Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - 30 Year Cold Case - The Murder of Melonie White

Starting point is 00:00:00 To listen ad-free, visit Zinspod.co slash subscribe. Starting at $2.99 a month, you'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you join through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show! In August of 1994, two hikers made a grim discovery on Lake Mead Boulevard. The remains of a young woman at the bottom of a gypsum wash. The victim was Melanie White, a 27-year-old mom who had recently moved to Las Vegas with her boyfriend. What followed were decades of agonizing silence with her friends and family left wondering who could have done this.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Today, we'll talk about what we know about Melanie and the events that brought closure after almost 30 years. Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence, as well as missing persons and unsolved cases. I'm your host, Sean. And I'm your co-host, John. This week, we'd like to share another amazing cold case solved brought to you by the incredible dedication of the Las Vegas Justice League and also the Cold Case Division of Metro Police. This was one of the very first cases taken up by the Las Vegas Justice League back in 2021, and it turned out to be the ninth case solved locally and brought the nationwide count of

Starting point is 00:01:24 solved cases they helped fund to 41, which is, as we always say, amazing. The entire Las Vegas community is eternally grateful for their ongoing work and relentless pursuit of solving every open cold case possible. Do you want to start us out? Of course. For today's case, we're going back to 1994, when Las Vegas only had 330,000 or so residents, compared with the over 665,000 today. And Henderson only had about 115,000, compared with about 350,000 today. People talk about the population of Las Vegas as being over 3 million, but that includes the whole metropolitan area. The city itself is obviously much smaller. It's grown a lot and expanded a lot in land size, too, which we've covered before. Back in 94, Henderson and Las Vegas didn't even border each other, and there was quite a bit of

Starting point is 00:02:16 open desert between them. So back then, two male hikers were hiking down Lake Mead Boulevard, which at the time was pretty desolate but is now pretty built up, and they were at the entrance to the Lake Mead recreational area when they made their grisly discovery. It was the recent remains of an adult female in a gypsum wash right off Lake Mead Boulevard near a dirt turnout. The hikers called in Metro Police, who responded and took charge of the investigation. Unlike so many cases like this that we cover, they identified the victim quickly as being 27-year-old Melanie White. Melanie moved to Las Vegas in the spring of 1994, chasing a fresh start with her boyfriend and her

Starting point is 00:02:57 two-year-old son. Her family, including her mom and her two younger brothers, Walter and Jason, who were both in college at the time, were still living in Phoenix. According to them, she spent a lot of time going back and forth between the two cities, caught between where she came from and where she was hoping to go. Walter said she was at a bit of a crossroads, figuring out her next move, trying to land on a career that felt right. She was hopeful, but like a lot of people in their 20s, she was still finding her footing. It might not have been the easiest time to build a life in Las Vegas, though. The recession that hit the U.S. in the early 90s had technically

Starting point is 00:03:36 ended, but here the recovery was slower. Tourism hadn't fully bounced back and jobs were hard to come by, especially for someone young, new to town, and trying to start from the ground up. Her brothers also said that she had a super kind heart, the kind of person who genuinely cared about others. Jason described her as gentle and thoughtful, the kind of sister who listened more than she spoke. Walter said she had a bright spirit and loved fashion, something that gave her confidence and joy. As we said, she was also a young mom doing her best to carve out a life for herself and her son. Her family could see how hard she was working to make that happen. Walter said he'd helped her move a few times, so he wasn't concerned at what he called her bouncing back and forth. He was sure she'd land on her feet and figure it all out for herself.

Starting point is 00:04:30 After not hearing from her for an extended period, her family reported her missing in June or July of 1994, but there are other reports that conclusively state that her friends of hers saw her on August 26, 1994, in the area of 15th Street and Fremont. At first, investigators did what they could with what they had. The crime scene was isolated, and detectives noted early on that it looked like Melanie's body had been dragged there, possibly from a nearby vehicle. It was a remote spot and the kind of place you'd only find if you were out there hiking, which is exactly what happened. After the Clark County coroner confirmed her identity,

Starting point is 00:05:09 her cause of death was quickly ruled a homicide, strangulation with ligature, along with blunt force trauma to the head. It was a brutal, personal kind of violence. Police followed up on leads, interviewed people who might have seen her in the days prior, and tried to piece together her movements, but unfortunately, the trail went cold quickly. There was no obvious suspect, no weapon, no clear motive, and so, despite the efforts made in those first few days, the case stalled out. Melanie's name was added to a growing list of unsolved homicides in Las Vegas, and her family was left with nothing but questions about who could have done this and why. Remember, in 1994, DNA testing was still in its infancy, especially for local

Starting point is 00:05:50 police departments. It had already been used in a few high-profile cases, but it was expensive, time-consuming, and far from routine. Most departments, including Las Vegas Metro, didn't have the resources or infrastructure to make DNA analysis a regular part of investigations. And even when DNA was collected, there often wasn't much to compare it to. The National CODIS database, which today helps law enforcement match unknown DNA profiles to known offenders, was still in its early days. It was launched in 1990, but only a handful of states were contributing profiles at the time. Nevada wouldn't begin submitting to CODIS until later in the decade. So even though investigators in Melanie's case preserved DNA from the scene, they were essentially holding onto a clue that

Starting point is 00:06:34 couldn't lead anywhere, not without a name or a match. To their credit, though, Metro did collect and store that evidence, and while we can't know for sure what they hoped that would accomplish at the time, it's likely that they kept it with the belief that one day the science would catch up and finally give them a suspect. It wasn't until 2010, 16 years after Melanie was killed, that her case saw its first real movement. The case was reopened and investigators went back to the evidence they'd collected at the crime scene in 1994. This time, they submitted it for new testing. The technology had come a long way since then, and now the results gave them something solid.

Starting point is 00:07:15 A full male DNA profile, a major step forward. Finally, something they could work with. The profile was uploaded to CODIS, but there were no matches, no names. That told them something. It meant the person who left the DNA had either never been convicted of a qualifying crime, or if they had, it happened before Nevada was contributing DNA to the system. Remember, CODIS launched in 1990, but Nevada didn't start submitting profiles until later in the decade. So even with that clue, a full, preserved DNA profile, they still didn't know who he was.

Starting point is 00:07:54 It was a critical piece of the puzzle, but it was still missing a face. Then, 10 years later, in 2021, the case got another second wind, thanks to the Vegas Justice League. You probably remember them. They're the group in Las Vegas that raises money to fund advanced DNA testing on cold cases. Melanie's case was actually one of the first they took on, and like we've seen in other cases, their support, along with their partnership with Las Vegas Metro, made all the difference. With the analysis funded, Metro sent the DNA profile to Othram, the private lab in Texas we've talked about so many times before, where they specialize in forensic genetic genealogy, also known as investigative genetic genealogy. And just as a refresher, IgG is very different from a standard CODIS match. CODIS can only tell you if a suspect's DNA matches someone already in the system,

Starting point is 00:08:42 like a convicted offender. But IgG looks deeper. It builds out extended family trees using distant relatives found in genealogy databases. People who've updated their DNA to ancestry or for family history. We don't know the specifics of the family tree that Othram built or who the match was in this case. Could have been a cousin or second cousin or someone even further removed, but that the match was in this case. Could have been a cousin, or second cousin, or someone even further removed, but that one connection was enough to start narrowing things down. By the end of August 2024, almost exactly 30 years to the day after Melanie was found by those hikers, Othram informed Metro they finally had a name. Metro detective Jason Johansson held a press conference in August of 2024, inviting Melanie's two brothers, along with two members of the Vegas Justice League.

Starting point is 00:09:32 That's where they announced what the family had waited nearly three decades to hear, the man responsible for Melanie White's murder had finally been identified. His name was Arthur Joseph Lavery. Lavery would have been 38 years old at the time of the murder. He'd lived in Las Vegas during the 1990s, attended high school here, and had reportedly worked locally as well. But he would never be arrested. He died in 2021 from complications related to COVID after relocating to California sometime in the mid-2000s. Police said that his only known criminal record was a battery charge, an offense that, at the time, likely wouldn't have resulted in a DNA sample being collected, especially since Nevada didn't begin submitting profiles to CODIS

Starting point is 00:10:18 until much later. Detective Johanson pointed out that it's likely that's the reason there was no match for all those years. As for any personal connection to Melanie, investigators still weren't sure. There was no confirmed link between them. Lavery lived in the area of 15th and Fremont at the time, and a few of Melanie's friends recalled seeing her in that neighborhood the night before she was killed, but it's not enough to draw any solid conclusions. At the press conference, her brother spoke publicly and answered questions from the press. Jason said that the short conversation with the police when they told him they'd identified the

Starting point is 00:10:54 murderer closed the book on 30 years of not knowing. Walter agreed, saying he didn't feel the need to know everything about Lavery, just knowing who had done this was enough. After decades of silence, they finally had an answer. Not justice in the traditional sense, but maybe something close to peace. They also told the press that Melanie's son, now 33, happy, healthy, and still a deeply important part of their family. While Lavery will never face justice in a courtroom, this moment still mattered deeply. Melanie's mother was said to have been shattered by her daughter's death, and the entire family felt the weight, and the relief, of finally having closure. Melanie White was just 27 years old, a young mom trying to find her footing,

Starting point is 00:11:40 doing her best to build a life. She didn't deserve what happened to her, and for nearly three decades, her story sat unsolved but didn't disappear. That's because the people who loved her and the people determined to honor her never stopped looking. This case is what happens when that persistence meets the right technology. The detectives at Las Vegas Metro held onto the evidence year after year, and Las Vegas Justice League, through their fundraising and advocacy, helped turn a cold case into a solvable one. You can be a part of that process too, Evidence Year After Year and Las Vegas Justice League, through their fundraising and advocacy, helped turn a cold case into a solvable one. You can be a part of that process too. If you'd like to support cases like Melanie's, visit DNAsolves.com to contribute to active investigations. And if you've ever taken a consumer DNA test, you can upload your profile to GEDmatch or

Starting point is 00:12:22 FamilyTreeDNA and opt in to law enforcement matching. You never know who it might help or what story it might finally complete. We'll be back next week with another new episode, but until then, we remind you, what happens here, happens everywhere. Thanks for listening. Visit sinspod.co slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad-free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Threads at Sins and Survivors. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at questions at sinsandsurvivors.com. If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence

Starting point is 00:13:22 or needs support, please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources is available on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research written and produced by your hosts, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for this episode can be found on our website, Thank you.

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Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - 30 Year Cold Case - The Murder of Melonie White

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