Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - Below The Surface - the Unsolved Mysteries of Lake Mead - Part 2

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

When people think about Lake Mead, they picture sunshine, water, and long weekends. But the stories we’re telling in this episode don’t end up in a photo album. They end in silence, suspicion, and grief.A missing mother. A woman whose name no one knew. A Marine who never made it home. A child left to drown. And a young immigrant weighed down in the water.These are stories the lake didn’t hide.They're stories we’ve chosen not to see.https://sinspod.co/86https://sinspod.co/86bloghttps://sinspod.co/86sourcesDomestic Violence Resourceshttp://sinspod.co/resourcesClick here to become a member of our Patreon!https://sinspod.co/patreonVisit and join our Patreon now and access our ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content & schwag! Get ad-free access for only $1 a month or ad-free and bonus episodes for $3 a monthApple Podcast Subscriptionshttps://sinspod.co/appleWe're now offering premium membership benefits on Apple Podcast Subscriptions! On your mobile deviceLet us know what you think about the episodehttps://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2248640/open_sms Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sins-survivors-a-las-vegas-true-crime-podcast--6173686/support.

To listen ad free visit sins pod co slash subscribe Starting at 299 a month You'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you join through patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show What if one summer your loved one boarded a plane and never came home police in Albuquerque need help solving a cold case They say the woman was found dead at a motel room back in 1991. If you had the chance, what would you do differently? In 1991, the body of a woman was found in a motel room in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Bernalillo County Jane Doe has been unidentified for over three decades.

It's time for over three decades. It's time for that to change. If it was not your typical situation. I'm leaning towards conspiracy theory. If it wasn't the cops, who was it? He came forward to give information about why he was there. And when I saw that photo, I was like, no way. Is that her?

APD dropped the ball. That I'm not gonna tell you. Oh my God. I'm Maxine. And this is the story of the Bernalillo County Jane Doe on The Butterfly Effect. When people think about Lake Mead, they picture sunshine, water, and long weekends.

But the stories we're telling in this episode don't end up in a photo album. They end in silence, suspicion, and grief. A missing mother, a woman whose name no one knew, a marine who never made it home, a child left to drown, and a young immigrant weighed down in the water. These are the stories the lake didn't hide. They're stories we've chosen not to see. Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast,

where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence, as well as missing persons and unsolved cases. I'm your host, Shawn. And I'm your co-host, John. Welcome to part two of our three-part series on Lake Mead and the disappearances, unsolved cases, and stories about the National Park where victims and families are still seeking justice.

Last week, we shared four stories with you, and this week we have five more. And thank you to everyone who took the time to share the photos and stories we've posted on our social media. We refuse to give up hope that we could someday have answers about the man found in the barrel known as the Heminway Harbor Doe, the murders of Christopher Scott Huffman and Nikki Costanza, or the disappearance of Robert Rowe, the man accused of murdering his wife Jeanette Rowe and her son Bradley

Schweitzer. Please continue to share these stories and the ones you hear about in this episode like we say, someone knows something. This week, we wanna start with a missing persons case that's fairly recent. Anike Beauregard, known as Nikki Knox, has been missing since August 31st, 2019. She was 41 years old at the time,

making her 47 years old today. It's been almost six years and there are still no answers, just a family searching for the truth. Nikki's a mom with two daughters and three granddaughters who love and miss her. She loved dogs, and someone who knew her described her as a fireball, which tells you right away she had a big personality, someone vibrant and bold, the kind of person who leaves an impression. Nikki was originally from Utah, but around 2016 she moved to northern Nevada.

According to a GoFundMe started by her father, she was living in Reno, but some sources report she was living in Fallon. The last week of August 2019, she and her boyfriend came down to Las Vegas to spend some time at Lake Mead with friends. Just a quick getaway, nothing out of the ordinary. The two of them were last seen together around 1130 a.m. at a Shell station at Los Feliz Street and East Lake Mead Boulevard on their way to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. This gas station is on the far northeast edge of Las Vegas, near Frenchman Mountain, and that shell is the last gas station on East Lake Mead Boulevard before the Lake Mead tollgate, which

is about 8 miles away. Anike was wearing a white bathing suit with pink accents, probably a bikini, a swim coverup, and flip-flops. She was riding in a black pickup truck that was towing two jet skis. There's surveillance footage from the gas station that confirms both of them were there. But just 22 minutes later, her boyfriend returned to that same shell. And at that time, he was alone.

According to the GoFundMe, her boyfriend explained that a friend they were meeting up with at the lake called the couple and reminded them to be sure to fuel up the jet skis before they got there. Even though they had just left the gas station, they had to turn around. Nikki's boyfriend made a U-turn near Papco Road, which is about five miles from the gas station. He said that during the turn, one of the jet skis shifted on the trailer. He

says that he pulled over to check the straps and make sure it was still secure. When he got back in the truck, Nikki was gone. Based on later news coverage, authorities seemed to believe she might have decided to walk to the lake. To me, that doesn't sound very likely. She didn't take her phone, and she didn't have her purse or any water. August of 2019 was a record-setting month of high temperatures in Las Vegas, and the high was a scorching 109 degrees that day.

The Lake Mead admission gate was three and a half miles away, but the lake shore would be another six miles from there or even more. She was in flip-flops, walking alone through the desert at noon during the hottest August on record. That's what he told police when he reported her missing the next day, that she had walked away or otherwise managed to disappear from his site. There's no mention of anyone else or any other cars or vehicles around in his statement. According to Nikki's dad's GoFundMe, her boyfriend was interviewed by police more than once and reportedly took and passed multiple polygraph tests. When the reporting came out about her disappearance, Metro described Nikki as endangered and in need of medical attention. To this day, there's still no confirmed trace of her.

Red Rock Search and Rescue got involved early on, and they've gone back to the same area of the desert over and over again, trying to find Nikki. Brian Zink, one of their spokespeople, said, "'We do the best we can with the information that we've been provided. It's one of the only clues we have. So that's the area we are going to go out

and focus our attention on. Over the years, together with volunteers and Nikki's father Richard, they've conducted at least seven separate searches. One of the larger ones happened on March 28th, 2022, when 30 volunteers went out on four-wheelers to canvas the terrain around East Lake Mead and Papco, but still no sign of her. Brian from Red Rock Search and Rescue has said, she's out there somewhere or possibly she was picked up and she may be somewhere else alive and healthy and has just not made contact with her family. Just because we go out and do a search

doesn't mean that person is in the area we're searching. When he shared the details of Nikki's disappearance, he said there was a recreational event happening at the lake, and they got separated for whatever reason, and she started walking alone. And unfortunately, she has not been located since that time. While we have unanswered questions about the idea that she just walked away, it seems

that the team in Search and Rescue and the authorities have accepted that story as their best lead. However, that story has raised questions for some members of her family and anyone I've seen online who's followed the case. Given everything, it's very hard not to wonder if there's more to it than that. Behind every missing person's report is a real human being with people who love them and are desperate for answers.

Anike, Nikki, is a daughter, mom, and grandmother, and the silence and unknowns surrounding her disappearance are devastating. If you know anything about what happened to a Niki Beauregard, also known as Nikki Knox, or perhaps saw her in the Lake Mead area on August 31st or September 1st of 2019, please contact Las Vegas Metro Police at 702-828-3111 or reach out anonymously through Crimestoppers at 702-385-5555 or CrimestoppersofNV.com. Even the smallest tip could help bring a family the answers they've been waiting for for far too long. The second case we have for you this week is the death of Lily Hatcher.

It's another story of a woman and another summer day at Lake Mead. This one happened almost exactly three years ago and until all the facts were known, we were pretty confused about what happened that day. When the news first broke that Lilly was missing, her name and her identity were unknown. The public was asked to help in identifying a woman who was lost at Lake Mead, and the photos that were plastered on the evening news were pixelated photos from a convenience store surveillance camera. We assume that maybe she was a tourist, a woman from out of town,

but it was odd to hear that someone had reported her missing from Lake Mead, and whoever was making the report didn't know her name, who she was, or even where she was from. How do you report someone missing that you don't even know? On the morning of June 30th, 2022, authorities were called out at around 615 to an area near the Boulder Islands, close to Lakeshore Road and Boulder City Parkway. What they found was one man, alone, reporting that he and a woman had fallen off a jet ski. The two weren't wearing life jackets. He didn't know the woman he was riding with, just that her first name was Lily.

His name was Bryce Tyrone Varonich, and given that he didn't know Lily's last name or much about her, it sounds to me that this might have been a casual meetup or just a chance encounter. Lily was spending time near the Lake Mead recreational area, reportedly staying on a houseboat, when the two of them decided to go for a ride on a jet ski and head out towards the Hoover Dam. Bryce said he made a sharp turn and both of them fell into the water. But when he resurfaced, Lily didn't. She was gone. And without a name to give the authorities, she was a missing person, but also a missing identity. No one knew who she was visiting, where she had come from, or even how to contact her family or

loved ones. The police did what they could to try and identify her. They asked the public for help. Six days later, on July 6th, Lily's remains were recovered and she was finally identified as 22 year old Lily Hatcher from Boulder City. The Clark County coroner ruled her death as an accidental drowning. When she was identified, Ivy Neal, one of Lily's close friends, shared memories with reporter Danny Mastin at Fox Five. She said Lily was funny, adventurous, and the kind of person who would push you outside of your comfort zone. Ivy ascribed her this way, "'She made you a little uncomfortable, but you were always so grateful for it.' She

remembered how once they walked five miles to get a milkshake. She shared how they'd sit in restaurants and talk for so long, they knew the waitress probably wanted her table back. That's a Lily her friends know, a bold, a firecracker, and an adventurer. And yet, despite all that life and energy, she became just another nameless woman in the headlines for nearly a week, as the news kept asking us if we knew who this woman was. Bryce was ultimately held responsible for the actions that led up to her death. He was charged with three federal boating safety violations, operating a vessel in a negligent manner,

failing to wear a personal flotation device, and not using an engine cutoff switch lanyard. For anyone who's unfamiliar, that last one is a safety device, a lanyard that attaches the operator to the engine. If the operator is thrown from the jet ski, the lanyard disconnects and shuts the engine off immediately, preventing the jet ski from circling and hitting someone. His case went to a two-day bench trial overseen by magistrate judge Daniel Abrogates. On April 29th, 2024, Bryce, who was 47 at the time,

was found guilty on all three charges. He was sentenced to six months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release. He later appealed, claiming there wasn't enough evidence to prove he hadn't been wearing a life jacket or using the safety lanyard, but that appeal failed. In fact, in the most recent ruling I could find from April of 2025, the court pointed out that Bryce had shown a lack of remorse for Lilly's death. The judge concluded that in the sentence, six months behind bars was entirely appropriate. He is currently incarcerated in a federal prison, but will be released in September of 2025. So that's what justice looks like in this case. And it's a stark reminder of what we

talked about last week. The lake can be dangerous. When I was reading about Lily, I couldn't help but feel that she deserved more. I'm thankful for Dani's interview with her friend Ivy, but with no other coverage of her, it's hard to feel like her loss was given the care and respect it deserved. In reading about all these stories, the feeling becomes overwhelming that the news and the community reacts with shock and horror about a body recovered from Lake Mead, but once the identity of the person is known, these stories seem to just fade away. We wanted to tell her story to make sure her name is not forgotten.

The next two cases we have are unsolved, and both happened back in the 1990s. Many of our listeners might have noticed that numerous cases we've talked about on sins and survivors occurred during that decade. Ron Rudin, Dana McKay and Mary Huffman, Camille Dardain-Stodson, Jean Moore, and Linda Sue Anderson. And last week, we covered Nikki Costanza, Chris Huffman, Jeanette Rowe, and Bradley Schweitzer. 1995 was a record year for homicides in Las Vegas. On January 2, 1996, the Review Journal had an article on the front

page of the Nevada section detailing that 1995 had been one of the most deadly years in Las Vegas. The article continued on page 3b, taking up nearly a full page, and included a list of every homicide victim in Clark County from the previous year, 150 names in total. Among the names on that list was a 24-year-old Lithuanian immigrant, Darus Kavaloskis, whose murder remains unsolved 30 years later. This is one of those cases where even the murder itself didn't get a lot of press coverage and sadly, despite our best efforts, we know very little about the victim. In order to learn more about him, we used the Hail Mary Pass via Reddit, trying to reach out to the Lithuanian community overseas and in Chicago. John and I talked more about

that in Swingshift this week, so be sure to subscribe so you can hear more. On August 4, 1995, a man walking his dog found Darus floating face down in Lake Mead near Horsepower Cove. He was wearing blue Nautica swim trunks and Rockport leather sandals. Strapped his back was a gym bag filled with about 90 pounds of rocks. The coroner determined that he had been in the water for between three and five days. His cause of death was listed as forced drowning. Darius was born in Kaunas, Lithuania and was one of 10 children. He sadly lost his father at a young age.

In 1991 or 1992, he moved to the US, settling first in Chicago, which has one of the largest populations of Lithuanians in the US. A few years later, he decided to move to Las Vegas, where he worked as a busboy. The RJ also reported that he had recently started a business with two other Lithuanian friends exporting clothing and household goods back to Lithuania. At the time his remains were found, the police were looking for his blue 1987 Honda CRX with Illinois plates. We are so grateful for the help of the folks on Reddit.

They were able to educate us that Darus Kavaloskis is in fact a very common Lithuanian name, which made the search for information even harder. Also one user pointed out that his last name was absolutely mangled by Las Vegas Metro, so finding original records without knowing that his last name had been spelled wrong in the newspaper also affected our research. We're also so grateful for the user who was able to find an article about Darus written in Lithuanian that was published in a Chicago-based newspaper and translated it for us. The article states that Darus's family was deeply grateful for the Lithuanian community

in Chicago who supported Darus when he arrived there three years earlier, offering him care, shelter, warmth, and help getting established. They're also thankful to the Lithuanians here in Nevada, who, though fewer in number, provided both financial and moral support during this tragedy, especially when it came time to cremate Darus' remains and send them back to Chicago. His case is listed as an unsolved homicide on Las Vegas Metro Police's website. And now that 30 years have passed, we know it's unlikely that someone out there might have a tip to pass on to the police, but we remain hopeful. If anyone has information about Darus, please call LVMPD's Homicide

Section at 702-828-3521. And as a reminder, you can always contact Crime Stoppers to remain anonymous. Our next case is from 1997. It involves a Marine, a mysterious spur-of-the-moment trip to Las Vegas, and a body discovered in the waters of Lake Mead. To this day, it remains unsolved. His name was Staff Sergeant Ron Parkhurst, a 12-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps. Ron was a recruiter based out of Huntington Beach, California. He was 36 years old, known for being the kind of guy who showed up early, stayed late, and always followed through.

His co-workers said he was dependable, honest, and meticulous. They said he was the first one into the office and the last one out. He was a serious professional, not the kind of person who would play hooky. It was Monday, June 16, 1997, when Ron failed to show up for work. His commanding officers at the recruiting office immediately found it strange. He had told his co-worker, Sergeant Alex Brooks, that he'd see him that next Monday morning so when he didn't show up or call, his co-workers became concerned. Originally from Peoria, Illinois, Ron had a family who cared deeply about him, including

his sister Diane. That's who got the call when something didn't feel right. Diane remembers the moment clearly. In her own words, I received a call at work from my older brother, indicating that he received a call from a call from the US Marine Corps recruiting office in Huntington Beach, California They advised him that our brother Ronnie did not show up for work and wanted to know if we had heard from him That phone call with my brother kicked me into action. I called the police I called the manager of the apartment complex where he lived. I called hospitals. I called my brother's recruiting office

I talked to the local police who told me he probably just ran away. Really? A 36-year-old man with a promising career in the Marine Corps just up and ran away? I don't think so. Her instinct was right, sadly. Five days later, on the morning of June 21st, scuba divers found a body in Saddle Cove, a rocky and remote area of Lake Mead that's mostly only accessible by boat. Technically, it's possible to hike to it, but it's not easy. The man in the water had been there for an estimated three days. It was Ron. Ron had suffered a gunshot wound to his head. While we don't have extensive details about the wound, it has been described as being in the back of his head.

He had been just one week away from taking leave to visit his family. The investigation got stranger when Ron's family began looking into his financial records. His father discovered a very unusual transfer between Ron's bank account in Peoria and his Marine Corps account that stood out to him because the contact number on the transaction wasn't Ron's phone number. The contact number listed for that transaction was actually a fax line registered to a Motel 6 in Las Vegas. A clerk at that Motel 6 confirmed that Ron had checked in on June 15th, checked out the

next day, and then checked in again later that day. He left for good on June 17th and never came back. During those same days, Ron made multiple cash withdrawals. On June 16th, a $200 withdrawal at an ATM at Las Vegas MGM Hotel. June 17th, a $200 withdrawal at Las Vegas Bank of America. Later that same day, an $80 withdrawal from an ATM at the MGM. And the next day, June 18th, two more withdrawals from the MGM ATM totaling $200. No surveillance footage was recovered of any of these ATM transactions. As a result, it's unknown if Rod himself made those withdrawals or someone else had access to his cards.

Then came another clue. On June 18, just three days before his body was found, Ron's black Ford Mustang was discovered abandoned outside the Lake Mead Marina, about two miles from where his body was eventually recovered at Saddle Cove. The car was unlocked, the keys were still in the ignition, and there was barely any gas left in the tank. Inside the car, police found his wallet and registration paperwork, but something was missing. His CDs. That might sound trivial, but his co-workers said Ron always kept a set of CDs in his car console. He never drove without music. That detail stuck with them. It was out of character,

and it probably made them wonder if someone else had been in his car. There's one more piece to the puzzle. Ron didn't own a gun, but he had borrowed a Norinco 45-caliber automatic pistol from Sergeant Brooks a few months before his death. Brooks told police that he didn't believe Ron ever bought ammunition for the weapon and it was never recovered. It's unknown whether the gun played any role in his death. What we do know is that the police never charged anyone with his murder and for 28 years his case has remained unsolved. For Diane and the rest of Ron's family the loss has been crushing. She said, This tragic event disrupted and forever changed our family dynamics.

It felt as if someone reached in and tore a piece of my heart out of my chest. My entire family was devastated. If you have any information about the murder of Staff Sergeant Ron Parkhurst, you can contact Las Vegas Metro's Cold Case Unit. Even after all these years, tips can still make a difference. The next case takes us back to 1986, when seven-year-old Darren was killed by his mother, Sarah Catherine Harger.

What happened next raised a lot of questions about justice, accountability, and how this case was handled. It happened on Saturday, November 15th, 1986. That morning, very early, around 3.30 a.m., Sarah's boyfriend, Don Andrew Smith, noticed that both she and Darren were missing from the house. They hadn't said anything about going anywhere.

There was a note left behind, and in it, Sarah said that she intended to take her own life, and in her words, she was going to take her son with her. Several hours later, around 2.15 in the afternoon, officers with the National Park Service located Sarah's car submerged in a cove in the Back Bay area near the Lake Mead Marina. When divers went down to investigate, they found seven-year-old Darren deceased in the back seat of the car. At the time, they didn't know if Sarah had gone down with the car or escaped. Rangers and police launched a full search with helicopters and ground teams.

About two hours later, they found her alive. She was hiding behind some brush, not far from where the car had sunk. She had managed to escape as the vehicle went under, leaving her son behind to drown. Sarah was arrested and charged with open murder. Prosecutors immediately asked for no bail, pointing out that she had already confessed to the crime. Her bail was ultimately set at $2 million. When she appeared in court, she reportedly covered her face and spoke softly, barely audible to those in the courtroom. It was a shocking, devastating case, not just for how Darren died, but also for what it revealed about mental health, desperation, and the criminal justice system's limited

ability to address both. This was nearly 40 years ago, and I'm not sure we've made much progress since then. By January 1987, Sarah agreed to take a plea deal. She pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for the state agreeing not to seek the death penalty. The hearing took place on January 28, 1987, and news reports said she was wiping away tears as she entered her plea. The prosecutor told the judge that Sarah had chosen to plead guilty simply to avoid execution. It was then up to the judge to decide whether her sentence would be life without parole or life with the possibility of parole. She received the lightest sentence possible, life with the possibility of parole after 10 years. In the end, she was released almost exactly 10 years to the day after she killed

her son. This case later drew comparisons to Susan Smith, who drowned her two sons in a lake in South Carolina in 1994. But unlike Smith, whose case was high profile and nationally scrutinized, Sarah Harder's crime faded from the headlines. Notably, in clear contrast to Susan Smith, Sarah never tried to lie about who was responsible for her son's death. There were no protests or memorials that made national news, just a quiet courtroom, a grieving boyfriend, a young child murdered, and a mother who, after a decade, walked free. Whether you believe in rehabilitation, mercy, or second chances, it's hard to look at this case without asking whether justice was served.

Dara never had a chance to grow up, and whatever pain Sara was feeling that night, whatever despair led her to that cove, it ended her son's life and changed the course of everyone else's life forever. We're left with the question we always seem to come back to, who is the system really for? Because if justice is meant to protect the most vulnerable, then what happened to Darren was a profound failure. And that has a lot in common with the case we have for you in our third episode, Another Story of a Child Lost, another moment where the justice system failed to honor the life that was taken. If you have any information about the disappearance of Anike Beauregard or the unsolved murders

of Darius Kavoloskis or Staff Sergeant Ron Parkhurst, please contact Crime Stoppers of Nevada at 702-385-5555 or visit CrimestoppersofNV.com. Tips can remain anonymous. And don't forget to check out our Instagram, Facebook, our website for photos and case summaries and share them. Someone always knows something. Next week, we are taking a break and bringing you an episode from our friends

at PNW Haunts and Homicides. We will be back with the final episode of our Lake Mead series the following week. Thank you for listening and remember what happens here, happens everywhere. But we will be back at the final episode of our Lake Mead series the following week. Thank you for listening. Visit sinspod.co.uk for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad-free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and threads at Sins and Survivors.

If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at questions at sinsandsurvivors.com. If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources is available on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is researched, written, and produced by your hosts, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for

this episode can be found on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content does not constitute legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with legal professionals for guidance.