Human remains found at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada last year are those of a 39-year-old Las Vegas man who drowned nearly 50 years ago, authorities announced Tuesday.
DNA analysis and reports of the April 1974 drowning were used to identify the skeletal remains as those of Donald P. Smith of North Las Vegas, The Clark County Office of the Coroner and Medical Examiner said in a news release. Investigators ruled the death an accident.
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Smith’s skeletal remains were discovered last fall, when a diver found what appeared to be a human bone on Oct. 17 in the Callville Bay area, roughly 30 miles east of Las Vegas. More remains were found on Oct. 19 and determined to belong to the same person, according to the information from the coroner’s office.
A National Park Service dive team carried out a full search the next day and confirmed a finding of skeletal remains, a spokesperson previously said.
The senior public information officer for Clark County did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment on whether any relatives of Smith have been found or notified.
The October discoveries marked the sixth and seventh times last year that remains were found at the country’s largest reservoir, amid a worsening drought and record-low water levels.
The findings have raised questions about the circumstances of the deaths and why so many remains turned up in Lake Mead, a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam.
Authorities last year identified remains discovered on May 7, also in Callville Bay, as those of 42-year-old Thomas Erndt of Las Vegas, who was reported to have drowned in August 2002, the coroner’s office said. The cause and manner of his death remains undetermined.
Other remains found last year have yet to be identified.
Remains belonging to the same person, who the coroner’s office is working to identify, were found on July 25, Aug. 6 and Aug. 15 on Boulder Beach.
Another set of remains, found in a barrel on May 1 in Hemenway Harbor, about 30 miles south of Callville Bay, belonged to an unidentified man who died from a gunshot wound, the coroner’s office said.
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Las Vegas police said two days after the discovery that detectives believed he was killed in the mid ’70s or early ’80s based on his clothing and footwear, and that they were working to identify him.
On Aug. 18, Las Vegas police said a journalist found a gun near where the remains in the barrel had been discovered, but that it was not clear if it were related to the remains.
Some local experts have said the killing could have been a mob execution.
Lake Mead is one of the busiest national parks in the country, drawing about eight million visitors annually, according to the National Park Service, which did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
