Police are struggling to identify a body in Lake Mead. A new composite can help.

The identity of a person whose remains were found last year in a rusted, corroded barrel in the receding waters of Lake Mead has baffled investigators in Nevada, who on Wednesday released images they believe are an approximation of the man’s face , hoping they can push the case further down the line.

The remains of the man, who investigators believe died of a gunshot wound decades ago, were found in the spring of 2022, the first of four sets of human remains found at the lake that year. The Clark County Coroner’s Office was able to successfully identify the remains in three of the four cases, including those of a man who drowned nearly 50 years ago.

The gruesome discoveries, which fueled theories of shady crimes in nearby Las Vegas, were made possible by an ongoing drought that has caused the water level of Lake Mead, the nation’s largest man-made reservoir, to drop by nearly 150 feet since 2000.

The footage for the unsolved case was created by a Federal Bureau of Investigations laboratory in Virginia from recovered remains. according to a press release from Clark County officials.

The images, which show the man’s face from three angles, were also shared with the National System for Missing and Unidentified Persons, which didn’t provide much information. No physical descriptions were given and the man’s race was listed as “other.” The condition of the remains was labeled ‘not recognizable – almost complete or complete skeleton’.

A barrel containing the remains was found in early May 2022 by people walking along the shoreline of Lake Mead, which was formed in the 1930s by the construction of the Hoover Dam.

Lt. Ray Spencer of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said at the time that investigators believed the victim had died of a gunshot wound and that the clothing and footwear the victim was found with indicated the person had been killed in the mid-1970s or early 1970s . The 80’s.

Visitors to the lake that sunny day saw the barrel sitting in the mud, Lt. Spencer said. They peeked their heads in and discovered a skeleton.

“We moored our boat to go home” Shawna Hollister, witness to the discovery, told KLAS-TV in Las Vegas. “My husband walked over and found the body. His shirt and belt were the only things we could see above his decomposing bones.”

Witnesses then called the National Park Service, which responded and confirmed that the contents in the barrel were human remains, Lt. Spencer said.

At the time, authorities acknowledged that the investigation could take years because police did not have DNA databases from the period in which the man likely died.

The process of identifying remains is not always simple and involves examinations to determine the gender, age, height and weight of each deceased. DNA sample collections are also used, where available.

In this case, investigators had requested DNA from multiple families chosen from unsolved missing persons cases around the time authorities believed the man had died. according to 8 News Nowa local news station in Las Vegas.

“Sometimes remains can never be identified,” Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse told the office earlier this year. “If the information doesn’t exist to compare, there’s no magic tool that allows us to say this is who the person is.”