MayhemInTheDesert
Member
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department link to cold cases - McMahon case is near the bottom: 1980 - 1989
Bert Henry McMahon was a 47-year-old oil industry executive traveling from Sonoma, California to Las Vegas for a convention in early 1982. McMahon made the trip with his business partner and co-owner of the North Bay Oil Co. in Napa, California - Charles Kenney. After attending the Inter-Mountain Oil Company Convention at Caesar's Palace, McMahon, Kenney, and about 135 other conventioneers attended a banquet dinner at the Library Buttery and Pub located at 200 West Sahara Ave. After dinner, Kenney and fellow conventioneers waved goodbye to McMahon as he stood outside the Library. That was the last anyone would see Bert McMahon alive. The time was about 8:45 p.m.
At 9:30 p.m., a motorist discovered McMahon's body on the side of the road at East Lake Mead, about 1 1/2 miles east of Mt. Hood Street. McMahon had been shot in the head and body several times. Police estimated the drive from the Library to the location where McMahon was recovered would take about 23 - 26 minutes. McMahon's rental car was where he left it in the parking lot of the Library.
McMahon had cash and jewelry on him when his corpse was discovered, ruling out robbery. Detectives traveled to California to pursue any potential organized crime links but came up with nothing on that front. McMahon was apparently a mild-mannered guy with a wife and teenage son.
Police threw out the theory to reporters that McMahon may have gone with a sex worker from the Library, and a violent altercation ensued. But police also admitted there was no evidence in support of such a theory.
One other data point is that the North Bay Oil Co. ceased operations in March of 1984, about two years over McMahon's death. Later environmental impact statements of the Napa area found North Bay Oil Co. was one of a series of companies responsible for petroleum leaking into the local groundwater.
Info above is taken from 3 Las Vegas-Review Journal articles in 1982-83 that we could locate about this case.
