r/news • u/Aurora_Gaspipe • 1d ago
Lake Mead barrel murder victim identified more than 4 years after remains found.
https://siouxlandnews.com/news/nation-world/lake-mead-barrel-murder-victim-identified-more-than-4-years-after-remains-found1.2k
u/AudibleNod 1d ago edited 1d ago
The article doesn't give the identification. There's going to be a press conference at 3 PM (Las Vegas time).
Items recovered included a short-sleeved button-down shirt, jeans with a 46-inch waist and 30-inch inseam, blue-and-white size 11 Trax tennis shoes and a silver Timex watch.
46-in waist in the late 70s wasn't too common. Most waist sizes in America were in the mid-30s. And a 30 inch inseam can mean the person is between 5'6" and 5'10" or so, give or take.
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u/Para_Regal 1d ago
I was just about to comment on the waist size vs inseam length. I’m 5 foot nothing and my inseam is 28”, so it wouldn’t surprise me if this man was more like 5’4-5’6 and quite portly.
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u/therempel 1d ago
I'm a 6'0" guy usually wear 36 or 38" waist with a 28" or 30" inseam. My proportions are very wonky though. All torso and arms.
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u/Imaginary_Rhubarb179 1d ago
I'm 5' 10", about 160 lbs. A 32" inseam fits me like a glove
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u/stevewmn 1d ago
I'm 5'11 and I usually wear a 30" inseam, though 31" might fit better if they made them. 32" inseam pants wind up dragging on the floor if I don't hike them up constantly.
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u/kranelegs 1d ago edited 1d ago
6’4” and about 155 lbs and yeah 32 or if I can find 33 is what I wear x 36”
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u/hertzsae 1d ago
Then you either have long legs for a guy or wear too long of pants. The average male wearing a 28" inseam is between 5'4" and 5'8".
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u/Para_Regal 1d ago
lol, I’m a lady, and pretty proportionate. But you do have a point — men either tend to be long torso’d with short legs, or long legged with short torsos.
Source: 30 years experience as a costume designer. Taken A LOT of measurements in my time.
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u/Reasonable-Mess3070 1d ago
Im built the same as you. 5' with 28" inseam. I always say "i dont have much height but the little bit I do have is all in my legs" lol
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u/caelum_daemon 1d ago
Shoot I'm 5'3" with a 30 inch inseam. There's a huge height range.
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u/SecretlyARaven 1d ago
I’m just shy of 5’11 with a 33 inch inseam, the range is fucked haha
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u/carlthetrashman 1d ago
6' 3" with a 32" inseam...though I probably should be a 34" if I wore my jeans at my waist with a single break.
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u/Michelhandjello 1d ago
6'3" with a 31" inseam. I am all back with stumpy little legs.
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u/porcinechoirmaster 1d ago
6'0" with a 27", I hear you.
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u/pixi88 1d ago
Holy torso!
My fam is the same. Both my kids are 2 sizes up in shirts from pants. (Ie, 2t pants and 4t shirts.) To the point that they stresed me out about their femur length after ultrasounds during pregnancy. My hustband looked at me crazy, and gestured at our bodies 😅
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u/TSAOutreachTeam 14h ago
Miata is not the answer for you. 😔
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u/porcinechoirmaster 9h ago
I tried to sit in one once at a meetup back in high school. I got my legs in fine, but I literally could not get my head inside the car. The owner was laughing his ass off at me sitting there with my head just poking clear out of the car.
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u/InspectorOrdinary321 1d ago
5'8" with 33", haha. I look like a daddy long legs. I'm very short when I sit down. Nobody believes me when I say I need more leg room until I show them.
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u/TechnicalDark8675 1d ago
My dad, husband, and oldest son are all 5’8” and have a 29” sometimes 30” inseam. My two youngest sons are both around 5”10 and have a 30-31” inseam. Torso length vs leg length and how high you wear your pants. 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Warcraft_Fan 1d ago
Short and wide person? Possibly someone who had huge debt and was killed? I think I know who he is. J. Wellington Wimpy, killed for unpaid debt of oh about 5,000 hamburgers.
/s
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u/steeldragon88 1d ago
I guess Tuesday finally came for Wimpy
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u/avantgardengnome 1d ago
Pretty wild that we’re coming up on the 100 year anniversary for that reference lol.
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u/Mediocre-Proposal686 1d ago
Not only that, but they were vidal Sassoon jeans. Could the 46” be a typo?
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u/hefty_load_o_shite 1d ago
Big guy, in las Vegas... Gonna be a fighter that didn't take a fall for the mafia I reckon
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u/Kundrew1 1d ago
46-inch waist on a boxer? I know there have been sideshow boxers like butterbean that would be close but overall that size does not fit a boxer.
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u/Dickin_son 1d ago
46 inch waist with a 30 inch inseam is a certified chode. No way it's a professional athlete
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u/Nearby-Key8834 1d ago
Tuna can.
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u/luveveryone 1d ago
Leave my penis out of this!
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u/YogiBerraOfBadNews 1d ago
Damn dude how big of a barrel we talking? Hopefully not 55gal
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u/Church_of_Cheri 1d ago
Jimmy Hoffa was a bit bigger by that point, drinking can do that as well as a more sedentary lifestyle with age. So a lot of older gangsters match that description.
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u/Nearby-Key8834 1d ago
A 46 inch waste? The only thing this guy was fighting is getting up the stairs and not losing his breath.
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u/ki7sune 1d ago
Yeah, I'm huge but six inches taller and my waistline isn't as large. This guy was 350+ lbs.
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u/The_Grungeican 1d ago
Not necessarily. I’m 5’7 and 280 lbs. I wear size 48 pants.
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u/ki7sune 12h ago
I'd be terrible at the weight-guessing carnival-game I guess. Height really does matter a lot.
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u/jackrabbit323 1d ago
A lot of barrels in that lake, and a lot of problems are sunk in that lake, but you gotta do it right. I mean you gotta have the barrel packed before you show up with a package in the trunk.
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u/Aurora_Gaspipe 1d ago
“I knew all about the barrels in Lake Mead, of course, and everywhere I looked there could’ve been a barrel.”
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u/AgKnight14 1d ago
If they had dumped it over the original riverbed, it likely would’ve never been found. There are places in Lake Mead still nearly 300 feet deep right now, even though the lake is 190 feet below full pool
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u/thecommuteguy 1d ago
You could say the same thing about the Nicki Santoro quote from Casino about the Vegas desert. Makes you wonder with all the sprawl how many had a house or some building built on them.
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u/Malthusianismically 1d ago
When I lived in Fort Myers, FL, there was a place that was still pretty undeveloped called Lehigh Acres. The largely wooded areas would catch fire every year (arson) and eventually the burnt brush would be cleared for development.
Every year I lived there the development would start and then abruptly stop because they would keep finding bodies in the woods.
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u/amandatoryy 1d ago
Sheesh I’ve never heard of that and I was born there (and am still there).
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u/chezzer33 1d ago
Have you been living under a shed?
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u/amandatoryy 18h ago
No, but I’m not sure how much news about bodies being unearthed in Lehigh I consumed as a child. I don’t see anything in the news about it either.
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u/Malthusianismically 7h ago
Tbf, I lived there back in '04; this was a while ago. I'm sure a lot of that land has since been developed. I haven't been back there in ages 😅
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u/URPissingMeOff 23h ago
They've been developing the Summerlin area (west of the strip) for decades and when they first started, they were turning up so many bodies, they had to ask the press to stop publishing them all because it was a bad look for the area.
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u/amp_it 1d ago
As someone who lives near the edge of Las Vegas, I am now deeply unsettled by this possibility I’d never considered.
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u/thecommuteguy 1d ago
Id visit North LV like once a year on the literal edge of town and run on the street with nothing between the street and the mountains for about a mile.
Who knows what’s out there.
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u/Dause 1d ago
I mean you can say this about almost any area were humans existed. Lots of burial grounds, or graves from the olden times no one knows about.
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u/Subliminal-Criminal9 1d ago
We're lookin for carmine
I saw him, he had a barrel and everything and then he left
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u/cruisingforapubing 12h ago
I had a friend whose family lived in a development like 45 minutes north of Vegas. They kept having to delay the project because they’d uncover bodies and for each one detectives would have to come out and investigate. All were from back in the mob days
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u/sealosam 1d ago
"... jeans with a 46-inch waist and 30-inch inseam.."
This guy was definitely mixed in with the Vegas area mobsters lol
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u/n4b40m1 1d ago
Chode jeans
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u/diohable 1d ago
What are chojeans
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u/BreakfastCalm3352 16h ago
Chojean, chojean, chojean, chojeeeeaaaann
I’m begging of you, please don’t put me in a large can
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u/Whole_Assumption_526 1d ago
Trax tennis shoes.
If you’re Gen X, you know. K-Mart brand. Probably where he got the Timex watch too.
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u/wes_wyhunnan 1d ago
Just spitballing here, but an Italian fellow?
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u/Aurora_Gaspipe 1d ago
I suppose a wiseguy could wear Velcro trainers and shop at K-Mart.
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u/yooobuddd 1d ago
When your waist is 46 inches, your apparel options become limited
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u/OkEnvironment3961 1d ago
This is true. Used to wear size 44 and when those got snug my options were not looking good. Down to 34-36 now.
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u/Warcraft_Fan 1d ago
Nice! A few years ago I was wearing 42. I now wear 36.
Diabetes does have a way of forcing lifestyle chanfe
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u/OkEnvironment3961 1d ago
Damn, I'm sorry. I hope you are managing it well. I had heart failure in my 30's. Had to make a change. Eat healthy-er and workout nearly everyday now.
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u/WithaK19 1d ago
But apparently a barrel still fits
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u/yooobuddd 1d ago
A barrel has near a 72" circumfence, he would need a belt
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u/Towelbit 1d ago
“jeans with a 46-inch waist and 30-inch inseam”
Whoever he is, he is a big fella.
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u/ermghoti 1d ago
Authorities believe the man was shot in the back of the head sometime between the late 1970s and early 1980s before his body was placed inside the barrel and dumped into the lake.
Possible organized crime connection remains unclear
Well let's not jump to conclusions here. Maybe he was standing on the barrel, floating around the lake, while cleaning his loaded gun, which accidentally went off while he was taking a break sleeping on it, then it flew off into the lake and was eaten by a carp.
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u/ElCiclope1 1d ago
People who have zero connection to organized crime dispose of bodies like this. Given the details it seems pretty likely it is connected to the mafia, but not 100%. The police avoiding tunnel vision is alright with me.
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u/overbarking 1d ago
I'm sure the mob buried many of their victims the same way.
They must have been tired of burying them in the desert.
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u/Goregoat69 18h ago
They must have been tired of burying them in the desert.
“You could be there all night!”
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u/imtooldforthishison 1d ago
Trying to figure out how a person with a 46 inch waist was shoved into a barrel
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u/userhwon 1d ago
(maths) That's a 15-inch diameter. A 55-gallon drum (which is what this most probably is) has a 23-inch diameter and 35-inch height. He's not fighting back, so he won't mind if they have to jump on the lid to get it closed.
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u/Acceptable-Peace-69 1d ago
The standard external circumference of a 55-gallon drum is approximately 72.26 inches (183.5 cm), which is based on a standard outer diameter of 23 inches. [1]
No problem. Even easier because he was relatively short.
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u/sowhat4 1d ago
If you have a pig farm or live on the edge of the desert, you can fillet a fair bit of fat off a person. If they've been dead a bit, they don't even bleed that much. (so I've heard and read about)
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u/addivinum 1d ago
You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm.
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u/SoCal_GlacierR1T 1d ago
A wordy article revealing almost nothing... was writer paid by character count?
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u/redbanjo 1d ago
Found a barrel off the shore in Lake Powell while diving. I noped out of there pretty quick. Not sure who or what was in it and the condition of the barrel!
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u/Aurora_Gaspipe 1d ago
Probably something extremely scary or extremely radioactive.
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u/denstolenjeep 1d ago
What are the chances it was THIS barrel?
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u/THIESN123 1d ago
Spooky lake month topic perhaps!?
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u/doublek1022 1d ago
Update: Press conference revealing the identity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAuwYteRvp4
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u/FoundationSeveral579 1d ago edited 1d ago
The remains were identified as Edward Lelburian Jackson (spelling confirmed verbally by Clark County Coroner), believed to be mid-late 50s at time of death, last seen visiting family in Arkansas in the early 1980s, unreported missing (family stated he often traveled and not seeing him for long stretches of time was not uncommon so him going out of contact was not alarming, although the relatives still living are distant and cannot remember what he did for work). No known connection to organized crime, no known connections to gambling, no known connections to Las Vegas or Nevada as a whole, criminal record consists of single fraud charge from Utah. Previously lived in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Los Angeles, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Minimal information related to him is available to investigators at this time.
https://www.kten.com/news/national/body-found-in-barrel-in-lake-mead-identified-as-arkansas-man-after-dna-testing-las/article_36814ecc-e2af-5b3d-84c7-7dc4dfc6d5cc.html