- Former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said more bodies could be found in Lake Mead.
- Goodman was a defense attorney for members of the mafia and Las Vegas mayor between 1999 and 2011.
- He told The Associated Press that the Mafia liked the reservoir to stay full to hide bodies.
Former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said that "there's no telling what we'll find in Lake Mead," in an interview with the Associated Press.
Within the last two weeks, two bodies have turned up in the reservoir – one likely decades-old and confined in a barrel – and more could turn up as water levels plunge to historic lows.
"There's no telling what we'll find in Lake Mead," Goodman told the AP on Monday. "It's not a bad place to dump a body."
Goodman served as the Mayor of Las Vegas between 1999 and 2011, and was also a defense attorney who represented mobsters on the Vegas strip.
Goodman did not offer a guess in the interview as to which specific bodies might be discovered in the lake, located 30 miles east of Las Vegas, in the Mojave desert.
"I'm relatively sure it was not Jimmy Hoffa," Goodman told the AP with a laugh, mentioning the infamous labor union leader who vanished in 1975.
Goodman also mentioned in the interview that his former clients were interested in "climate control," meaning that they wanted tide levels high at the lake to keep the bodies hidden. Lake Mead's water levels have receded at least 30% in recent months due to one of the worst droughts in the last millennium, according to the AP.
The man-made reservoir has been the center of attention after a body in a barrel was found in the lake on May 1, igniting questions about who may have been behind the potential murder. Days later, a second set of remains was discovered.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said that the body inside the barrel was likely a murder victim from "some time in the mid '70s to early '80s, based on clothing and footwear the victim was found with."