LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — After one set of human remains were been identified at Lake Mead, other families with loved ones lost at the lake are now hoping they too get some closure.
Delores Stacy is one such widow.
Stacy describes, “It was our first day of vacation and we had rented out a houseboat at Callville and we were just roaming around the lake looking for where we could possibly dock the houseboat for the night.”
May 23, 2004, will forever haunt Delores. She says Vinnie went for a swim, while she stayed on the houseboat. After sliding off the slide, Vinnie swam around for a while when the wind came and separated the swimmer from the boat.
With no life preservers on the boat to throw to Vinnie, Delores, and friends the couple was with on the houseboat, tried to get closer to help him. Delores says, when she tried to get closer to Vinnie, the gas drifted him even further. She adds, that when a friend jumped in to get him to help with a floatation device, the closer she got, Vinnie disappeared into the water.
Vinnie and Delores met only 3 and a half years before Vinnie went missing. The was only married 18 months before that fateful day.
Eighteen years later, the widow now remarried, but questions and closure have not entirely set in.
With the help of sonar experts Gene and Sandy Ralston, an Idaho couple, Delores and family searched for Vinnie.
Gene Ralston says the last time he was out at Lake Mead was for the Vinnie Petrilena drowning. Saying the the widow called him recently, asking if there’s any possibility the remaining sets of remains at Lake Mead could be those of Vinnie.
Delores, calling the couple a wonderful gift not only in their expertise in the search but also their continued support through their grief journey.
