The Secrets Of Lake Mead

foreign [Music] hello again and welcome back to the second Channel now unless you've been intentionally avoiding the news this past year I'm sure many of you have probably come across today's topic it's this ever growing situation that's butting out of Lake Mead in Las Vegas it's been quite an interesting asaga thus far and even if you've never been to Vegas and pretty much everybody's heard of the Hoover Dam so I'm sure many people have become familiar with what's been going on in this past year that being said though throughout the frenzy of discussion swelling about this online I've yet to find a single video or anything comprehensive that seems to tie this Saga together in case you're unfamiliar with what's been going on essentially Lake media Nevada is the world's largest man-made water reservoir but as of recently that title may only be a tentative one as today satellite images show the lake has essentially become a shell of its former self this is rather concerning as Lake Mead is not only a key source of water for residents of Las Vegas but also people in parts of Arizona California and even some parts of Mexico back in the year 2000 the water level held at a depth of around 1200 feet but as of July of 2022 the water level dropped to a new low at 1044 feet but this 20-year downward Trend would really only catch the general Public's attention on May 1st 2022 it's uncharted waters for Metro's homicide division none of us have actually have encountered this before where we're going to have a deceased individual who's been under water for you know upwards of potentially 40 years and a discovery that never seemed possible had the water level not receded so far we never make the discovery of this victim 40 years ago where this barrel with human remains inside sits was roughly a hundred feet under water and several hundred yards from Shore someone had to have a boat and someone had to you know put someone in the barrel and push them off the boat could it stem from organized crime or something completely different that's what Lieutenant Ray Spencer's team will dig into if they can extract DNA from the remains I mean if you notice I'm saying if because it will be a very challenging part of this investigation naturally this discovery gave rise to massive amounts of speculation as the spawned countless discussions about a mob tide of disappearances in around the late 70s and early 80s as the sparrow method of disposal has a rich history within the American Mafia but just as the general public was able to digest this first discovery that was when another discovery of human remains would be found and then another and another and to date as we come to the end of 2022 six different discoveries of human remains have been found at Lake Mead all within the same year if this scene looks somewhat familiar it's because it's the source of that one meme for four years scuba divers at Lake Mead have made it a point to decorate the lake with fake skeletons to give divers something to look at while they're learning or for the occasional spook it's a pretty common prank that you'll often see in pretty much any freshwater lake and there's quite a bit of creativity that goes into a lot of these scenes and Easter eggs they create for other divers but with the frequency of real bodies being found this past year it's all fun and games until you realize just how many real bodies are still sitting at the bottom of the lake and while much of the media attention has been focusing on the story through the lens of organized crime so far there's actually been no confirmed evidence that ties any of this to the mafia while the body in the barrel is perhaps the strongest candidate we'll only know for a certain with a positive ID and with the other discoveries made thus far none of those show any Hallmarks at all and as a bit of a side note you should also know that there's a history of people using barrels as a disposal method to count suspicion towards the mafia even when it wasn't actually them so while DNA tests stay pending the body in the barrel case is really a case that's a needle in a haystack with heavy amounts of speculation all we really know for sure in this case was that the man's clothing was sold at a Kmart in and around the mid to late 1970s and he sustained a single shot to the Head wallets presumed that the Man passed away in and around the same time period for all we know those clothes could have been received second hand and generally speaking dating the post-mortem interval of bodies found in water for extended periods of time is often incredibly difficult due to things like adipocere but that being said at the time of me making this video there is one primary candidate that has seen some reporting that being a man by the name of Robert Eugene Shaw as reported by his sister He did apparently have mob ties and it disappeared on May 14 1977. he disappeared when he decided to go on a car ride from Fontana to Las Vegas with a friend both of them haven't been seen since and while this is a lead it raises a lot of other questions like what happened to the other person that he was with and so on admittedly there's not a lot of information about his disappearance or who he was even with at the time there's definitely something to be said about this body in the barrel case when the main lead has virtually no information while this one has kind of stuck in terms of reporting the only other information that's been dug up about him is that he seems to have had some involvement with The Culinary Union strikes in 1976. the head of this labor union and strike was a mob connected union leader named Al Bramlett Bramlett was known for being ruthless in orchestrating bombings with restaurants that would not cooperate with unionization efforts but at the end of the strike he ultimately ended up on the wrong side of the Chicago outfit which ultimately led to his demise and while that's an interesting Side Story all this documentation really shows was that Robert E Shaw was involved with the labor union strike it places him within close proximity to the mafia's operations but it's not necessarily like proof of a mob tie the labor union at the time represented around his 22 000 workers as it stands today DNA tests have been pending since August of 2022 with no word back but I should add that the lvpd has also solicited a number of other families as well it's just no further details have been revealed thus far and with you now caught up to speed on the body in the barrel I think it's time that we now move on to the rest of the bodies founded this past year because if you take some time to really survey what was found it doesn't really paint a picture of a mafia Dumping Ground at Lake Mead but rather a graveyard of tourists who spent their last vacation at a national park happy holiday weekend comes to a close so does a deadly summer season at Lake Mead Contact 13 investigative reporter Joe Bartels spent today in America's deadliest National Park and saw firsthand why it can be so dangerous Lake Mead is a hot spot this Labor Day as many as 150 000 people visited the lake just this weekend but unfortunately the lake is living up to its deadly reputation the holiday on Lake Mead marred by tragedy investigators say A man was dragged under a houseboat during a thunderstorm Saturday his death sharing a common theme with all of the drownings at the park this year this year there have been 11 fatalities related to drowning in each of those situations none of the victims were wearing a life jacket Yes you heard that correctly Lake Mead is technically the deadliest National Park in America due to the sheer number of drownings in a variety of cases the bodies are not recovered due to the depth or lack of visibility in the area out of the six discoveries made this past year only one has shown any signs of Foul Play pointing to the rest of the discoveries likely being accidents or drowning victims to date only one of the bodies has been positively identified Discovery number two which ended up being the body of a 42 year old man and named Thomas Ernst who drowned while on vacation with his two children his body had been sitting down there for nearly 20 years and unfortunately his case is just one of many as in a variety of other cases involving Lake Mead the search and rescue efforts just simply failed to locate the deceased and eventually stop searching to quote one article from the guardian unless there's a suspicion of wrongdoing most local authorities will only spend a week or two searching for a drowning victim then it's up to the family of the missing person or volunteers some families spend thousands of dollars a day on Commercial diving services others drag the bottom of the lake with grappling hooks sometimes they chance upon the victim often they work until their resources and Spirits are spent and to quote one article from the Las Vegas Review Journal Jeff Burbank is a former reporter for the lvrj in 1994 he researched for the newspaper how many people have gone missing at the recreation area he found that since the National Park Service began keeping records in 1937 until 1994. some 59 people were listed as missing or presumed drowned in the recreation area furthermore he would continue many of the missing were boaters whose vessels were sunk by winds and waves some went under while fishing or swimming one of the missing was a parachutist one took their own life one died in a plane crash one was Swept Away by a flash flood all had one thing in common their bodies were never recovered despite being in the lake in most cases for decades now obviously this data doesn't factor in for all of the other drownings that would occur post 1994. nor would it account for anybody who ended up in the lake without any kind of documentation or not telling anybody where they went that day Thomas earned for example passed away in 2002 which would land him outside that original list of 59 and additionally it's also worth mentioning that another individual Kenneth Funk drowned in 2004 while trying to save his wife his body is still unaccounted for there's been some speculation from the family that Discovery number three the lone torso that was found there was in fact him as they believe it matched the general build and location but as it stands today there's been no confirmation additionally authorities have hinted at Discovery number four the partial set of remains to be a part of number three but once again this is not confirmed either And in regards to discoveries five and six there's been very little details shared thus far but obviously this is an ongoing Sangha and I will try to make it a point to keep you guys updated but with you now caught up to speed with what has happened this past year I'll go ahead and say that I don't think it's unreasonable to surmise that at least a few of the mafia's problems are probably at the bottom of Lake Mead given the close proximity and that City's Rich history it's a very high likelihood but as it stands today there's been a lot of eyes in this story and all we can really do today is speculate what I do really enjoy about a topic like this is that it kind of opens up a lot of discussion for other things like what do you think we'll find in the near future what disappearance has come to mind from this era I'd love to know what you guys think about all this but before we end today's video I'd like to give perhaps my favorite candidate for the body in the barrel obviously this is speculative but I think it's an interesting story that being The Disappearance of Johnny Papas this man was the former manager of the Echo Bay Resort this was a project that was funded by the teamsters pension headed by the Arjun Corporation this was a hotel notably on Lake Mead but today the hotel sits is a reminder of what can happen when the shoreline recedes as the launch ramp into the lake now leads into the dirt this location closed down in 2010 but at the time of a Johnny Papas it was a thriving Resort on August 18 1976 at the age of 54 Johnny pompous was looking to sell his boat that he owned on Lake Mead he told his wife he was going to meet a man interested in purchasing this boat at a local restaurant on Las Vegas Boulevard after going to meet this person four days later his car would be found in the parking lot of circus circus with naughty trace of him in sight in a typical Mafia fashion local authorities were quick to downplay the situation stating that they had no reason to believe John pompous's disappearance had anything to do with Foul Play as one a news report would State because of his various associations including those with underworld figures police at first thought he may have been murdered and in a rather jarring article it seems the reason they came to this conclusion that he was A-Okay still was because allegedly some witnesses saw him at a local gas station two days after he disappeared as a longtime local Las Vegas journalist John L Smith had put it the local newspapers published articles sketching the sparse available facts Johnny's mob connections were barely mentioned a week after he disappeared a local police sergeant lamely said that there was nothing to indicate Papas was dead and the story began to fade by the next month police were at least letting on that they weren't expecting to find him alive while Pappas was obviously never heard from again the reason many people point to him of being the body in the barrel is the fact that he was on his way to sell his boat well obviously this is a long shot at the end of the day the only thing I know for certain is that everybody will be keeping an eye out to see what Secrets might be revealed at Lake Mead this is barely sociable have a good night foreign

Channel: Slightly Sociable

Views: 421,225

Keywords: Lake Mead, Lake mead mystery, Hemenway Harbor Doe, Mystery

Id: Xfu7ke1tPYE

Length: 15min 36sec (936 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 06 2023