Another piece of the mystery discovered in the Nevada desert has been revealed.
Four years after human remains were discovered in a barrel in drought-stricken Lake Mead, investigators identified the man as a murder victim from the 1980s who lived for a time in California with his wife.
The remains were one of several discovered that summer at Lake Mead, where water levels had been falling for decades, but its identity remained a mystery. The man was killed with a single gunshot to the head, police said.
On Thursday, Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse identified the remains as those of Edward Lelburian “Buddy” Jackson, a man in his 50s at the time of his death.
Robert Price, a homicide lieutenant with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said at a news conference Thursday that Jackson was originally from Arkansas and lived in California in the early 1970s with his wife. He also lived in Utah, where he had a criminal history in the early 1980s.
“With these new developments, homicide detectives will continue to work diligently to solve his crime,” Price said. “I would like to take a moment to thank the coroner’s office and the scientific professionals who provided this victim’s name.”
Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse speaks next to a projected image of Edward Lelburian Jackson during a news conference at Metropolitan Police headquarters in Las Vegas.
(DJ Cabanlong / Revue-Journal de Las Vegas)
Jackson was married for a time with no known children, Price said. There was also speculation that Jackson’s death was linked to an organized crime group, but there is no evidence so far to support that, he added.
Detectives spoke to Jackson’s relatives, who confirmed he was last seen visiting them in Arkansas in the early 1980s, Price said. So far, Jackson has no known ties to the Las Vegas area.
Jackson’s remains were found on May 1, 2022, in a barrel near Hemenway Harbor. Homicide detectives took over the investigation and determined that he was murdered around the time the mafia organization was disappearing in Sin City.
Jackson’s remains were found along with fashionable clothing and shoes in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Price said. The investigation then stopped when authorities could not determine his identity.
According to Rouse, the FBI lab in Virginia created three angles of Jackson’s composite face and released it publicly in late 2023. Those images and the clothing he was wearing at the time of his death were uploaded to the national missing and unidentified persons database. In early 2024, a bone sample was sent to DNA Labs International for genealogical profiling.
A possible match was sent to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, but it was not considered close enough to be a convincing match, Rouse said.
The Oklahoma State University forensic department then took over the genealogical profiling, according to Rouse. At the end of 2025, a possible match was made. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department looked into the case and a package of DNA was sent to Jackson’s family and then returned. Oklahoma State determined it was a compelling match and identified the remains as those of Jackson.
At the time Jackson’s remains were found, the West was in the grip of a severe drought. Las Vegas police Lt. Ray Spencer told the Times in 2022 that the shoreline would have been under 100 feet of water about 40 years ago.
Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, has dropped to its lowest water level since it filled about 90 years ago.
In September, Lake Mead’s water level reached 1,037.8 feet above sea level, according to federal data.
This record follows a winter that produced the worst snowpack on record in the Colorado River Basin. Melting snow provides water to the river, on which more than 40 million people in seven U.S. states, tribal nations and Mexico depend.
In August, human remains, including a jawbone with teeth, dental fillings and ribs, were discovered at Boulder Beach in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
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