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Subscribe to RSSInvestigators are following a lead that suggests the notorious Teamsters boss, Jimmy Hoffa, could be buried in Roseville, Mich. Hoffa was last seen in Oakland County, Mich., in 1975. NBC's John Yang reports.
Police in Roseville, Mich., drilled into the ground Friday and took soil samples in the latest effort to find the remains of notorious Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Hank Walker/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Teamsters' boss Jimmy Hoffa in an undated image.
The decades-long investigation for Hoffa's body has had false leads before, and some experts are already knocking down the idea that Hoffa, who was last seen on July 30, 1975, outside a restaurant in Oakland County, Mich. -- 30 miles west of where police dug Friday -- could be buried in Roseville, a Detroit suburb.
The most recent investigation was launched after police in Roseville received a tip from a man in August who said he saw a body being buried underneath the driveway 35 years ago and "thinks it may have been Jimmy."
Police dug for about an hour and a half on Friday morning. They told NBC News' John Yang they were collecting soil samples around the home because ground-penetrating radar indicated the presence of something about two feet below the surface; officers came out of a shed with two cylindrical soil samples that were two inches in diameter and six feet long.
The soil samples are going to be hand-delivered by Roseville Police Chief James Berlin to a Michigan State University forensic anthropologist, who is expected to have the results of the samples as early as Monday afternoon. If human remains are found, the ground will be dug up.
The shed on the Roseville home's property is not the same one that was there when Hoffa disappeared in 1975, the police chief said.
The tipster who prompted the search spoke with police on Aug. 22 and didn't come forward sooner out of fear, reported WDIV in Detroit.
Feisty and iron-willed in contract talks, Hoffa was an acquaintance of mobsters and adversary of federal officials. He spent time in prison for jury tampering.
The day he disappeared, Hoffa was supposed to meet with a New Jersey Teamsters boss and a Detroit mafia captain. He was declared legally dead in 1982.
Previous tips led police to excavate soil in 2006 at a horse farm more than 100 miles north of Detroit, rip up floorboards at a Detroit home in 2004 and search beneath a backyard pool north of the city in 2003.
There were even rumors that Hoffa's remains were ground up and tossed into a Florida swamp, entombed beneath Giants Stadium in New Jersey or obliterated in a mob-owned fat-rendering plant.
Roseville is one of several inner-ring communities that grew quickly as unionized auto factory workers left Detroit in search of nicer homes and bigger yards.
Get the latest on the Jimmy Hoffa search from BreakingNews.com
News of the latest search has brought attention to the mostly working- and middle-class suburb from the curious and naysayers. Slowly moving vehicles have clogged the residential street where the home sits as camera-wielding neighbors snapped photos for keepsakes.
Police remove two large soil samples from a Michigan home based on a tip that Jimmy Hoffa's body may have been buried there decades ago. MSNBC's John Yang reports.
"I believe it's him. My sister said it is, and she's a psychic," Mike Smith said after ambling up to the home Thursday and shying a bit from the yellow police tape stretched across the driveway.
One theory that has endured was that the body was beneath the foundation of a downtown Detroit hockey stadium, said 57-year-old Cindi Frank, who snapped photos Thursday of the Roseville driveway.
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The daughter of a unionized driver and salesman for a Detroit bakery, Frank remembers conversations about Hoffa while he was alive and rumors about his fate.
"It was a family thing. Every time we'd go somewhere we'd say, 'Hey, I wonder if Jimmy Hoffa is buried there?'" Frank said. "It's just been one of those unsolved mysteries that's gone on for 30-something years. If he show up in Roseville ..."
Recently retired Detroit FBI chief Andrew Arena is among the doubters that the latest report will check out.
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"You've got to check it out, but this doesn't sound right," he told the AP. "The working theories that have developed over the years, this really doesn't fit any of those. If this was the mob and they killed somebody, I just don't see them burying the body basically at the intersection of a residential neighborhood with this guy standing there."
Some think the least likely spot for him to turn up might just be the place he does.
"Maybe the most inconspicuous spot might be the place to stash a body or something," said 52-year-old Andrew Kacir, who lives across from the taped off driveway.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Bill Pugliano / Getty Images
Police officials prepare to drill through a concrete driveway to obtain a soil sample that will be tested for signs of human decomposition at a site where a tipster reported that the body of former Teamster's union boss Jimmy Hoffa could be buried in Roseville, Mich.
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Looks like they just found something
dirt?...............
If they are boring, how do they distinguish between Hoffa and an abandoned grease pit?
Yeah, they found another way to waste tax payers money!
They found that they don't know when to consider a case closed.
Jeraldo Rivera will be doing a special soon.
I hope they find him. It would help the Economy just think of all the Documentaries and Movies. There will be at least 50 new books written. It will cause a mini boom. We could use some new stories. And the Economy needs all the help it can get.
GovHater, so you consider credible information leading to recovery of a murder victim's remains or maybe even solving a murder and bringing someone's killer or killers to justice a waste of your .00000001 of a cent. I'll gladly kick in your share. Send me a invoice. BTW I'll expect my .99999999 of a cent in change returned.
Jimmy Hoffa and D.B. Cooper, best hide-n-seek players, EVER!!
There should be a dollar in it for the home owner. Glass tomb where people visit, shows about the burial - something. He isn't thinking. There really doesn't even have to be a Hoffa there!
The thing that grabbed me from this story is "mob-owned fat rendering plant."
Just how many human bodies do you think they must have 'disposed of' in that plant?
Hmm... summer of '75. Probably more than a couple of NY and NJ restaurants purchased rendered fat for cooking back then.
Two words: Soylent Green
Yep!
Here we have it. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Case closed!
In related news, my neighbor mowed his lawn yesterday.
I seriously doubt that they are going to find Hoffa's remains at this location. I think this tipster is just some old timer looking for his 15 minutes of fame before he dies and having some fun at the expense of the police and the news media in the process. The fact that the ground penetrating radar showed something only two feet below the surface should be a tip-off that this is not a person's body. If someone had buried a body at this site they certainly would have buried it deeper to keep it from being dug up by some animal. One of the reasons that it became standard practice to bury bodies at least six feet under was to keep animals from catching the scent of the body and digging it up.
Yeah, the 6 feet part is true, but they poured concrete on top of the body so there is no need to big any deeper. Maybe they were building a garage or something, they had the whole ready, just dumped the body and poured the concrete on top of it.
More waste of taxpayer money. Screw Jimmy Hoffa - he was a scumbag. Move on people...
When you read shiiiit like this ... hope for priorities fly right out of the window!
@zuksam
You have no idea how close you are to the truth with your statement. Propoganda fuels our economy. Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, Jonbeney Ramsey, Nancy Halloway and many more.
There really must be nothin to do in Michigan. Even the police are trying to find ways to fill up their days.
They should have went with they're first lead! He's under the end zone at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands! Now they'll have to wait for football season to end...
@BigJeff
I mentioned in an earlier post that Hoffa is NOT where they are currently looking. My Great Grandfather drove the second car that afternoon July 30, 1975 (so he said) He could very well have been yanking our chains but given his history we had no reason to doubt him. I also said in my earlier post "Hoffa was in the ground, but is now all around" Thanks to the AMCBW. No one seemed to catch on to that comment. (AMCBW= AMALMAGATED MEAT CUTTERS AND BUTCHER WORKMEN of NORTH AMERICA)
Two words: Soylent GreenTWO WORDS: PINK SLIMECan you say hotdogs.
Devils son, I couldn't agree more. I HATE government haters and people who gripe about "spending tax-payers' money." If they can solve a murder, then you have my full support to spend my tax dollars. You have to pay taxes. Quit griping about and live with it. It's called "being a grown up" - you pay taxes. If you like having a police department, a military, a fire department, emergency services, etc., then pay your taxes and stop complaining about it! Just because you don't like EVERYTHING they spend them on, too bad. No one is going to approve of 100% of what tax dollars are spent on. It's called "The Social Contract." We pay taxes and give up certain things in exchange the government protects us and provides services to us. That's the way society works!
What is the reason for continuing this search? This happened almost 40 years ago to a person who made his money and his bones with the Mob and countless little people were stepped on in the process. I assume he got what he reaped, end of story.
Dave, don't forget Amelia Earhart. Tag, you're it.
"George, the police are drilling the driveway!"
This is a news story ??? Or is it another lame brain distraction ?
It's news... not exciting, but history. News doesent have to mean war, politics and money... it means things that might be of interest.
Maybe this should be on the Discovery or History channels then .....
@Fox Purtill, it may or may not be exciting to some, isn't really much of history as Hoffa was just another criminal or thug on the take exploiting unionworkers and working stiffs until he became one. It might be of interest to family, surviving associates or friends but not to the majority of America or the world as time has passed him by. Either way, private funds should be used for this and not public taxpayers or is Detroit not in need of public funds these days....
It is still an unsolved murder therefore the FBI is checking on a lead. I'd rather the FBI use my money for this than to have Moochelle fly her entire clique of friends to Spain using my tax dollars.
It'll be news if they actually find him. Till then it's just the same story that's been going on forever. "searching for Jimmy Hoffa" is not news. "found Jimmy Hoffa" would be news.
More of a news story than what a football team did or the latest drunken adventures of Linsey Lohan.
Who really cares anymore? Tons of people went missing today and they spend their time looking for someone who died before some of us were born? I like the guy who said my sisters a psychic and said hes there, so he must be there lol crazy news
Blah
you are right. We are gonna dig him up just to put him back in the ground. The two guys he was last seen with are dead. How many people with Mafia connections have dissapeared? probably hundreds. Maybe the teamsters have a pool.......for 20 bucks you pick a date and year when you think Hoffa's remains will be found.
HIS FAMILY cares a$$hole! But nobody will care when you die!
Croc, I kinda think the point he was making is that lots of other people (who's families care just as much about their missing loved ones) are not getting the money, time or resources that the hunt for Hoffa is getting.
Just because you're a big name doesn't mean you're more important than the no names.
You have to remember Robert Kennedy. As long as Hoffa is searched for, the name Bobby Kennedy will show up in the news, whether they find Hoffa or not. It's sort of like the fact that Elvis is worth more dead than alive.
Okay, let's say they actually find the remains, then what?
ssshhh... don't inject common sense into this...............
1) It will prove he didn't survive
2) Will solve a missing persons for the FBI
3) Will set a change in American History reference
There are more... but it DOES have reference to criminal history.
The search for a dead victim turns into a search for dead perpetrators.
How often does a Cop or FBI agent get to work a case that if successful would make it into history books. And I'm talking about the real history books in every High School in America. Because of his connection to the Kennedy's he is a part of American History.
There's a police office somewhere going finally and a family that gets to bury their father and grandfather where they want to. It matters to them!
We all know that whoever killed Hoffa is the same that killed Kennedy.
Or perhaps the Kennedy's
Another conspiracy theory, since others are giving their take here's mine.
I think they'll find Mitt Romney's stash of money he swindled from classmates.
"I believe it's him. My sister said it is, and she's a psychic," Mike Smith said after ambling up to the home Thursday and shying a bit from the yellow police tape stretched across the driveway.
YES, and I was talking to aliens yesterday from outer space and they said he's there as well. lol
Ain't we got nothing better than this to talk about? It's probably a dead pet if anything.
Really ? Talking to 'aliens' ? Wow... before or after they cut your grass ?
Josh, that's just Silly, the aliens mop the floors, not cut my grass!
make a good episode for "Bones"....really like the psychic women..
naw hes under my cracked up and potholed driveway.....come dig him up.......
They won't replace your driveway you'll have to pay for that at twice the cost! Government involvement!
Let it go,who cares about the creep. He's gone thats the main thing!
Again his family cares and that includes Teamsters,a$$hole! If you don't like him or the story why did you click on the story? Oh wait you must have the IQ of a 3month old,moron!
Again croc, people go missing around the world all the time. Do you care about each of them? Is Hoffa more important than them?
Bad things happen to strangers all the time. Sure it sucks for their loved ones. But the rest of us that never knew them honestly don't care.
To show some respect for Hoffa and what he had accomplished, it will take 20 union workers and three weeks to dig him up.
Very well said.
Only one will be digging. $50,000,000.00 will be the cost for the equipment shovel, if they have to bring in a back-ho look out the union cost will triple.
What? You can't expect union workers to actually do the manual labor. They will have to hire some Mexicans to come in and do the actual work, and pay them minimum wage, while they sit back and supervise and charge $90 per hour to watch them do the work, and of course there will have to be 20 or 30 of them to supervise.
Hoffa was on my ex's radio show in Houston RIGHT before he disappeared. When I interviewed him about his plans for the future, he said he didn't have any because he was going to disappear and nobody would ever find him! I was shocked and asked him why he said that.......he remarked that in his line of work when you are out of favor with the Mob, you can disappear for good. And, he did! I called the FBI and told him about this a few years ago and they just laughed. C'est la vie! 
That's it, I'm going on strike.
Why are they still digging into this?
literally
"Hoffa was an acquaintance of mobsters"
And this year's "No Kiddin'?'" award for Understatement of the Year goes to..........
Where's Dionne Warwick and her psychic friends when you need them?
Yer all wrong: Thee happens to know on the sly that Hoffa was never offed by The Mob, but intentionally disappeared and has been working as Manager of the greeting card department at the Eckerds drugstore at the McCreeless Mall in San Antonio, TX, since his disappearance oh so long ago, and has recently retired and is living in style in Panama with Elvis and Jimmi Hendrix.
So, let's put this to rest once and for all pee-ple!!
Oh...almost forgot: ------ YAWN ------ Wake Thee up when Fallen comes on...
Yer Pal Always,
Thee
LOL -- Love it! You got my vote for most likely scenario!!
I hear He and Tupac enjoy salt water fishing.
Hoffa was part of people's hamburgers for several months after he disappeared.
Gross but I'm so hungry Hoffa bits sound kinda good right now.
Whitecastle,the mob didn't think he was a big shot.
Not hamburgers--Hoffaburgers
They could have added him to Whitecastle burgers, cause at 2 AM, I wouldn't know the difference.
Sliders a way to dispose of DNA real fast.
Maybe that's what they will find under that driveway. A bag of little empty Slider boxes
I think Chicago's Solider Field cause Jimmy was a real trooper and he was always bearing down! It was closer.
Hoff-dogs....
You can hide them anywhere...
Allowable bits of things by the US Government, Chicago style. MMMMMM. few beers at a Cubs, or Bears and Packers game he wouldn't last long at all.
Interesting that they have not discussed who owned the home at the time of this purported burial??
Well now we have some real credibility to go on here!!
Did this 'info' come from Harry Reid's 'anonymous source'?
You recall Reid? that 'dip sctick' from Nevada who is the main road block to the recovery of America ?
Now that is a solid source.
Choke puke cough !
Any time anyone claims to be a psychic, everyone present should get to pop em in the mouth, and tell em to shut up.
Bottom line, this far after the fact, who cares?
"I believe it's him. My sister said it is, and she's a psychic,"
Well ok then. If the psychic says so, then why are we all still wondering?
Why didn't she tell us sooner??
Police dug for about an hour and a half on Friday morning. <~~~This might be a good way to get a garden dug...an anonymous tip about my backyard.
Hoffa was a gangster period: Any of the peoples tax money spent on this hoax is ridiculous. Hoffa's dead and good ridence....get off it Michigan
The FBI isn't Michigan they are the Feds. It is remarkable how many people cannot differentiate between the federal and state justice systems....
Neither can President Obama ;-} Couldn't leave it was tooo good!
What ? there is NO 'j u s t i c e 'system in America. No there is not... Just a ' L E G A L' system.
IF one has enough money and has a desire to avopid jail time... hire a lawyer who works the LEGAL system.
No more justice in America folks ...none.. Get used to it.
CSI should have gotten this case......
With the mentalist Simon Baker to assist w/the psyhic part
Why do you need a psychic, just write it into the script, it will all play out! You can only call CSI if there was a crime, maybe Hoffa was covering up for somebody?
Always worth a look, they have solid ways of investigating these initially.
Those nay says must have the IQ of a house plant to discount this as a viable lead.
The guy was hamburger meat and has been eatin by the worms and ant's! GONE!!!!! NO TRACE!!!!!!!
You Jim are now a suspect! This is just the type of comment they are looking for!
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "Hoffa is alive and well. . .living in Shreveport, Louisiana with Elvis, Amelia Earhardt, and Fred Noonan. Saw them just last week at the laundromat!
Harry Reid's 'anonymous source reported seeing two of them at Denny's one morning a week ago. It was in Tallahassee though.
You recall Harry Reid? That fool who is holding up all sorts of fool legislation because it was written by some Republicans and he wants to show the world and his coven of boy friends how powerful he is?
Yeah that one!
Josh,
Your joke wasn't that funny the first time around. Way to inject politics into every nook and cranny of your pathetic life.
I was wondering when/how somebody would turn the Jimmy Hoffa mystery into a stupid Republican/Democrat attack.
In this time of huge deficits why is anyone spending a single penny on someone like Hoffa who disappeared before my grandfather was born!!
Ok, I'm being a little sarcastic.
Union dues, and President Obama's job program!
"... who disappeared before my grandfather was born!!"
Hmmm, 1975 was 37 years ago. so if your grandfather was born the day after Hoffa disappeared and had your father/mother at the early age of 16 then your father/mother had you at the early age of 16 that would make you about 5 years old now! You must be one very smart toddler to already be thinking about deficits and typing on a news message board at such a tender age!
And if you missed the tone of disbelief the first time through my response then please re-read it again.