Police Release Composite Image of Human Remains Found at Lake Mead

The identity of a person whose remains were found in a rusted, corroded barrel in the receding waters of Lake Mead last year has stumped investigators in Nevada, who on Wednesday released images they believe are an approximation of the man’s face, in hopes they may push the case further along.

The remains of the man, who investigators think died from a gunshot wound decades ago, were found in the spring of 2022, the first of four sets of human remains found at the lake that year. The Clark County Coroner’s Office was able to successfully identify remains in three of the four cases, including those of a man who drowned nearly 50 years ago.

The gruesome discoveries, which stirred theories about seedy crimes in nearby Las Vegas, were made possible by an ongoing drought that saw the water levels of Lake Mead, the country’s largest man-made reservoir, drop by nearly 150 feet since 2000.

The images for the unsolved case were created by a Federal Bureau of Investigations lab in Virginia based on remains that were recovered, according to a news release from Clark County officials.

The images, which show the man’s face at three angles, were also shared with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, which did not much information. No physical descriptions were given and the man’s race was listed as “other.” Conditions of the remains were labeled “not recognizable — near complete or complete skeleton.”

A barrel containing the remains was found in early May 2022 by people walking along the shoreline of Lake Mead, which was formed in the 1930s by the construction of the Hoover Dam.

Lt. Ray Spencer of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said at the time that investigators believed the victim had died from a gunshot wound and that the clothing and footwear that the victim was found with indicated the person was killed in the mid-1970s or early 1980s.

Visitors to the lake that sunny day spotted the barrel planted into the mud, Lieutenant Spencer said. They peeked their heads inside and discovered a skeleton.

“We were docking our boat to go home” Shawna Hollister, a witness to the discovery, told KLAS-TV in Las Vegas. “My husband walked over and found the body. His shirt and belt were the only thing we could see over his decomposing bones.”

Witnesses then called the National Park Service, which responded and confirmed the contents inside the barrel were human remains, Lieutenant Spencer said.

At the time, the authorities acknowledged the investigation could take years because the police did not have DNA databases to reference from the time frame when the man likely died.

The process of identifying remains is not always straightforward and includes examinations to determine the gender, age, height and weight of each decedent. Collections of DNA samples, when available, are also used.

In this case, investigators had requested DNA from multiple families, who were chosen from unsolved missing person cases around the time the authorities believe the man had died, according to 8 News Now, a local news channel in Las Vegas.

“Sometimes remains may never be able to be identified,” Melanie Rouse, the Clark County coroner, told the station earlier this year. “If the information doesn’t exist for comparison, there’s not a magic tool out there for us to say this is who the person is.”