Jay Vandermark: Stardust Skim, Mob Hit, and Lake Mead Barrel

Jay Vandermark was a Stardust casino slot machine supervisor recruited by the Chicago Outfit in 1974 to run one of the largest skimming operations in Las Vegas history. When Nevada regulators uncovered the scheme in May 1976, he fled. He was last seen in Phoenix that summer, and a Chicago Outfit hitman later testified in federal court that mob killers shot Vandermark at a Phoenix hotel and buried him somewhere in the Arizona desert. His body has never been found. Phoenix police still list George “Jay” Vandermark as an endangered missing person.¹

How He Ended Up at the Stardust

In late 1974, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal brought Vandermark into the Argent Corporation, the company that owned the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda, and Marina casinos. Argent had been founded by Allen Glick and financed with a $62.75 million loan from the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund, but its Las Vegas operations were effectively controlled by Rosenthal on behalf of organized crime.²³

On paper, Vandermark’s job was slot machine supervisor, and at one point he oversaw slots at all four Argent properties.⁴ In practice, Rosenthal had brought him in as a “ringer,” someone with the technical skill to manipulate the machines and the counts that came out of them.³ Vandermark never went through Nevada’s gaming licensing process, which would have required a background check. Regulators later flagged that omission.

The Slot Machine Skim

The idea was simple. Skim cash out of the casinos before it could be counted and reported, then move the money to organized crime families in Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Cleveland. Vandermark’s contribution was to compromise the coin-weighing machines that tallied slot revenue, letting him undercount the take and divert the difference.³

Estimates of the total stolen from the slots under his watch run from about $7 million to as high as $15 million or $20 million.⁵⁶ The slot skim was one piece of a broader operation that also skimmed table games through phony paperwork. Cleveland mob figure Angelo Lonardo later testified that the four participating families received between $40,000 and $100,000 each per month from the combined operation.⁷ Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro, the Outfit’s man in Las Vegas, handled the distribution.⁸

Why the Mob Turned on Him

Vandermark was not just skimming for the Outfit. He was skimming from the Outfit. Investigators believe that of the millions taken from the slots, Vandermark passed roughly $4 million to the mob and kept around $3 million for himself.¹ That, more than the exposure of the scheme itself, is what made him a marked man.

Flight, Phoenix, and the Killing

In May 1976, the Nevada Gaming Commission uncovered the slot skim. The Nevada Gaming Control Board issued a subpoena for Vandermark, but he was already gone.⁵ He first went to Mazatlán, Mexico, living in a trailer camp under the alias “Steven Brown.”⁶

He was last seen in August or September 1976 near 24th Street and Camelback Road in Phoenix, Arizona.¹⁶⁹

The clearest account of what happened next came from Nick “Nicky Slim” Calabrese, an Outfit hitman who turned government witness. Testifying at the 2007 Operation Family Secrets trial in federal court, Calabrese said Outfit killers John “Big John” Fecarotta and Jimmy LaPietra went to the Arizona Manor, killed Vandermark there, wheeled his body out in a wheelchair, and buried him in the Arizona desert.⁸⁹ The body has never been recovered.⁵

The Killing of His Son

After Vandermark vanished, investigators tried to reach him through his son. Jeff Vandermark, a Las Vegas casino employee, was in contact with his father and had talked with the Nevada Gaming Control Board about possibly bringing him back to testify.⁸

In April 1977, Jeff was found beaten to death with a hammer in his Las Vegas apartment.⁶ Las Vegas police arrested a suspect and concluded the motive was robbery, unrelated to his father.⁸ The Chicago Tribune reported that Jeff’s death “spooked the old man,” and if Jay Vandermark was still alive at that point, he disappeared for good.

Is He the Body in the Lake Mead Barrel?

On May 1, 2022, receding water at Lake Mead exposed a corroded oil barrel at Hemenway Harbor holding human skeletal remains. The victim had been shot once in the head, and investigators estimated the body had been placed there in the late 1970s or early 1980s.¹⁰ Vandermark’s name surfaced quickly as a possible match.

Researchers and people close to the case have generally set the theory aside. Frank Calabrese Jr., nephew of the man whose testimony described the killing, has pointed out that Nick Calabrese placed the murder in Phoenix and the burial in the Arizona desert, making a body dumped in a Nevada lake an awkward fit.¹¹ The Clark County Coroner’s Office has a DNA profile from the remains, and the FBI has produced facial approximation images, but no identification has been made.¹⁰

Where the Case Stands

Nearly five decades on, no one has ever been charged with Jay Vandermark’s murder. His body has never been recovered. He remains listed as an endangered missing person by the Phoenix Police Department: a white male, roughly 6 feet 2 inches to 6 feet 4 inches tall, 190 to 200 pounds, with gray hair, brown eyes, black plastic-framed glasses, hearing aids in both ears, and burn scars on his right elbow and right shoulder.¹

Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film Casino included a loosely fictionalized version of Vandermark in the character John Nance, tracked down and shot in Costa Rica. Vandermark had been rumored at various times to have fled to Mexico and to Costa Rica, but the account given under oath by Nick Calabrese put the killing at a hotel in Phoenix.¹²

1
Charley Project. George Jay Vandermark
2
The Mob Museum. Allen Glick, 1970s Owner of Las Vegas Casinos Skimmed by Mob, Has Died
3
The Mob Museum. Frank Lefty Rosenthal
4
Las Vegas Sun. Argent Probe Widens
5
The Mob Museum. Body in the Barrel at Lake Mead Has Makings of Mob Hit
6
Chicago Tribune. Spilotro Case Gets a Twist
7
The Mob Museum. Stardust Hotel Debuted 60 Years Ago
8
Boulder City Review. Theory Ties Mobsters to Body Found in Barrel
9
Phoenix Magazine. The Maitre D Mob Hit
10
FOX 5 Las Vegas. Authorities Ask Help Identifying Remains Found in Barrel at Lake Mead
11
Slow Journalism. Dead in the Water
12
Las Vegas Review-Journal. Tony Spilotro and the Mystery of Lake Meads Body in a Barrel