Suspect in boy’s disappearance arrested by FBI

Greg Tuttle

Friday, Oct. 13, 2000 | 11:16 a.m.

The man at the center of one of Southern Nevada's most notorious police cases is behind bars today on a firearms charge unrelated to the disappearance from a school playground 22 years ago of a 6-year-old boy.

Jerald Howard Burgess, 63, was arrested by the FBI Thursday morning after allegedly selling an undercover agent a handgun equipped with a silencer, rubber gloves and bullets. Just before his arrest, Burgess allegedly was recorded as saying he wanted to kill a former federal judge and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman.

During an 18-month investigation, Burgess also allegedly offered to dispose of a body within "spitting distance" of where he said the missing child was buried more than two decades ago.

A federal prosecutor said Thursday Burgess described in detail how he encased the child's body in a large metal drum and offered to do the same for the undercover agent at a cost of $250,000.

Burgess made an initial appearance Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court, where Magistrate Phyllis Atkins ordered him detained until next week when she will hear more evidence in order to decide whether he should be released pending trial.

A complaint filed Thursday charges Burgess with a single count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

FBI spokesman Joseph Dickey said the case remains under investigation and other charges could be filed, including charges related to the boy's mysterious disappearance.

Casy Sayegh disappeared on Oct. 25, 1978. The son of wealthy Las Vegas business owner Sol Sayegh, the 6-year-old was last seen being forced into a car near the Albert Einstein Hebrew School on East Oakey Boulevard.

He was never seen again and suspicion quickly turned toward Burgess, a former employee of the boy's father. Burgess was later convicted of sexually assaulting a woman at the school a week before the first-grader disappeared.

The case riveted the Las Vegas community when a $500,000 ransom demand was made to the child's parents. Burgess was identified as a suspect by children who saw their classmate abducted, and then by others who identified his voice on the telephone call making the ransom demand.

But the case stalled despite a massive search, including efforts by Las Vegas Sun publisher Hank Greenspun and Goodman, who at the time was a criminal defense attorney. Greenspun offered Burgess a reward to return the child, and Goodman acted as a go-between, but the effort failed.

Three years later Burgess was tried in Clark County District Court on charges of kidnapping and obtaining money under false pretense, but a jury acquitted him. He was sentenced to 15 years, however, on unrelated charges involving rape and fraud.

After his acquittal on the kidnapping charge, Burgess said he believed the child was still alive and living in Israel.

Burgess was released from prison in 1989, and he returned to Las Vegas.

The kidnaping case was closed for two decades until new information surfaced in April of last year, and the FBI reopened the investigation, Dickey said. He declined to say what that new information was.

But in court Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Ko described details of the investigation that included tape recordings of Burgess allegedly offering to "take care of people."

Ko said Burgess allegedly said he could dispose of a body by welding it in a steel drum and dumping it in the same place where Cary Sayegh's body has remained undiscovered.

Ko said Burgess is known to have rented welding equipment days prior to the child's abduction in 1978.

Burgess allegedly agreed to dispose of a body for $250,000, and offered to sell the undercover agent weapons and poison.

According to court records, Burgess met a female undercover agent on June 22 at the parking lot of the Sante Fe hotel-casino. Burgess allegedly sold the agent a .22-caliber handgun equipped with a 12-inch silencer, a box of bullets and rubber gloves for $700.

On Thursday morning, the agent met Burgess at a Las Vegas storage unit where the agent was to deliver a body in a metal drum, Ko said. During a covertly taped conversation, Burgess allegedly said he wanted to kill former U.S. District Court Judge Harry Claiborne, Goodman and an unidentified third person, Ko said.

Claiborne presided over the 1979 trial in which Burgess was convicted of bilking $200,000 from a Texas couple.

Burgess appeared calm at the court hearing Thursday, often smiling at his wife and sister who were seated in the gallery. The women declined to comment after the hearing.