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Question:
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“Is Jimmy Hoffa really buried under the RenCen? Foundations were being poured the day he disappeared.” -- Anonymous
Answer:
Well, anonymous person, you have turned to just the right place with this question. We have a special Jimmy Hoffa research team here at Local 4 and ClickOnDetroit. They’ve spent the past year digging through the mystery of Hoffa’s disappearance. You can listen to all of their findings in the “Rise and fall of Jimmy Hoffa” podcast.
Here’s their answer to this question:
The simple answer to this question is we don’t know if Hoffa’s body is under the Renaissance Center. That is one of many popular theories, but to give you a little more info on this compelling mystery, here is what our experts said:
“I believe that he was picked up in the parking lot of the Red Fox. I believe that Billy Giacalone was in the car and told him that hey, the meeting’s been moved, we’re going up the street to the Licata house. I believe he got in the car, they drove up there, and I believe they killed him on the Licata property. Then moved the body, most likely, to Central Sanitation and incinerated him.” -- Scott Burnstein, author and Jimmy Hoffa expert
“Steve (Andretta) then gives up -- murder, 55 gallon drop, Gateway Transportation truck, shipped to New Jersey. He doesn’t say who killed him and he doesn’t say where the body winds up.” -- Dan Moldea, author, “The Hoffa Wars”
“When we had the Teamster convention in Detroit in 1975, two things took place. We had the ground breaking for the Renaissance Center Hotel, and the convention. Now Mr. Hoffa had been in jail, so he was not on the slate to run. He showed up in Detroit, and the word was somebody was going to nominate him from the floor. The US Justice Department came to the Teamsters and said, ‘If Mr. Hoffa gets re-elected as president, the US Justice Department will give the Teamsters as much trouble as possible, but if he doesn’t, they’ll give them as much cooperation as possible.’ The day before they poured the concrete, I got together with Mr. Hoffa just because he was my old boss. I was there for the convention in my role as a driver for those that needed me, and as an errand boy. I told Mr. Hoffa, I says, ‘You know Mr. Hoffa, there are people that are upset with you.’ His words to me were, ‘Marvin, my people will never harm me.’ Now, the concrete was due to be poured at the Renaissance Center in a month. Mr. Hoffa went missing. The next day, every union carpenter -- he could have been working on a high rise of 250 suites, or building somebody’s recreation room, it didn’t matter -- he was called off his job to come there, put the wooden forms down so they could build concrete. Mr. Hoffa was missing, and they poured the concrete into the forms at the Renaissance. There’s no question in my mind that that’s where they put Mr. Hoffa." -- Marvin “The Weasel” Elkind
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