As the giant effigy of the “Man” burned in the Nevada desert, a festival-goer approached a sheriff’s deputy.
A man was lying in a pool of blood, the individual reported about 9:14 p.m. Saturday.
When the deputy, along with rangers from the Bureau of Land Management, found the man at a campsite, he was dead.
Since then, investigators have been swarming the scene, collecting evidence and interviewing neighboring campers at the nine-day Burning Man festival, which draws tens of thousands each year to a desolate area about 120 miles north of Reno for a celebration of “community, art, self-expression and self-reliance.”
The death is believed to be a homicide, Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen said in a news release Sunday. The remains of the man, who has not been identified, are with the Washoe County regional medical examiner’s office.
“Although this act appears to be a singular crime,” Allen wrote, “all participants should always be vigilant of their surroundings and acquaintances.”
The Burning Man Project, the nonprofit that organizes the festival, said in a statement on its website that it was cooperating with law enforcement and that peer support counselors were available on the grounds.
Last year, Kendra Frazer, 39, died at Burning Man after emergency personnel were unable to revive her. It was found that Frazer had died in her sleep after an asthma attack.
In 2023, Leon Reece of Truckee died at the festival after he was found unresponsive, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. Drug intoxication was suspected in his death, according to a preliminary investigation by the Washoe County regional medical examiner’s office.
Other fatalities at the festival over the years included a man who ran into the Burning Man fire in 2018, a woman struck by a car in 2014, another woman struck by a car in 2003 and the pilot of a plane that crashed while landing at the festival’s airstrip in 2003, according to the Gazette-Journal.
Before Saturday’s grim discovery, this year’s Burning Man was punctuated by unexpected joy when a 36-year-old woman gave birth to a baby girl.
The woman was unaware she was pregnant until she went into labor in her RV on Wednesday morning, she and her husband said.
Neighboring campers, who included an obstetrician and other medical professionals, scrambled to tend to baby Aurora, who entered the world at a little over 3½ pounds. They scrounged for clean blankets, saline and other emergency medical supplies in the dusty and mud-caked camp.
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