Human remains found in Lake Mead are finally identified as a Las Vegas man who went missing in 1998
Human remains discovered in Lake Mead last summer after the reservoir suffered a drought have been identified as a man who has been missing in Las Vegas for nearly 25 years.
Claude Russell Pensinger, 52 at the time of his death in 1998, joined an eerie list of remains found in West Coast Lake after new sections were exposed by historically low water levels.
Pensinger’s bones were found over the span of three weeks in July and August, but his cause of death could not be determined by a coroner.
According to documents obtained by 8 News Now, Pensinger disappeared while on a fishing trip with his brother, who was on a separate boat, when they failed to meet at a lake location later in the day. His brother described Claude as a “good swimmer” who was a veteran of the Navy and Coast Guard, according to the documents.
The remains were among at least three other gruesome discoveries in Lake Mead last year, including the bodies of Thomas Erndt, 42, and at least two others that have not been conclusively identified.
Human remains, believed to be Pensinger’s, were first found on July 26
The remains of Pensinger, found on a swimming beach in Lake Mead, were the third batch of human remains discovered at Lake Mead last summer
Teams of divers searched the lake as at least bodies were found due to falling water levels
Last summer, the water level on Lake Mead dropped to its lowest level since 1937, with the reservoir sinking well below 30 percent capacity.
The drought has led to a series of gruesome discoveries, raising questions about whether the lake was used as a water grave for mob victims from previous decades.
And in the latest discovery, Pensinger’s remains were finally identified, a quarter of a century after he went missing on a fateful fishing trip with his brother.
The first remains of his remains were found on July 26, before further body parts were discovered on August 6 and 16.
The discovery of his body joined at least four others also found in the dried-up lake since May last year. It is now believed that several of Pensinger’s remains may have been.
At the first discovery, the remains of an unknown man were found in a barrel. A murder investigation was opened after it was determined that the man, who had been killed in the 1970s or 1980s, had been shot in the head.
Daniel Kolod, left, drowned in Callville Bay in 1958 at the age of 22
Remains believed to belong to Daniel Kolod were found on May 7, six decades after his death
Teeth from his remains were discovered in drought-stricken Lake Meadjust, a week after another body turned up in the reservoir
The second batch of human remains, pictured, was followed by further discoveries during a summer drought
The first body found during the spooky spree was discovered in a barrel in May 2022 (pictured)
Shortly afterward, another set of remains were found on May 7, who were believed to have been killed between the ages of 23 and 38 decades earlier.
The find led Todd Kolod, a man living in Spain, to argue that the body may have been his father Daniel, who died in a speedboat accident on the lake in 1958 aged 22 and whose body was never recovered.
A third body found in May 2022 was later found to be Thomas Erndt, a 42-year-old Las Vegas father who drowned in the Callville Bay area in 2002.
Further remains, now believed to belong to Pensinger, were found at Swim Beach on July 26, before other discoveries later associated with him were found at a nearby site on August 6 and August 16.
“At this time, the investigation of these remains includes determining whether or not the two sets of remains belong to the same person,” the coroner’s office said in a statement on Aug. 10.
Lake Mead’s water level fell to its lowest point in more than 85 years last summer
The man who discovered the remains would now have belonged to Pensinger Fox 4 when he and his family visited the lake to go swimming, when they found the bones sticking out of the sand under shallow water.
He said he took pictures and video of the bones before reporting them to the National Park Service.
“We went in the water, one of my daughters said she saw something in the water and thought it was a bone,” Orozco said.
“I said okay, let me go and see. When I got closer I picked it up and saw it was such a big bone.’
Pensinger’s identification came a month after another Las Vegas resident, Donald P Smith, was named among the other bodies that washed up in the smaller body of water. He was found further down the reservoir at Hoover Dam, nearly 50 years after he drowned in 1974.
More than 300 people have reportedly drowned in Lake Mead since the 1930s, leading to fears that by the time the lake was drying up, there could be countless other bodies lying on the ground.
Inlet towers are exposed in Lake Mead where the reservoir water level dried up on the Arizona side of the Hoover Dam
The numerous discoveries raised hope for many families of missing people amid speculation that the bodies could be linked to organized crime from Las Vegas, which is a 30-minute drive from the lake.
After a body was found in a barrel in what may have been a mafia hit, a host of other long-lost remains and items were found on the dried up lake bed.
A Native American “lost city,” a downed World War II B-29 Superfortress bomber, and the buried loot of a notorious mobster were all reportedly found in the reservoir as well.
Authorities said at the time when the bodies were discovered they expected numerous other criminal items, including guns and knives, to wash up as well.