Just a week after the body of a murder victim was found in the rapidly receding reservoir area, more human remains were found in Lake Mead.
The last remains were reported by rangers on Saturday 7/5th. On May 1, a body was found in a barrel stuck in the mud of the lake bed.
Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the USA, provides drinking water to 20 million people from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.
Police warned that more bodies could be found as the lake recedes.
Lake Mead’s levels have been falling since 2000 – droughts have gotten worse in recent years, and scientists say climate change is making the situation worse.
Investigators say the body found by sailors last week is that of a person shot dead in the 1970s or 1980s.
Las Vegas homicide detective Lieutenant Ray Spencer told local media that the timing was determined by the victim’s clothes and shoes, which were then sold at Kmart stores.
Further research is being conducted to examine the corroded metal in the barrel to gain further evidence.
“This is going to be a very difficult case,” Lieutenant Spencer told US broadcaster CBS News in Las Vegas following the initial discovery. “I would say that as the water level drops, the probability of finding other human remains is very high.”
Image: GETTY IMAGES
And this weekend, that prediction came true.
The National Park Service, which patrols Lake Mead, said the latest discovery of “human skeletal remains” was reported by witnesses Saturday afternoon.
“The investigation is ongoing. No additional information is available at this time,” park officials said in a press release. Said.
Saturday’s discovery was made by two sisters practicing Stand Up Paddle (SUP). In an interview with local media, they said they thought it was a large rock before they found the bones.
“At first I thought it was a sheep and then we started digging a bit and when we uncovered the jaw we realized there were human remains,” Lindsey Melvin told CBS.
“For a long time I couldn’t believe it. It’s like I didn’t think we actually found human remains,” added his sister, Lynette Melvin.
Las Vegas police said on Monday that there is currently no suspicion of guilt in the second death, but that they will “investigate whether a murder or suspicious death has been determined.”
Located on the Nevada-Arizona state border, Lake Mead was created in the 1930s by the Hoover Dam.
The terrifying discoveries come at a time when the lake is at its lowest level since its creation.
Last month, water levels in Lake Mead dropped enough to expose a water inlet valve that began supplying water to customers in the area in 1971.
In February, researchers concluded that the drought in the southwestern United States was the worst in at least a millennium.
Not all droughts are caused by climate change, but extreme heat in the atmosphere is pulling more moisture from the soil and making the drought worse.
Unless governments around the world make sharp cuts in emissions, the world has warmed by about 1.2°C since the beginning of the industrial age and temperatures will continue to rise, scientists say.
source: Noticias
