In September 2012, dozens of residents looked on as police cordoned off the area around a shed just northeast of Detroit.
Low whispers about what — or whom — officers searched for grew to more excited chatter when the name Jimmy Hoffa started floating around the normally quiet street.
By that time, the name was sort of mythical in and around the city.
July 30 marked 50 years since the iron-fisted former Teamsters union boss disappeared from a restaurant about 10 miles north of the city. Presumed dead long before being legally declared deceased in 1982, Hoffa's remains were not found beneath the concrete shed floor in Roseville in 2012.
Nor were they uncovered eight years earlier, below floorboards in a Detroit house. Neither were they found miles northwest of the city.
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In 2013, digging equipment found mostly dirt as authorities in Oakland Township, about 25 miles north of Detroit. No signs of Hoffa were found in 2022 during a search of land beneath the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey.
Jimmy Hoffa, Teamsters vice president and leading candidate to succeed Dave Beck as the president, waves to delegates Sept. 30, 1957, at the opening of the Teamsters Union convention in Miami Beach, Fla.
Who was he?
Hoffa, the son of a coal miner who died when he was 7, was born in Brazil, Indiana, but moved with his mother to Detroit while still a boy. He quit school at age 14 and went to work, landing a job on a grocery warehouse loading dock.
In 1932, Hoffa led a workers' strike over poor labor conditions and unfair treatment of workers by the store, according to a .
He joined the union a year later and became a business agent for Local 299 in Detroit, the website said. Hoffa was elected the local's president in 1937 and became a union organizer.
Hoffa often found himself on the other side of the law. In 1937, he was convicted of assault and battery. In 1940, he pleaded no contest to charges of conspiring with unionized waste-paper companies to prevent non-union competitors from selling their products. Seven years later, he was arrested for attempted extortion. Each time, he only received fines.
He continued to rise in the union's ranks and, from 1957 to 1971, he served as the Teamsters general president.
Jimmy Hoffa, former president of the Teamsters Union, testifies Oct. 19, 1972, at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on parole procedures in Washington.
Crime connections
Former Teamster's President James Hoffa leaves the Lewisberg, Pa., penitentiary on Dec. 23, 1971, after U.S. President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence.
Hoffa had a history of associating with organized crime. In the late 1960s, he was convicted of fraud, conspiracy and jury tampering. He was sent to federal prison in 1967. President Richard Nixon commuted Hoffa's 13-year sentence in 1971.
On July 30, 1975, Hoffa, then 62, was to meet reputed Detroit mob enforcer Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone and alleged New Jersey mob figure Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano at the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Oakland County's Bloomfield Township.
Hoffa called his wife, Josephine, about 2:15 p.m. that day from a pay phone to tell her no one showed up for the meeting.
He was never seen or heard from since, despite scores of tips and multiple searches spanning several states.
Former Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa receives a Christmas kiss from his wife, Josephine, on Dec. 24, 1971, at his daughter's suburban ¹û½´ÊÓƵ home.
A grand jury later was convened in Detroit, but no one ever was directly charged in Hoffa's disappearance or death.
The FBI's Detroit office said the Hoffa case "remains one of the most well-known missing person investigations in FBI history."
"Regardless of the age of the case, the FBI Detroit Field Office remains committed to following all credible leads and is seeking information to assist in moving this case forward," the agency said in a release. "The Hoffa investigation remains active, and our office continues to urge anyone with information to come forward."
Robert Kennedy, left, counsel for the Senate Rackets Investigating Committee, attorney George S. Fitzgerald, center, and his client, Teamster Union Vice President James R. Hoffa, confer in September 1957 during a break in hearings in Washington, D.C.
Remembered as hero
Whoever is responsible went to great lengths to keep such information hidden, even after five decades.
"I think it confirms in my mind … somebody did a pretty good hit job on him," Wayne State University educator Marick Masters said of Hoffa.
Masters, professor emeritus at the university's Mike Ilitch School of Business in Detroit, said Hoffa was considering getting back into Teamsters' leadership at the time of his disappearance.
"He still, obviously, was very much passionately involved in the union and he wanted to find a way of moving forward in it," Masters said. "Whatever the circumstances were, he was tragically prevented from doing that."
Hoffa was inducted into Labor's International Hall of Fame in 1999, according to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which refers to Hoffa on its website as "a worker's hero."
"He was viewed as a very passionate champion of the Teamsters," Masters said. "On the other hand, he had problematic associations which besmirched the image of organized labor. He was a very controversial figure. He was capable of accomplishing things and also capable of having associations that raised questions about his integrity."
Amelia Earhart and 15 other unsolved American mysteries
Amelia Earhart
One of America’s most famous mysteries is the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. The American aviator, fondly known as “Lady Lindy,†became the first woman (and second person after Charles Lindbergh) to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. And she was determined to fly around the world. In July 1937, on her second attempt to become the first pilot ever to circumnavigate the globe, she disappeared somewhere over the Pacific without a trace.
The Lizzie Borden murders
On Aug. 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were found in their Massachusetts home hacked to death by an ax. Lizzie, their daughter, was arrested on circumstantial evidence and tried for the murders. She was acquitted in 1893. Afterward, she inherited a significant portion of her father’s estate, and she bought a new home with her sister Emma. She continued to live in Fall River until her death on June 1, 1927. What ever happened that day, in that house, went to the grave with Lizzie.
The Roswell incident
In 1947, about 75 miles from Roswell, N.M., a rancher found what appeared to be wreckage made of a strange metal. Although Air Force officials said it was a crashed weather balloon, and later, a top-secret atomic espionage project, it is still believed by many to be the remains of a UFO. Today people still come from all over to visit the site to find their own evidence, and many still insist the government and the military are covering up the truth.
JFK assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald slaying
Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. After his arrest, in the basement of the Dallas police station, Oswald was shot to death by Jack Ruby. Some still believe Oswald or Ruby was part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international. Although the official Warren Commission report found this to be false, it fails to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event.
The abandoned Mary Celeste
The Mary Celeste was an American merchant ship. In November 1872, the ship left New York harbor en route to Genoa, Italy, never to arrive. In December of that year it was found off the coast of Portugal’s Azores Islands. The ship had been abandoned of all crew and a single lifeboat. The mystery deepens: The ship has all its rations, alcohol provisions were unopened, and the captain’s and crew’s personal belongings were undisturbed. There have been many theories for the maritime mystery, but it remains unsolved.
The JonBenét Ramsey murder
On Dec. 26, 1996, 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was found dead in her Boulder, Colo., home. On that morning her parents, John and Patricia, called police after a ransom note was found and the child was missing. Later that afternoon JonBenét was found dead in their basement. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled and had a fractured skull. With John and Patricia appearing on numerous TV programs and interviews declaring their innocence, the still-unsolved murder led to one of the most publicized police investigations of the 1990s.
The Zodiac Killer
In the 1960s and early 1970s northern California was terrorized by a series of grisly murders from the self-proclaimed Zodiac. Letters from the killer were sent to area newspapers with threats, demands and information only the killer would have known. Then in 1974, they abruptly ended. The Zodiac Killer was directly linked to at least five murders, but he hinted he had killed at least 37 victims. For more than five decades the case has remained open, with no sign of a resolution.
The Great Serpent Mound
Great Serpent Mound in Ohio is a mound in the shape of a snake with a curled tail nearly 1,300 feet long. Experts agree it was built by pre-Columbian natives, but even with radiocarbon dating no one can pinpoint the age or the tribe. According to , archaeologist Frederic Ward Putnam excavated the sight in the late 19th century, but he found no artifacts in the serpent that might allow archaeologists to assign it to a particular culture. To this date no one knows if the mound was used for astronomical reasons or even as a large tomb.
Sailing stones of Death Valley
Death Valley is known worldwide as being one of the hottest places on Earth, but many don’t know about Racetrack Playa. Littered across the flat, dry lake bed are hundreds of rocks ranging in shapes and sizes, some weighing 700 pounds. Nothing unusual about that, except that they move. Although no one has seen them move with their own two eyes, the tracks behind the stones show periodic changes in their location. Some believe it could be a weather-related event such as ice, wind or rain, but either way it is one strange mystery.
D.B. Cooper
On Nov. 24, 1971, Dan Cooper bought a one-way plane ticket from Portland, Ore., to Seattle, Wash. During the flight he gave a flight attendant a note saying he had a bomb and demanded $200,000 and four parachutes. When the flight landed in Seattle, the crew brought onboard the money and parachutes. After the other passengers exited the plane, it took off again heading south. Somewhere between Seattle and Reno, Nev., Cooper jumped with the money wearing a suit, a raincoat and sunglasses, never to be seen again.
The Levelland event
During the 1950s and '60s, there were reports of hundreds of UFO or flying saucer sightings all over the U.S. But one of the most unusual and famous sightings happened in Levelland, Texas. On Nov. 2, 1957, more than 20 people from the town reported seeing strange lights and cigar-shaped objects in the sky. What was more mysterious about these sightings was that car engines and lights would reportedly go out when the objects flew overhead. The Air Force said at the time that it was an electrical storm, even though there were no storms in that area that night.
The Texas Killing Fields
The Texas Killing Fields are in a 50-mile stretch that runs along Interstate 45, between Houston and Galveston, and has become known as the site of some of the most mysterious and puzzling murders in the U.S. Throughout the 1970s the bodies of 30 adolescent and teenage girls were found in abandoned oil fields and marshes. Only a few of the murders have ever been solved, and most likely the rest will never be.
The Roanoke Colony
In 1587 on the banks of North Carolina, 121 colonists led by Englishman John White set up permanent colony on Roanoke Island. Later in the year White would return to England for more supplies, only to return three years later due to England’s war with Spain. Upon entering the village, White found it empty with no trace of its citizens. There were no signs of a struggle and no remains, just the word “Croatoan†carved on a post and the letters “CRO†carved into the trunk of a tree. Today gravestones commemorate the mystery of the lost colony.
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa was an American labor leader and organizer in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1952 he became the vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and eventually the president. During his lifetime he made more than a few enemies, did prison time and was said be mob-connected. In July 1975, he was to meet Mafia leaders about settling a feud. His car was found later in a restaurant parking lot, but he was never seen again and was legally declared dead in 1982.
Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle is an expanse of ocean that connects Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico to form a triangle. The area covers about 500,000 square miles and has been the subject of strange phenomena as far back as Christopher Columbus. He reported erratic compass readings and fire in the sky that crashed into the sea. Since then, there have been dozens of unexplained events in the triangle, such as a U.S. Navy squadron going missing, as well as other boats and planes vanishing without a trace.
Beale ciphers
The Beale ciphers are a series of three ciphertexts, or encrypted or encoded information, that are rumored to reveal the location of the biggest cache of treasures ever recorded in U.S history. According to , a group of 30 Virginians, headed by Thomas J. Beale, struck gold and silver in the Rocky Mountains. The treasure was then secretly buried in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Beale wrote three ciphers devised to arrange legacies for their families. The first cipher was the location, the second describes the treasure’s contents, and the third listed the names of Beale’s men. To this day only one of the ciphers has been cracked: the county in Virginia where the treasure is buried. To this day treasure hunters are busy illegally dotting the hillsides with craters looking for the buried gold.
