Watch above: Search for Hoffa’s remains over (June 19)
OAKLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. – A search of a rural field in suburban Detroit has failed to turn up the remains of former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa, an FBI agent announced Wednesday as authorities ended the dig.
“We did not uncover any evidence relevant to the investigation on James Hoffa,” said Robert Foley, head of the FBI in Detroit.
Authorities have pursued multiple leads as to Hoffa’s whereabouts since his disappearance in 1975. He was last seen outside an Oakland County restaurant where he was to meet with a New Jersey Teamsters boss and a Detroit Mafia captain.
The latest tip about Hoffa’s remains came from reputed Mafia captain Tony Zerilli, who, through his lawyer, said Hoffa was buried beneath a concrete slab in a barn in Oakland Township, north of Detroit.
The barn is gone, but FBI agents on Monday starting poring over the field where it used to stand.
Hoffa’s rise in the Teamsters, his 1964 conviction for jury tampering and his presumed murder are Detroit’s link to a time when organized crime, public corruption and mob hits held the nation’s attention. Over the years, authorities have received various tips, leading the FBI to possible burial sites near and far.
Zerilli, now 85, was in prison for organized crime when Hoffa disappeared. But he told New York TV station WNBC in January that he was informed about Hoffa’s whereabouts after his release. His attorney, David Chasnick, said Zerilli is “intimately involved” with people who know where the body is buried.
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