Homicide investigation after Burning Man death of Vadim Kruglov

Authorities have identified the man found dead on the final weekend of the Burning Man festival in Nevada as 37 year old Vadim Kruglov, a Russian national living in Washington state, and are treating his death as a homicide. Festival attendees discovered Kruglov lying in a pool of blood on the Black Rock Desert playa on the evening of Aug. 30 as the event’s central wooden effigy was being set alight, officials said. Investigators from the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office and federal land managers have asked the public for help in locating a suspect.

Officials said the body was discovered sometime between 8 p.m. and 9:15 p.m., with some accounts placing the finding at about 9:14 p.m. Kruglov’s remains were taken to the Washoe County Regional Medical Examiner’s Office, which identified him by fingerprints, the sheriff’s office said. Police pronounced him dead later that night, according to a friend who has been public about Kruglov’s disappearance and death.

Sheriff Jerry Allen said deputies cordoned off the area and interviewed several participants who were known to have been in the immediate vicinity. Allen urged anyone who saw anything between roughly 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., or...