Criminology - The Bodies In Lake Mead

Episode Date: September 18, 2022

The water level of Lake Mead, near Las Vegas, Nevada, along with other lakes in the West and SouthWest US, has reached dangerously low levels. Some areas are experiencing a "megadrought," and it has been called the worst drought in the last 1,200 years. This situation is causing a serious issue for drinking water and hydroelectric power for those who rely on both from some of these bodies of water. The water levels in Lake Mead have also unearthed a number of bodies, including at least one that was found in a barrel. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the bodies that have recently surfaced in Lake Mead. Many are still unidentified, including one found inside a barrel. This one for sure is no accident because people just don't accidentally end up in a barrel. The fact that the body was found inside a barrel, and the proximity to Las Vegas, have led many to suspect that this was a murder committed by the mob. These discoveries are very recent, so it remains to be seen how many of these individuals were murdered or died by accident. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fall is here and classes back in session. It's a busy time for students and faculty, and with a new school year comes new adventures, new experiences, and new goals to achieve. But as much promise and excitement as the fall semester brings, there can also be a dark side to it, one in which the unthinkable can happen. I'm Amy Slashberg. And I'm Megan Sacks, and we're the host of the podcast, Campus Killings. As educators and criminologists, we teach, research, right, and podcast about victims, offenders

and the issues that surround our criminal justice system. have both worked in the field of criminal justice for 20 years, myself in law enforcement and Amy in the mental health field. In campus killings, we'll dive into some of the most shocking and tragic murders to happen on school grounds and we'll provide our analysis on the cases we cover as both educators and trained criminologists. We'll discuss what went wrong and what could have been done differently to prevent the tragic outcome. Campus killings is available everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe now so you don't miss a single episode of campus killings. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics.

Listener discretion is advised. So everyone and welcome to episode 224 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And I'm Mike Morford. Morphe. You sound so much better this week, buddy. I'm feeling better. The nice Florida weather down here has got me healed up pretty good.

What's new with you? I'm doing fairly well. You know, I think we've talked about it before. you know when you're podcasting your health and specifically you know colds and sinus issues and all of that it really becomes much more important because you got to try to get you know the the words out it has to sound decent it's it's not something i thought about before i started podcasting yeah there's been a couple times that i've been so sick that i just wasn't able to go me either had to reschedule. I think one time you actually recorded an episode by yourself, but it definitely

makes a big difference if you're, if you're under the weather. Well, and speaking of weather, we're going to be talking a lot about that in the case that we're doing in this episode. But before that, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Aaron Neal, Stephanie Trent, Brandon Delinger, Willie Jordan, Ruth Scriven, and Mike. Lash. So that's some great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to support the show. We can't thank you enough. If anyone out there would like to help support criminology, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy, let's go ahead and jump into this episode. And I started talking about weather. You know, it's September. It's the start of the fall here in the U.S. And it's a time when many areas of the country start to get some relief from the heat. But I think for many of our listeners here in the U.S., and maybe some in countries outside of the U.S., they may be experiencing a lot of excessive heat that is still lingering. For those in some areas of the U.S., including California, Texas, and Nevada, some nights when temps are supposed to be cooler,

they have dipped below the high 70s and sometimes even into the low 80s. As a result of that high heat and not enough rain, the American West Coast is currently experiencing a mega drought, which is described as a drought that lasts at least two decades. It's so bad that it's being called the worst drought in the last 1,200 years. So we are going to get into a lot of detail here about weather and water conditions because they're extremely relevant to the case that we're talking about in this episode. In 2021, the water level in two of the biggest reservoirs in the United States, Lake Pal and Arizona, and Lake Meade and Nevada hit record lows. This is a dire concern for the millions of people, about 40 million throughout multiple states who depend on these two reservoirs for their water, and the hundreds of thousands who need the Hoover Dam for their power.

In 2021, a water shortage was declared at Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country, at 112 miles long, with about 3,000. 300 square miles of water. This was the first time a water shortage was declared in its history. By April 2022, at least one intake valve for drinking water supply was above the water's surface. The water level is getting too low to launch boats at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The same goes for Lake Powell, where the boat ramps don't lead all the way down to the water anymore. Though it's a reservoir for drinking water and it's used to create hydroelectric power, Lake Mead is still a lake. For many years, Lake Meat has been a popular recreation spot for families who want to go boating, scuba diving, canoeing, kayaking, jet skiing, or fishing. There are plenty of areas right near the

lake to camp, whether that's in an RV or a tent, there's picnic tables for group meals and hiking and biking trips. If you want to stay in your car, there's almost 50 miles of road for a scenic drive. Much of that may soon be a thing of the past. If water, levels continue to drop. The marina at Las Vegas boat harbor has had to be moved nine times just this year. A significant undertaking that costs over $100,000 every time they have to do it. So obviously, more if we're talking about what could be and probably already is a catastrophic event, this lack of rainfall, the water levels.

You know, when you think about some of these really big lakes, Lake Mead, Lake Powell, so many people get enjoyment from, you know, going out to these places, having fun with family and friends, whether it's on a boat or, you know, whatever it is. We said it could be in jeopardy. And you just think about how many people that something like that would affect. And that's totally separate from this whole. other scenario where we're talking about water supply and hydroelectric power. This is a big deal.

Yeah, to have to move a boat harbor nine times just this year, I think that's just paints a picture of how bad it is. And we mentioned this is the first time this has happened in the history of Lake Mead. So I think it really paints a picture of just how serious it is. Well, when you hear the word megadrought and, you know, It gets thrown around that this is the worst drought in the last 1,200 years. You know, all of these things really sink in. These are major, major milestone-type events.

And St. Thomas, a town that was flooded to create the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, was once under 70 feet of water. Now it's a ghost town, with mostly just foundations of buildings remaining. There was also a flourishing community of Native Americans in the area around 300 AD. Now, most of their town, Pueblo Grande, is underwater in the Overton arm of Lake Mead. There have been preservation efforts on this community since the mid-1920s, and the remaining outskirts that didn't flood since the 30s. Soon, the most developed part of this city may be on earth as water levels plummet. In June, 2022, a stunning photo of what used to be a sunken boat, now standing nearly upright in the mud at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, near Boulder City, Nevada, was included in Article

about the drought. By July, half of a different boat, Higgins Landingcraft dating back to World War 2 was sticking out of the water on the muddy shore of Lake Mead. Half a mile from Lake Mead Marina, the boat had once been sunken below 185 feet of water, a real indicator of how bad this drought is at Lake Mead. And one thing's for sure, the water at Lake Mead has not been so low since its creation in the 1930s, long before many of the large hotels and casinos there existed. And an odd consequence of this megadrought and the low water level is that it's revealing an entire hidden world below the surface. Things that were once lost to the depths are now on the shoreline, stuck in the sand for all the world to see. And that includes bodies. Some of them previously submerged in barrels.

And I think we have to talk about Las Vegas a little bit. You know, as Vegas grew, more and more members of organized crime moved to the city and they brought their money with them, opening large hotels and casinos. Former state archivist Guy Roka told the Las Vegas Review Journal, it was the mob that moved Las Vegas forward with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Development in Las Vegas and especially casinos was a great way to launder money and for some to skim it as well. It's believed that members of the mob, primarily those with connections to the Chicago outfit, skimmed enough money. from Vegas casinos that they were able to build the old neighborhood Italian American club.

One of them, Bugsie Siegel, was thought to have stolen at least $1 million during the construction of the Flamingo Hotel Casino. His stash of money in other possible goods is believed, well, at least rumored, to be in multiple barrels that he threw into Lake Mead for safekeeping. while barrels of mob money haven't turned up yet on the shores of Lake Mead, the remains of some of the mob's victims may have and their underwater graves are slowly being exposed. And more if you know, we've talked about the mob, the mafia in episodes before. It's no secret that throughout the years the mob has had a certain way of doing things or had a certain way of doing things. or had a certain way of doing things in the past where they were known to have gotten rid of people by submerging them in water.

You know, there's some old sayings related to, you know, this type of body disposal linked to the mob, cement shoes, sleeps with the fishes. I mean, you just watch a mob movie. You'll hear a bunch of those types of things. I think it's pretty obvious that whether it's mob activity or whether it's, you know, other cases we've talked about where somebody disposes of bodies in water, it's just an ideal place to dump bodies where they won't be found. So your secrets will stay buried or submerged, at least in that case. And you expect they're never going to surface. So I'm not surprised that the mob would, in all these cases where there's victims of

they would decide to drop them in these bodies of water because they're thinking, hey, they're never going to be found. And here it is years later. And that might not be the case. On May 1st, 2002, the mostly skeletal remains of a human were found on Lake Meads Hemingway Harbor. This area at the southwest tip of the lake near Hoover Dam has a dock area for multiple boats, as well as two small coffee shops. The rest is all shoreline. It was clear that this wasn't the body of a swimmer who had drowned as the skeleton was found inside a submerged metal barrel. Bodies don't just end up in barrels in a lake all by themselves. Further examination would show that whoever had been stuffed into that barrel

had been shot in the head by a 22-caliber gun. The barrel had clearly been in the water for a very long time. Much of the side of the barrel that's visible sticking out of the mud has disintegrated, exposing the body inside. Shauna Hollister, who was there when the body was discovered, told the New York Times, his shirt and belt were the only thing we can see over his decomposing bones. And just imagine, you know, you're out at a body of water trying to have fun or, you know, hang out with family and friends for the weekend when all of a sudden there is a barrel

that clearly contains a body inside of it that is now visible. I mean, I think this woman really kind of paints a picture in this quote, to the New York Times. His shirt and belt were the only thing we could see over his decomposing bones. I mean, that, that's, that paints a picture. It's not a good one, but it paints a picture. And I think if you're on that shoreline and you're walking up to that barrel, you're probably holding your breath prepared for what you might see inside of it. But I think it's clear that barrels getting dropped in lakes like that are usually not a good thing because they may contain a body or they may contain some kind of hazardous waste or chemicals that someone's trying to get rid of.

It's usually not a good thing that's being dumped in barrels into bodies of water. No, because you shouldn't be dumping barrels in water, right? So anybody that's doing that most likely is doing it for some type of nefarious reason, whether it's murderous or not. It could just be disposing of something that, like you said, hazardous waste or something else. but it's still not a good thing. The rest of the barrel was rusted and dirty. Authorities believe the victim inside was murdered sometime in the mid-70s or the early 80s at the latest.

Based on the type of shoe found on the body. The shoes had been sold by Kmart stores in the mid to late 70s, helping authorities pin down a possible timeline. Due to being stuffed in a barrel, the body still had some organ tissue and was not, completely skeletal. Hopefully a good DNA sample can be taken and a profile can be created from that tissue to ID the remains. It's unclear how old this victim is estimated to be or even whether it's a man or a woman.

Police still have not released a lot of information. While it's not uncommon for a body to be recovered from Lake Mead, apparently the Las Vegas Police Department actually finds about two bodies every year there. Authorities were surprised that the body was found due to drought conditions. Lieutenant Ray Spencer of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told the desert news. It's really odd in the sense that had the lake never receded, we would never have discovered the body. A second empty barrel was found not far from the first one. According to the National Park Service, the lake is practically littered with barrels.

Some of them have been there since the dam was built. At around 2 p.m. on May 7th, less than a week after the first body was found, two sisters out paddleboarding found more skeletal remains at Calville Bay toward the northwestern side of Lake Mead. This area was about nine miles away from the two barrels, and it was on a formerly submerged sandbar. This was believed to be the skeleton of a man between the ages of 23 and 30. Some news reports mentioned that this body was also found in a barrel like the first one, but it's not clear if that was actually the case. It was clear pretty quickly to investigators that the receding waters of Lake Mead may yield even more remains.

Former Las Vegas mayor, Oscar Goodman, told Mercury News. There's no telling what we'll find in Lake Mead. It's not a bad place to dump a body. Lake Mead isn't far from the Las Vegas Strip. It's about a 30-minute drive, an ideal location for the mafia preps to dump bodies. During the 1970s and 1980s, Anthony Ant Spolotro oversaw the affairs of the Chicago outfit in Las Vegas. He was the inspiration for the character Nikki Santoro in the 1995 movie Casino. And I really liked that movie more.

And I liked the character of Nikki Santoro, probably because I really like Joe Pesci in mob movies. He seems to play a really good movie. mobster. Yeah, I agree with you there. That's one of one of his best roles, I think that and his good flows roles. It's hard to imagine someone going from my cousin Vinny back to that character, but I guess it just shows what an actor is. He's got a little bit of range. You think about him playing in the Home Alone movies. So yeah, there's some range there. Jeff Schumacher, vice president of the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, also known as the mob museum in downtown Las Vegas, explained to the Mercury News that a dead body

stuffed in a barrel is a signature of a mob hit. Since the mob controlled most of the Las Vegas strip, they weren't in the business of scaring away tourists by dumping their victims on the casino lined streets. Instead, a burial far out in the Nevada desert or dumped into a watery grave wouldn't alarm the people coming to Vegas. to spend their money. And I guess if you're the mob, you've got to sort of balance, okay, if there's going to be any kind of violent stuff, we don't want that being right out in the open here. We're going to frighten off the people that are dropping all their money in our casino. So they probably had to walk a line carefully there not to scare those people off.

Well, and it's different than, you know, some of what we've talked about in other episodes about the mob, right? a lot of times they wanted the bodies to be found. They wanted the in result to be known because they were sending a message. But it seems like in Vegas it was different because, okay, how many people are going to fly out to Vegas when there's bodies being found all around the strip or all around the city? Not as many is my guess. By July 22, the water level in Lake Mead had dipped down the 1,040 feet. This is alarmingly low. The Hoover Dam requires at least 1,000 feet of water in Lake Mead to generate electricity.

On July 25th, partial skeletal remains were found at Swim Beach, northwest of Hemingway Harbor. Less than two weeks later, on August 6th, at around 8 p.m., more partial skeletal remains were found at Swim Beach. On August 17th, a gun was found stuck in the mud at Lake Mead. The Las Vegas Metropolitan PD told ABC News, it's not uncommon for firearms to be found at the lake. But the LVMPD also confirmed, at the same time, that it is too early to determine whether it's connected to the current investigation. That is, it's unknown whether the gun is connected to any of the five recent nearby discoveries of human remains.

As we mentioned, investigators have still not identified the first body found in May, at least publicly. But Barbara Brock believes that it's her brother, Robert Eugene Shaw, who went by Bobby. Barbara told Fox News 5, when they found the first body in the barrel, I just knew it was him. Barbara last saw Bobby in Fontana, California,

in May 1977, when he left with a friend headed to Las Vegas. Bobby and his friend vanished and have never been heard from him since. And my thought, morph, is that you have a lot of people who have missing loved ones, who were either headed to Vegas, were known to have been in Vegas, who, when something like this

comes up in the news, a body found in a barrel, are going to ask themselves, you know, could this be my loved one that has to run through people's minds? Yeah, people that haven't had answers in decades and haven't had any kind of closure might be wondering, hey, is this going to be something that Reignites the investigation for the person I'm searching for. Another woman, Jessica Condon, believes that one set of remains found in Lake Mead may be those of her father, Kenneth Funk. Kenneth worked as a slot attendant at Sunset Station in nearby Henderson, Nevada. He was presumed drowned in Lake Mead in 2004 while saving the life of his wife, Annette,

who was drowning. They were in a pontoon boat near. swim beach when a wave knocked an net from the boat. She was changing her shirt when the wave hit and she wasn't wearing her life jacket. Kenneth immediately turned off the boat and jumped into the 300 foot deep section of the lake giving Annette his life jacket. After a short while, Kenneth disappeared under the water. Jessica told KLAAS TV. My dad knew there was no way out for him and he knew that if she held on to him, she would go down with him. Annette was spotted by an airplane, about 45 minutes later and rescued. Park Rangers did a search of the water, but they were

unable to find Kenneth's body. Kenneth had a scar on his stomach that could be used to help identify him quickly. And one of the sets of remains a torso is partially preserved. If it is Kenneth or Bobby Eugene Shaw, for that matter, hopefully it won't, be long before we hear some news. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do

but had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Authorities are considering that some of the remains found could belong to graves from one of the ancient settlements that were eventually flooded to create the Hoover Dam and weren't actually murder or accident victims at all. However, with the mob's history in that area, it wouldn't be surprising to find out that at least one of these bodies was a mobster who was killed by one. Some people believe that one of these bodies could be that of Johnny Poppice, who worked for a company that was a mafia front. called Argent Corporation. Poppus had a boat that he stored on Lake Mead, and the last time he was seen, he told his wife he was going to meet with some men who wanted to buy that boat.

His car was found three days later in the car park of a casino, with the keys still in the ignition, but Poppus has never been seen again. It's widely believed that Anthony Spilatro, who oversaw operations in Las Vegas for the Chicago outfit, is the person who killed Johnny Poppice. Spillotro, an enforcer and hitman for the outfit, preferred to use a 22-calibular hang gum. with a silencer on it. Johnny is not the only person with mob connections who is missing and could end up being identified. As one set of remains, George Vandermark, a casino manager who stole $15 million worth of coins

from slot machines owned by the Argent Corporation also disappeared. He was last seen in a hotel in Arizona in 1976. His son was found dead in 1977. He had been murdered. William Crespo, a cocaine trafficker who ended up taking a deal and becoming a witness for the prosecution disappeared in 1983 before he was able to testify against seven defendants, including an executive of the Argent Corporation. And these are just a few people that were talking about who could potentially be victims identified. But my thought here is that,

In the case of George Vandermart, okay, he's a casino manager. If you steal $15 million, it doesn't even have to be that much money. But if you steal money from a corporation that we later find out has links to the mob, you're in big trouble. They don't take that lightly and they're going to find you. And the same goes for, you know, throughout history. Anyone who is set to testify or, you know, makes a deal to testify against the mob instantly becomes a target. Yeah, I think in both these cases, whether it's someone stealing money from the mob, you better have a plan in place to escape and hide.

And this other case where he was going to testify, you might want to ask for some kind of protection because you know that these people are, not to be taken lightly and they're going to eliminate anything that could put them in prison. With rumors of mob connections and mentions of bodies and barrels, it didn't take long for people to speculate that one of the bodies could belong to missing Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. But experts are confident Hoffa's body hasn't been found in Lake Mead and likely won't be, despite the fact he was almost certainly murdered by the mob. Jimmy Hoffa was the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1957 to 1971. He was influential in securing rights and pay for truckers across the nation,

but he was also pretty influential in organized crime. In 1963, Hoffa was charged with trying to bribe a grand juror in his conspiracy trial and indicted for jury tampering. In 1964, he was convicted of conspiracy and three counts of mail and wire fraud for misuse of the Teamsters pension fund. He actually resigned as president of the IBT from prison in 1971. on. Hafa got lucky and President Nixon commuted his 13 year prison sentence to time served after he had spent less than five years. He was planning to run for president of the IBT again,

asking friends for support and working on an autobiography at the same time. Several members of the mafia were unhappy with Hafa trying to come back and one, Anthony Provenzano threatened to disembow Hoffa and kidnap his grandkids if he became president again. They were enjoying control of the large pension fund. This $2.2 billion fund, which Hoffa helped create, finance the construction of multiple casinos on the strip, including Caesar's Palace and Circus Circus. Because of this, several so-called peace meetings were held. Hoffa's son James has said that he believes the meetings were aware.

way to set up a hit on his father. On July 30th, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa went out for a 2 p.m. meeting with Provenzano and Anthony Gia Colon of the Detroit Mafia. He called his wife from a payphone behind the Red Fox restaurant in Detroit, sometime between 2.15 and 2.30 p.m., informing her that no one had showed up. And no one had called the house with a change of plans.

So Hoffa told his wife he would get home by 4 p.m. and grilled them some stakes. Multiple witnesses place Hoff in the restaurant's parking lot, pacing, and at least one witness saw Hoff in the backseat of a maroon car, either a Lincoln or a Mercury, with three other people in it. The FBI believes that Jimmy Hoffa was in the parking lot no later than 250 p.m., and there was no struggle. His car was found the next day still parked at the Red Fox unlocked. There's been no sign of him ever since, and Hoffa was declared legally dead on December 9th, 1982.

Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance has become something of an urban legend. Depending on who you talked to, he's rumored to be buried in a New Jersey landfill underneath giant stadium, but also, you know, in driveways, fields, and construction sites all around Michigan. In October 2021, based on the deathbed confession of a landfill worker, the FBI got a search warrant and went to the landfill beneath the Pulaski Skyway in Jersey City. The landfill worker claimed to have buried Haifa's body, which had been stopped into a steel barrel 15 feet deep in the landfill. Again, there's no doubt more if that these metal barrels, as the one person mentioned in a news article, are signatures of a mob hit.

But nothing was found at that landfill. In July 2022, just months ago, the FBI announced that there was no evidence there. Due to the fame around his disappearance, many people want the Lake Neckon. body in the barrel to be Jimmy Hoffa just to finally solve this big mystery. But it seems unlikely that the mob would kill Hoff in Detroit and then ship his body 2,000 miles to Lake Mead to dump it in the water there when there are countless waterways in between. And let's face it, there is a lot of water around the city of Detroit. This case has always fascinated me because I did live.

live in Detroit for a number of years and not all that far away from where Hafa disappeared. And you talk about waterways in between, and you mentioned that there are plenty of water. There's plenty of water around that area. The Great Lakes are right there, and they've got to be pretty deep themselves. So, well, it sounds interesting to consider that Jimmy Hoffa could have been disposed of in Lake Mead. To me, it seems a lot more likely that there's plenty of big lakes right there, at home where they could have dropped them in a barrel. Yeah, and there's a good-sized river that runs, you know, right by Detroit, literally,

separating Detroit from Canada. So that would possibly be an ideal location as well. Now, we talked about, we mentioned a couple of movies earlier and talking about Jimmy Hoff. That brings up a couple movies about him. I know there's one with Jack Nicholson that was pretty good. And then there was a recent one where he was played by. Al Pacino. Those were both pretty good.

And talking about some of the details we're talking about here sort of brings those movies back into my mind. Yeah, there's been a lot of good movies about, you know, mob stories, Haifa. They make for very compelling movies, frankly, because there's a lot of intrigue. There's a lot of mystery around some of the quote unquote real life stories. and then obviously when you're making a movie, you can embellish on those stories because there may not be someone who has told the entire truth. And in the case of Hafea, that's definitely true because while many people have their theories or think they know what happened, and there are some people who do know what happened, whether they're still alive today or not, but the truth has never fully come out. And if it's ever solved, that would be a really big mystery to find out the answer to him.

Eventually, investigators were able to ID one of the bodies found in Lake Mead, the one found in Colville Bay on May 7th. The body was identified as that of 42-year-old Thomas Ert from San Francisco. A father, too, he took his family to Lake Mead every Saturday to camp on the shore of Colleville Bay. They would often go on special midnight cruises and swim in the lake at night. August 2nd, 2002, Ernt jumped out of a boat while out with his family and a few friends, as he often did. But something went wrong, and he quickly indicated that he needed help. They threw out life jackets out to him, but by the time his family was able to turn the boat around and get back to him, he was gone. Ernst's daughter was able to get cell phone service and called 911.

Authorities searched the lake with boats and a helicopter and had an ambulance standing by, but he never resurfaced. A memorial was held for Eurnt on August 9, 2002 at Prince of Peace Catholic Church a week after he was presumed drowned. For 20 years, the Ernst wondered just exactly what had happened that night. Thomas Earnt was a good swimmer, and he was very familiar with the waters of Lake Mead. How could he just disappear? His son, Tom Earn, wonders if his diabetic father took his insulin that day or whether it shoulder injury he got in a car accident could have made it harder for him to keep his head above the water. The identification of Thomas Ernst remains after so long has been a bit of a shock for his family,

but also welcomed news. Though it had been 20 years since Thomas Ernst drowned, his son Tom told People Magazine, it is definitely big news. And I don't know if I was ready for it. The location where Thomas Ernst's remains were found was basically exactly where he had last been seen, jumping off that boat into the dark water. In a separate interview with K-R-O-N-4 News, Tom Earnt Jr. asked some troubling questions in regards to the search for his dad. He said, he didn't go very far. There were scuba divers, search and rescue.

Why couldn't you find him? How come this didn't happen 20 years? ago. I think he asked some valid questions because when we think of bodies that go into the water whether someone drowns natural causes or whether they're dumped there or whatever the reason,

bodies have gases and bodies decomposed, those gases fill up, and that's usually what brings remains to the surface and how bodies are eventually found. So, Ernt wasn't submerged in some kind of barrel. He just happened to drown. And you have to wonder why that

his body didn't come to the surface sooner. So I think his son is right to ask these questions. And obviously it's something that can happen. It seems like the rescue team did the best they could. But still, it's a lot of unanswered questions about his drowning. But it was just that, right? A drowning. He wasn't killed by the mob.

He wasn't, you know, submerged in a barrel by the mob. And, you know, maybe we'll talk about it at the end. But as some of these bodies are identified, I just wonder how many of them are going to be accident victims versus hits by the mob. Now, the one body was found in a barrel. So you know that that is not an accident. Now, whether it's mob related, we'll have to wait and see what they uncover. But when you're at a big lake, there's boats, jet skis, accidents happen. A lot of people are killed on, you know, bodies of water every year. Well, when it comes to investigations and recoveries around the water,

investigators missing things in the water or underneath it isn't just the thing of the past. On August 6, 2022, a 16-year-old girl named Kylie Rodney vanished after attending a party near the Prosser Creek Reservoir in the northern California town of Truckee. Also missing was her Silver Honda CRV. Authorities questioned teens who were at the party. They scoured surveillance footage from nearby businesses and roads for any sign of her and even searched the water with helicopters and boats. It was starting to look like foul play or an abduction.

Authorities hadn't found any sign of her car going into the reservoir, and there hadn't been any credible sightings of Kylie anywhere. There were the usual rumors that she could have run away herself and been in hiding. But still, the fact that the car hadn't been captured on camera at any gas stations or on any roads seem strange. Where do you hide a car and leave no trace? So after two weeks of no news, Adventures with Purpose, a volunteer search team we've discussed recently on the show in our episode about Richard Petron and Danielle Imbo decided to take on Kylie's case. Adventures with Purpose has been able to find two dozen missing people trapped in

their submerged cars in some cases after decades. The group is usually contacted by desperate family members, looking to at least rule out. out the possibility of what happened to their loved ones. Though Kylie's case was still considered an active investigation, the public was desperate to find her. Hundreds of emails, tweets, and messages were sent to adventures with purpose, begging them to search the reservoir near the party where she was last seen. They got permission.

It was cleared with law enforcement and the family, and they headed to trucking. Based on new information from a tow truck driver in the area, plus the fact that law enforcement had already searched Prosser Creek Reservoir, adventures with purpose started searching a different body of water nearby. On their second day of searching, they headed to Prosser Creek Reservoir. After just 30 minutes of searching, their sonar picked up something they thought looked like a car. The team dropped the magnet onto the car-shaped bumps appearing on their sonar screen. The magnet caught on the metal.

One of their divers suited up and headed under the surface of the water. Just 14 feet down, he found Kylie's Honda CRV. It was found upside down. Kylie and many of her belongings were still inside the car. The location of her car was roughly 300 yards from the party she had attended. One window was all the way down and another halfway down. Kylie wasn't seat belted in, but rather was all the way in the rear of her SUV. Due to how long her body was in the water, an autopsy may take months to yield results and answers,

if it reveals any answers at all. I watched this video and it was very eerie to watch these divers go down because they did have footage of them going down and finding her car and spotting it and swimming right up to it. And when you see it there and the divers looking into the window, it really gives you a creepy feeling to be there with them almost as they're finding this. So anyone that wants to watch that video head over to their YouTube channel. It's on there. Well, and what they do is amazing. We've talked about them before in at least one other episode. But just like we talk about people, you know, finding bodies in other cases,

this is a little bit of a different scenario. You know, I think if you're one of these divers, you're going down with the knowledge that you might very well be uncovering a body. I don't know what that's like. I don't know what your your mindset is like as you're preparing to make this die. Well, in the video, the diver, when he came up to the top after finding it, he seemed like he was on the verge of tears. He was definitely upset.

So despite him doing this for a living and them doing this on a regular basis and finding all these bodies, it was evidence that it was not an easy situation for him. And how could it be? And for me, that kind of brings up the second question, which is, you know, is how do you deal with it after the fact? Because again, I don't think it's just something that you can wipe out of your memory, go home, eat pork chops with your family. That is going to weigh on you,

even though what you're doing is a very beneficial thing. Adventures with purpose stresses that they have technology that some law enforcement agencies don't have, as well as the fact that they have specialized training and focus, all they do is find cars in water. There's no red tape for them, no agency policy, chain of command. They don't have to deal with grants and funding requirements. They're funded by donations and volunteers. So it's clear from the efforts of adventures with purpose that sometimes law enforcement search and rescue

are simply not able to locate or retrieve bodies that, may be in the very area they're searching it. This could certainly be the case at Lake Mead as well. At Lake Mead, however, it really seems that the heat and the drought is doing the recovery work all on its own. It's likely that there will be more remains found in the lake if the water level keeps dropping. Even before the body started turning up in Lake Mead, the lake had earned a sullied reputation. In 2017, Lake Meade National Recreation Area was named the deadliest park in America by Outside Magazine. Their research found that 254 people had died there in just the last decade alone. About 300 people have actually drowned in Lake Mead since the 1930s, and not every single one of

them have been found. Since 2013, at least 12 bodies have been pulled from Lake Mead by volunteer research teams. The bodies that weren't found in barrels could be any of these victims, who Lake Thomas earned are known to have drowned in the lake, but have never been found during search efforts. Maybe now, while the water is low at Lake Mead, it may be worth sending a highly specialized dive team there to see what they can find. Who knows how many bodies, boats, weapons, and things like that might be found, things that until recently may have stayed well below the water surface forever. We'll definitely be following the news for more on the identification. of the remaining four sets of remains.

It's still unclear whether two sets of remains belong to the same person or not. For at least three families out there, though, answers are hopefully coming and they'll be here soon. We also hope to see more training, funding, or collaboration with outside teams from law enforcement in the future regarding underwater searches and recoveries. It could save a lot of man hours and resources while also bringing closure to families quickly, being able to bring their loved ones to the surface after just hours of searching rather than decades. And I think this is something you and I have touched on a number

of times. Law enforcement believing they have all the capabilities they need to do their job versus asking for outside help in certain situations. I get it. A lot of times you don't want to ask for help because you don't want to send that message that you can't do it, your team can't do it. But whether it's, you know, reaching out to the FBI for, you know, their specialized knowledge or reaching out to a group like Adventures with Purpose. My thought is, why not try to get any and all available resources? To me, it doesn't make a lot of. law enforcement agency look as though they can't do their job. I actually look at it in the exact opposite way.

It's just smart to try to get as many specialized, very well-trained people to help you out. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think that calling in help, calling in people with specialized training is just going to help you clear your cases. That's at the end of the day, these different agencies, they want to clear these cases And sometimes if you can bring someone in and help you do that, it's just going to make you look better in the end. So that that whole pride thing where sometimes they don't want to,

you know, seem like they're stooping down to to ask for help. I just don't get it. Now, there may be some hurdles to calling in certain civilian agencies. I understand that. There might be some protocol that prevents that in certain situations. Okay. But in cases that we've talked about where FBI help is offered.

and it's turned down. That always kind of sticks with me. If you have any information about someone who may be one of the victims pulled out of Lake Mead recently, you can give your tip to law enforcement and still remain anonymous. You can call crime stoppers at 702-385-55-55 or go to Crimesstoppers of NV.com. If you feel more comfortable sending a text, just send Crime NV to the number 274-637. of it. So morph as we wrap up this episode, it will be very interesting to see what else Lake Mead reveals as its waters recede. The authorities believe it's possible that perhaps there

are hundreds of bodies in Lake Mead just waiting to be found. If you find yourself on Lake Mead or any other receding body of water, for that matter, keep your eye out. You never know what or who you might find. And if you're out there searching, stay safe. So we talked about a lot of things in this episode, the weather, the drought conditions. Those are having a huge impact on a lot of people, but then what it's causing at some of these lakes, right, for the waters to recede and what's been lying there underneath to surface. I can't imagine that it's just going to be Lake Mead where, things like this are found. There are some other big lakes that may recede and we'll see some of the same types of things. But then there's the whole mob tie in because of Lake Mead's

proximity to Las Vegas, the mob connection that was there for years in Vegas. I think it's only natural, especially when you talk about bodies being found in a barrel. To make that connection, to the mob. It just is a natural thing. You know, I go back to someone like Richard Kukkensky, kind of a mob hitman. He put people in barrels. It's just kind of a known fact that it was just one of the ways that they operated. Yeah, I know there's been plenty of cases too where people disposed of bodies in barrels that weren't in the mob. They just happened to figure that's a good way to dispose of them. So whether it's mob-related or not, any bodies and barrels, you know, is obviously a sign of some kind of crime. And I want to touch on something you mentioned earlier

as these waters are receding, not just like me, but everywhere, there's been different news reports lately of cars being found sometimes after decades. So on one hand, the water receding is good because it might give some answers to families that have been certain. for people for a long time trying to figure out what happened to them. But on the other hand, this is a real dire situation for people's drinking water, for energy, for their electric. This drought is really bad. So I think we need to get some rain. And that's something that if it does and that water starts to come back up, how many of these secrets will stay submerged forever if that happens. Well, no doubt, to me, it's a very perplexing,

situation, these bodies being found. And it's so recent that we don't have all the answers, but will they be coming? And I think the answer is probably yes. With today's technology, I think these bodies will eventually be identified. And it could turn out that there's no mob connection whatsoever. These are just individuals who had accidents, drowned, and whose bodies just couldn't or weren't recovered at the time. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating, leave a review, but keep telling your friends, that word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out.

If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcasts discussion and fans. So that's it for our episode on the bodies in Lake Mead. But Morp and I will be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode of Criminology. So until then for Mike and Morph.

We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.