Tuesday, June 24, 2003 | 11:08 a.m.
As a union driver for the popular TV show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," Dana Schisler sees realistic-looking props of dead bodies all the time.
But on Monday morning, while walking her dog Snickers by a fishing pond at Veterans Memorial Park in Boulder City, Schisler spotted a real dismembered body floating in the water.
"I thought it was a sick joke," Schisler said as she stood by the pond with the dog Monday afternoon. "I'm used to seeing props made up to look like dead bodies, and I didn't want to believe it was real."
Authorities are searching for Perry C. Monroe, 29, in connection with the death.
The victim, a 49-year-old woman who worked as a porter at the Hacienda hotel, formerly the Gold Strike, was last seen Sunday night when she was summoned to Monroe's room. The Hacienda is on U.S.93 near the Hoover Dam in unincorporated Clark County, which is in the jurisdiction of Metro Police.
The name of the victim, a Boulder City resident, had not been released by police or the coroner's office this morning.
She failed to come home from work Sunday night, and her husband filed a missing persons report with Boulder City Police, Lt. Tom Monahan said. After the body was found Monday morning, authorities determined it was that of the missing woman.
"When Boulder City Police detectives located the crime scene in one of the rooms at the Hacienda hotel, Metro homicide detectives joined the investigation," Monahan said.
Detectives have not made any connection between the victim and suspect except for the fact that she worked in the hotel where he was a guest. Monahan said it's not clear why she was killed.
Monroe, who drives a green 1998 Chevrolet Malibu bearing California license plates 3XYP370, should be considered very dangerous, Monahan said. Monday is is about six feet tall, weighs about 180 pounds and has brown hair and brown eyes, police said.
Through the afternoon on Monday Monday, divers from the National Park Service searched the pond, which reaches depths of 17 to 20 feet. About a month ago, the pond was drained because the plastic bladder that lined the bottom became torn. The bottom of the pond now has a concrete floor, Boulder City Police Sgt. John Chase said, similar to a pool.
Police dogs and the divers found additional evidence at the park, but Chase declined to elaborate. They weren't able to find the victim's head, hands or feet by late Monday. Chase also refused to answer questions about the condition of the body. The Clark County coroner's office is working on identifying the woman.
"This is a beautiful community and we don't have crimes of this nature this often," Chase said. "Our crime rates here aren't comparable to that of the rest of the valley. This is definitely out of the ordinary."
Two months ago, the body of a woman was found by ATV riders in a dry wash off State Route 165 in Boulder City. She had been killed in Las Vegas, police said. The skeleton of a man who had been shot was found along U.S. 95 in 1998. In 1996, a 21-year-old man shook a 10-month-old baby to death in Boulder City and pleaded guilty two years later.
About 6:30 a.m. Monday, Schisler was walking her dog along a path that goes around the pond when her dog, a white Maltese-Shih Tzu mix, approached the water on the northeast side of the pond for a drink.
Schisler said she looked out into the water and saw human legs floating just a few feet off the shore. Two arms and a torso were floating nearby, she said.
"It was really gruesome," she said.
She said called over to a fisherman, whom she identified only as Al, a man in his 80s who comes to the pond regularly with a fishing rod, a little red wagon and buckets to catch catfish.
"Al came over and looked at it with me. He was white as a sheet," Schisler said. The fisherman waded into the water and poked the torso with his finger, then called police on his cell phone.
"There was no head, no hands, no feet," said Schisler, who lives in Northridge, Calif., but stays in Boulder City often to visit her boyfriend, who also works as a "CSI" driver. "I'm still trying to digest it. As time goes on, it becomes more realistic."
Kevin Cost, an aircraft restorer and 10-year resident of Boulder City, came to the pond to check out the activity after seeing reporters and police there. He said the body must have been dumped in the pond sometime after 9 p.m. Sunday.
The park is open from 5 a.m to 10 p.m.
"My roommate went fishing here last night," he said. "He caught his first fish and he was pretty excited."
"This is definitely something that's going to be the talk of the town for a while," Cost added.
Kara Dugan, 11, had come to the pond in the afternoon with Schisler, her brother Ryan, 13, and their friend Heidi Hertreis, 13.
Because Kara's father works for "CSI," events such as this don't scare her much, she said.
"It's reality," she said.
But Heidi, standing with her bicycle, said, "I'm not going to come up here as much now."
Schisler said she'll still take Snickers for walks by the pond, but thoughts of the body will haunt her.
The park is "tainted now," she said. "It will be a long time before I don't think about this."
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