A body hidden in a barrel beneath Lake Mead sparked years of speculation about a Las Vegas mob hit. The victim now has a name: Edward “Buddy” Jackson. But identifying him leaves the biggest questions unanswered: Who killed him, and why?
In this bonus episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City police intelligence detective Gary Jenkins examines the discovery near Hemingway Harbor, Jackson’s background, and the investigative work needed to reconstruct his final days.
Gary discusses why early speculation focused on missing Stardust casino employee Jay Vandermark and federal informant William Crespo. He also explains how detectives can develop leads through old criminal cases, former associates, employment records, and the barrel itself. A suspected mob connection remains unproven.
Gary separates the case information from theories surrounding this disturbing discovery. Do you have information about Edward “Buddy” Jackson? Contact the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. You can also reach Gary at ganglandwire@gmail.com.
For more true crime stories, listen to Gary’s other podcast, Murder Blueprint.
Listen ad free – join the Supporter’s Club Gangland Wire Supporter’s Club
Try my other Podcast on Apple Podcast Murder Blueprint
Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire
Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee”
Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information.
Go to the store or make a donation click here
To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.
To Rent Ballot theft: Burglary Murder Coverup click here
To purchase one of my books, click here.
Transcript
[00:00:00] For decades, a barrel lay underneath the waters of Lake Mead out in Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas. Inside, the remains of a man who’d been shot in the head Finally, the water began to retreat. They’ve had a big water problem out there, and Lake Mead is going down and down.
They’re even talking about combining the two lakes out there, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, into one lake, it’s gotten so low. Because of that, I know it’s already given up one body. In May of 2022, the lake gave up a barrel with a body in it, much like Johnny Roselli. If you remember Johnny Roselli, Chicago Outfit mobsters had his body stuffed in a barrel and thrown in the water.
It’s taken four years to give investigators the man’s name. At his first, many mob watchers speculated it might be Jay Vandermark, George Jay Vandermark. He was a gambler that was tasked with skimming from the Las Vegas casino slot machines at the Stardust. [00:01:00] He was taking a little extra money, I think, and he ended up disappeared.
And also there was a federal… There was a drug runner that was a federal informant that disappeared during those years, William Crespo. It was neither one of those guys. Now we know what the name is. It’s Edward Labrian Jackson. We’ll just call him Buddy. His family called him Buddy. We know who it was, but we don’t know who killed him.
We don’t know why he was killed or who put his body in the barrel. Hey, guys. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City police detective, and you are listening to Gangland Wire. Those of you that follow Gangland Wire know why this case caught my attention. A body in a barrel, a gunshot to the head, a discovery just outside of Las Vegas.
People immediately started talking about the mob. Let’s see what the investigators have actually established. I’m a detective, a former detective. I want to find out what the facts are here, not the speculation. I don’t deal with speculation very [00:02:00] well Some boaters discovered this corroded barrel near Hemingway Harbor in Lake Mead because of the declining water levels.
And it was really, it was the, even the barrel was all shredded and pretty well gone. And then the body, the, the remnants of the body was inside. It still had his clothes on. He’d been … Initially, the forensic look at it, the pathologist said he’d been shot once in the head, and once behind the ear, I believe even.
Typical mob hit. His clothing would help tell a little bit about his death. He had a short-sleeve button-down shirt, light blue jeans, a wristwatch, and blue and white tennis shoes. And I believe those tennis shoes were bought at K- they were, they traced those to a Kmart. But just kinda usual, kinda, middle class clothes, white guy clothes back in the ’70s.
The early estimates said he was probably killed sometime during the mid-’70s, up to maybe the [00:03:00] ’80s. Now, more recent statements from the authorities have said it’s probably more like the early ’80s, but these are estimates. We don’t really have a established date of death. ‘Cause I don’t … they’re real- still working on where this guy, his last days, who knew him out in Las Vegas, what was he doing in Las Vegas?
And as a det- detective, that uncertainty is something that I keep in mind. The age of a pair of shoes can help you develop a timeframe. Maybe he had just bought those shoes. They might be able to say, “Those shoes were only sold during certain years.” The, the clothes not so much. If I remember right, he had a 46-inch waist, so it was, he was a pretty good sized guy.
I can’t remember how tall. I think it was around six foot, if I remember he was around, oh, mid to late 50s, they speculate. The coroner speculates. I’m not sure how they determine that, but they can determine your age from your teeth, I believe. But some things about your bone structures and that kind of things.
But here’s what they’ve learned about [00:04:00] Jackson Buddy Jackson. He was from Arkansas originally. He had some connections to the Hot Springs area, which is a hotbed of crime in Hot Springs, and has been for a long time. They also found evidence that he’d lived in California for a while. He lived in Utah His relatives who they’ve contacted have described a man that traveled around the country and occasionally came back to Arkansas to visit.
Last reported sighting of him in Arkansas was in the early ’80s, so it was probably, I don’t know if he was sighted in the ’80s, then more than likely he was killed shortly after he came back to Las Vegas. He’s never been reported missing by anybody, which I think is interesting. Who was he or
Somebody had to miss the dude, somebody would miss me. But whatever life he lived, nobody cared enough about him to know that he was missing. Family all believed he was still out just traveling around the country. They just, they were used to not seeing him for long periods of time.
And I guess he wasn’t a big letter [00:05:00] writer, huh? He certainly had a, a, a nomadic life anyhow. He was once connected to an insurance fraud scheme involving a mobile home and a trailer fire in 1982, which meant that he probably figured out that he set his trailer on fire, and then he started commit- connecting trying to collect on the insurance fraud.
I used to take those reports from sometimes from burglaries and sometimes from small arsons, and people would report $20,000 worth of jewelry taken $1,500 watch $2,500 in cash. They would report a whole lot of stuff that you know by looking at them and talking to them they never had.
He had an aggravated arson charge, which means that there might have been somebody else endangered by this arson. They dropped that as part of a plea agreement. But that’s a place where investigators need to start looking, and who was involved in that [00:06:00] case with him? Was there any co-defendants? Did he rat anybody out whenever he got some kind of a deal?
A- and his criminal record also can provide leads. You go back and look at a guy’s criminal record, and you find out if somebody else was arrested with him, if he did any time, who did he know in the prison. Go to the prison, find out who he knew in the prison. But especially his previous crimes.
Who else was he arrested with? And then the policemen that arrested him, they may know more about him. When they talked to him at the time, when they investigated him and came up with him at the time as a suspect, they probably know a lot more about him. So there’s ways to start finding. You gotta find out everything you can about his background.
Then you find some of those old associates, go talk to them, and from that it’ll spin off maybe to a, a place he worked. You’ll find somebody there that knew him. And pretty soon Hopefully what you’re looking for is who might have a motive to kill him. That’s all you’re looking for is who might have a motive to kill him.
Right now, we don’t know all that. We’re kind… I’m just telling you, that’s how that kind of a case will [00:07:00] develop, and if you really wanna find out maybe who killed him, and it is, it’s a murder case. Now, who has the jurisdiction? There’s another question that detectives are asking. If he was living in Las Vegas at the last would it be Las Vegas jurisdiction or Lake Mead?
What jurisdiction is that? Is a county sheriff out there? It’s not gonna be in the city, so it’s gonna be a county sheriff investigation. I’m not sure what county. Is that Clark County? I believe it’s gonna… it might be Clark County which has got a pretty good police department itself, so they would…
It’s not like it was in a real rural area. That’s one reason, that’s one reason to take bodies out to a real rural area is you got a, a rural police department that’s gonna be responsible to investigate it, and they may n- not gonna be quite as slick as the big city police department
As you work, let, work backwards, you also might find out previous addresses. You can go talk to neighbors, employment records, go talk to coworkers, other court records. Pretty soon you sh- and you start finding other relatives, other acquaintances, as I said. You [00:08:00] gotta find out who was Buddy Jackson.
Who was this guy? What all was he involved in? Where did he drink? Where did he party? Was he a drug addict? You just gotta find out everything about this guy. Right now they’re claiming, the Las Vegas homicide police, a Lieutenant Robert Price, has made a public statement, said they have no evidence that l- ties this to organized crime, but they haven’t ruled it out either.
So any mob org- connection is a theory. It’s a theory only. And it’s… And since nobody knows this guy, and he was a two-bit guy, of arson and insurance fraud on a trailer, I would say he ain’t gonna be a mob guy. I don’t think they got… They’re not releasing it. If they do, if they’ve got a bullet that they might be able to match up to a gun
Another thing you’d wanna look for is where’d that barrel come from? Did it come from a particular business? Can you scrape off some of the rust and find out what business it came from? So a lot of there’s a lot of ways to go on this. [00:09:00] You could spend a lot of time on this. I don’t know how much time they’ll spend on it, but it would be an interesting case to spend a lot of time on it to
It, it’s a mystery. We all love a mystery. I love a mystery like that. I would love to start digging into that and asking all those questions, and following up on all those leads
For a long time, I kn- I know I did. They found that barrel several years ago, and we only knew him as a man in a barrel. Now we know him as Buddy and but we don’t know where he went and who he knew and what happened during the last few years or even the last, actually the last few weeks of his life.
That, that’s what’s important. If you happen to have any information on Edward Leburian, that’s L-E-L-B-U-R-I-A-N, Jackson, or Buddy Jackson, if you know this guy, you remember this guy, if you have any information at all about him, contact the Las Vegas Met- Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. So that answers my question right there in their official releases that it’s [00:10:00] Las Vegas Metro is handling this investigation So any- anything else or contact me.
If you want a cutout between you and the police department, contact me at ganglandwire@gmail.com or… In any way you can get ahold of me. There’s plenty of ways to get ahold of me. And so I just a little update. I thought it was interesting, and there’s been a lot of speculation about this case, and this is what we know to date.
If I learn any more, I’ll put out another little special bonus episode. I think it’s interesting as hell. So thanks a lot, guys. Don’t forget to like and subscribe, and thanks for listening to Gangland Wire. Don’t forget I have my other podcast, Murder Blueprint, about horror crimes. I have several episodes up there right now about a guy that killed about what?
Seven or eight young men and tortured them to death, Bob Berdella. I have a ser- serial killer. I talked to the main and chief investigator on that Lorenzo Gilyard, and several other of those horror crime kind of [00:11:00] things. I guess I got bored. I wanna branch out and do some regular crime. So thanks a lot, guys.