Las Vegas authorities have identified a murder victim whose remains were concealed in a rusted barrel and dumped in Lake Mead decades ago, police announced Thursday.
Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse said the victim was Edward Lelburian Jackson, an Arkansas man in his 50s who died from a single gunshot wound to the head.
The killing remains unsolved, but investigators were able to establish Jackson’s identity through advanced investigative genetic genealogy after decades of uncertainty.
“We were able to confirm that the remains were in fact Edward Jackson,” Rouse said.
Boaters discovered the unidentified remains in May 2022, a grim find that revived speculation about Las Vegas’ violent organized-crime past.
Because bodies were sometimes hidden in barrels in notorious mob killings, the discovery immediately fueled theories that Jackson may have been connected to the underworld.
Jackson had been involved in criminal activity in Salt Lake City during the 1980s. However, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide Lt. Robert Price said investigators have found no direct evidence linking his death to organized crime, although a mob-related motive has not been ruled out.
Jackson’s family told authorities that he enjoyed traveling, but said they were surprised to learn he had been in Las Vegas.
Investigators say the case remains active.
“It will never be closed until we solve it,” Price said.
Detectives believe Jackson was shot sometime in the early 1980s before his body was placed inside the barrel.
He was wearing a short-sleeve button-down shirt, light blue jeans, a silver wristwatch and blue-and-white sneakers when he was killed.
Jackson’s family did not report him missing at the time.
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“They knew that he had traveled the country, would show up when he showed up, just to say hi,” Price said.
“But they didn’t think anything other than that. They just figured he was out and about.”
The Mob Museum in Las Vegas had previously suggested that the remains might belong to one of several notorious figures: George “Jay” Vandermark, a professional cheat who monitored slot machines at the Stardust casino; William Crespo, a drug courier who later became a federal informant; or Johnny Pappas, a casino insider who owned a boat on Lake Mead.
All three men disappeared, and none of their bodies was ever found.
The same investigative genetic genealogy method used to identify Jackson helped identify another victim of the September 11 attacks at New York City’s World Trade Center this week. The technique was also used in the investigation that led to the arrest of Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann.
Investigative genetic genealogy works by comparing a person’s DNA profile with information contained in publicly available ancestry databases.
Meanwhile, Lake Mead’s water level has fallen to historic lows because of prolonged drought, extreme heat and sustained overuse. As the 90-year-old reservoir continues to shrink, more of its long-hidden secrets are being exposed.
Historians predict more bodies will emerge from the receding waters.
Several other finds surfaced at Lake Mead in 2022 — including a May discovery of skeletal remains later identified as a 2002 drowning victim.
Another set found in August of that year belonged to a 52-year-old Las Vegas man who vanished in 1998, while remains discovered in October 2022 were tied to a 1974 drowning accident, according to county officials.
And yet more human remains were uncovered as recently as this August.
Lake Mead and upstream Lake Powell stand as the largest man-made reservoirs in the US, anchoring a vast system that fuels Colorado River water to over 40 million people across eight states and into Mexico.
The plummeting waterline exposed Las Vegas’ main drinking intake in 2022, forcing regional authorities to activate a deep-lake reservoir built in 2020 to supply the region’s 2.4 million residents, suburban sprawl and 40 million annual tourists.
With Post wires
