One of the most grisly mysteries in the recent history of America’s national parks has finally been solved.
Well, for the most part.
On October 15, police in Las Vegas, Nevada, revealed the identity of human remains that were found inside of a rusting barrel on the shores of Lake Mead in 2022. The grisly discovery by boaters led to a lengthy Outside investigation into the identity of the corpse.
Law enforcement now believes the body is that of Edward Lelburian Jackson, an Arkansas man who vanished in the 1980s. In a press conference held in Las Vegas, officials said they used DNA from bone samples to determine the man’s identity.
“We were able to confirm that the remains were in fact Edward Jackson,” Clark County coroner Melanie Rouse said.
But there’s still a lingering question at the heart of the story, authorities admitted. Nobody knows how Jackson ended up murdered and sealed in a metal drum.
Who Is the Man in the Can?
The mystery of the man in the can dates back to May 1, 20022. That spring, Lake Mead was in the midst of a record drought, and water levels dropped to the lowest point on record—a depressing statistic sadly surpassed in 2026.
Rapidly receding waters exposed parts of the lakebed that had been submerged for decades. And that afternoon, beachgoers near the Hemenway Harbor saw a rusted steel drum emerge from the water. When they looked into the barrel, they saw human bones and the remains of clothes.
Photos of the grisly discovery were uploaded to Instagram and quickly circulated on social media.
On May 3, authorities held a press conference to reveal what they found inside the can: a body, believed to be male, who died by a gunshot wound to the head. Authorities hypothesized that the murder had occurred in the seventies or eighties, based off of the style of clothing found in the can—garments they traced back to Kmart.
The discovery kicked off a frenzy of speculation in Las Vegas, and one podcast even invited divers to try and discover more bodies from the receding waters. That prompted the National Park Service (NPS), which manages Lake Mead, to post a terse statement.
“Visitors are not permitted to come to the park in efforts to independently search for artifacts or other theoretical cold case evidence,” the NPS said.
It also prompted longtime Outside columnist Mark Sundeen to travel to Las Vegas to try and solve the mystery. Over the course of a week, Sundeen spoke to a wide array of sources, from retired police officers to local lake divers to the family members of people who died in Lake Mead.
But after speaking with his sources, Sundeen was still left wondering who, exactly, was in the can.
What Authorities Know About Edward Jackson
In a press conference, Lieutenant Robert Price of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department shared additional details of the investigation. The case had gone dry after authorities released the basic information of the discovery back in 2022.
It wasn’t until DNA from the remains was sent to an FBI laboratory in 2024 that investigators had a break, Rouse said. Authorities then worked with the Forensic Science Department at Oklahoma State University to complete a genealogy trace. The work helped narrow down the origin of the body to Arkansas. Additional detective work narrowed the scope to Jackson, who was believed to be in his early fifties at the time of his death.
Finally, law enforcement officers tracked down family members of Jackson and were able to secure a DNA sample that was sent to Oklahoma State University for testing.
“The OSU report back to us said it was a compelling match,” Rouse said.
Family members told investigators what few details about Jackson they knew. He traveled widely in the seventies and eighties. He was married in California in the seventies and lived in Los Angeles and did not have children. He had a brief criminal history in Utah in the early eighties, and was arrested in Salt Lake City on suspicion of arson.
“He was last seen visiting family in the early eighties,” Lieutenant Robert Price of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department said in the news conference. “Which aligns with the homicide that occurred in the early eighties.”
Price said that the latest revelations, however, did not point to who killed Jackson, or the events that led to his death. The body’s placement in a barrel created speculation that it was the work of the mafia.
“I know there’s been speculation that the homicide had ties to organized criminal groups,” Price said. “However, at this point in our investigation, we don’t have any information to support those theories.”
Lake Mead’s Continuing Mysteries
Whether or not authorities will ever determine how Jackson ended up at the bottom of Lake Mead is unknown. But the lake is likely to offer up more mysteries to authorities in the coming years. In October 2026, the lake fell to 1,037 feet, the lowest mark in history, surpassing the 2022 record by three feet. The reservoir is operating at just 26 percent of its full capacity.
Shortly after the 2022 discovery of the man in the can, divers found a human skull on the bottom of Lake Mead, kicking off new speculation about who the remains belonged to.
On August 16, a visitor at the lake’s Boulder Beach was walking along sections of dry lakebed when she picked up a jawbone with teeth attached. The woman found additional bones nearby.
Authorities later determined that the bones were, indeed, human.
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