Identity of body found in trailer still a mystery

Kim Smith

Thursday, July 22, 1999 | 11:19 a.m.

They don't know what his hair color was, or if he had a beard or freckles or birthmarks.

They aren't sure how tall he was or what he weighed. They only know he drank to excess and he died gruesomely.

Oh, and they also know the chances of having their questions answered are pretty slim.

"The one person who knew who he was took that information to the grave with him," said Las Vegas Metro Homicide Lt. Wayne Petersen.

Petersen is one of the detectives who just closed the books on the Arthur Bennett case, a case that made national headlines because of the lengths the Marine staff sergeant took to avoid a court-martial.

In 1994, Bennett was facing military charges of sexual misconduct involving girls in Yuma, Ariz., and Okinawa, Japan, and other sexual misconduct and spousal abuse charges involving his wife in Yuma.

Before he could appear in court, however, authorities allege Bennett faked his death in a travel-trailer explosion at Lake Mead. Found within the trailer was the body of a man, his body so horribly burned, his feet and his hands were gone.

Bennett's Marine dentist identified the body as Bennett's after viewing the man's teeth, Petersen said.

"He made the ID because he thought the dental work looked familiar, it looked like the work he'd done on Bennett," Petersen said.

Bennett's medical records had disappeared.

Bennett's true identity was revealed when he was arrested in Utah on charges of raping three teenagers, two of them his own daughters. He pleaded guilty to a variety of felony charges and was sentenced to three to 45 years in prison.

On July 12, Bennett hung himself in the Clark County Jail while awaiting court-martial on charges related to his faked death. He had also been charged with murder in connection with the unidentified trailer victim.

Bennett had told relatives he had stolen the man's body from a San Diego morgue, but now authorities will never get to question him further.

And while detectives could exhume the victim for DNA testing, there wouldn't be much of a point, Petersen said.

"The remains were cremated," Petersen said. "The autopsy records are all we have to go on."

At the time the body was cremated, there was no reason to suspect the body was anybody other than Bennett's, Petersen said.

Even if they had wanted to perform DNA tests at the time, the body was so badly burned there were no bodily fluids or deep muscle tissue left to extract DNA samples from, said Ron Flud, Clark County coroner.

Of course, to make a DNA match, investigators would have to have someone else's DNA to compare to and they don't, Flud said.

So far, detectives haven't found any missing person cases that could have a connection with the Bennett case, Petersen said. Detectives who thought perhaps Bennett knew the victim through the military haven't found anyone away without leave that could be the victim, either.

"It could have been someone he knew, another Marine or possibly a transient he lured to the lake, but we don't know," Petersen said. "It could be someone who hasn't been reported missing."

Petersen said the autopsy merely revealed the victim had a blood alcohol content of 0.27 when he was burned to death. The coroner said the fact the victim had soot in his lungs disproved Bennett's claim to family members that he had stolen a corpse.

"The identity of the victim could forever remain a mystery," Petersen said. "There's nothing else active we can do to identify the victim."