Bodies pulled from parched Lake Mead stir Wise Guy Ghosts of Las Vegas

[Tomconroy]

Bodies Pulled From Parched Lake Mead Stir Wise-Guy Ghosts of Las Vegas
As climate change fuels grim discoveries across the West, Las Vegas is awash in bets on the identity of a suspected murder victim dumped in a barrel.

The New York Times
By Simon Romero
May 20, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET
LAS VEGAS — It’s the mob guy who went missing after skimming from the Stardust casino. No, it’s the lake resort manager hunted down by the Chicago Outfit. Could it be the work of a biker gang muscling in on Mafia turf? Or maybe someone just fell off a boat after one too many.

Ever since the bodies started turning up this month in Lake Mead — the first in a barrel, the next half-buried in sand, both exposed by plunging water levels — theories in Las Vegas are flourishing about who they are, how they wound up in the country’s largest man-made reservoir, and what might surface next.

Lynette Melvin found the second body with her sister while paddle boarding. At first they thought they had stumbled onto bones of a bighorn sheep. “It wasn’t until I saw the jawbone with a silver filling that I was like, ‘Whoa, this is human,’ and started to freak out,” Ms. Melvin, 30, said.

The discovery of human remains is always a source of tragedy and potential pain for loved ones — especially when they show signs of a violent end. But in Las Vegas, a town where the seedy underbelly is part of the draw, macabre fascination and amateur sleuthing have quickly followed

https://nyti.ms/3wtyK3u

The story is about climate change and the Western drought as much as it is about missing mobsters.

[Raine]

1. Interesting and creepy. In college I went there every year

for Spring break. It gives me the creeps to think all those dead bodies were in the lake when i was boating and wading in it. 🥴

[alphafemale]

2. Fredo?

Yeah. Lake isn't so deep anymore.

[Botany]

3. OMG

[Historic NY]

4. Well the missing person number is decreasing.

[BrightKnight]

5. Deliverance comes to mind - nt

[madinmaryland]

6. Jimmy Hoffa?

[bucolic_frolic]

7. I knew a couple who were fascinated by Lake Mead, subject of songs, love stories, romantic sunsets

There's no delusion like self-delusion

[AllaN01Bear]

8. they had that happen at a few of our big lakes years ago.

[2naSalit]

9. Break out the cold case files!

The lake looks scary from the air. I flew over it last June and it was just sad looking for a lake. Powell is just as bad.

[Old Crank]

10. I lived there

for 13 years at one stretch. There were stories. We will get to see how many were true assuming the 2 bodies found and any others show up.

I was there when Frank, Lefty, Rosenthal's car blew up in the parking lot between Marie Calendars and Tony Romas.
Lefty knew how to start his car so he only spent a couple of days in the hospital for bruising and some minor arm damage.
Pre-auto start days. He always reached into the open driver's side window to start his car. The car took most of the blast force.
He told the police that he had no idea who would do that to his car. Perhaps they mistook his for the real target.
You could get bumper stickers for a while: I got bombed at Marie Calendar's or Tony Romas, and "This is not Lefty's Car.

[Tomconroy]

11. Leave the gun. Take the cannolli.