"The Sinister Disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa" is a video made by Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, uploaded onto YouTube on July 13, 2018. It was the first episode of the fourth season of BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime, and the sixty-seventh episode overall. You can find it here.
Description[]
Season Premiere. What really happened to this famed Mob figure?
Background[]
James Riddle Hoffa served as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' president from 1958 to 1971. The Teamsters were originally known as a labor union for drivers. At age 18, Hoffa succeeded in getting dock workers better pay by organizing a strike. He began organizing for the Teamsters a year later, and gradually rose through the ranks. Hoffa's influence as president of the Teamsters in the US was significant. At the time, 90% of US transportation was controlled by the Teamsters, who were controlled by Hoffa. In 1941, Hoffa and the Teamsters were engaged in a turf battle with rivals in Detroit. It's here, according to author and reporter Dan Moldea, that Hoffa got involved with the Mob. Hoffa hired the Mob to get rid of these rivals in the city, and although this worked, after this, the Mafia essentially owned Hoffa.
The Mob and Hoffa formed a symbiotic relationship. The Mob was able to benefit from taking loans out of the Teamsters' pension fund, funneling these funds into the financing of many Las Vegas casinos. Hoffa and the Teamsters, in turn, got a favorable return on these loans. Despite Hoffa's connections to the Mob, he was beloved by union workers, as he was known for increasing benefits and wages for workers.
Hoffa had a stable relationship with the Mob in the 1940s and 1950s, but this began to splinter after he went to prison. Hoffa started serving a 13 year sentence behind bars in 1967 for crimes including bribery, jury tampering, and mail fraud. Then, in 1971, President Richard Nixon pardoned Hoffa with the promise that Hoffa would abstain from any union involvement until 1980. This pardon would oddly set into motion events that would lead to Hoffa's downfall.
Four years later, in early July, federal investigators found that the Teamsters' largest pension fund had been robbed of hundreds of millions of dollars, and only two weeks later, Hoffa vanished. The timing of these two occurrences seems to suggest more than a coincidence, with the discovery of hundreds of millions of dollars going missing from the Teamsters pension fund, and Hoffa barred from the Teamsters and free from jail. It stands to reason that Hoffa could have made it known to investigators that the Mafia was involved with the Teamsters' pension funds.
On July 30, 1975, 62 year old Hoffa was seen outside a Detroit area restaurant, called the Machus Red Fox. According to notes written by Hoffa to his family, Hoffa was asked to meet two acquaintances at 2:00 PM at this restaurant. The acquaintances were suspects Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone and Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, both members of the Mafia. Provenzano was also a Teamster, however, neither Giacalone nor Provenzano showed up to the meeting, and they both insisted that there had been no meeting organized when questioned by the FBI. Giacalone and Provenzano technically have alibis the day of Hoffa's disappearance. Giacalone was at the Southfield Athletic Club, noticeably chatting up people he knew and didn't know. Investigators suspected this behavior as Giacalone trying to solidify an alibi. Provenzano was in New Jersey, not Michigan, with his brother Salvatore "Sammy Pro" Provenzano all afternoon, playing cards in a union hall.
After Giacalone and Provenzano didn't show, Hoffa calls his wife, Josephine, around 2:30 PM, from a nearby hardware store pay phone, to tell her what had happened. There were five witnesses who told investigators that they saw Hoffa in the restaurant parking lot, looking like he was waiting for someone that afternoon, as Hoffa was fairly famous and recognizable at the time. Additional witnesses said that a burgundy Mercury Marquis with three men inside picked up Hoffa in the parking lot. It stands to reason that Hoffa entering that car was the last time he was seen alive. The following morning, on July 31, 1975, Hoffa's car was found in the restaurant parking lot.
Witness statements that Hoffa entered a burgundy Mercury Marquis with three men seems to be corroborated by DNA evidence from years later. A hair found in the car was confirmed to belong to Hoffa, therefore, it's plausible, if not likely, that this is the car that transported Hoffa to the secondary location where he was killed. Witnesses stated that the driver of the car looked to be a man named Charlies Chuckie O'Brien, who was known to be like a surrogate son, and protege to Hoffa. The thing to look at Hoffa probably would not put himself into a car, into a dangerous situation unless there were people in the car that he trusted.
O'Brien always denied that Hoffa entered that car, and any involvement with Hoffa's disappearance. However, O'Brien was scrutinized by investigators after Hoffa's disappearance, with some maintaining that O'Brien's relationship with Hoffa had suffered after O'Brien felt that Hoffa should have gotten him better positions in the Teamsters.
Hoffa's daughter has said that O'Brien, "was driving the car my father disappeared in the vicinity of The Red Fox," and reason that "if my dad's hair was in the car, he was there." Investigators also noticed the car was recently cleaned. O'Brien said he was using the car to run errands, like transporting a 40 pound package of salmon from Detroit at Teamster headquarters to a union official's house. He said that the salmon had spilled blood in the backseat, so he needed to get it cleaned. German shepherds also found Hoffa's scent in both the backseat and the trunk. Hoffa's son has said when he asked O'Brien if he was involved in his father's disappearance, O'Brien quickly fled the room.
Searches for Hoffa included both literal searches in the area and searches through phone and other records, but unfortunately, Hoffa's body was never found. One thing seems to be generally agreed upon, that Hoffa, in some way, was killed by the Mafia. The Hoffex memo, a document written in January 1976, by federal investigators indicates that authorities suspected that the Mafia, concerned that Hoffa would make it known they had infiltrated the Teamsters, and accessed its pension fund, to pay for its illegal operations, decided to kill him.
As for the question of why Hoffa would divulge information to investigators, one book on the case, I Heard You Paint Houses, suggests that the Mafia was concerned that Hoffa, who was anxious to get back into union leadership, would be willing to swap information with the authorities to lift his 1980 restriction on union activity that Nixon ordered. Hoffa was also apparently vocal about trying to get the Mob out of the union, and the union's pension fund.
Even still, despite knowing that someone in the Mob likely killed Hoffa, investigators could never figure out who it actually was. Four months into the investigation, Ralph Picardo, an inmate in New Jersey, claimed that he had information obtained while one of Hoffa's killers visited him in prison. Picardo's information allowed the investigators to form their list of suspects, most of which were connected to Provenzano, one of the men that Hoffa was supposed to meet the day he disappeared, however, all of the suspects eventually took the fifth, and didn't testify, which dashed any hope of an indictment and led to an essential cold case.
Theories[]
- Hoffa was killed by Salvatore Briguglio, at Rolland McMaster's horse farm in Milford Township. McMaster was an enforcer for the Teamsters. This theory is supported by The Hoffa Wars author, Dan Moldea, who interviewed Salvatore Briguglio before Briguglio was killed.
- In 2006, the FBI searched for Hoffa at the horse farm, to no avail. However, Moldea believes that Briguglio killed Hoffa at the farm, and that his body was then put in a 55 gallon drum, and sent to a Mafia controlled landfill in New Jersey, in a Gateway Transportation truck. The trucking company's president was a Teamster pension fund trustee.
- Tony Provenzano ordered the hit on Hoffa. Federal investigators theorized that Provenzano organized the hit because of conflict between Hoffa and Provenzano that occurred while they were imprisoned together in Pennsylvania. Their conflict grew to the point where the two despised each other.
- According to Hoffa's son, Tony Provenzano, as Hoffa's enemy, was thought to have been influencing Frank Fitzsimmons, who was Hoffa's successor in the Teamsters. In 1974, Hoffa said that Provenzano had threatened to kidnap his loved ones, or pull his guts out if he tried to become president of the Teamsters again, as their mutual contempt increased.
- Richard Kuklinski, aka, The Iceman, killed Hoffa. Kuklinski was a hit man and serial killer, who was interviewed for hundreds of hours by author Philip Carlo, while Kuklinski was in prison.
- During the interviews, Kuklinski, who has since died, claimed to have been paid $40,000 to kill Hoffa by the Mob. He explained that, at the ultimate orders of powerful Mob figure Russell Bufalino, he drove to Detroit to four other Mob members, most likely, Tony Provenzano, Gabriel and Salvatore Briguglio, and Thomas Andretta, and picked up Hoffa at a suburban restaurant. They then knocked Hoffa out, stabbed him with a hunting knife in the skull, and transported the body to New Jersey in a car trunk that was later crushed and sold as scrap metal. Kuklinski said, "He's part of a car somewhere in Japan right now."
- Patrick Kane, a police officer who was part of the effort to put Kuklinski behind bars, believes that Kuklinski is telling the truth. However, others dismiss Kuklinski's claims, saying that he was a gross liar and exaggerator. Robert Garrity, crime expert and former FBI agent, has called this claim, "the most embarrassing one to date."
- Mob killer Frank Sheeran, aka, The Irishman, killed Hoffa on orders from Russell Bufalino. Sheeran spent some of his last weeks interviewing and possibly confessing with author Charles Brandt. Ironically, Hoffa was the one to originally hire Sheeran to be a killer, as Hoffa is said to have used Sheeran to get rid of his rivals and secure his leadership in the Teamsters.
- Sheeran claims that after they picked up Hoffa at the restaurant, they drove Hoffa to an empty home, where he shot Hoffa in the back of the head, as he walked inside. Sheeran then left, as the body was taken to a funeral home controlled by the Mob, where he was cremated.
- Sheeran apparently felt very guilty for betraying Hoffa, but did so because he would also be killed if he refused. Sheeran said that he purposefully sat in the front passenger seat of the car, to send a secret warning to Hoffa. Hoffa always sat in the front passenger seat, so Sheeran hoped that Hoffa would notice there was something amiss with the gathering. Hoffa's son reportedly said that he believed that his father would've entered the car with Sheeran inside, and that he wouldn't have done that if it had been other suspects.
- Furthermore, according to the FBI, Sheeran was in the Detroit area when Hoffa vanished. Sheeran even named a house where the murder took place, but attempts to locate Hoffa's blood evidence led nowhere. According to reporter David Ashenfelter, it's possible Sheeran is telling the truth, but there isn't really any evidence apart from his word. It's possible that Sheeran may have wanted to clear his guilty conscience before dying, especially with his strong Catholic faith.
- Where this theory gets interesting is the possible involvement of Russell Bufalino, who Sheeran claims co-ordered the hit. A PBS investigation into Hoffa, and taped conversations with President Nixon revealed that Hoffa's successor and Mafia member, Frank Fitzsimmons worked with President Nixon, to pardon Hoffa and get Hoffa out of prison. But also, they suggest that Fitzsimmons played a role in the union ban on Hoffa until 1980. The tapes indicate that Fitzsimmons wanted Hoffa out of prison so he could keep control of the Teamsters that supported Hoffa. However, Fitzsimmons didn't want Hoffa to be able to seize power, hence the restriction. On Nixon's side, Nixon thought that pardoning Hoffa would endear him to workers, because as Attorney General John Mitchell said in the tapes, "he's just a tough, beer-drinking, no good son of a bitch like most of them are."
- Documents at Wayne State University's Reuther Labor Library revealed that members of the Provenzano mob group sent a representative to Vegas to deliver $500,000 to Charles Colson, special counsel to Nixon. The documents go on to show that more money from the Mob was sent to Nixon for the restricted Hoffa pardon, nearly one million dollars in total. This was around the time of the Watergate scandal, and according to a Department of Justice memo, this money could've been used to try to cover up Watergate, though the mob payments to Nixon were never confirmed.
- The documents suggest that Hoffa could've been suspicious of this. It's theoretically possible he could've been preparing to go public with the information that the Mob paid off President Nixon. This would have made Russel Bufalino, one of the most powerful figures in the American mob, very nervous. Additionally, in 1975, Time Magazine published an article that linked Bufalino to the CIA via Mafia and CIA goings on in Cuba. According to journalist Matt Birkbeck, this destroyed Bufalino's carefully protected secrecy, and after its publication, Bufalino was determined to silence anyone who would shed more light on his activity. He got wind that Hoffa and some other mobsters, including Sam Momo Giancana, and John Roselli, were going to meet with the Church Committee, which was looking into the CIA and its activity in Cuba, and sure enough, Giancana, Roselli and Hoffa were all killed in various ways after Bufalino heard about their plans.
- Hoffa is still alive. This is mainly theorized due to the fact that Hoffa's body was never found. One bleak version of this theory suggests that not only is Hoffa alive, but he's still in custody of the Mob. Another happier version of this theory suggests that Hoffa ran off with a go-go dancer to South America. Either way, in 1982, Hoffa was officially declared dead.