Jimmy Hoffa Disappeared 46 Years Ago Today

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Eric Shawn: Jimmy Hoffa vanished 46 years ago today

What Fox Nation found where it is claimed the legendary leader is buried, from 'Riddle, The Search For James R. Hoffa'

Jimmy Hoffa disappeared 46 years ago today, and his body could be encased in a metal barrel tomb in New Jersey.

Fox Nation has found what appears to be multiple large buried pieces of curved metal, that could indicate steel drums arranged on top of each other, that fit the description of where Hoffa was buried in a 55-gallon steel drum, with additional drums piled on top of his, in 1975. 

"He couldn't fit in the drum body first, feet first. They had to turn him and put him in head first," Frank Cappola told Fox Nation, describing how he says his father, Paul Cappola Sr., pushed the remains of the iconic labor leader into a steel drum when the body was delivered to him at his mob-connected Jersey City dump days after Hoffa vanished just outside Detroit. 

"He couldn't get the legs to bend right," he said. "Don't take this the wrong way, because he had a lot of respect for Hoffa, but he said 'they couldn't fit the fat little man in a barrel feet first.' So they put him in headfirst and then they pushed the cover on top of him. And then they buried him."

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Cappola said his father then dug a 12-foot-deep hole with an excavator, dumped the drum holding Hoffa's remains into the pit, and then piled more than one dozen steel drums on top of Hoffa's, before filling the hole in with dirt to cover up the evidence. He said he was "99 point-99-point-99 percent sure" and "would bet my life" that Hoffa was there.

Fox Nation also found an underground pit that was at some point filled in with different dirt at the spot.

The discovery of the buried curved metal pieces, and the filled-in pit where Cappola said Hoffa’s remains can be found, is revealed in Fox Nation's latest episode of "Riddle, The Search for James R. Hoffa."

The show is a four-part series that delves into the disappearance of the former International Brotherhood of Teamsters president, with the goal of trying to finally solve the case. Hoffa was murdered after he disappeared on July 30th, 1975 while on his way to a suspected meeting with Mafia bosses, including infamous New Jersey Genovese crime family Capo and Teamsters Union leader Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, who ruled the area where Cappola told us Hoffa is buried. 

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Fox Nation hired Ground Penetrating Radar Systems, a nationwide company that uses radar technology and high-frequency electromagnetic radio waves that reflect objects underground, to search for any evidence of buried barrels. The radar revealed numerous curved shapes, like half-moon objects on top of each other, that GPRS Project Manager and specialized radar technician Steve Psihoules told us are pieces of metal, along with a delineated underground pack of dirt, indicating that a pit had at one time been dug and then filled in.

What Psihoules called metal "round anomalies" were described as being similar to the size of large drums.

"We are getting another round anomaly right here," Psihoules said as he scanned the ground and the radar screen revealed numerous round objects at the spot where Frank had pointed out as Hoffa's burial site.

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"We are all getting them at a similar height as well. I am getting similar anomalies," Psihoules said as he scanned the area using a grid-pattern. "You can tell that there was something that was disturbed here," Psihoules explained as he stopped at one of his findings. "It's almost like excavated ... something happened here. It is definitely metal."

The spot is a dusty and hard soil plot of land in Jersey City directly under the looming Pulaski Skyway, that connects the city to Newark across the Meadowlands. The parcel is owned by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and is now used by a local waste management company to store unused dumpsters.

"Frank's story is the best darn story that I have heard about this case in the 44 years since I first started investigating Hoffa's murder," says Dan Moldea, the most prominent Hoffa expert in the country. He wrote the landmark book, "The Hoffa Wars" in 1978, has been investigating the Hoffa disappearance for decades and was interviewed by Fox Nation and then teamed up with our effort.

"I think what Eric and I are now proving is that from soup to nuts, this was a New Jersey operation," he said.

Frank first approached Dan after he appeared in the first two episodes of "Riddle," told him where the site is, and then later accompanied Dan there to see it for himself. Frank also executed a sworn affidavit backing up his information to submit to law enforcement.

"He takes me to the exact spot. He knew exactly where it was," Moldea recalled.

Frank Cappola showing Dan Moldea where he says his father buried Jimmy Hoffa. He describes how Hoffa was buried in the latest episode of "Riddle: The Search for James R. Hoffa" on Fox Nation.  (Copyright Dan E. Moldea, 2019. All rights reserved.)

The site is just a few feet off the property line of the dump, PJP Landfill, that Frank's father owned along with Genovese Crime Family mobster Phil "Brother" Moscato. Moscato's son, Philip, Jr. told Fox Nation that his father also admitted that Hoffa's body was brought to New Jersey from Detroit and was buried. 

The F.B.I. has long theorized that Hoffa's killers buried him in the landfill, which at the time was an 87-acre wasteland of refuse, chemicals, and thousands of barrels full of toxic waste known as "Moscato's dump." A 1975 bureau search did not turn up any remains, but numerous mobsters have been convinced through the years that Hoffa was dumped there. FBI files reveal that various Mafia members either said that Hoffa could be found there, or suspected it.

One mobster told agents they "brought him back here...where do you think? Phillip Brother Moscato's dump," another said "they put Hoffa's body in a 50-gallon drum and trucked it from...Detroit...to New Jersey," another said that if the "Feds" dig at the dump, they would hit "pay dirt," and even some unnamed Teamsters members were "worried about the barrel."

In the 1980s the dump was declared a federal Superfund site and the state and the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection cleared out and remediated the area. The EPA says it removed more than 10,000 barrels holding toxic waste, but the location where Frank says his father buried Hoffa turns out not to have been touched by the cleanup. Frank's father did not want Hoffa's remains to be found at his dump, so Frank said he buried him right next to his property, directly under the looming elevated skyway, which was not part of the government remediation plan.

"My father decided to change location because he felt he couldn't, he didn't know if somebody was watching. The place was always under surveillance," Frank told us. "After I came in the next day, the hole was filled." 

Frank said he decided to come forward because so many of the suspects involved are now dead. He also promised his father, who died in 2008, that he would not talk, even though he says his father's role in burying Hoffa always "haunted him." He said his father’s mob acquaintances gave him no choice and that he was "very upset all his life over it, that he had to get put into that position. But you know, if you don’t do it, then they do it to you." 

"I think I am doing the right thing," Frank told us. "My father said 'I want this man to go home to his family. He needs to go back home.' He was a great, good man and my father respected him."

Frank, who was 63 when we met him in late 2019, had been in ill health for some time with heart and lung issues. He was worried that if he did not agree to be interviewed, his secret would die with him.

"If I passed away nobody will know. I'm the last person alive."

Sadly Frank did pass away four months after our interview, in February of last year. Frank Cappola's information may prove to be his legacy that could finally help solve the search for James Riddle Hoffa.

Since it is against New Jersey state law for Fox Nation to dig up the site, we are awaiting law enforcement action to take the next step to determine if what we found could finally end the mystery of what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.
 
Follow Eric Shawn on Twitter: @EricShawnTV. Watch all four episodes of "Riddle: The Search for James R. Hoffa" on Fox Nation.

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