3 days Ago By Gina Martinez
A local group of volunteers helped solve a Las Vegas woman's murder 30 year after she was killed . On Oct. 22, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced they were able to identify Arthur Joseph Lavery as the suspect in the murder of Melonie White .
White was 27 years old when hikers found her body near Lake Mead National Recreation Area, around 10 miles east of Las Vegas, on August 27, 1994, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a news release . An autopsy ruled the cause of her death as homicide with evidence of strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head, according to police. Police tracked down multiple leads, but no suspect was ever identified and the case went cold , leaving her grieving family with no answers for decades.
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Testing led to the DNA profile of a male suspect and it was entered into a national DNA database, police said. “Unfortunately, it did not identify who that suspect was and nor did it correlate or cross reference to any other investigations being handled by law enforcement at that time,” Homicide Lieutenant Jason Johansson said at a press conference. In 2021 the Las Vegas-based nonprofit Vegas Justice League paid for the costs of sending the case to a laboratory that used DNA testing and genetic genealogy.
On Aug. 26, 2024, detectives were notified by the Texas-based lab Orthram that forensic genetic genealogy identified Arthur Joseph Lavery as the suspect in this case. Lavery was living in Las Vegas at the time of the murder and moved to California in the mid 2000’s.
He died in February 2021 from heart disease and complications from COVID. Johansson said Lavery had a battery arrest in Las Vegas but no other criminal history, which explains why there was no DNA match when they ran the suspect profile through the DNA database. Melonie’s two younger brothers said they were grateful their sister's killer has been identified.
“We’re very very grateful for the contributions of the Vegas Justice League whose donation for DNA testing by the police allowed for the police to crack the case,” her brother Jason White told reporters. Johansson thanked the Vegas Justice League's for providing the funds that made it possible to solve the case. “It is their support that has directly led to the closure now of 9 cold cases that would’ve never been solved without their assistance,” he said.
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