  • One step closer
  • Mentorship: Ensuring future success
  • Differentiation in police recruitment
  • Unlocking innovation
  • Into the abyss
  • Back-to-school season brings out police support nationwide
  • Pink patches, powerful impact
  • NLEOMF thanks supporters for a successful Police Weekend

Footer

Our Mission
To serve as a trusted voice of the nation’s law enforcement community, providing informative, entertaining and inspiring content on interesting and engaging topics affecting peace officers today.

Contact us: info@apbweb.com | (800) 234-0056.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Categories

  • Editor’s Picks
  • On the Job
  • Labor
  • Tech
  • Training
  • Policy
  • Health/Wellness
  • Community
  • Offbeat
  • We Remember
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Events

Editor’s Picks

The future is here

The future is here

August 21, 2025

A winding road

A winding road

August 20, 2025

Do you know your emotional intelligence?

Do you know your emotional intelligence?

August 17, 2025

Law enforcement responds to tragic Texas flooding

Law enforcement responds to tragic Texas flooding

August 11, 2025

Policies | Consent Preferences | Copyright © 2025 APB Media, LLC | Website design, development and maintenance by 911MEDIA

Open

Subscribe

Close

Receive the latest news and updates from American Police Beat directly to your inbox!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.