Expert claims to know where Jimmy Hoffa is. Hint: it's underground
You have to go back in time to see coverage of the event. Like, way back.
The audio from those stories crackles with an old-timey flair as the video's frame rate moves at a snails pace by modern-day standards. That event is baked into history, and is accompanied by a thousand conspiracy theories: What happened to Jimmy Hoffa?
The former leader of the Teamsters Union and a powerful figure in the labor movement, Hoffa was said to have ties with the mob during his later years.
And then, on July 30 in 1975, he disappeared.
"At the present time, we have no information as to the present whereabouts of Mr. Hoffa," said an official at a press conference back then.
"One top law-enforcement official claims that Jimmy Hoffa was set up and he says it was done by someone that Hoffa trusted completely," said a reporter at the time.
Last seen at the Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Hoffa's connection is uniquely Michigan because of the mob based in Detroit.
Could former Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa be buried in New Jersey?
More than 40 years since his disappearance, no one knows what happen to Jimmy Hoffa. They know he was being investigated, they know he was close with several members of the mob, they know he was last seen July 30, 1975. But since then, they don't know where he is. This Hoffa expert thinks he does.
"There's 100 theories as to who did that and drove him to act to where he gets murdered at some location and there are 100 theories about where that location was and who killed him," said Dan Moldea.
Moldea considers himself a Hoffa expert who has written extensively about the mystery of the man disappearing.
Now, more than four decades later, he thinks he knows where his body is. As Moldea sees it, Hoffa is buried in a landfill in Jersey City, New Jersey. Frank Coppola, the son of late Paul Coppola, said his dad told him a secret on his deathbed.
Frank says he remembers the landfill and the hole that was dug.
"He left after seeing the hole and then, later on, his father on his deathbed told him, 'here's what happened. That hole was where I dug Jimmy Hoffa,'" said Moldea. "Later on, some guys came, they delivered Hoffa's body. It was some rigor, they could not get feet first into the 55-gallon drum so they put it in headfirst. They then sealed the drum."
The drum was buried along with 15 to 30 other steel drums. Then sand and dirt was put on top of it, and then it was bulldozed and plowed over. And Moldea wants to find that drum.
"It's possible, it's possible that we can still recover it if it has not been moved but we have reason to believe that it has not been moved - that it's still there. It's easily recoverable, we're not looking for a single drum at the bottom of a hole, we are looking for a massive field. Fifteen to 30 drums on top of it," said Moldea.
After years of research, Moldea said he and Frank are confident a dig at the landfill could unseal a decades-old mystery. Still an open case at the FBI, the bureau said it's looking at all leads.
However, Moldea hopes the District Attorney of Hudson County makes themselves apart of it.
"We want to be there, and we want to have the ability to film this, We want to memorialize this. And, so, we know what's going to happen with the FBI. They're going to go 'thanks guys, now get the hell out of here. We'll take it from here,'" said Moldea. "We're hoping that the DA's office may be a little more cooperative."