Lake Mead murder victim found in barrel in 2022 IDd solving 40-plus year-cold case

Las Vegas authorities have finally identified a decades-old murder victim whose remains were eventually stuffed into a rusted barrel and dumped in Lake Mead in 2022, police revealed Thursday.Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse confirmed the victim was Edward Lelburian Jackson, an Arkansas man in his 50s who was executed by a single gunshot to the head.Cops say the slaying remains a cold case, though advanced genealogy profiling finally cracked his identity after decades in the dark.“We were able to confirm that the remains were in fact Edward Jackson,” said Rouse.The grim discovery of his unidentified body was made in May 2022 by boaters, instantly reigniting dark tales of Sin City’s bloody mob era.Las Vegas has an expansive history of organized crime and the fact Jackson was found in a barrel is known to be indicative of a mob killing.Jackson was involved in criminal activity in Salt Lake City during the 1980s, but Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide Lt.

Robert Price says nothing yet points directly to a mob hit — though detectives haven’t ruled it out.Jackson’s family told authorities that he loved to travel, but noted his presence in Vegas was an unexpected twist.Police aren’t giving up just yet.“It will never be closed until we solve it,” Price urged.Investigators estimate Jackson was shot in the early 1980s before being stuffed into the drum.When he was killed, he was wearing a short-sleeve button-down shirt, light blue jeans, a silver wristwatch and blue-and-white sneakers.At the time, Jackson’s family didn’t report him missing.“They knew that he had traveled the country, would show up when he showed up, just to say hi,” said Price. “But they didn’t think anything other than that.They just figured he was out and about.”The Mob Museum in Las Vegas had speculated the body could be tied to notorious underworld figures — suggesting he might be George “Jay” Vandermark, a cheat gambler tasked with monitoring slot...