The remains of Jimmy Hoffa, the union boss who’s been missing since 1975, may have finally been discovered in a former New Jersey landfill. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s the first place I would look for a guy who was rumored to have been killed by the Mafia.
The New York Times reports that late last month, FBI agents arrived in Jersey City with a search warrant. “A worker, on his deathbed, said he buried the body underground in a steel drum,” the article reads. “The steel drum is said to be buried about 15 feet below ground, in the shadow of countless millions of drivers who have passed it by.”
An expert on the Hoffa case who brought the disclosure of the steel drum and its possible location to the F.B.I., Dan Moldea, a journalist who has written about the Teamster boss since before he disappeared, said the New Jersey site is “100 percent” credible, and that the new leads were very significant.
“A very prominent person disappeared from a public place 46 years ago and was never seen again,” Mr. Moldea said Thursday. “This case has to be solved.”
Hoffa served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1957 to 1971; he was last seen on July 30, 1975, and his disappearance has been a source of fascination ever since. He was played by Al Pacino in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman (the way his death was depicted in the movie is seen as “unlikely” by scholars), and there was the rumor that he was buried beneath Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands. But all attempts to discover what happened to Hoffa have proved futile — so far.
“On October 25th & 26th, FBI personnel from the Newark and Detroit field offices completed the survey and that data is currently being analyzed,” FBI special agent Mara Schneider said in a statement. “Because the affidavit in support of the search warrant was sealed by the court, we are unable to provide any additional information.”
You should check out the entire New York Times article, if only for snippets of extremely mob movie dialogue like, “If the feds begin digging at the proposed dump in New Jersey, they would hit pay dirt.” Read it here.
(Via the New York Times)