George Jay Vandermark was a 52-year-old White male when he vanished from Phoenix, Arizona, in 1976. Missing-person records use August 1, 1976 as his formal missing date, although the underlying account is less precise and says he was last seen sometime in August or September in the vicinity of 24th Street and Camelback Road. That uncertainty has followed the case for decades: there is no firmly documented public account identifying the exact day or moment when he was last seen. Vandermark, who commonly went by his middle name Jay, had gray hair and brown eyes and was described as approximately 6 feet 2 inches to 6 feet 4 inches tall and 190 to 200 pounds. He wore eyeglasses with black plastic frames and hearing aids in both ears, and he had distinctive spot-like burn scars on his right elbow and right shoulder. After his final known period in Phoenix, he was never reliably heard from again.
The circumstances leading to Vandermark’s disappearance began in Las Vegas, where he worked as a slot-machine supervisor at the Stardust casino during a period of intense scrutiny of casino operations and organized crime influence. Historical reporting states that Vandermark had been hired in 1974 to oversee slot operations at the Stardust and other casinos controlled by the Argent Corporation. In May 1976, Nevada Gaming Control Board investigators searched the Stardust’s slot-counting operation as part of an investigation into the diversion, or skimming, of casino proceeds. Contemporary and later accounts described millions of dollars being removed from casino revenues before the money could be officially recorded. Vandermark became a central figure in that investigation and left Las Vegas as regulators closed in on the operation. Reports from the period stated that authorities believed he had gone to Mexico, while later accounts placed him specifically in Mazatlán for a time. The Nevada Independent has similarly reported that Vandermark disappeared from the Las Vegas scene after gaming authorities searched the Stardust’s slot coin-count room in May 1976.
Investigators and later histories of the Stardust scandal alleged that approximately $7 million or more had been skimmed and that Vandermark was suspected of withholding part of the proceeds from the organized-crime interests involved. The Charley Project reports that authorities believed roughly $4 million had been passed along while approximately $3 million had been retained by Vandermark, a circumstance that would have placed him in danger from more than one direction: gaming investigators wanted information from him, while organized-crime figures allegedly had their own reasons for wanting to find him. According to the same missing-person account, investigators attempted to establish contact with Vandermark through his son, Jeff, who told them his father was in Mexico and would make contact. Vandermark never did. Jeff himself later died violently in Las Vegas. Public accounts differ on the timing and surrounding implications of his death, and later reporting from the Mob Museum states that Las Vegas police investigated Jeff’s killing, made an arrest and determined the motive was robbery rather than his father’s casino activities. Whatever the relationship between those events, the possibility that George Vandermark might return and speak with investigators disappeared with him.
At some point after fleeing Las Vegas, Vandermark apparently returned to the United States and made his way to Phoenix. Missing-person sources place him around 24th Street and Camelback Road in August or September 1976, and later historical reporting connects him with the Arizona Manor Hotel in that same area. Phoenix Magazine reported that Vandermark had returned from Mexico and was hiding at the Arizona Manor under an assumed name. The hotel was associated in later accounts with Emil “Mal” Vaci, a man who had longstanding ties to the property and who himself became entangled years later in investigations involving Vandermark’s disappearance. The Mob Museum similarly reports that Vandermark was last seen at a Phoenix hotel during this period. From that point forward, there is no documented public record of Vandermark rebuilding a life elsewhere, contacting relatives or appearing before the authorities who had wanted to question him. His trail simply stops in Phoenix.
Years later, the case acquired a disturbing possible explanation through testimony connected to the federal Operation Family Secrets prosecution of members and associates of the Chicago Outfit. Former Outfit hitman Nick Calabrese, who became a government witness, provided information that was later reported as an account of Vandermark’s fate. According to the Mob Museum and subsequent reporting, Calabrese said organized-crime figures learned Vandermark was hiding at the Arizona Manor and that John Fecarotta and Jimmy LaPietra were sent to Phoenix. Calabrese’s account alleged that Vandermark was killed and that his body was taken away and buried somewhere in the Arizona desert. Phoenix Magazine has reported a similar version of events. These claims offer a possible explanation for why a man being sought by both investigators and alleged organized-crime associates could disappear so completely, but they have never produced the most important physical evidence: Vandermark’s remains have not been recovered, and no publicly documented discovery has conclusively established where he went after his final known time in Phoenix.
The absence of a recovered body has periodically brought Vandermark’s name back into public discussion whenever unidentified remains connected to the Las Vegas area are discovered. When human remains were found inside a barrel at Lake Mead in 2022, his name was among those considered in public speculation because of his disappearance during the 1970s casino era. Reporting on the discovery noted, however, that Calabrese’s account placed Vandermark’s alleged death and burial in Arizona rather than Lake Mead, making that particular theory difficult to reconcile with the testimony. More importantly, speculation about unidentified remains is not the same as an identification, and Vandermark’s case cannot be resolved simply by fitting his story to another unsolved mystery. His known record remains rooted in the final stretch of his life: a 52-year-old man named George “Jay” Vandermark left the increasingly dangerous world surrounding the Stardust investigation, was reportedly in Mexico for a period, returned or traveled to Phoenix, and was last known to be in the area of 24th Street and Camelback Road in August or September 1976. The Phoenix Police Department is identified as the investigating agency, and public missing-person records continue to describe foul play as a concern. In overview, the case is the story of a man whose disappearance unfolded amid a major casino-skimming investigation, alleged organized-crime pressure and years of later testimony pointing toward a possible killing, yet without the recovery of his remains or definitive physical proof of what happened after his last known days in Phoenix; behind all of those larger historical circumstances remains the unresolved disappearance of George Vandermark and the enduring absence of a final, verifiable answer about his fate.Last Seen: Aug 1, 1976
