BULLHEAD CITY, Arizona — A man was found dead with multiple stab wounds in the desert east of Bullhead City on Saturday, November 7, and within about five hours two Bullhead City residents were under arrest across the state line in Laughlin, Nevada, after officers found the dead man's stolen car at a casino there, Bullhead City police said.
Source: AZ Family (KTVK/KPHO), reporting Bullhead City Police Department statement
According to police, first responders went to a desert location along Silver Creek Road near Bullhead Parkway shortly before noon on Saturday, after a passing driver reported finding a body. Officers found a 29-year-old man who had multiple stab wounds. Police said the man was experiencing homelessness. His name has not been released; police said it will be made public after his next of kin have been notified.
Silver Creek Road runs through open desert on the eastern side of Bullhead City, a Colorado River city in Mohave County in far northwestern Arizona. The spot where the man was found, near the Bullhead Parkway, is away from the city's riverfront homes and shops, in the kind of open desert where a parked car or a person on foot can go unnoticed for hours.
A stolen car, broadcast to officers across the river country
As detectives worked the desert scene, they determined that the victim's vehicle had been stolen, police said. A police attempt-to-locate broadcast that went out to officers in the region on Saturday described a grey 2004 Cadillac CTS with an Arizona plate and warned officers to use caution if they found the car or a person of interest connected to the homicide.
Source: Police dispatch attempt-to-locate broadcast, Bullhead City homicide, Nov 7, 2026
The break came the same afternoon. Just after 4:30 p.m., officers of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department located the stolen vehicle at a casino in Laughlin, the Nevada resort town that sits directly across the Colorado River from Bullhead City, police said. Two people were taken into custody there.
Police identified the two arrested as Jacob Dylan Middlebrook, 35, and Layne Justine McIntosh, 36, both residents of Bullhead City. Police said both were arrested on suspicion of second-degree homicide. These are allegations at the start of a criminal case, not findings of guilt: neither has been convicted of anything in this case, and both are presumed innocent unless the state proves charges against them in court. Under Arizona law, second-degree murder generally means an intentional killing that was not planned in advance, or a killing caused by conduct a person knows creates a grave risk of death.
Two cities, one river: how a case crosses the line in hours
Bullhead City and Laughlin face each other across the Colorado River and function in daily life almost as one community split by a state line — workers, shoppers and gamblers cross the bridges between them constantly. Laughlin's casino corridor is policed not by a small town force but by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the county-wide agency for Clark County, Nevada, which is why Metro officers, and not an Arizona agency, made the arrests at the casino. Cross-border cooperation of this kind is routine in the river cities: an Arizona homicide investigation can produce Nevada arrests the same day when a suspect vehicle is spotted on the other bank.
Police have said: a 29-year-old man was found with multiple stab wounds off Silver Creek Road; his car was stolen and later found in Laughlin; two named Bullhead City residents were arrested on suspicion of second-degree homicide; the investigation is ongoing. Police have not said: the victim's name, any motive, how the two arrested people are alleged to be connected to the victim, or where the pair are being held.
What happens next
The investigation remains open, Bullhead City police said. Because the arrests were made in Nevada while the killing is being investigated in Arizona, the two are expected to go through the standard process by which a person arrested in one state is transferred to face charges in the other; police have not announced court dates, and formal charging decisions in Mohave County will rest with prosecutors once detectives file their reports. The victim's identity is expected to be released after his family is notified. Anyone with information about the killing can contact the Bullhead City Police Department.
For residents along the desert roads east of Bullhead City — and for the drivers, delivery workers and truckers who use State Route 95 and the Bullhead Parkway corridor after dark — the case is a reminder that desert pull-offs and unlit side roads sit outside the city's busy riverfront core. Police have not announced any wider threat to the public, and no other suspects had been announced as of Sunday afternoon.