The accepted wisdom is that the Nevada desert is filled with bodies buried in shallow graves. With the Las Vegas Valley being almost completely built out with new housing developments, I wonder how many bodies have been found in the desert while breaking ground on new construction?
This isn't the first time reality has upended accepted wisdom.
In all our decades observing if-it-bleeds-it-leads" coverage in the local media, and unless the newspapers, magazines, and TV stations are engaged in a conspiratorial cover-up, we're not aware of any bodies having been disinterred during the suburban build out of Las Vegas.
However, to be doubly sure, we reached out to Geoff Schumacher, former Vegas newwpaper reporter and current vice president of research, collections, and programs for the Mob Museum.
Schumacher told us, "There are a couple of reasons why Mob victims haven't been found during Las Vegas' expansion to the foothills. First, it is something of a myth that a lot of Mob victims were dumped or buried in the desert. There certainly was one big case, when Culinary Union boss Al Bramlet was buried out there in the 1970s by Tom and Gramby Hanley, though they weren't technically mobsters. But it's not like it was happening on a regular basis."
You can read that whole story in our recent Question of the Day about it.
“Second, I would think that if somebody were killed and buried in the desert, they would be taken out much farther than Las Vegas development has reached so far.
"Perhaps more victims will be uncovered sometime in the future, when the development genuinely snakes out into adjoining desert valleys. But probably not.”
While no corpses have been turned up amid the tumbleweeds, one ghoulish discovery was made thanks to the ever-receding waters of Lake Mead. On May 1, 2022, a dead body was found in a barrel near Hemenway Harbor. That, however, was the beginning, not the end, of a mystery. The gunshot victim’s remains gave few clues as to his identity and his clothes—off the rack from K-Mart—weren’t much help, either.
In the unlikely event you can provide a helpful hint, the Clark County Coroner’s Office has solicited tips (no, not the gratuity kind). Whoever the victim was, he went missing in the late 1970s or early 1980s during the heyday of the skim on the Las Vegas Strip.
Which makes one wonder: Was Lake Mead the ultimate “hole in the desert”?
