The Hunt for Jimmy Hoffa

[duchess of malfi]

I'm not sure if this should go into this forum, or in the general discussion forum, or in the think tank.

But everyone in the Detroit area was highly amused at the local news last night when they showed film clips of teams of FBI agents digging up large random holes in the fields of a horse farm in Milford, Michigan. This is a working farm, which boards horses and gives horse back riding lessons, and FBI agents were also interviewing people as they dropped by to visit their horses or drop off their kids for riding lessons. The owners of the farm were freaked out when the agents showed up with a search warrant. They had not owned the farm at the time Hoffa vanished, and did not know why anyone would tip off the FBI that he was buried there.

Jimmy Hoffa has been missing for a very long time now. I can't remember how old I was when he vanished, but I was still a kid. He lived in the town where I was born and grew up, and local residents always assumed he was feeding the fishes at the bottom of one of any number of local lakes. (Lake Orion has the big lake, called Lake Orion in the middle of town, but Orion township is studded with dozens of smaller lakes as well).

Many people within the state thought he was entombed beneath what is now the site of the Silverdome, or perhaps was mixed into the concrete of what became the Zilwaukee Bridge on I75 near Saginaw.

For some reason, I have heard that people on the east coast believe that he is entombed beneath a sports stadium in New Jersey, though why a body would be hauled to the east coast for disposal instead of being taken care of locally has always been a question in my mind.

[dennisrwood]

i always thought he was ground and fed to horses myself.

[danlo]

You know, going up in Jersey you might well be right. We had a Govenor there named Richard Hughes who was completely bought and sold by the Mafia served for at least 8 years. I think the urban legend I'm more inclined to believe is that he's in a concrete casket under the south endzone of Giants Stadium or deep under Continental *cough Bush* Arena. Under the landfill, resting on the highly toxic water floor of the swamps.

[matrixman]

The Mythbusters (one of my favorite shows on the Discovery channel) did an episode on the myth that Hoffa was buried in Giants Stadium.

Needless to say, they did not find any trace of Hoffa in (or under) the stadium. But, of course, that won't stop the urban legend any time.

I voted no one will ever know for sure, and I'm not sure that I care. Yes, Hoffa is one of those larger-than-life American icons, but he doesn't really interest me. But the Mythbusters interest me, so I watched.

[dlbpharmd]

I voted "No one will ever know".

[Damelon]

What the FBI is doing at that farm seems to be contrary to what they have believed through their usual sources on the Mob over the years, and was some skepticism about what they are doing there on the news last night. The story seems to be that they killed Hoffa in Michigan and shipped him to New Jersey in a oil drum because the boss there wanted to make sure that the hit was done. The body was then either buried in the Meadowlands or dumped in the Atlantic. For Hoffa though, perhaps the most optimistic story about the disappearance was that he ran off to Brazil with a samba dancer he met.

I don't think anyone will know for sure since those who supposedly bumped off Hoffa were themselves bumped off within a few years.

[Avatar]

I know practically nothing about the whole story, but I voted that nobody will ever really know anyway.

--A

[Usivius]

I think the interesting questions is what tip or information did the FBI get/uncover that leads them to this farm?

Very weird.

[duchess of malfi]

I think the interesting questions is what tip or information did the FBI get/uncover that leads them to this farm?

Very weird.

According to the local news, the barn on that farm used to be a meeting place for local Mafia. About the time Hoffa vanished, some digging equipment suddenly appeared for a couple of days. After Hoffa vanished, the mobsters never met at that farm again.

No one knows why they are suddenly digging it up more than thirty years later. They are even saying they will raze the barn if they have to. Our tax dollars at work, eh?

Avatar, Jimmy Hoffa was a leader of one of the largest/most powerful labor unions in the US. Supposedly the Detroit branch of the Mafia had him assassinated. Urban legend says an imported hit man from New Jersey did the deed.

At the time he vanished, Hoffa and his family were living on Tommy's Lake (IIRC), only about 2 or 3 miles from my parents' old house in Lake Orion, Michigan. On the day he vanished, he went down to a restaurant called the Red Fox, further south in Oakland County, for a meeting with some local Mafia leaders. He has never been seen again, dead or alive.

[duchess of malfi]

Just ran across this on CNN. It tells about the tipster.

Report: Hoffa tipster is ailing prisoner
AP: Informant Donovan Wells passed lie test

Friday, May 19, 2006; Posted: 7:43 p.m. EDT (23:43 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The informant spurring the search for Jimmy Hoffa's remains is an ailing prison inmate who recently passed a polygraph test in the probe, says a government investigator familiar with the FBI operation in Michigan.

The informant, Donovan Wells, 75, remembers "suspicious activity" on what is now called Hidden Dreams Farm in Milford Township, Michigan, at the time famed labor leader Hoffa disappeared, the investigator said Friday.

The investigator spoke on condition of anonymity because some of the information he was relating comes from records that have been ordered sealed by a federal judge. Among them is an FBI affidavit detailing the basis for the search warrant used to dig up the ground on the horse farm.

On the day Hoffa vanished, the property was owned by Hoffa associate Rolland McMaster, according to Oakland County, Michigan, property records. McMaster's attorney says FBI agents visited the 93-year-old retired Teamster this week.

Hoffa was last seen on July 30, 1975, at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant near the farm, which McMaster owned throughout the 1970s.

Many theories
Over the years, Hoffa's disappearance spawned endless theories -- that he was entombed in concrete at a New Jersey football stadium; that he was ground up and thrown to the fishes in a Florida swamp; that he was obliterated in a mob-owned fat-rendering plant that has since burned down.

As one example of the account Wells is telling the FBI, the investigator said Wells remembers seeing a number of cars on the property at the time Hoffa vanished, and then a short time later the cars were gone.

The information does not involve an eyewitness to the disappearance or a killing, said the investigator.

Regarding Wells and the recent lie detector test, authorities think he believes the story he is telling, the investigator added.

The Detroit Free Press first reported Wells' identity Thursday night.

Wells pleaded guilty in 2003 to one count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, according to records in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Convicted drug trafficker
He was accused of being part of a drug-trafficking ring and arranging for a truck to transport hundreds of pounds of marijuana from Texas to Michigan. On January 15, 2004, he was sentenced to 120 months in prison.

According to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons Internet site, Wells has been housed at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky. The site says his projected release date is December 27, 2012.

In a motion in 2003 for a reduced sentence, Wells' attorney said he had a heart attack in 1994, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997, suffered three strokes in 2002 and underwent a quadruple bypass in January 2003.

The motion described him as "significantly overweight," and said he was taking nine medications.

At the horse farm, the FBI is bringing in cadaver dogs, demolition experts, archaeologists and anthropologists and suggested investigators might remove a barn.

Earlier, a law enforcement official in Washington said the latest search was based on information developed several years ago and verified more recently.

Organized crime members had used a barn on the horse farm for meetings, but the location was never used again after the day Hoffa vanished, the official said.

Best lead in years
The farm has three barns and 43 horse stalls on 65 acres of fields and woods.

"This is the best lead I've seen come across in the Hoffa investigation," said FBI agent Daniel Roberts, who has run the Detroit field office for two years.

McMaster's lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, said he doubted the FBI would find anything. He confirmed that FBI officials visited McMaster at his home and asked about his Hidden Dreams farm.

Morganroth said McMaster was in Indiana on union business at the time of Hoffa's disappearance, and that to his knowledge, his client was never a suspect.

For three decades, the disappearance has spawned endless theories about the former Teamsters boss's demise.

On July 30, 1975, Hoffa was supposed to meet with New Jersey Teamsters boss and Mafia figure Anthony Provenzano and Detroit Mafia captain Anthony Giacalone at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant. Provenzano and Giacalone are dead.

Investigators have long suspected Hoffa was killed by the mob to keep him from reclaiming the Teamsters presidency after he got out of prison for jury tampering and fraud.

In 2003, authorities searched beneath a backyard pool a few hours north of Detroit but turned up nothing. The following year, they pulled up the floorboards on a Detroit home and found bloodstains, but the blood was not Hoffa's.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Avatar]

Thanks Duchess. I knew that his was a famous disappearance, but that was all. Not why or where or anything.

Be interesting to see if they find anything.

--A

[Prebe]

I had to go for the "stuffed by the mob option". Very creative Duchess