Did the Suspect in a 1997 Double Murder End Up at the Bottom of Lake Mead?
Lake Mead as seen in 2022 driving from Nevada into Arizona. Double murder suspect Robert Rowe disappeared at Lake Mead in 1997. (Photo by Anthony T. Smith)
a domestic dispute and a double murder
One night in September of 1997, 53-year-old Robert Rowe became embroiled in a heated argument with his ex-wife Jeanette Rowe and his stepson, Bradley Schweitzer. The dispute started while dinner was cooking in the oven and once again was about Schweitzer’s ongoing issues with drug abuse. Rowe was irate that Jeanette was - in his estimation - defending her son’s inexcusable addiction.
Matters reached a boiling point when Schweitzer got into his stepfather’s face and Robert responded by retrieving a 9 mm revolver from another room. He then returned to the living room and gunned down his stepson as he sat in a recliner. Rowe then proceeded to the kitchen where he shot Jeanette to death while she finished making dinner, with their 16-year-old daughter bearing witness to the horrific scene. An anonymous source with the police later told the press, "[Rowe] was tired of the drug use and the mother taking [Schweitzer’s] side. He snapped that day."
Rowe then fled from the home located on Red Rock Street in southwest Las Vegas and took off in his brown pickup truck. He still had the 9 mm revolver on him as he drove into the night. When police later issued an alert for Rowe they would classify him as armed and dangerous.
This is where the known facts about Rowe’s actions after murdering two people come to an end and a decades-long mystery begins.
Generally, there was scant attention paid to the Robert Rowe murder case by the Las Vegas press - and apparently no mention of the double murders and Rowe’s subsequent disappearance were noted in the national news. These articles were some of the only contemporary mentions of the case in the Las Vegas newspapers. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ)
disappearance at the lake
Rowe headed to Lake Mead where he kept a sailboat. He parked his truck at the Lake Mead Marina and took his boat into the black waters of the lake.
Two days would pass before a passing boater discovered Rowe’s sailboat bobbing in the water at Sidewinder Cove on the Arizona side of the lake, about 15 miles from the Marina. But the murder suspect was nowhere to be found in the empty vessel. Detectives from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide division searched every inch of the sailboat, but they could find no sign of Robert Rowe or information on what his designs were the night he sailed out onto Lake Mead.
Police air units scoured the lake and surrounding areas for any sign of Rowe, but he had apparently disappeared.
There is very little information available online about the disappearance of Robert Rowe. One of the most informative sources we found was this 1997 article by veteran Las Vegas journalist John L. Smith. This article provides a detailed account of the bizarre facts surrounding Rowe’s murder of two relatives and possible escape and/or suicide. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ)
escape or suicide?
The disappearance of Robert Rowe is a genuine mystery. There was no sign of Rowe traveling along the shores of Lake Mead as he persisted in his evasion from justice. Equally confounding to investigators was the fact Rowe’s boat showed no signs of planning for a long stay on the lam, such as provisions or other supplies.
Complicating matters further was that a strong wind storm the day after Rowe set sail may have blown his sailboat off course from wherever Rowe had initially anchored. Given the size of Lake Mead and the fact the waters were up to 300 feet deep in the area where Rowe’s boat was found, investigators decided not to search the water for any potential remains.
“Did he kill himself, or did he swim away?” inquired Metro Police Sergeant Kevin Manning to local reporters. “We don’t know and have almost no way of reasonably finding out.”
There is little information out there about the mysterious disappearance of Robert Rowe, but one of the best sources we found in our research was a 1997 article by veteran Las Vegas journalist John L. Smith. In a column authored by Smith only days after the murders, he pondered, “Is the disappearance of Robert Rowe a cleverly staged deception, or is the homicide suspect at the bottom of Lake Mead?”
With the waters at Lake Mead continuing to recede and revealing its secrets, the time may soon be coming that we have an answer to Smith’s question about the double murder suspect that seems to have simply vanished.