Human remains found at diminished Lake Mead in Nevada have been identified as those of a 52-year-old man who disappeared in 1998, Clark County said in a statement Wednesday.
The skeletal remains were identified by the county medical examiner’s office as Claude Russell Pensinger of Las Vegas, it said.
The remains were found on three different dates — July 25, Aug. 6 and Aug. 16 — but all belonged to him, the office said. They were found on the shoreline of Boulder Beach, on the Nevada size of the huge reservoir north of Hoover Dam.
A cause of death for Pensinger was not determined, Clark County said in the statement.
An article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal from July 20, 1998, said Pensinger was fishing when he disappeared from his boat, which was found running in circles, the newspaper reported Wednesday.
As water levels at Lake Mead dropped, a number of humans remains were found, including a series of discoveries starting last year in May.
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One of them has been ruled an obvious homicide by officials — a person who was fatally shot and whose remains were found in a 50-gallon drum in Hemenway Harbor.
The remains of another person, Donald P. Smith of North Las Vegas, were found on Oct. 17 and Oct. 19. Smith drowned in an accident in 1974, the medical examiner’s office determined.
The remains of Thomas Erndt of Las Vegas were foundMay 7. He had been reported to have drowned in the lake in 2002, although a cause and manner of death has remained undetermined.
When it’s at “full pool,” Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States.
The level has dropped following a more than 20-year drought. The Interior Department said this month there are potentials for “unprecedented water shortages” in the Colorado River Basin.
Lake Mead was created by the construction of the Hoover Dam, which was finished in 1935. It’s almost totally fed by the Colorado River, although there other sources that make up 3% of the inflow, according to the National Park Service.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
