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Tag: jimmy hoffa

  • Hoffa Remains Sought by FBI in Michigan

    Hoffa Remains Sought by FBI in Michigan

    The final resting place of teamster official Jimmy Hoffa has remained a mystery for nearly 40 years. Various theories and speculative musings have kept the mystery alive all this time. Not a year goes by that someone doesn’t claim to know where the mob-connected union leader is buried (or interred, or mixed into cement, ect…).

    This week, the FBI has taken one of these tips seriously enough to commence digging operations near a small town north of Detroit. According to the Detroit Free Press, the FBI and Oakland County Sheriff’s Office are surveying a vacant field in Oakland Township, Michigan. The site is where Detroit mob boss Tony Zerilli claimed Hoffa is buried back in January. The FBI told the Free Press that Zerilli’s claims could be credible, based on his family connections at the time of Hoffa’s disappearance.

    Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975. His car was found in the parking lot of the Manchus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township, a suburb of Detroit. He had allegedly gone to the restaurant to visit mafia leaders, who were later found not to have been at the restaurant. Though Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982, the FBI has continued to investigate his disappearance.

    (via Detroit Free Press)

  • Jimmy Hoffa: Former Underboss Knows Where He’s Buried

    After almost forty years, a former high-ranking member of Detroit’s La Cosa Nostra says he knows where Jimmy Hoffa is buried and he wants to end his silence about it once and for all.

    Tony Zerilli, who at one time rose to the ranks of “underboss”–or second in command–in the infamous crime family, says that while he was in prison when Hoffa was killed, he knows what happened, who did it, and where the body is buried. And while he maintains that he’s not a stool pigeon and won’t give up any names, he does want to put an end to the mystery of what happened to the legendary mafia figure.

    Zerilli says that Hoffa went to meet two people–an alleged member of the Detroit mafia and a teamster from New Jersey–at a restaurant in Detroit that summer day in 1975, and ended the day buried less than twenty miles away from that diner. He says he was close to the boss and still regrets that he’d just been pinched for illegal activities in some Vegas casinos.

    “If I wasn’t away I don’t think it ever would’ve happened, that’s all I can tell you,” said Zerilli. “I would’ve done anything in the world to protect Jim Hoffa.”

    While there have been many, many stories and “leads” concerning the whereabouts of Hoffa’s remains over the years, FBI agents say they are hopeful that this could be the lead that actually goes somewhere. Certainly Zerilli would have been informed of what happened once he was out of prison.

    “Clearly when he returned he would’ve been a person, based on his position in the hierarchy, who would have been able to learn the facts and circumstances surrounding the disappearance of James Earl Hoffa,” said U.S. Attorney Keith Corbett.

    One very big thing working against Zerilli, however, is the fact that he is now 85-years old and in desperate need of money. He is working on a book about his story and hopes he can cash in when Hoffa’s body is found where he says it was buried.

  • Jimmy Hoffa Results Due In, Here’s What Twitter Thinks About It

    Last week, authorities took two soil samples from a home in Roseville, Michigan, in hopes that progress could be made on the everlasting search for Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa’s body. Today, the results from the samples are due to be announced.

    Update: No human remains have been found.

    Unfortunately, according to reports, the police will be unable to determine whether Hoffa was actually buried on the property, even if they do find something. They’ll only be able to tell if there was actually a body buried there. If that is found to be the case, they’ll have to start a whole new process in trying to determine whether or not it was Hoffa.

    This particular chapter of the search that has been going on since 1975 began when police were tipped by a man who claimed to have seen a body buried on the property the day after Hoffa disappeared. According to CNN, the tipster allegedly once did business with Anthony Giacalone, the “reputed Detroit Mafia street enforcer” whom Hoffa was supposed to meet at a Detroit-area restaurant where he was last seen.

    The story has once again captured the interest of the country, and people are anxiously waiting to find out the results.

    Here’s a bit of what people are saying about it on Twitter:

  • Jimmy Hoffa: Police Have “Credible” Tip On Body

    Jimmy Hoffa–once a very powerful union leader before his imprisonment in 1967–has been missing since 1975, and since then the FBI and law enforcement have been working seemingly endlessly to try and unearth his body, with tips coming in from all over the world and with no statute of limitations. It seems every few years a new tipster will make claims as to where Hoffa’s body was buried, and officials have investigated them all, digging up bloody floorboards and excavating old barns to no avail. Even Geraldo Rivera thought he’d made a discovery and televised it, only to open up the supposed “tomb” to find nothing at all. With all the conspiracy theories and outlandish claims–such as the one involving Hoffa being buried beneath the Giants staduim–the search for any clues to Hoffa’s whereabouts is ongoing as officials try and weed out those which aren’t credible.

    Now, a new tip has come in from a Detroit suburb, and police are calling the tipster “credible”. The person claims that Hoffa is buried beneath a home, and investigators say they will take a soil sample to test for human remains. If it comes up positive, they’ll excavate. A radar has already confirmed that something is buried down there; they just can’t tell what it is.

    “It could be anybody down there, could be nobody. It could be a dog,” said Roseville, Michigan Police Chief James Berlin.

    In other words, no one wants to get their hopes up. If an excavation is given the green light, it could take days to find anything, and even if what they find turn out to be human remains, they might not necessarily be those of Hoffa. The tipster hasn’t claimed that the body belongs to the missing man, but says a body was buried beneath that house around the time that Hoffa disappeared.

    Both the informant and the owners of the home are being cooperative with police. If the search is successful, it will put an end to a 37-year old mystery.