Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024 | 4:54 p.m.
In 1994, while studying at Arizona State University, Jason White received a message on his answering machine from his brother, Walter, asking him to pick up the phone for news that couldn’t be left on an answering machine.
The news was grim: the body of their sister, Melonie, had been found near Lake Mead Boulevard by two hikers, with no suspect or motive in sight.
Melonie White, 27, was found dead in August 1994 on Lake Mead Boulevard in Las Vegas. Her killer was eventually identified by Metro Police as Arthur Lavery.
Now three decades later while in the middle of a work trip, Jason almost didn’t see the voicemail left on his phone by a Metro Sergeant, feeling overwhelmed by the usual stream of campaign calls ahead of the November election. On a whim, he decided to listen to the message 30 years in the making: Metro Police had identified Melonie’s killer, and they wanted to inform her family of their discovery.
“Obviously, people are getting a lot of texts and voicemail messages because of the political time of the year we’re in, and I almost didn’t listen to it,” Jason said. “It was a short conversation that kind of closed the book on 30 years of not knowing what happened.”
Arthur Lavery, seen in a Metro Police photo, was identified as the killer of Melonie White in 1994. Lavery has since died.
Metro Lt. Jason Johansson made the public announcement during a press conference Tuesday, flanked by Jason and Walter. Arthur Joseph Lavery, a now-deceased man who lived in Las Vegas in the 2000s, matched with DNA investigators had found after reopening the case in 2010.
The case was finally solved with the help of the Vegas Justice League, a citizen organization which pulls public donations to help submit DNA evidence to a private DNA company for testing and cross-referencing. Both Walter and Jason credited and thanked the League for their part in helping solve the case.
In 1994, a 27-year-old Melonie White had moved to Las Vegas from Arizona in the spring with her boyfriend at the time, struggling to find work between Phoenix and Las Vegas, Walter recalled. It would be only a few months later when she would be killed. Detectives at the time exhausted leads, investigating Melonie’s last known whereabouts and receiving several tips from community members, but none led to any conclusions.
Then in 2010, Metro’s Cold Case team requested additional DNA testing of evidence, which provided a sample from the murderer — but had no match in the national police DNA database CODIS. Again, the case was cold. Detectives, aided by the Vegas Justice League, sent the new evidence to a private company, which linked forensic genealogy to Lavery.
Walter said their mother was most affected by Melonie’s death, having been “absolutely destroyed” by the loss of her daughter. While both brothers said they were thankful Lavery’s identity had been uncovered and said it brought peace to their family, they have no interest in understanding more about the man or his connection to their sister.
“To be totally honest, I actually don’t want to know much more about it, I’m not going to dig into this at all,” Walter said during the press conference Tuesday.
According to the Vegas Justice League website, seven Las Vegas cold cases have been solved with their assistance. Metro Police also maintains one of the highest homicide solving rates in the country, at over 90% solving rate, compared to a national average of about 50%, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.