Skeletal remains found in Lake Mead Identified

According to a statement released by authorities in Las Vegas on Tuesday, March 28 2023, the human remains discovered in October 2022, on the shoreline of shrinking Lake Mead belonged to a North Las Vegas man who drowned in April 1974.

Donald P. Smith, 39, was reported missing in the waters of the Colorado River reservoir behind Hoover Dam, according to the Clark County coroner’s office. The identification was made using DNA, and his death was ruled an accident.

Other remains discovered in the Callville Bay area in May 2022 were identified in August 2022 as those of Thomas Erndt, a 42-year-old Las Vegas father who died during a nighttime family boat outing on the lake on late August 2, 2002.

Other skeletal remains discovered along the shoreline at the Boulder Beach swimming area over a three-week period in late July and early August 2022, belonged to one person, according to a coroner’s statement released Tuesday. Authorities are still attempting to match those remains with a name.

Coroner’s investigators are still trying to identify other remains discovered last year as the lake recedes due to drought, according to county spokeswoman Stacey Welling.

This includes the remains of a man who, according to Las Vegas police, was shot in the head and stuffed into a barrel discovered in May 2022 near a popular tourist attraction.