Skeptoid #1062: The Floating Mob Bodies of Lake Mead

Lake Mead receding waters

0:00Today on Skeptoid, the floating mob bodies of Lake Mead. That, as we'll see, is a highly embellished title. But it's not that far off from how many news outlets speculated about the human remains found at Lake Mead near Las Vegas in 2022 and 2026. Today we're going to take a look at what's really happening with the human remains being found as Lake Mead's waters recede. And in our extended content for premium members, not only is Lake Mead a target for gruesome speculation,

0:33but so is the dam that makes Lake Mead possible, the Hoover Dam. The Hoover Dam has long been rumored to have workers buried in the concrete. Any truth to that one, and where did this urban legend stem from? That's today on Skeptoid. Hey everyone, Brian here. This December, join me for another great Skeptoid adventure. This one to New Orleans, where we'll take a deep dive into the history, pseudo-history,

1:06myths and legends of one of America's most storied cities. We'll explore French Quarter ghost, voodoo and vampire lore, with local expert Chris Purley, and walk through the historic St. Louis Cemetery number one. Did you catch my recent episode on the legendary Honey Island Swamp Monster? We'll be heading out to tour that very swamp, one of the most pristine and least altered river swamps in the U.S. Perhaps we'll catch a glimpse. We'll also catch live jazz on Bourbon

1:36Street, run a Bourbon Street scavenger hunt, tour the historic mansions of the Garden District, and stop in at the Mardi Gras Museum, the Pharmacy Museum, an oddities shop, and much more. And of course, we'll eat real Creole and Cajun cuisine, plus beignets and café au lait. It's a full weekend of true stories, tall tales, and the city that inspired both. Get the full itinerary and book your spot now at Skeptoid.com slash adventures.

2:10This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O-D-O-O dot com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Will McCandless from Skeptoid.com. The floating mob bodies of Lake

2:46Mead. Listener advisory. This episode mentions homicide, accidental deaths, and suicide. And while this episode is not overly graphic, if you are sensitive to these topics, please consider skipping this one. Welcome to the show that separates fact from fiction, science from pseudoscience, real history from fake history, and helps us all make better life decisions by knowing what's real and what's

The floating mob bodies myth

3:12not. How does that title grab you? The floating mob bodies of Lake Mead. Well, it's inaccurate. And it's also pretty similar to how some news outlets have chronicled the five sets of human remains that were found in 2022 and in 2026 as the waters in Lake Mead have dropped to historically low levels. Much of the news coverage, which this episode will focus on primarily, and its trappings that have trickled down to social media paint a picture of dead mobsters and or their victims regularly being

3:46found as the waterline recedes at Lake Mead. And this fits neatly within the mobster lore that surrounds Las Vegas. But is that what's really going on? Are the human remains found in 2022 and then in 2026 a mob story? Or is it something different? Something perhaps a little more nuanced? Before we take the plunge ourselves, let's set the scene. Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the lake made possible by the Hoover Dam, a popular recreation destination near Las Vegas that's part of the U.S. National Park

4:20System. Lake Mead National Recreation Area is about 30 miles or so from Las Vegas, assuming you are going to one of the closer visitor destinations like Boulder Beach. Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States by total water capacity. But this begs a huge caveat. Lake Mead hasn't been near capacity since the late 1990s, when it was upwards of 90 percent full. Since then, the current, quote, mega drought, which can seem like a euphemism these days, along with more water being taken out than

4:51flows in, has resulted in the reservoir dropping more than 175 vertical feet. And as of this writing in October of 2026, Lake Mead currently sits at 26 percent full. Due to this, Lake Mead currently ranks fifth in how much water this reservoir is storing, not first. The reasons why this is happening and how this crisis in the Colorado River Basin is being handled is fascinating and could easily fill a month of skeptoid episodes. But we must stay focused on the task at hand today, what these receding waters are

5:25leaving behind. Here's a quick sampling of what's emerged from the lake as the waterline recedes to their lowest level since the reservoir was filled in some 90 years ago. The town of St. Thomas, Nevada, that was founded in 1865 and flooded in 1938 when filling in Lake Mead. Hoover Dam construction remnants, like railroad beds used to transport materials, and parts of an impressive aggregate plant that sorted gravel and sand for making the massive amounts of concrete needed to build the dam.

5:57A World War II-era Higgins Landing watercraft, a surplus vessel from the 1940s that was possibly put into service to survey the lake in Colorado River. A houseboat, plus multiple powerboats, speedboats, skiffs, and at least one car. A whole bunch of recreation-related items like beer cans, sunglasses, and tackle boxes, and human remains. Naturally, this last one, human remains, has caused a great

6:30deal of additional attention on the receding waters of Lake Mead, but not simply due to the fact that skeletal remains were found. On May 1, 2022, a corroded, rusted-out barrel was found on the shores of the lake at Hemingway Harbor, not far from Boulder Beach. At first glance, this may have looked like just another piece of debris that was exposed by 2022's historic drop in the reservoir's water level, but upon closer inspection, human skeletal remains were found in the barrel. The person had been shot

7:03in the head and stuffed in a barrel and dropped into, what were then, deep waters. It was quickly determined to be a homicide by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, thought to have occurred in the late 1970s or early 1980s. I will refer to the remains found in the barrel as the Hemingway Harbor doe. His identity is still unknown, but a few details we do know. He still had his Kmart clothing and shoes, he had a Timex watch,

7:33his estimated height is between 5'6 and 6'1, and his pants were a size 46 waist, so not a small guy. His age range at time of death was 27 to 61 years old, and there's an artist rendering on nameus.gov, N-A-M-U-S dot gov, and a link to his profile on nameus.gov is in our show notes, because you never know who holds the key to solving a case. Oh, and another detail. Though

8:05ruled a homicide, there is no current link between the Hemingway Harbor doe and the mob. Also good to know, historians have documented isolated cases of mob victims discarded in the desert and some barrel disposals involving mobsters elsewhere in the country, but Lake Mead has never been documented as some sort of mob dumping ground. There was a lot of media coverage that first week after the barrel in the Hemingway Harbor doe was discovered, but the headlines focused on the facts.

8:36Even given the optics of a body found in a barrel and the era it was dropped in the lake when there was a large mob presence in Las Vegas, the media did not speculate about this being tied to the mob. Even after a second barrel, albeit empty, was found a day or two after that nearby, and that hit the news cycle, all the headlines remained focused on the facts. There was only one outlier I could find. On May 3, 2022, just days after the story of the body in the barrel broke, the British tabloid The Daily Mail ran a story entitled,

9:10Lake Mead gives up its mob secrets. Body of 1980s Vegas shooting victim is found in still barrel on receding shoreline of Lagoon, and cops expect to find more as the water levels drop further. This is the first article I can find that leads with this organized crime speculation, and it wasn't the headline other media outlets were running with. It truly sounded like a tabloid headline, which is what it was. But that all changed about a week later. Less than a week after

9:40the Hemingway Harbor doe was found, another set of human remains were found some eight miles or so from Hemingway Harbor in Colville Bay. And now the headlines, even from reputable sources, seem to be drawn to possible mob ties. What changed the narrative? Was it additionally gruesome because now another set of human remains had been found? Or was it the second empty but still ominous barrel? Or did the tabloid headline feed up into the mainstream headlines as seemingly harmless speculation? Perhaps we can't be certain, but we can be certain that this became a popular

10:16narrative moving forward. The news media lit up with headlines like, from the New York Times, bodies pulled from parched Lake Mead stir wise guy ghosts of Las Vegas. From the Los Angeles Times, Vegas mob lore floats to the surface along with bodies at Lake Mead. From the Las Vegas Review Journal. Was it the mob? Body found in Lake Mead brings plenty of speculation. From the Associated Press. Watery graves recall early Las Vegas's organized crime days. From the Telegraph. Bodies

10:51dumped by mafia are coming to the surface as drought leaves Las Vegas lakes bone dry.

10:58That second set of remains were of Thomas Ernt, a 42-year-old father who tragically disappeared in 2002 while boating with family and friends on Lake Mead after dark. But until Ernst's identity was known, his story was, to a degree, conflated with the Hemingway Harbor doe, and his remains also seemed to garner some of that same speculation. Hey everyone, Brian here. Quick news, I'm teaming up with guest expert Curly Tlapoyawa this December for Mysteries

11:34of the Maya, an on-site educational adventure running December 6th through the 13th. And we don't want finances to be the reason someone misses out. We're offering a limited number of scholarships and we're strongly encouraging students and educators to apply. Here is what you'll need. Get yourself to New Orleans. Be at the port ready to board by 1 p.m. on Sunday, December 6th. Share a double occupancy cabin and cover 10 or 50 percent of the standard ticket price. Applications are reviewed in the order we receive them, so don't wait.

12:10Apply now at skeptoid.com slash events. That's skeptoid.com slash events. Now, back to the show.

Identities and actual causes

12:23In July and August of that same year, 2022, a third set of remains were found on three separate occasions that were all confirmed to be one person. That person was later identified as Claude Russell Pentinger of Las Vegas, who had disappeared in July of 1998. His cause of death was not determined. The fourth set was found in October of 2022 at Colville Bay, and they belonged to Donald P. Smith, a 39-year-old man from North Las Vegas. He reportedly drowned in the lake in April of 1974,

12:56and his death was ruled an accidental drowning. The headlines after the third and fourth sets of remains were found cooled it on the mob speculation, but the gruesome nature of the Hemingway Harbor, though, persisted as a central part of the story. And when identities were learned, we see brief updates, but no articles bringing the story full circle, dismissing any speculation and telling us more about who that person was. Then we had about four years where human remains were not found, and the story went dormant. And then this year, 2026, another set of human remains was found.

13:31And with four years passing since the Hemingway Harbor Doe, there was perhaps hope that there would be no need for speculation, and we could make this an opportunity to talk about the dangers of recreating on water or perhaps of mental health awareness. But alas, the mob lore of yesteryear persists. From NBC Chicago. Receding Lake Mead reveals body, but will Chicago mob secrets be exposed? From USA Today. Gruesome find. More human remains discovered at shrinking Lake Mead.

14:04Cited unnamed experts who said more mob bodies were highly likely, especially given the reputation of Sin City as a home for the mob. The LA Times. As Lake Mead shrinks, its body count rises. The article reports the remains included other likely murder victims, in the plural, when only one homicide exists.

14:27The mob speculation doesn't appear in the headlines as frequently. But the articles all circle back to the Hemingway Harbor Doe and the gruesome nature of how his body was discarded. When more remains are found, news outlets often place them in a lineage that begins with a body found in a barrel, and those newly found remains are connected, in a way, to the Hemingway Harbor Doe until that association is proven wrong by DNA. And as of this writing in October of 2026, the remains found

14:58this summer at Lake Mead, which brings the total count since 2022 to 5, have not yet been publicly identified. There's no suspicion of foul play at this time, and there's no reason to gravitate toward the gruesome. The better question is, are we going to find a DNA match for these remains? And will that bring someone out there the closure they have been looking for?

Water safety and mental health

15:21The speculation of mob connections or the framing through a gruesome lens upstages other important stories like the fact that recreating on water is dangerous. It is easy to drown. Someone can be gone in an instant. Also, not hydrating while recreating in the desert can be fatal. Mixing alcohol and other chemicals with a day on the water is dangerous. Not wearing a life jacket is also very risky, but many take that chance. People can disappear quickly on the open water. It does not take long

15:54to drown. And it is necessary to remind ourselves of that when we are out on the water. Another upstage story is the real danger of depression and other mental health conditions. Suicide is usually a result of multiple interacting factors, but depression is strongly associated with suicide risk. A recent analysis of self-reported depression and anxiety in the U.S. was published in the Interactive Journal of Medical Research. The authors reported, We estimate that 31.1 million U.S. adults experience symptoms of depression on 20 or more days in the

16:31past month at the time of this survey. Of these people, an estimated 10.2 million never spoke to a healthcare professional about their mental health. Suicide is tragic, period. And any conversation about human remains at Lake Mead would be more fully rounded if it noted that Lake Mead is a place where people have chosen to take their own life. Despite the speculative headlines, most articles mentioned here do a sufficient job in recapping the current water crisis in the West. The optimist in

17:07me would like to believe that the coverage of human remains from 2022 and 2026 has possibly drawn additional attention to the water crisis in the Colorado River Basin. Among climate communicators, there's a movement that believes the constant doom and gloom climate headlines can make the public feel helpless, and due to that, they may not engage with climate-related news stories. These climate communicators advocate for presenting how humans are responding, adapting, and engineering solutions as the climate changes. But, and again, this is my inner optimist speaking, perhaps arriving at the

17:43climate story through another point of entry like, was it the mob, can bring some readers that might have avoided a doom-and-gloom climate headline into a story where climate change is a prominent character.

17:56As we close this episode, let us take a moment to remember the lives taken by the lake, taken by a mental health condition, or taken by violence. That's the real takeaway. These were real people, not characters supporting a mob lore narrative or our current cultural appetite for true crime. And the discovery of their remains will likely bring someone out there some closure. And so, we end this episode in memory of them. We continue with more on the Hoover Dam, the dam that makes Lake Mead possible,

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