Newest search for Hoffa is under Mich. driveway

[September 28, 2012]  ROSEVILLE, Mich. (AP) -- Michigan investigators plan to take soil samples from underneath a residential driveway Friday in the latest effort in a decades-long investigation to figure out where missing Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa may be buried.

Could this search be the one that solves the mystery? Don't get excited: Authorities have already said they don't think the timeline adds up and that it's unlikely Hoffa's body is there.

The latest investigation was launched after police in Roseville received a tip from a man who said he saw a body being buried underneath the driveway 35 years ago and "thinks it may have been Jimmy."

Hoffa was last seen July 30, 1975, outside a restaurant in Oakland County, more than 30 miles to the west.

Recently retired Detroit FBI chief Andrew Arena is among the doubters that the latest report will check out.

"You've got to check it out, but this doesn't sound right," he told the AP. "The working theories that have developed over the years, this really doesn't fit any of those. If this was the mob and they killed somebody, I just don't see them burying the body basically at the intersection of a residential neighborhood with this guy standing there."

The soil samples are set to be removed Friday morning and eventually tested for human decomposition. Results of the soil samples taken Friday are not expected before next week.

At the request of police, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality used ground-penetrating radar last week on the Roseville driveway. An anomaly, or shift, in the soil was detected.

Police Chief James Berlin said that his office is "not claiming it's Jimmy Hoffa" beneath the slab but that they are "investigating a body that may be at the location."

Feisty and iron-willed in contract talks, Hoffa was an acquaintance of mobsters and adversary to federal officials. He spent time in prison for jury tampering.

The day he disappeared, Hoffa was supposed to meet with a New Jersey Teamsters boss and a Detroit mafia captain. He was declared legally dead in 1982.

Previous tips led police to excavate soil in 2006 at a horse farm more than 100 miles north of Detroit, rip up floorboards at a Detroit home in 2004, and search beneath a backyard pool north of the city in 2003.

There were even rumors that Hoffa's remains were ground up and tossed into a Florida swamp, entombed beneath Giants Stadium in New Jersey or obliterated in a mob-owned fat-rendering plant.

Roseville is one of several inner-ring communities that grew quickly as unionized auto factory workers left the city in search of nicer homes and bigger yards.

News of the latest search has brought attention to the mostly working- and middle-class suburb from the curious and naysayers. Slowly moving vehicles have clogged the residential street as camera-wielding neighbors snapped photos for keepsakes.

"I believe it's him. My sister said it is, and she's a psychic," said Mike Smith after ambling up to the home Thursday and shying a bit from the yellow police tape stretched across the driveway.

One local theory that has endured was that the body was beneath the foundation of a downtown Detroit hockey stadium, said 57-year-old Cindi Frank, who snapped photos Thursday of the Roseville driveway.

The daughter of a unionized driver and salesman for a Detroit bakery, Frank remembers conversations about Hoffa while he was alive and rumors about his fate.

"It was a family thing. Every time we'd go somewhere we'd say, 'Hey, I wonder if Jimmy Hoffa is buried there?'" Frank said. "It's just been one of those unsolved mysteries that's gone on for 30-something years. If he show up in Roseville ..."

Some think the least likely spot for him to turn up might just be the place he does.

"Maybe the most inconspicuous spot might be the place to stash a body or something," said 52-year-old Andrew Kacir, who lives across from the taped off driveway.

[Associated Press; By COREY WILLIAMS]

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