"Buffalo Jim" Barrier’s Daughters Are Still Convinced He Was Murdered

A pro wrestler, auto mechanic, and political candidate, James “Buffalo Jim” Barrier was a larger-than-life Las Vegas character. When his life came to an end on April 5, 2008, however, Barrier’s untimely death raised more questions than answers. As explored in Unsolved Mysteries Volume 3’s “Death in a Vegas Motel” episode, his death was officially ruled to be an accidental drug overdose, but there’s also plenty of evidence to support theories that suggest foul play was involved.

The day after his death, Barrier’s body was found by a housekeeper in Room 105 at a Motel 6 on Boulder Highway in Las Vegas. According to police, the father of four was lying face up on the bed, nude from the waist down, with a white powdery substance on his beard and on his unbuttoned shirt. An autopsy later revealed a positive test for cocaine, and Barrier’s cause of death was listed as a combination of heart disease and cocaine intoxication.

That determination made little sense to Barrier’s daughters Jennifer and Jerica, both of whom appear in Unsolved Mysteries, who noted that they never saw him use drugs or even drink alcohol. What’s more, there was no evidence of cocaine in the motel room. Not only did the women find plenty of evidence that their father was murdered, but they have an idea of who might have been responsible, too.

The theory involves a longstanding feud with Rick Rizzolo, the owner of Crazy Horse Too, a gentleman’s club located directly next door to Barrier’s garage. The animosity first began in 1998 when Barrier refused to relinquish his space for the Crazy Horse Too’s expansion. Barrier’s attorney explained that there had been “some substantiated” rumors of mob involvement in the club, which “developed a reputation for violence,” including “bouncers beating up patrons.” Barrier’s auto marine shop also began getting frequently vandalized, allegedly amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage over the years.

Citing lost income, interference with his business, and intentional affliction of emotional distress, Barrier filed a lawsuit for $1 million. For about two years, he also sent the FBI boxes of incriminating evidence against Rizzolo that he’d personally collected on a weekly basis. Authorities were eventually able to charge Rizzolo with income tax evasion, for which he served 10 months of a “year and a day” sentence. He was released on house arrest, which he completed on April 4, 2008.

Yes, that was just one day prior to Barrier’s death, as his loved ones pointed out in the Netflix true-crime series. Among the evidence pointing toward Rizzolo’s possible involvement was a letter Barrier received the day he died. In it, an anonymous sender warned him that Rizzolo was “up to no good” and holding meetings about “using people to get close to” him, including a female that was going to help access his business.

According to Jennifer, her father even predicted in their last conversation before he died that he might be murdered since Rizzolo was out of prison. She said that he told her that if “they were to get him,” they would make it look like he “died of a drug overdose with women.”

A woman named Lisa — who worked as a stripper at Crazy Horse Too — later came forward to tell police that she was with Barrier in his motel the night he died. As she told it, they had a long relationship and were playing a “sexual fantasy game,” during which Barrier was “using a lot of cocaine and acting paranoid.” According to Lisa, he soon began convulsing and clutching his chest with both hands, at which point she panicked and left the motel room.

What that didn’t explain, however, is why motel key card records showed that their room was accessed by a guest key seven minutes before they checked in. Lisa also mentioned that she had initially called Barrier because her friend wanted to sell him a Harley. According to Barrier’s family, police never investigated the friend who was supposedly selling the motorcycle.

Among the other suspicious evidence Unsolved Mysteries presented was a folded dollar bill found in Barrier’s wallet, which they said was a sign of a mob hit. His Rolls-Royce was also missing from the motel parking lot but reappeared after police removed his body. Finally, his daughters also pointed to two cell phones logged as evidence from the motel room, neither of which belonged to their father.

Regardless, police declined to open a formal homicide investigation, and when Barrier died, so did the million-dollar lawsuit against Rizzolo. One theory suggests that someone “forced cocaine into” Barrier, while another points to his murder being a “get-out-of-jail gift” to Rizzolo.

“I think my father did get lured out by that woman, Lisa,” Jennifer alleged on Unsolved Mysteries, accusing police of not adequately following leads. “It wasn’t investigated properly for us to be able to tell.” But only time will tell if new attention brought by the Netflix series will produce new leads.