A scientist from Oklahoma State University described Friday how a DNA sample from a bone, forensic genealogy and a social media post helped determine the identity of the dead man found in a barrel at Lake Mead.

On Thursday, Clark County Coroner Melanie Rouse unveiled his name: Edward Lelburian Jackson. He went by the nickname “Buddy” and was believed to be in his 50s when he died.

According to Lt. Robert Price, a Metropolitan Police Department homicide investigator, Jackson was likely killed in the early 1980s.

Someone, authorities have said, shot Jackson in the head, sealed him in a barrel, then dumped the drum in the lake. Jackson and his tomb stayed in the reservoir’s murky depths for decades until May 2022, when receding water levels at Hemenway Harbor revealed the then-unidentified man’s grisly fate, kicking off a more than three-year search to find out who he was.

“It takes our coroner’s office working hand in glove with our police department and the scientific community to really help get us to a point like this,” Clark County Commission Chair Michael Naft said in a Thursday press conference in which Rouse announced Jackson’s ID.

Rouse said authorities were able to get a sample of DNA from the body early on.

“While we had his DNA, there was nothing to test it against, meaning that his DNA was not in the system,” she said.

In September of 2022, Rouse said investigators enlisted the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s lab in Quantico, Virginia, to create three angles of a composite face, which were released to the public in late 2023. Those images, alongside photos of the clothing Jackson was wearing at the time of his death, were uploaded into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons database.

In early 2024, a bone sample was sent to DNA International for genealogy profiling. Authorities received some information about a possible match. The coroner’s office then requested the Forensic Sciences Department at Oklahoma State University to take over genealogy profiling, and they agreed.

Jason Beaman, chair of the School of Forensic Sciences at Oklahoma State University, described in a phone interview Friday how scientists at the university helped in an effort that involved investigators who “turned the world upside down” to solve the mystery.

He said the school offers degrees in fields of study covering subjects including fingerprinting, DNA, ballistics, and forensic psychology. At the school is what is known as the Human Identity Testing Lab, which partners with law enforcement and coroners across the country to do scientific testing aimed at identifying John and Jane Does.

“If you think you know who the person is, send us a sample and we’ll tell you if you’re right or not,” Beaman said.

In the case of the man sealed in the barrel, however, authorities didn’t have an idea of who he was. Information garnered from DNA International was provided to the lab, but scientists at Oklahoma State also asked for and received a bone sample from the unidentified man so they could create their own profile.

“In the last five years, we have gotten involved in forensic genealogy, which is where, if you don’t have a potential relationship to test against, we will then obtain the DNA directly from the sample, so from a bone, process that, and we turn that physical substance into a computer file,” Beaman said. “That computer file is then uploaded to a genealogy website where it is tested against family.”

“We have a whole-genome sequencer where we obtain the whole DNA sequence and convert that into a file that can be uploaded to the genealogy website,” Beaman explained.

In Jackson’s case, scientists used Jackson’s DNA profile and profiles from the genealogy website to help track down family members of both Jackson’s mother and father. Authorities then found a social media post about Jackson’s disappearance, once posted by a family member, affirming that the scientists were on the right track in their suspicion the man in the barrel was Jackson.

“We start testing that against different theories and trying to prove it wrong like, ‘OK, so where’s the hole in our argument?’” Beaman said. “We couldn’t do that, so we became pretty convinced.”

The scientists at Oklahoma State reached out to the coroner’s office and told them they believed the man was Jackson.

“We said we think this is your guy, but this is not perfect science,” Beaman said. “So, you need to get DNA from a relative or first-degree relative and we can test it and we can do regular DNA testing there. And that’s what we did.”

Beaman said the university and its scientists are proud to have contributed to the cause to identify Jackson.

“I’m very proud of my department and my school and the work that we do,” he said. “And, this has allowed us to highlight it.”

Contact Glenn Puit at gpuit@reviewjournal.com.