Las Vegas police identified the man found shot and stuffed in a barrel at Lake Mead as Edward "Buddy" Jackson of Arkansas.

For four years this was Las Vegas' most famous John Doe, and the barrel did most of the talking: mob-era lake, gunshot to the head, body sealed in a drum. Now he has a name, a hometown and a family that simply thought he was out on the road. What he still doesn't have is a killer. Homicide detectives were careful Thursday: no evidence of organized crime, but they are not ruling it out either.

The man whose remains were found inside a corroded barrel on the Lake Mead shoreline in 2022 has been identified as Edward "Buddy" Lelburian Jackson, an Arkansas man whose family last saw him in the early 1980s, the Las Vegas Sun, KSNV News 3 Las Vegas and CBS News reported. Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse announced the identification Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, at a news conference at Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department headquarters. She said Jackson was in his mid- to late 50s when he died and had been shot once in the head.

A boater found the mostly skeletonized, fully clothed remains in May 2022, inside a 55-gallon drum partly sunk in mud on newly exposed lakebed west of the Hemenway Harbor launch ramp, the Las Vegas Sun reported. KSNV reported the National Park Service logged the find on May 1, 2022. Drought had pulled the reservoir to record lows. Jackson was wearing a button-down short-sleeve shirt, light blue jeans, a silver wristwatch and blue-and-white tennis shoes, CBS News reported, and the Sun reported the sneakers came from Kmart. Investigators estimate he was killed in the early 1980s, based in part on that clothing.

Rouse said a bone sample went to a lab for genealogy profiling in 2024, but the first lead pointed to a relative who was not close enough for a compelling match, the Sun reported. The case then went to Oklahoma State University's forensic sciences department in Tulsa, where scientists and detectives developed a stronger lead to a living relative earlier this year. Further DNA testing with that relative confirmed the identity. Dr. Jason Beaman, who chairs the school, said the match came through the law-enforcement section of GEDmatch and traced Jackson's roots to the Hot Springs area of western Arkansas.

Homicide Lt. Robert Price said Jackson's family never reported him missing, the Sun and CBS News reported. "They knew that he had traveled the country, would show up when he showed up, just to say hi," Price said. "They just figured he was out and about." Price said Jackson lived in Los Angeles with his wife in the early 1970s during a brief marriage and had no known children, and that he had a short criminal history in Utah in the early 1980s, including charges of aggravated arson and conspiracy to commit fraud. Investigators have found no ties between Jackson and Las Vegas, and it is not clear why he was there.

The method of the killing fueled years of speculation about a mob hit. Pressed by reporters Thursday, Price said, "we're not saying it's not," but that nothing police have learned so far points in that direction, the Sun reported. "It's an unsolved case. It will never be closed until we solve it," he said, according to CBS News. Geoff Schumacher of The Mob Museum told reporters the case carries the "earmarks of a mob hit," CBS News reported, and that museum staff will search their records for anything that might help.

Jackson is the last of four sets of human remains exposed by Lake Mead's falling water in 2022 to be identified. The others belonged to men who disappeared in 1974, 1998 and 2002, the Sun reported. Police are asking anyone who knew Jackson, or knows about his work or travels, to call the LVMPD Homicide Section or Crime Stoppers of Nevada at 702-385-5555, KSNV reported. No one has been arrested or charged in his death. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.