Lake Mead Body
- Jessica Hill - AP
- Updated
In this photo made with a smartphone, Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse talks about of the victim whose remains were found in a barrel at Lake Mead, during a news conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026.
Jessica Hill - APTags
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Las Vegas officials have identified a homicide victim whose remains were found in a rusted barrel on a Lake Mead shore after the lake’s level was depleted amid drought. Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse identified the victim Thursday as Edward Lelburian Jackson, who was from Arkansas and in his mid- to late 50s when he died. The discovery by boaters in 2022 sparked memories of the nearby city’s mob era, which ended in the mid-1980s. Organized crime helped build up Las Vegas, and a body stuffed in a barrel was known to signify a mob killing. But officials say they do not have information to support theories that the man’s death was mob-related.
