A scenario taken directly from the imagination of Martin Scorsese. For several months, Lake Mead, located near Las Vegas, in the state of Nevada, has been subject to a major drought. As a result, the largest man-made reservoir in the United States has seen its water level drop dramatically, at a rate of 12 inches every week, and has dropped from an altitude of 1,200 feet above sea level, historically its highest point. . , just 317 meters on Tuesday.
A signed crime
Beyond the ecological disaster caused by this progressive exhaustion, it is also a very dark page in the history of the region that has been reopened by the drop of water. Three bodies, which were previously submerged, have been found in the lake since May, the last of which was on Monday.
In May, the first body discovered had drawn particular attention from the police and the public: it was the skeleton of a man who had been shot in the head, stuffed into a barrel and dumped at the bottom of the lake. years. A modus operandi signed, typical of the local mafia.
It was on the basis of personal effects found with the body that Las Vegas police estimated the murder dated back to the late 1970s or early 1980s, a period when the underworld was particularly active in the city. capital of the game.
Officially, this victim has not been identified. However, two officials from the Mob Museum, the organized crime museum located in Las Vegas, have carried out an investigation on their part to give the skeleton an identity. They reveal their findings in a lengthy article published by the daily mail.
Three hypotheses for a murderer?
According to them, three people may correspond to this disappearance. First, George ‘Jay’ Vandermark, hired by the mob to oversee the slot machines at four mob-run casinos. Disappeared in 1976, he would have tried to overtake his bosses who would not have appreciated the approach. However, the authors doubt that the latter is the man with the barrel.
Then comes the hypothesis of William Crespo, a drug trafficker who trusted the police too much after being arrested for cocaine trafficking. In fact, he was going to testify against a mafia capo, but in the end he was never tried because he was reported missing.
The most reliable theory for the two specialists, the one that leads to Johnny Pappas, a casino manager who also owned a boat moored on Lake Mead. The day of his disappearance, which has not yet been explained, he was supposed to meet an individual supposedly interested in buying this boat. The Johnny Pappas hypothesis is supported by a journalist from nevada independent who knew the mafia during his youth.
For the Clark County coroner’s office, which is in charge of the investigations, it will take at least a year to formally identify the remains. DNA tests will have to be carried out on the descendants of the disappeared.
Even more exciting, if these three men are proven to have a connection to the underworld, and if they are in fact one of the two in this barrel, then it’s also likely that they were the victims of one of the bloodiest. Mafia killers of the time, Tony Spilotro. This one, who had specialized in shooting his victims in the head, greatly inspired the character played by Joe Pesci in the film. casino by Martin Scorsese, which traces the history of the underworld to “Sin City.”
He ended his life buried in a cornfield in Indiana, disposed of by his friends who, due to his recurring run-ins with the law, suddenly found him too nosy.
damn past
Beyond the image we have of Las Vegas, its Strip, its gigantic hotels, its slot machines, this city built former nihilo in the arid vastness of Nevada has a very charged story, made of violence and corpses in the desert. “There are many holes in the desert. And many problems buried in these holes”, launches the character camped by Joe Pesci in casino.
In the immediate postwar period, when Las Vegas was booming, mob families across the country viewed the place as an “open city,” understood without turf warfare and where everyone could enjoy financial windfalls. Among them, the Chicago underworld, which through a front company called Argent Corp. ran many establishments. Tony Spilotro was one of the main henchmen.
Although there was relative peace between the different families involved, undercover settling of scores increased and dozens of people began to disappear for their participation in various trafficking or for their propensity to talk to the police. According to the Mob Museum, Las Vegas saw more gang murders in 1974 alone than in the previous 25 years combined.
If Lake Mead continues to dry up, then it seems more than likely that law enforcement’s premonition of more human remains turning up in the coming weeks seems more than likely to come true.
Source: BFM TV
