Probably one of the most intriguing mysteries of my time was the Jimmy Hoffa case. Not the story of the man, but the real story of the disposal of the guy somewhere between the end zone in the New York Giant's stadium and in tuna cans sitting on somebody's shelf in a cabinet in New Jersey.

So the other week I noticed on television there was finally going to be a scientific group dedicated to finding or not the ground temperature remains of Teamsters ex-big guy Jimmy Hoffa in Giant Stadium. Since the stadium was built between 1974 and 1976 and Jimmy was killed the time period was actually feasible that Jimmy who was last seen on July 30th 1975. The stadium was built by union workers so any boss could have been bribed to open the stadium late at night and have his boys borrow a back hoe for an hour or so while the playing field was being worked on at that very time. The stadium itself was mostly complete and the timing was considered perfect to bury him wherever (there are several places in the stadium that's said to be the very spot) The only point would have been to wonder why they would kill him in Detroit and take the body to New Jersey just to bury him and take the chance of getting caught on the way. Could it be that they just wanted a last laugh every time they'd go to a Giants game? I highly doubt they would risk getting caught trying to get rid of a guy as big as Hoffa in the end zone of a football stadium. The other story was that he was disposed of in a fish cannery, his remains probably cooked up in a tuna casserole. A hit this big would happen quickly and clean, very clean.

The mob has two ways of getting rid of guys. One is a hit that they want to get publicity on not just for proof but for pride, something they can cut out and put in their scrap books to show the grand kids when they get old. The other is the clean hit that they want to just go away, this was mostly done by burial at sea, or dismemberment of the body parts small enough to fit into mason jars however those hits were sloppy and needed sharp instruments however the mason jars made great presents to the deceased's family in time of mourning just to remind everyone the deceased fucked up somewhere and anyone following in their footsteps had better clean up their acts if they didn't want to be put up in preserve jars. But the really big hits had two ways they usually used to make these guys disappear. One was cement. They were deeply active in the cement and other contracting building businesses. They not only built the buildings but they owned the lumber yards, cement factories, they owned the machinery. As well as businesses like wrecking yards and even waste disposal business and large incinerators at the waste disposal yards burned hotter than even a crematorium so it was easy and very neat to dispose of a body that they would never want to be found. The problem with cement was it could be taken apart at a later date if someone had that information, the same as burying someone or using them as fish bate, those bodies could be found but no cop could identify ashes in a big incinerator.

It was 1963, I was eleven (I didn't remember the date but my mother did) my uncle was the loading dock manager of a huge paper distributing warehouse in Chicago. He was also the head union representative of the large paper company and was one of the big guys in the AFL-CIO in the area where he lived, and believe me he lived well. We were always going to the house on the weekends; he had a pool, a big back yard, a pool table in the basement with pinball games and always had lots of food around and a big barbeque next to the pool. He'd always have a few guys who worked for him or whatever and they would sip whiskey and play cards and smoke cigars after dinner then go off to his den which was a cool room and my aunt wasn't hardly allowed in there, she would only knock on the door very quietly or call him on the phone when he was in there(it was the first time I ever saw a car phone was in his Lincoln back in the early 60's) but I don't remember seeing her or anyone else for that matter just walk in there, the door was always closed anyways. Even my dad didn't follow when him and his friends went into the study, he'd play poker with them then we'd all have desert while they went to the den. Once a year the union would throw a big party in the best hotels Chicago had to offer, hundreds would show up and after dinner everyone would tell us to shut up and some guys would come up and make pro-union speeches then the big guy, Hoffa, would come up last and get a big standing ovation and they would clap every other sentence. Our family would go as guests of my uncle and my dad I think was a member in another union so we were welcomed. Then Hoffa would walk around the tables and bullshit with everyone and they'd take pictures of themselves with him or just him and a memory I had was when I was sitting between my cousin next to my uncle and we were near the front and Hoffa comes over and gives my uncle a big handshake (guys didn't hug like they do now) and he walks around one side of the table and we got up and stood beside him so the photographer could get a picture of everyone at the table and standing next to him he ruffled my hair like a kid and the guy took the picture and he shook everyone's hand and told us all to have a good time and if there was anything we needed to let him know then he just walked away and I just remembered I thought the guy looked like a boxer instead of the president of the biggest organization outside of the military and the mob itself. But it was known to most that Jimmy WAS the head of the mob in some ways. He was the most important figure to them since he headed the union that wasn't just responsible for moving the entire east coast to the Mississippi River as well as most of the country altogether. His unions ran the trucks, the buildings of everything from highways to entire cities, the trains, the docks of most every business that shipped in anything bigger than a Ford van. Nothing moved without the ok of the union. Just the threat of a strike would throw terror into the hearts of management. So when it came to money there were only a few places to get it. You could work like a schmuck for a little of it, you could borrow some from mom, you could beg the banks but without collateral you were a ghost, or you could "borrow" it from the boys. The idea was that you would want to build a hotel so you borrow $50 million from the union. Now you have to hire union contractors to build the hotel. They set a price and by the time the job's done you're now in for $65 million due to over runs and delays. You can complain all you want but as soon as you shook hands on the deal they were already planning two hour lunches and thousand dollar ratchet sets. Without the Teamsters joining hands with the mob there wouldn't be a Las Vegas the way we know it. It was the Teamsters that built most of the old strip, the Dunes, the Sands, the Riviera, Stardust, they all were built with union funds. That's why I always felt so warm and cuddly when I saw the union breaking ground on the Venetian, down to the Mandalay Bay, all which came in way late and well over budget, another sign of union contractors.

The conspiracy theories ran rampant. The idea that came up in the early 80's that some guy admitted that he was part of the burial. That the body was cut up in a few pieces and put in a cement block and dumped in the end zone at Giants stadium. So recently there was a change in the ownership of the stadium and the old owners refused to let anyone dig up their field to look for a cement block, but now the new owners learned that the scientists that approached them came up with a much easier and a more cleaner way of looking for his remains and that was with ground radar that looked like a lawnmower and just dragged over the field that could look down thirty feet and could detect any anomalies besides dirt. But the confession didn't say he was buried in the end zone but rather closer to the fifty yard line. (It was said by some players that there was a bump right near the numbers on the east side of the field, as if he was buried just a couple feet down and nobody figured it out.) Regardless they were going to look over the entire field. There was plenty of equipment and thanks to the Discovery Channel, plenty of money, and the scientists wanted to be the ones to find the body. And as we all figured there was nothing to be found anywhere in the stadium. Of course the conspiracy theorists will just say that he's somewhere under the seats or out in the parking lot. But finally, after all the years, the truth is finally known. If there was a hit there were people that had to do the hit, people that had to ok the hit, people that had to see proof of the hit and so even if there were only a few that knew about the truth the only question that could remain would be to see if they could all take what they knew to their graves, and now we know the answer in the form of a deathbed confession of one of the hitters that decided just in case there really is a God and if this could get him in the UP elevator instead of the DOWN elevator after he died he wanted to clear his conscience. The only question is should we believe him?

There were two solid theories. Like most theories it's either the government or the mob, this has both endings. The Teamsters supported the Republican Party. How Hoffa voted, so voted the union, its members numbering in the tens of thousands, each one a Republican vote. The union was worth $300 million and the largest under-the-table contributors to the party. In 1964 Hoffa was accused of tampering with union funds. When the jury came back with hung jury the judge had the jury looked into and discovered Hoffa had paid off one or more of the jurors. This time Hoffa was sentenced to eight years in jail. But in 1971 President Nixon ordered Hoffa's release. Later FBI records revealed that Nixon had received illegal campaign donations from the Teamsters Union in exchange for the presidential pardon. In 1975 after spending four years trying to re-assume command of the union without the ire of the public, on a warm summer's day in July he was picked up by a friend, they were to see Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone, the head of the Midwest mob. He would need his approval first. They stopped and picked up Salvatore Briguglio who was a body guard of Giacalone and would check first for any weapons on the way to the meeting. They parked in the parking lot of the Red Lion Inn and that was the last anyone saw of Jimmy Hoffa. Briguglio finally admitted on his death bed that he was the trigger man in the killing and the driver was to bring the body to an incinerator in south Detroit where it would be removed from the car and the car taken to a car crusher and deposited at the trash grounds. In a secret FBI account found in the J. Edgar Hoover files says exactly the same thing, plain and simple. A mob hit, a .22 in the rear of the ear does the job quite neatly and the incinerator is a simple but definite way to dispose of a body totally and forever. By the time the FBI found the facts the car was disposed of, nobody knows where, the ashes thrown in the wind long ago. (As a side bar it's said the reason Chicago didn't tear down Soldiers Field is due to the high body count between the 20 yard line and the nearest Budweiser stand) And although not everyone would believe the story anyways, the truth is, the next time you find yourself walking around the field at Giants Stadium any time soon, just enjoy the view, don't keep thinking a hand is going to come out of the dirt like a Stephen King movie, and grab your ankle and pull you in…although if you hear someone asking for the months' union dues then you might want to head to the nearest bar until the voices go away.

-Ken Pearlman