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Human remains found at Lake Mead for 5th time since May

Updated August 17, 2022 - 7:27 am

Authorities at Lake Mead National Recreation Area found human skeletal remains Monday night.

Park rangers responded around 8 p.m. to the Swim Beach area.

“Lake Mead NRA has set a perimeter to assess the discovery of skeletal remains found in the area,” the National Park Service said in an email.

The Metropolitan Police Department dive team responded to the area. No further information was available.

It marked the fifth time since May 1 that human remains have been found at Lake Mead. The most recent discovery was made in the Swim Beach area on Aug. 6, when park rangers and the Metropolitan Police Department dive team recovered remains.

On July 25, partial human remains were found encased in mud at Swim Beach.

Within one week at the beginning of May, two sets of remains were discovered.

The first was a the body of a man found in a barrel on May 1 who appeared to have been killed by a gunshot, police said. The barrel was found near Hemenway Harbor. Based on the clothing and shoes on the body, Las Vegas police said the body was likely dumped in the 1970s or 1980s.

On May 7, human skeletal remains turned up at Callville Bay.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said on Tuesday that Lake Mead would go into 2023 under a federal water shortage for the second straight year.

As of Tuesday, the lake was at 1,042.40 feet in elevation, 27 percent capacity, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.

Contact Glenn Puit at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter. Contact David Wilson at dwilson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @davidwilson_RJ on Twitter.

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