When mobsters bury their secrets, they expect them to stay hidden.
But as Nevada’s drought-ravaged Lake Mead recedes and sunlight shines on its muddy depths
for the first time in decades, They may be getting a glimpse into the dark and sordid
mob history of Las Vegas, which lies just 30 miles away.
On May 1st, the remains of a decomposed human body stuffed inside a corroded metal barrel
were discovered stuck in Lake Mead’s mud.
Police say the victim was shot in the head, execution-style, and crammed into the drum
– historically a mob method for disposing of bodies.
The killers transported the barrel by boat several hundred yards out into the lake and
dumped it in what was then 100 feet of water.
There it sat at the bottom of the lake — until now.
Detectives confirmed that the corpse still had a shirt, belt, and shoes clinging to the
remains.
They determined the clothing was purchased in the mid-to-late 1970s at a Kmart discount
store – far from the choice attire of a high-rolling, fashion-conscious mobster.
Their research has found three possible victims who may be the body in the barrel.
The three men, each with links to the mob, disappeared at that time and their bodies
were never found.
Most speculation has centered on George ‘Jay’ Vandermark, a gambling machine cheater trusted
by the mob to oversee its slot machine operation at the Stardust casino on the Las Vegas Strip
— that is, before he double-crossed them.
There’s William Crespo, a drug-runner who turned state’s evidence after he got busted
smuggling cocaine.
He was set to testify against a former insider from a mob-controlled casino company but never
made it to trial.
And the leading candidate for the man in the barrel is Johnny Pappas, a Chicago native,
and veteran Las Vegas casino host.
Johnny Pappas is the leading candidate for the barrel murder victim, due to several key
factors, as reported recently by longtime Las Vegas journalist John L. Smith, who knew
him as a child.
‘Johnny Pappas, born Panagiotakos if I remember correctly, found employment in the casino
industry at the Castaways, Las Vegas Hilton, and Caesars Palace,’ wrote Smith for The
Nevada Independent.
‘By the mid-1970s, Pappas was managing Lake Mead’s Echo Bay Resort, a Teamsters Central
States Pension Fund-financed project, for the Argent Corporation ’ Echo Bay Resort,
now closed, was a hotel and boat launch.
Pappas also owned a boat docked at Lake Mead.
On August 18, 1976, the day he disappeared, Pappas told his wife he was going to Jojo’s
restaurant at 1531 Las Vegas Blvd.
South, near downtown Las Vegas, to meet someone interested in buying his boat.
Four days later, his car was spotted in the parking lot of the Circus Circus casino on
the Strip.
Police, who confirmed Pappas had underworld connections, investigated his disappearance
but found no trace of him.
Did the Outfit fear that Pappas might have something to reveal about the then-unfolding
details about skimming at the Argent casinos?
If so, they had a motive to rub him out.
It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to speculate that they may have lured him to his death
by setting up the ruse of a potential buyer of his boat.
After he was theoretically killed and shoved into a barrel, it wouldn’t have taken much
to dump his body, perhaps using his own vessel.
If the victim in the barrel was Pappas, Crespo, or even Vandermark, then the director of the
Lake Mead murder might well have been Tony Spilotro.
The Outfit sent him to Las Vegas in 1971 to watch its secret casino interests.
He soon expanded into street rackets with his gang of burglars, bookmakers, jewelry
fencers, and hitmen.
In the mid-’70s, Spilotro worked behind the scenes to ensure that the millions in
cash siphoned from Las Vegas casinos made its way to crime families in Chicago, Kansas
City, Milwaukee, and Cleveland.
And suspected mob hits were happening across the country at that time.
In 1977, FBI agents from Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, and New York gathered in
San Diego to discuss a baffling rash of nearly two dozen alleged contract murders nationwide.
Each of the victims died from a shared method — one or more nearly point-blank shots to
the head from a 22 handgun, a favored implement of hitmen because the slugs enter the skull
without blowing back blood and brain matter.