Posted on: August 6, 2024, 05:23h.
Last updated on: August 6, 2024, 05:33h.
If an independent team of cold-case investigators is correct, the 40-year-old rumor that Jimmy Hoffa was buried beneath a sports stadium was not wrong. It just wasn’t Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
According to The Sun, the team, named the Case Breakers, believes that Hoffa, who led the Teamsters Union from 1957 until 1971, lies beneath where third base used to be at the old Milwaukee County Stadium.
That’s where Major League Baseball’s Milwaukee Brewers played until 2001. The spot is now a parking lot for the Brewers’ new ballpark, American Family Field.
Hoffa’s remains were stashed there sometime in the mid-1990s, according to the Case Breakers, after initially being stored or buried somewhere else.
They’re asking the FBI to step in — not to perform a full excavation, only to test soil samples for human decomposition.
Why They Think That
The clue that convinced the team was written on a Las Vegas casino playing card by Harold Walthers, a former Chicago cop with connections to Joey Aiuppa.
Aiuppa led the Chicago Outfit from 1971 until his conviction for skimming in 1986. (In Martin Scorsese’s 1995 movie, “Casino,” the character of Remo Gaggi, played by Pasquale Cajano, was based on Aiuppa.)
Walthers had jotted down “J. Hoffa” on an ace of spades — the death card — along with Aiuppa’s name (misspelled “Ioppa”), the date “9-16-95,” and “3rd Base Milwaukee Ball Park.”
Case Breakers member Jim Zimmerman learned of the existence of the card from his girlfriend, Michelle, who was Walthers’ niece.
In 2020, Zimmerman — a law enforcement veteran with 40 years’ experience — subjected the site to ground-penetrating radar. He claims it revealed a disturbed area where third base used to be.
Zimmerman also claims he brought in Madison, Wisc. police officer Carren Corcoran to investigate, and that her cadaver dog, Moxy, signaled the presence of remains multiple times near the area.
So far, the FBI has neither agreed to investigate, nor issued a response to, the Case Breakers’ findings. Zimmerman believes it’s because the bureau has already been burned too often by claims that turned out false.
Several excavations for Hoffa’s body have already taken place in Michigan and New Jersey. The most recent was conducted in 2022, under New Jersey’s Pulaski Skyway Bridge.
No excavations turned up any evidence.
What We Know
On July 30, 1975, Hoffa left his suburban Detroit home for a business lunch with alleged Detroit mafia kingpin Anthony Giacalone and Anthony Provenzano, a capo in New York’s Genovese crime family who served as national VP of the Teamsters during Hoffa’s second term as its president.
But Hoffa, 62, was the only one who showed up at the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. So he called his wife, Josephine, from a payphone, telling her that he was stood up and would be home at 4 p.m. for dinner.
Hoffa never made it home. Instead, he vanished without moving his car. What happened, and why, has become a legendary mystery.
Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982, but his body was never found and no one was ever charged in connection with his death
Hoffa’s Vegas Legacy
Hoffa played a significant role in developing the Las Vegas Strip. Though his control over the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund, he extended millions of dollars in loans to various Strip casinos at a time when banks didn’t consider them a wise investment.
Hoffa’s loans helped the Desert Inn, Dunes, Stardust, Circus Circus, and the Aladdin. However, his most significant role was lending Jay Sarno $10.6 million to build Caesars Palace according to his vision.
Hoffa resigned as Teamsters president on June 19, 1971, four years into a 13-year sentence for jury tampering. That sentence was commuted by President Richard Nixon on Dec. 23, 1971, after which Hoffa planned to regain leadership of the Teamsters.
The leading theory about his death is that the mafia opposed Hoffa’s plans to return to power.
