Results are in: No trace of Jimmy Hoffa in driveway soil sample
Jimmy Hoffa -- the legendary labor leader -- is still missing, authorities said Tuesday after tests failed to detect any human remains in a sample dug upfrom a suburban Detroit driveway.
The negative results mean that Hoffa’s final resting place still ranks with such notable mysteries as the whereabouts of aviator Amelia Earhart and the disappearance of Judge Joseph Force Crater. All have become fodder for theorists seeking to resolve unexplained endings.
Scientists at Michigan State University recently tested two samples cored from the ground beneath a driveway in Roseville, Mich., as part of an investigation prompted by a tip from an unidentified man who said he thought he saw a body being buried beneath a driveway years ago. The tests came back negative, according to police.
“Our department just received the soil sample report from Michigan State University, after a battery of tests; the samples submitted for examination showed no signs of human decomposition,” the police statement read. “As a result of these tests the Roseville Police Department will be concluding their investigation into the possible interment of a human body upon the property.”
Hoffa, the former president of the Teamsters, was last seen on the afternoon of July 30, 1975, at a suburban restaurant in Bloomfield Township, about 30 miles from the driveway site. Hoffa supposedly met with two organized crime figures, one of whom was a former Teamsters official.
FBI officials have theorized that Hoffa was killed by the mob figures who disposed of the body.
In the past decades, theories about his final resting place have included the notion that he was dumped in Florida swamps or that he was encased in cement beneath Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. Several other sites around Detroit have also been examined.
As for Earhart, the aviator vanished July 2, 1937, while trying to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. Crater, a New York Supreme Court judge, disappeared without a trace near Times Square on Aug. 6, 1930; he eventually became known as “the missingest man in New York.”
ALSO:
Amy Bishop in prison for life -- but wants another trial
Poodle survives 11-mile ride in car grille; now to find owner
Oregon farmer eaten by hogs: Did he fall -- or was he attacked?
More to Read
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.