The
mystery of Jimmy Hoffa's final resting place was
opened yet again Monday,
when the FBI began digging up a field near Detroit in the hopes of
finding the former Teamsters president, who was last seen on July 30,
1975.
His
disappearance is the stuff of urban legend and evergreen
fascination.
Claims of Hoffa's whereabouts have taken FBI investigators and
amateur sleuths on wild goose chases for nearly 40 years.
Here
are some of the places investigators have looked for Hoffa's body:
WaterfordTownship, Mich.: Roughly
two months after he vanished, in September 1975,investigators spent
three days digging in a 29-acre area on a farm in Waterford Township.
State police and members of the organized crime division of the state
attorney general's office broke out their spades after a Mafia
informant's tip.
"The information does not provide street names. The instructions, for example, say to proceed left from the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, where Mr. Hoffa was last seen, go nine and a quarter miles and then proceed again for another six and a half miles. ... Sources disclosed that the Mafia members were upset with the inability of the investigators to follow what they consider to be clear instructions."
Detroit area: In
October 1975, FBI agents probed the trash compactor at the Raleigh
House restaurant, roughly five miles from the Machus Red Fox, the
restaurant where Hoffa was last seen alive. The theory was that
Hoffa's body was stuffed in the compactor and hauled off by a
Mafia-connected sanitation company; investigators turned up nothing
in their search of the 40-cubic-yard compactor.
Jersey City, N.J.: The
search for Hoffa took investigators to Jersey City, where in December
1975, FBI
agents searched a 47-acre landfill with mob connections. Officially,
investigators weren't searching for the rumored 55-gallon drum with
Hoffa's remains, but rather the body of Armand Faugno, a missing loan
shark. William Spedding, then-director of the city's sanitation
department, was nonplussed by the episode.
"It's no big deal," Spedding said, according to a UPI story at the time. "We move earth around every day. Except for the intrigue of maybe finding Jimmy Hoffa out there, it would be rather boring."
Hampton Township, Mich.: An
incarcerated informant, who had already led police to another body,
claimed Hoffa's body could be found under an above-ground pool in the
backyard of his former home in Hampton Township. The tipster, brought
to the scene in handcuffs, watched as a backhoe demolished the pool
in July 2003 and dug beneath it. Later, the people living in the home
would get a new
pool paid for by
the county.
Milford, Mich.: The
FBI called it quits after a 12-day search of Hidden Dreams Farm in
Milford in May 2006. A 100-foot barn was demolished as part of the
search by 35 agents, geologists, archaeologists and other experts.
While the dig didn't yield any remains, it proved to be big
business for
the Milford Baking Co., which sold 3,500 "Hoffa cupcakes"
featuring a green plastic hand reaching up through the icing and
sprinkles.
East Rutherford, N.J.: In
1999 a convicted mobster alleged Hoffa's body was buried at Giants
Stadium, though the feds never dug it up to find out. In
a Playboy interview,
Donald "Tony the Greek" Frankos said Hoffa's body was cut
up in Michigan, then driven to New Jersey and buried in the concrete
foundation of the stadium — Section 107.
ESPN recounted how
Hoffa became a part of Giants lore in 2010 when the stadium was set
to be demolished:
"The west end zone became the 'Jimmy Hoffa Memorial End Zone.' Teams didn't just beat the Giants or Jets, they 'Jimmy Hoffa-ed' them."
Roseville, Mich.: After
a tip in the fall of 2012, authorities
began sampling
soil on
the property of a Roseville home. Investigators had used radar and
found an unusual mass, which prompted the sampling, but the results
showed no sign of human decomposition in the dirt.
Source:
npr
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