LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — In 1954, Channel 13 hadn't started broadcasting, the Nevada Gaming Control Board had not been created, and Las Vegas was still considered by many as an outlaw city.
But during that same year, a body was found buried in the desert near what is now Harry Reid International Airport.
It's the oldest unsolved homicide case in Las Vegas history and one that investigators say deals with missing union money, an extortion ring and shakedowns.
It's a crime that could have been taken right from the mob's handbook — but one committed over what investigators believed were union misdeeds.
"This was a time when a lot of criminally minded people were coming to Las Vegas," said Geoff Schumacher, a longtime Las Vegas journalist who is now vice president of exhibits at The Mob Museum.
Investigators say on March 13, 1954, a person was out walking their dog when they found a hand sticking out of the dirt.
Clark County sheriff's deputies identified the body as James Harry Hartley, who was a business agent for the Sheet Metal Workers Union Local 88.
"It's not clear whether the motivation for killing him was that he was stealing or, possibly, that he was going to expose what was happening at the union to the authorities," Schumacher said.
Police say they believe Hartley was killed between Feb. 26 and March 4 of 1954.
According to investigators, someone drove Hartley's car hundreds of miles to Los Angeles and left it there with a briefcase.
In his car, officers seized several thousand dollars in government bonds, as well as a handgun.
Police say the investigation quickly focused on infamous hitman and Sheet Metal Workers Union boss Thomas Hanley.
"Tom Hanley was someone who was just criminally minded," Schumacher said. "He seemed to always be looking for a scheme of one kind or another."
Hanley was never charged in this case. Schumacher said he was suspected of several killings but was only charged in the murder of 77-year-old Al Bramlet, the leader of the Culinary Union in the 1970s.
Bramlet's body was also found buried in the desert.
"Tom Hanley, I would describe him as mob-adjacent" Schumacher explained. "He seemed to certainly be in discussions with mobsters to be, perhaps, paid by them to do work."
Police back then speculated that Hartley was killed to prevent him from revealing an extortion ring within Local 88.
We also talked with Anthony Smith and Megan Madden, co-founders of Mayhem in the Desert, who look into cold cases and high-profile murders in the Las Vegas valley.
"I think there's always this threat, either implied or direct, that if you speak, we are going to know who you are. We are going to come after you or your family," Smith said.
Shortages of funds from the labor union were also discovered, which police say was between $5,000 to $30,000.
"From the 1940s all the way through the 1970s, there was a different kind of organized crime, and they had a grip on the city," Smith said. "It sunk its teeth into local labor organizations."
After chasing down leads and questioning possible witnesses, police ran into dead ends.
To this day, no one has been charged for this crime.
"Cold cases do get solved," Schumacher said. "Sometimes it's really amazing how police figure out how to build a case. But in this one, I just don't think so."
If you have any information on the killing of James Hartley, you are urged to call Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555.
