Tourists found a corpse nearly 40 years old in a barrel in Lake Mead in the state of Nevada last weekend. The Las Vegas Police Department told the New York Times that the body was discovered due to extreme drought in Nevada.
“It’s very strange because if the water level hadn’t dropped further, we would never have discovered the body,” police officer Ray Spencer told the newspaper. Based on artefacts found in the barrel, the barrel must have been floating in the lake since the 1980s. Police are investigating the victim’s identity, but would not comment further on the case. Spencer does say that the victim’s death “is the result of murder” and that it will be a very difficult case to solve.
Police do not rule out the possibility of more bodies being found as the water level continues to fall. Lake Mead may have been used by Mafia as a dumping ground in the 1980s.
Lake Mead is an artificially created water reservoir and provides drinking water to some 25 million Americans. However, due to the extreme drought in the western United States, the water level has fallen very quickly in recent years. According to scientists, the drought is mainly due to climate change, which has only been made worse by humans.
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