Man Found in Barrel at Lake Mead in 2022 Identified as Arkansas Native Shot Decades Ago

Las Vegas authorities have identified the man whose skeletal remains were found sealed inside a barrel at Lake Mead in 2022, naming him as Edward "Buddy" Lelburian Jackson, a man originally from Hot Springs, Arkansas, who was shot to death more than four decades ago. The Clark County coroner's office and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced the identification at a news conference Thursday, more than four years after boaters spotted the barrel protruding from the reservoir's mud as a historic drought drained the lake to record lows.

The barrel surfaced on May 1, 2022, at Hemenway Harbor, within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. An autopsy determined Jackson died of a gunshot wound to the head, and the coroner's office ruled his death a homicide. Investigators estimated the killing took place sometime in the 1970s or 1980s, based partly on clothing and sneakers recovered with the remains that were sold at Kmart stores in that era. Coroner Melanie Rouse said Jackson was believed to have been in his mid-to-late 50s when he died.

Jackson had lived in the Los Angeles area with his wife in the early 1970s after leaving Arkansas, according to LVMPD Homicide Lt. Robert Price, who said detectives lost track of him once he relocated to California. The case went unsolved for years despite composite facial renderings the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, produced to generate public leads. Investigators ultimately confirmed Jackson's identity through forensic work assisted by Dr. Jason Beaman of the Oklahoma State University School of Forensic Sciences, as Fox5 Las Vegas reported following the announcement.

Price said he had no information tying the killing to organized crime, despite years of speculation about mob connections that circulated after the barrel's discovery amid a wave of human remains exposed by Lake Mead's falling water line. He noted Jackson had a brief criminal record in Salt Lake City, Utah, including charges of aggravated arson and conspiracy to commit fraud, but said detectives have not yet determined what brought him to the Las Vegas area or who killed him.

"Once he moved to California, we lose track of him," Price said of the decades-long gap in Jackson's trail.

The homicide remains open. LVMPD has not announced any arrests, and Price said the case will not be closed until investigators identify who shot Jackson and why. The department is asking anyone with information about Jackson's life after he left Arkansas, or about his time in the Las Vegas area, to contact LVMPD's Homicide Section. ABC News noted that investigators built the identification on a DNA profile taken from a bone sample, later matched to a surviving family member earlier this year.

Jackson's case was one of several involving human remains that surfaced around Lake Mead in 2022, as the Colorado River drought pushed the reservoir to some of its lowest levels since it was filled in the 1930s, exposing sections of lakebed submerged for decades. His name now closes one of the longest-running mysteries to emerge from that drought, even as the question of who killed him remains unanswered.