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It’s been 50 years — and countless conspiracy theories — since Jimmy Hoffa first disappeared, and his case remains one of the most infamous and vexing unsolved mysteries in U.S. history.
The ex-Teamsters boss left his cottage home in suburban Lake Orion, Mich., near Detroit on July 30, 1975 for a 2 p.m. meeting at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in nearby Bloomfield Hills.
He was reportedly gathering with a group of gangsters, including Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, a New Jersey-based capo for the Genovese crime family, and Detroit mob boss Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone. Hoffa was trying to regain control of the union after stepping down as its leader four years earlier — and the mob wanted no part of that since it meant they’d lose access to the the Teamster’s lucrative pension fund.
At around 2:15 p.m., Hoffa, 62, called his wife, Josephine, from the restaurant’s parking lot to tell her no one showed up. It was the last time anyone ever heard from him.
He was officially declared dead seven years later, but the whereabouts of his remains have baffled the FBI ever since.
Over the past five decades, the agency has assigned hundreds of agents to the case who’ve debunked conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory – while costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, estimated Hoffa historian and author Scott Burnstein.
The case also spawned more than 20 books, multiple movies and documentaries – and a cottage industry of investigative journalists, amateur sleuths and former wise guys claiming to know what really happened.
Just this week a new theory emerged — that Hoffa’s corpse was literally turned into mincemeat, The Post can reveal.
Burnstein — who believes the hit on Hoffa was carried out by Detroit’s Tocco–Zerilli crime family — said the case’s mythology took on a life of its own because remains were never found.
“This was something they thought was a perfect crime – and in a lot of ways it was the perfect crime,” he told The Post, referring to the crime syndicate also known as “Detroit Partnership.” “I just don’t think they anticipated people would still be talking about it 50 years later, and this is a mob family that thrives in the shadows. They like being stealth.
“They’re not a New York-type family or Chicago-type family or Philadelphia-type family that really covets the press.”
On Wednesday, Burnstein teamed up with former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino and ex-mob soldier Nove Tocco at an event at Macomb Community College in Warren, Mich., to reveal the latest theory to surface about what happened to Hoffa.
They claimed Hoffa was whacked by late Detroit mobster Anthony “Tony Pal” Palazzolo — and the body ground up in a sausage grinder at the former Detroit Sausage Company Palazzolo used for his operations.
The remaining pieces were then dumped in an incinerator of a mob-owned waste disposal business in nearby Hamtramck, Mich., that was destroyed in an arson fire eight months later, the trio claimed. The site is now part of a local jail complex.
Other popular theories about Hoffa’s demise include:
- He was whacked on Provenzano’s orders, and his body was chopped into little pieces, taken to South Florida and thrown into the Everglades. The FBI never found evidence to support the claim.
- Hoffa was buried during construction of the old Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. — which is now part of MetLife Stadium’s parking lot. The FBI dismissed the claim that Hoffa was buried under what would become Section 107 of the old stadium — made by mob hitman-turned-informant Donald “Tony the Greek” Frankos during a 1989 Playboy magazine interview. The agency didn’t even bother to check it out when the stadium was demolished in 2010.
- Hoffa’s pal Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran claimed on his deathbed in 2003 that he lured Hoffa to a house in Detroit and shot him twice in the back of the head on mobsters’ orders. Key parts of the tale spurred the 2019 hit flick “The Irishman.” Local police ripped up floorboards at the same house in 2004, and the FBI later determined that blood found on them wasn’t Hoffa’s.
- He was buried at a horse farm in Milford Township, Mich. In 2006, the FBI searched the site, once owned by a Teamster official, after a 75-year-old inmate claimed he remembered seeing men using a backhoe to dig a hole there a day after Hoffa disappeared. The FBI brought cadaver dogs and fully demolished the barn – but found zilch. The failed search cost the agency $265,000, including $160,000 to replace the razed barn.
- Hoffa was abducted by federal marshals and agents and dropped out of an airplane into one of the Great Lakes surrounding Michigan, according to former Hoffa associate Joseph Franco who wrote a book about it. Authorities found Franco’s book and claims to be fiction, not fact.
- He was buried beneath a swimming pool in Hampton Township, Mich. The 2003 tip came from convicted murderer Richard Powell, who told cops Hoffa was buried beneath his former property. Police demolished the pool to dig beneath it, but found no trace of Hoffa.
- Hoffa’s driver Marvin Elkind claimed in the 2011 book “The Weasel: A Double Life in the Mob” that Hoffa’s killers buried him beneath the 73-story Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, which is General Motors’ headquarters. The claim was rejected by authorities.
- A group of cold case crime investigators claimed in 2023 they believed Hoffa was buried on the site of the Brewers’ old ballpark, Milwaukee County Stadium in Wisconsin.
Dan Moldea, a 75-year-old journalist and author of “The Hoffa Wars” who has written extensively about the case since the ex-Teamster boss went missing, spurred one of the most recent searches for Hoffa in 2021 by providing the feds information he secured from multiple mob sources.
Moldea told the FBI he believed Hoffa was buried in a steel drum in an alcove under the Pulaski Skyway, near the site of a former Jersey City landfill.
Before the FBI began its search, Moldea and Fox News contracted teams of investigators to use ground-penetrating radar to check for anomalies under the site, such as steel drums. Both tests flagged possible evidence, he said.
The scans were then provided to the FBI’s Detroit Field Office, but Moldea said that office never shared the information with the FBI’s Newark Field Office — and he believes this led to the feds digging in the wrong spot a mere 10 yards away and coming up empty.
“We spoon-fed them this information, so it was tragic the way the whole thing worked out,” Moldea told The Post.
He wants to re-examine the suspected burial site, which is now owned by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, but said he’s been blocked because the agency claims the area is currently an active work zone for overhead construction on the highway.
Burnstein said he has great respect for Moldea’s work but believes the murder and body disposal was done locally — not out of state.
“I think people are making this way more complex than it actually was,” Bernstein said. “This was a job done by the Detroit mob, and it was probably done within a half hour or 45 minutes.”
Besides Hoffa’s bid to reclaim the Teamsters’ presidency — a title he held from 1959 to 1971 — Burnstein said his sources told him there’s another reason mobsters wanted Hoffa dead: He was a “confidential informant working for the FBI.”
“The rumors were starting to spread on the street in the spring of 75,” he said.
The FBI said the case remains active but declined to answer questions.
“As the 50th anniversary of Mr. Hoffa’s disappearance approaches, the FBI Detroit Field Office remains steadfast in its commitment to pursuing all credible leads,” said Cheyvoryea Gibson, the office’s Special Agent in Charge.
“We continue to encourage anyone with information to submit a tip at tips.fbi.gov or call 1-800-CALL-FBI.”
James P. Hoffa, son of the late Teamsters boss, told the Detroit News he doesn’t buy that his father’s remains were taken out of state, and he denied that his father planned to testify for the feds.
He’s proud of the “legacy” his father left behind, but regrets the disappearance became comedy fodder for late-night television and that his mother died in 1980 with a “broken heart.”
“My father went to a meeting he shouldn’t have gone to, and he was murdered,” said the younger Hoffa, 84, who served as Teamsters president from 1998-2022. “I know there are a lot of theories out there, but we’ve stopped trying to figure out who did what to whom.
“This is a tragedy our family has had to live with, and we’re still hoping to have closure someday.”
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