Submerged secrets: When Lake Mead's low water levels revealed the unexpected

Lake Mead has frequently made headlines in recent years due to its severe decline in water levels. Fortunately, over the past year, the situation has improved, although the lake remains at a crisis level.

Lake Mead Recreation Area Public Affairs Officer John Hanes told Fox 5 News Vegas that water levels have stabilized over the last year. Hanes believes the improved water levels are the result of a good snowpack from Colorado and successful coordination efforts between involved states.

However, do you remember the shock and concern in 2022 when Lake Mead's water levels became so low that some of the lake's darkest secrets were revealed?

Residents of the area were shocked when, in 2022, six sets of human remains were discovered when water levels at Lake Mead reached never-before-seen lows.

Among the first set of human remains was a body found in a corroding barrel, which seemed like something out of a horror film.

The police and the Clark County coroner's office treated the case as a homicide because, as Lt. Jason Johansson of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police homicide unit told CNN, "Anytime you have a body in a barrel, clearly there was somebody else involved."

Photo: Fox5News

Eventually, as CNN reported, officials obtained new details about the bodies which confirmed foul play: the body found in the barrel had a gunshot wound.

Local authorities told the media at the time that the bodies most likely had been hidden deep under the water for decades, leaving them in advanced stages of decomposition.

The investigators who were working to identify the sets of human remains found in Lake Mead did not having an easy task as extracting DNA from decomposing bodies in not simple.

Apart from the body with a gunshot wound found in a barrel, the coroners did rule that they believed the most likely manner of death for the other five human remains found was due to drowning.

Furthermore, if someone does accidentally drown in Lake Mead it is not an easy task to find the individual due to the deepness of the lake, rescue divers can go only go so far down after all.

Finding human remains in never pleasant, however, there was one case that was sort of a happy-ending. A family finally found closure in 2022 when the remains of their missing father were identified after being recovered from Lake Mead.

According to a news release by the Clark County Office of Communications & Strategy, the human remains found on May 7, 2022 in the Callville Bay area were identified through DNA analysis as Thomas Erndt (pictured).

Photo: Instagram@taxitom_is300

Thomas Erndt, aged 42 at the time of his disappearance on August 2, 2002, drowned after jumping into the Colorado River Reservoir while on a boat trip.

Tom Erndt, who was only 10 when the accident occurred,  explained that in 2002 he went on a family boat trip on the Colorado River reservoir at night when it turned into a nightmare.

Tom's father, Thomas Erndt, was known for goofing around and jumped into the water. When Tom's father began to struggle, his family didn't take it seriously.

It did not take long for the family to realize that their father was really in trouble, as their father began screaming for help desperately.

As reported by SFGATE, the Erndt family had no coverage on their cell phone, and by the time they were able to contact authorities, no trace of their beloved father could be found.

Thomas Erndt's body remained missing for twenty years and the Erndt family had no hope of ever finding his remains until the summer of 2022 when Tom Erndt was contacted by the Clark County coroner's office.

After finding human remains in May 2022, investigators reviewed cases of unrecovered bodies related to reports of deaths near the lake.  Tom Erndt and his sister gave a DNA sample to investigators upon request, and on August 24, 2022, the coroner's office informed them that it was a match.

Photo: Instagram@taxitom_is300

Tom shared the news on his Instagram account, writing, "They found my dad....I am still in awe and don't know how to feel. It's all not real to me, and I need to have it sink in. I am grateful for the news, and it's still not my closure, but it will come, and I am glad he is at peace. Dad I love you with all my heart, and you will always be by my side."

Photo: Instagram@taxitom_is300

So although the discovery of human remains at Lake Mead certainly was eerie, in the end it brought closure to one family after twenty years.

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