Lake Hartwell, a human-made reservoir created with the completion of the Hartwell Dam in 1962, is a pillar of recreation and leisure for the Clemson student body, as well as residents of both Georgia and Upstate South Carolina.

But there’s another side to Hartwell’s calm waters and sandy beaches.

It remains the deadliest Upstate lake, claiming more than 111 lives since 1993, according to the Corps of Engineers report. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the group that originally created the dam for flood control, hydropower and navigation.

Duke Energy records, dating back to 1998, indicate that Lake Keowee has had 36 fatalities, while Lake Jocassee has had only four.

Hartwell today covers nearly 56,000 acres and has 962 miles of shoreline. Jocassee and Keowee pale in comparison to Hartwell’s size. Jocassee has only 75 miles of shoreline, and roughly 7,500 acres of coverage, according to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Keowee stretches far with approximately 387 miles of shoreline and covers nearly 18,500 acres.

Interestingly, Hartwell has a smaller mean depth than both Jocassee and Keowee. Hartwell measures at approximately 45 feet, compared to Jocassee’s and Keowee’s mean depths of 157 feet and 53 feet, respectively.

Within the past month alone, three bodies have been found in Lake Hartwell.

Early this month, a body was recovered in Hartwell. On Jan. 1, a paddleboarder found the body of 55-year-old Carl Jay Benner from Greenville, South Carolina. Benner was last seen around 4 a.m. on the prior Sunday, following a car accident near Hartwell. According to Fox Carolina, he had wandered into the lake after the car crash, possibly searching for the rest area, and drowned.

During the accident, Benner’s vehicle hit the cable barrier in the middle of Interstate 85 South, neither going into the lake nor ejecting Benner into the lake.

In late December 2025, Douglas John Olin Edmond Jr.’s body was found at a depth of 36 feet by divers in Hartwell. The autopsy revealed that he died from drowning around the morning of Dec. 20, 2025, when trying to cross a cove to go deer hunting, according to Fox 29 News. By Dec. 28, family members and neighbors recognized the abnormality of how long he’d been gone, and a missing-persons investigator was notified.

Edmond was found the next day on Dec. 29.

On Dec. 20, the day that Edmond was believed to have drowned, deputies responded to a call about the remains of Swapnil Srivastava, a 27-year-old Clemson alumnus. Srivastava’s body was found near the Clemson Experimental Forest, according to People News. He’d been reported missing on Dec. 6, 14 days before his body was found.

According to the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office, there were numerous large-scale searches for Srivastava conducted by the Pickens County Emergency Services and the sheriff’s office.

Srivastava’s cause and manner of death have yet to be publicized.

2025 saw other Hartwell deaths, including an unidentified woman whose body was found on Anderson Beach in June, according to Fox Carolina. A bystander found the woman, and the coroner ruled the death as natural and likely “due to an underlying medical condition.”

Younger individuals have been found dead in Hartwell as well, such as 16-year-old Rayan Al-Nasser and 15-year-old Zakaria Chaar in May 2024. The two were sophomores at D.W. Daniel High School, according to 7 KPLC News.

According to the PCSO, the students had been challenging each other to jump into Hartwell off of Twelve Mile River Bridge.

One teen jumped in to save his friend, who had reportedly landed poorly, and another member of the group later called 911 to report that their friends were in the water and couldn’t be found.

There is a strong current that runs under the bridge, according to Pickens County Chief Deputy Chuck James.

As referenced earlier, the records from the Corps of Engineers reporting the 111 deaths in Hartwell only go back to 1993.

One of the earlier deaths, the death of Stacey Holsonback, is an unsolved murder case. Holsonback had gone “mud-bogging” with two friends in February 1997, and there were suspicions regarding the stories of the two male companions who were with Holsonback.

The medical examiner found evidence of sexual assault during Holsonback’s autopsy. The case remains open, offering a cash reward of up to $2,000 for a tip that leads to an arrest, according to an article by The Tiger.

In September 2014, a pledge of Clemson University’s Sigma Phi Epsilon, Tucker Hipps was found floating in the lake under the Highway 93 bridge.

According to court records, a witness said Hipps had been required to walk the railing of the bridge after he failed to bring “breakfast biscuits to other students” on a pledge run that morning, Fox Carolina reports.

One of Hipps’ fraternity brothers told police that Hipps had been wearing blue tennis shoes, which helped police identify his body.

No one has ever come forward to say what happened, and the case remains open.