Watery graves recall early days of organized crime in Las Vegas
A second set of unidentified human remains come to the surface
Stories about longdeparted Las Vegas organized crime figures are surfacing after a second set of unidentified human remains were revealed as the water level falls on drought-stricken Lake Mead.
The reservoir on the Colorado River is about a 30-minute drive from the mob-founded Las Vegas Strip.
“There’s no telling what we’ll find in Lake Mead,” former Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman said Monday. “It’s not a bad place to dump a body.”
Goodman was a defence attorney who represented Mafia figures including ill-fated Anthony (Tony the Ant) Spilotro before serving three terms as a martini-toting mayor who made public appearances with a showgirl on each arm.
He declined to speculate about who might turn up in the vast reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam between Nevada and Arizona.
“I’m relatively sure it was not Jimmy Hoffa,” he laughed, referring to the former labour boss who disappeared in 1975. But he added a lot of his former clients seemed interested in “climate control” — mob speak for keeping the lake level up and bodies down in their watery graves.
Instead, the world now has climate change and, as a result, the surface of Lake Mead has dropped more than 52 metres since 1983. The lake that slakes the thirst of 40 million people in cities, farms and tribes across seven southwestern states is down to about 30 per cent of capacity.
“If the lake goes down much farther, it’s very possible we’re going to have some very interesting things surface,” said Michael Green, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas history professor whose father dealt blackjack for decades at casinos including the Stardust and Showboat.
“I wouldn’t bet the mortgage that we’re going to solve who killed Bugsy Siegel,” Green said, referring to the infamous gangster who opened the Flamingo casino in 1946 on what became the Strip. Siegel was shot dead in 1947 in Beverly Hills, Calif. His assassin has not been identified.
“But I would be willing to bet there are going to be a few more bodies,” Green said.