Posted on 05/26/2006 11:27:48 AM PDT by 300magnum
MILFORD TOWNSHIP, Michigan (Reuters) - FBI teams on Thursday sifted by hand through dirt from a chest-deep hole in the ground in an intense search for the body of labor leader Jimmy Hoffa three decades after his disappearance.
Wearing Evidence Response Team T-shirts and hard hats, FBI agents directed a work crew that used heavy equipment to rip up the concrete floor of a horse farm barn demolished a day earlier.
Investigators then worked by hand to sort through soil under the foundation of the barn and could be seen photographing and videotaping potential evidence around a hole marked off with yellow crime scene tape.
Orange work cones marked what had been the perimeter of the barn on the Hidden Dreams Farm near Detroit.
The investigation was triggered by a tip from Donovan Wells, 75, a federal prisoner serving time for marijuana trafficking who lived on the farm at the time of Hoffa's disappearance.
A former lawyer said Wells offered the information to the FBI 30 years ago. Now, he has offered it again in hopes of securing a reduced sentence.
The farm was previously owned by Hoffa associate Rolland McMaster. It is about 20 miles 32 km from where the legendary Teamsters union boss disappeared on July 30, 1975.
No trace of Hoffa has ever been found, and no one has been charged in the case.
Wells, who has reportedly passed a polygraph test, told his lawyers that he saw men burying what appeared to be a body with a backhoe on the farm a day after Hoffa vanished.
Hoffa was last seen outside a Detroit-area restaurant where he was to meet New Jersey Teamsters' boss Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, a member of the Genovese crime family, and a local Mafia captain, Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone. He had called his wife to say no one else had shown up for the meeting.
He disappeared just as he was to embark on a campaign to get reelected to his post as president of the Teamsters sparked a nationwide investigation.
Hoffa was declared dead in 1982, and numerous books about his life have pinned his disappearance on mobsters who murdered him because they did not want him interfering with their close ties to the union.
Jimmy Hoffa - union leader - organized crime - why do they always go together?
--chortle--
One question that crosses my mind - if there's no sign of Hoffa or any other criminal activity, who pays to rebuild the barn?
Tommy DeVito: Hey Henry, Henry, hurry up will you? My mother's gonna make some fried peppers and sausage for us. Oh hey, Henry, Henry. Here's an arm.
Henry Hill: Very funny, guys.
Tommy DeVito: Hey, here's a leg. Here's a wing.
[He laughs]
Tommy DeVito: Hey, what do you like, the leg or the wing, Henry? Or do you still go for the old hearts and lungs?
I'd be curious to see how they will reimburse the current owners of the farm. This appeared to be a neat, well kept barn.
We dig for dead corrupt union bosses and let millions of illegals flod across the border.............[HIJACK]........
The farm they are digging at is just across the street from the GM proving grounds main entrance. I grew up at the bottom of the hill on Kensington Rd, I use to hunt deer in the gravel pit about 2 blocks down from this barn. Kind of funny they would bury him just across from the proving grounds filled with his workers...
Exactly. At this late date, are there that many suspects not in nursing homes or dead? Wasting tax dollars on instead of using it for something that's needed.
you and i.
Isn't it fun to hi-jack a thread?..........
*****Isn't it fun to hi-jack a thread?..........*****
Armed with nothing but a keyboard...
Good question. My wife and I asked the same thing last night. Any FReepers know?
As a contractor, I wonder how much excess money is being spent above what this should really cost.
Do you think they assigned one or two agents to lead , a couple of experts to over view the search methods, a couple of local cops for security?
More likely they have a huge expensive mob there, yet at this stage they don't even know if they'll find anything.
Wouldn't it have been cheaper and less manhours to rent one of those machines that move over ground and outline anything buried underground like bodies?
The bar closed and the drunk decided to take a short-cut through the cemetery since he was sure his wife was tapping her foot & watching the clock. It was late fall and getting dark early. The moon was behind a cloud and it was darker out than a woodchuck's a**-hole.
He fell face-first into an freshly dug grave and broke his leg, but managed to prop himself on an elbow then started yelling for help.
Another fellow who had also helped close the bar, but hadstopped to `drain his lizard', having had a beer (or eight) and some shooters, heard the cries for help and slowly staggered over to the grave.
Since the moon had come out, the guy in the grave saw the other man's head looking down, and he cried out,
"You gotta (hic) help me, buddy. I'm freezing my tail off down here!"
And the other man thought about it, then replied:
"Well it's no wonder. You ain't got no dirt on you."
Quit jacking threads....ya hoodlum. ;-)
One question that crosses my mind - if there's no sign of Hoffa - or like the WMD, they never existed!
My question, too. They are really trashing that property on what seems to be thin evidence. The owners had to move their animals elsewhere. Lots of cost to them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.