FBI to look for Jimmy Hoffa's body at Detroit-area home

[trailmonkee]

Source: NBC News

The FBI and local police in Michigan plan to take soil samples from the backyard of a house in the Detroit suburb of Roseville on Friday, acting on a dying man's tip that the body of former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa might be buried there.

Authorities have chased down hundreds of would-be leads since Hoffa disappeared 37 years ago after he met with two top Mafia operatives at a restaurant in Bloomfield Township, another Detroit suburb, in July 1975. All have led to dead ends, but authorities said this lead could be different.

NBC station WDIV-TV of Detroit reported that an unidentified man who is dying from cancer told Roseville police that he saw men moving a black bag at the garage of the house just hours after Hoffa went missing. Acting on the tip, authorities ran radar tests last week that picked up an image of something buried beneath a cement slab in the backyard.

Roseville Police Chief James Berlin confirmed that investigators had received the tip, telling the Detroit Free Press that "the information seemed credible, so we decided to follow up on it."

The newspaper reported that the house is in the 18700 block of Florida Street in northern Roseville, about 20 miles northeast of Detroit.

Read more: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/26/14114267-fbi-to-look-for-jimmy-hoffas-body-at-detroit-area-home?lite#__utma=238145375.1446115354.1346723660.1348691667.1348696762.91&__utmb=238145375.1.10.1348696762&__utmc=238145375&__utmx=-&__utmz=238145375.1348696762.91.39.utmcsr=nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com

[alp227]

1. How certain can a dying man's memory of 37 years ago be?

[slackmaster]

2. I think it would be pretty hard to forget knowing where Jimmy Hoffa was buried

His disappearance was kind of a major event.

[AnneD]

6. Before I died...

I always said I wanted to know where Amilia Earhart crashed, where Hoffa's body was buried, and for the Cubbies to win the series. I need to make a longer list. I always figured Hoffs was in the cement foundation of some high rise.

[Demeter]

11. We don't have High Rises in Michigan, AnneD

Lots of highways though, including one under construction at the time...

[AnneD]

27. I didn't think he was in Michigan....

I was thinking New Jorsey or New Yorhk.

Oh...I didn't think about a highway. Our highways buckle in the heat down here-but up North.

[HubertHeaver]

5. Letting out that kind of secret can cause your own disappearance.

See something like that, you always have to be on guard to not let something slip.

I would say, offhandedly, damn certain. That is, certain he saw the men handling a bag, not certain of its contents.

[Gman]

12. It could be very vivid

and he's been waiting all this time to go public.

[M_M]

3. Hey, guys, look for Romney's tax returns while you're there!

[central scrutinizer]

4. cue Geraldo Rivera!

[frylock]

7. this may corroborate frank sheeran's story..

this was a really good read imho.

HEARD YOU PAINT HOUSES is a fascinating account of a dark side of American history. The book’s title comes from the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors.

Frank Sheeran lived a long, violent, passionate life. As a boy he took on older kids in bar fights so his dad could win free beer. During World War II he was a highly decorated infantryman with 411 days of active combat duty and a willingness to follow orders. “When an officer would tell you to take a couple of German prisoners back behind the line and for you to ‘hurry back,’ you did what you had to do.” He became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino and eventually becoming one of only two non-Italians on the FBI’s famous La Cosa Nostra list. He was also a truck driver who was made head of the Teamsters local in Wilmington, Delaware, by his good friend Jimmy Hoffa. When Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975, Sheeran became a leading suspect, and every serious study of the Hoffa disappearance alleges that Sheeran was there.

For the first time the Irishman tells all — a lifetime of payoffs (including hand-delivering bags of cash to Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell) and manipulation (supporting Joe Biden’s election to the Senate with a Teamster action) — for the book that would become his deathbed confession. He died on December 14, 2003.

Sheeran also provides shocking new information on notorious mob hits: Joseph “Crazy Joey” Gallo — blown away as he celebrated his forty-third birthday in New York’s Little Italy; Salvatore “Sally Bugs” Briguglio — long suspected of being a player in the plot to kill Hoffa. And offers new insights to the crusading of Robert Kennedy and the death of John F. Kennedy.

This historic account is based on interviews of Frank Sheeran by Charles Brandt, who researched, cross-checked, and illuminated what Sheeran told him and turned it all into a gripping narrative that is sure to become an instant true crime classic.

http://www.amazon.com/Heard-You-Paint-Houses-Teamsters/dp/1586420771

[happyslug]

24. How did he get 411 WWII Combat days??

First, after 60 days of combat 98% of all soldiers show sign of Combat Fatigue, the remaining 2% are Psychopaths:
http://www.g2mil.com/fatigue.htm

Only four Division had more then 400 days in Combat,:

45th Inf. Div......511
34th Inf. Div......500
1st Inf. Div. .....443
82nd Airbn. Div.....422
http://www.lonesentry.com/usdivisions/days_combat.html

The 45th Infantry unit history:
http://www.history.army.mil/html/forcestruc/cbtchron/cc/045id.htm

The 45th loses amounted to 62,907, 3,650 killed in action, 13,729 wounded in action, 3,615 missing in action, 266 captured, and 41,647 non-battle casualties for a total of 62,907. Remember this is out of a 15,000 man unit. Most of the non-battle casualties may have stayed with the unit after the injury was incurred, but it shows you that the unit had an 100% replacement level in its combat arms (The actual infantry units).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)

The 34th division is similar,
http://www.history.army.mil/html/forcestruc/cbtchron/cc/034id.htm

The 34th Division suffered 3,737 killed in action, 14,165 wounded in action, and 3,460 missing in action, for a total of 21,362 battle casualties. Please note non-combat casualties are not listed for this unit, but total COMBAT casualties exceeded the total number of soldiers in the division, again indicating an over 100% replacement level in the infantry units.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/34th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)

The First US Division was in combat the third longest time in WWII, 443 days and had the following losses:

Killed in Action: 3,616
Wounded in Action: 15,208
Died of Wounds: 664

Again showing a tendency to have 100% replacement when it came to combat units
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Infantry_Division_(United_States)

The 82nd Airborne had 422 days in combat, but much lower losses then the other units:
Casualties
1,619 killed in action
6,560 wounded in action
332 died of wounds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/82nd_Airborne_Division
Part of this may be a statistical quark, casualties do to jump injuries are not in the above statistics and could take out soldiers for months at a time.
http://www.history.army.mil/html/forcestruc/cbtchron/cc/082abd.htm

More cites with information on US Divisions during WWII:

http://www.lonesentry.com/usdivisions/days_combat.html
http://www.history.army.mil/html/forcestruc/cbtchron/cbtchron.html
http://www.historyshots.com/usarmy/backstory.cfm
http://theww2resource.tripod.com/id12.htm

Just a comment, that to have 411 days in combat, may be true, but also that his service was in in a support element of the Unit (i.e. medic, engineer, artillery or someone who, while trained to fight in combat, generally did not) or he was lying.

Given the above report about psychopaths and combat after just 60 days of combat, he may be telling the truth, but I would have to have something more then his word.

Now, Frank Sheeran's Wikipedia cite says he did serve in the 45th, but his training was as an MP, generally a support unit not a combat unit (One of the functions of MPs is to guard prisoners BUT after they had been captured by some infantry unit).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sheeran

Thus Frank Sheeran, could have served 411 days in Combat, behind the lines providing support for the line units, one of his duties would be to guard prisoners (and as a combat reserve if something went wrong). Close enough to the front line to be involved with war crimes and get away with it, but behind enough not to get shot at.

Please note the 45th Infantry unit was accused of war crimes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscari_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_massacre

[etherealtruth]

8. Oh for heaven's sake

They've been digging up back yards in metro Detroit since I was a "kid"

[notadmblnd]

9. I remember them digging next to my uncles at the corner of Williams Lake and Elizabeth Lake Roads

[etherealtruth]

10. Every couple of years ... something is dug up somewhere in search of Jimmy Hoffa

The last thing I rememeber was someone's backyard in Saginaw ... Frankenmuth or Bay City

One has to wonder how much this costs ....?

[XemaSab]

13. Oh come on, there's a body in half the back yards in Detroit

[Scairp]

14. This is ridiculous

They will never find him. So dig away idiots. Almost no one cares anyway.

[trailmonkee]

16. seems low key enough to be the real deal...

[jtuck004]

15. If you were an dying criminal and you wanted one last laugh at the police...

I don't know anything about this unfortunate man or his circumstances, the thought just struck me.

[gopiscrap]

17. Hoffa was sighted delivering pizza's in Calgary!

[DBoon]

22. No that was Elvis

silly boy!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. It's hard to believe that they hadn't doused him with quicklime.

That stuff even dissolves teeth. It's a favorite of mob disposal. If it's true that he was stuck under a concrete slab in Detroit encased in plastic than this is amateur hour stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if they buried him in his clothes. Hell, they might not even have thought to get his wallet.

[Canuckistanian]

19. Chevy Chase, 'Weekend Update' SNL in 1976

Well, it has been exactly a year and a day since ex-Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa vanished. In commemoration, today, current Teamster President Frank Fitzsimmons once again mourned the disappearance of his longtime associate by placing a single candle in a cake of cement, and repeating that he felt Hoffa would always be a cornerstone in the organization.

I remember watching this show at the time.

[randome]

20. Hoffa, Elvis and Bin Laden are running this country now.

Everyone knows this.

[graegoyle]

21. I read the headline as "Jim Inhofe"

[Sophiegirl]

23. Why, oh why

Are tax-payer dollars being used for this? SMH

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

25. My theory: someone wants the FBI to pay for a new driveway.

But it looks like they're going to drill a small hole and get a core sample. If it shows human remains, then the driveway will get destroyed, and probably rebuilt, on the government's dime.

[AnneD]

28. Even the mob ....

wasn't as evil as the 1%. They usually didn't touch the wife and kids, or take away your home. They might put a few bullet hole in it, but only if you were high up. They waged war on each other, not other countries.

[justiceischeap]

34. They also helped folks out in the neighborhood back in the pre-drug era

some families got financial help without having to payback the money. The mob could be generous in ways the 1% never will be.

[Shitty Mitty]

29. They ain't ever finding Hoffa

.

[goclark]

31. That restaurant was not far from Cranbrook

where Robme went to school and bullied the young man.

What was the name of that Restaurant?

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/famous/jimmy_hoffa/1.html

Looked it up....On July 30, 1975, former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa stood outside the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan

[Pterodactyl]

32. Whoa, whoa, whoa! This article is obviously made up.

It implies that there was a link between organized crime and organized labor. And that could not possibly be true.

[AnneD]

33. The article is made up...

Just like there is no link between the drug cartels and WS banksters.

[Pterodactyl]

35. Yup. You can't believe the lamestream media.

[bklyncowgirl]

36. After he failed to turn up under the goal post at Giant's Stadium I guess they had to look elsewhere

I was seriously disappointed when they tore down the stadium and did not find him.

It was such a great story--unlikely but a great story.

[Myrina]

37. I figure he was probably mixed in with some 'marked for quick sale' sausage within 24 hours.

n/t