What Happened to Jimmy Hoffa? Revisiting the Union Leader's Disappearance (and Why It Has Remained Unsolved 50 Years Later) By Jessica Sager

Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance in 1975 is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in American history, and authorities say it’s unlikely that any definitive answers will emerge nearly five decades later.

Hoffa was a celebrity and controversial figure during his time as a union leader, attracting ire from the Kennedys and the Mafia alike.

The mystery surrounding the vanishing of the Teamsters president inspired several movies and TV shows, including Martin Scorsese’s 2019 film The Irishman (in which Al Pacino starred as Hoffa), Danny DeVito’s 1992 directorial debut Hoffa, starring Jack Nicholson in the title role and the 1983 miniseries Blood Feud starring Robert Blake.

While the truth of what really happened to Hoffa when he disappeared remains unknown, authorities and even some mobsters have several theories — and some alleged confessions.

So what happened to Jimmy Hoffa? Here’s what we know about the missing persons case, and why it’s not likely to ever be solved.

Who is Jimmy Hoffa?

Hoffa was born James Riddle Hoffa in Brazil, Ind., on Feb. 14, 1913. His father died in 1921, leading his mother to relocate their family to Detroit in 1924. Hoffa reportedly understood his father’s death was linked to his working conditions in coal mines, which sparked a lifelong passion for workers’ rights, according to Teamster.

The future union president left school when he was 14 to work in warehouses for Kroger grocery stores to help support his family. In 1932, at just 19 years old, Hoffa organized his first strike to successfully protest poor working conditions.

The move led to him joining the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union in 1933, first as a local agent in Detroit, then rising up the ranks to become general president of the entire organization in 1957.

The Teamsters represented almost all commercial trucking in the U.S.

In addition to being an activist for organized labor, Hoffa also supported racial justice and civil rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and prohibited segregation within any area of the Teamsters. Later in life, The New York Times reported, he also became an advocate for prison reform.

What is Jimmy Hoffa known for?

Hoffa infamously clashed with Robert F. Kennedy, who was an attorney for the Senate’s Improper Activities in Labor and Management panel (also called the McClellan Committee), which investigated racketeering.

When Hoffa was elected president of the Teamsters in 1957, Kennedy began investigating him for impropriety, per The Daily Beast, allegedly using a mole within the union to gather intelligence on Hoffa.

In March 1957, police arrested the union leader for allegedly trying to pay a McClellan Committee aide for information, The New York Times reported. Hoffa was acquitted of the charges, but his and Kennedy’s feud — and Hoffa’s legal troubles — continued for years.

When Kennedy’s older brother, John F. Kennedy, ran for president, Hoffa unsuccessfully campaigned for his opponent, Richard Nixon. After taking office, JFK appointed Robert to attorney general, and he focused his attention on Hoffa once more with a “Get Hoffa” squad dedicated to investigating the Teamsters president.

What was Jimmy Hoffa convicted of?

On March 4, 1964, Hoffa was convicted of two counts of jury tampering in a previous 1962 Nashville, Tenn., criminal trial and acquitted on a third, according to The New York Times.

Hoffa and his associates offered $5,000 each to a juror and and his son, $10,000 to another prospective juror and a promotion to a third juror, per TIME.

In a separate case that July, Hoffa was convicted on three counts of fraud and one count of conspiracy for misusing nearly $2 million from Teamsters’ pension funds.

Did Richard Nixon pardon Jimmy Hoffa?

In the Nashville jury tampering case, Hoffa was sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine, per The New York Times. For the fraud case, Hoffa was sentenced to five years in prison, for a total of 13 years.

Hoffa appealed his convictions all the way to the Supreme Court but failed to overturn them. He turned himself in to prison in March 1967 in Lewisburg, Penn., and resigned as Teamsters president.

While his appeals didn’t work, Hoffa still got out of prison early: He served four years, nine months and 16 days before then-President Nixon commuted his sentence on Dec. 23, 1971.

Hoffa went free under a conditional commutation that specified he couldn’t “engage in the direct or indirect management of any labor organization,” The New York Times reported, until March 1980 — which is when his full 13-year sentence would have ended.

What actually happened to Jimmy Hoffa?

Hoffa was last seen on July 30, 1975, and to this day, what truly happened to him remains a mystery, but the prevailing theory is that Hoffa was murdered in a mob hit, which authorities outlined in “The Hoffex Memo.”

Hoffa served his time in prison alongside Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, a member of the Genovese crime family and the president of the Teamsters’ Union City, N.J., chapter, and reportedly disrespected him, former FBI organized crime investigator Joe Brennan told ABC 7 Chicago.

Upon Hoffa’s release, he reportedly eyed a return to power in the Teamsters despite the conditions of his commutation from Nixon.

“Information we got was that the mob was concerned that his re-entry was going to create investigative interest in union activities which could cause problems” for the mob, Brennan explained.

The day Hoffa, who was 62 at the time, went missing, he was scheduled to meet Provenzano and Detroit Mafia boss Anthony Giacalone at 2 p.m. at the upscale Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Mich. Hoffa called his wife at about 2:15 p.m. to tell her he’d been stood up and would be home by 4 p.m., but never made it.

Brennan has said he believes that Hoffa was abducted from his car in the restaurant parking lot and killed. His body has never been recovered, and theories about where it ended up vary: Brennan says it was stuffed in an oil drum and driven to New Jersey to show Provenzano, then either buried under the Meadowlands or thrown into the Atlantic Ocean.

The only evidence ever seized in the case was a burgundy 1975 Mercury Marquis, which belonged to Giacalone’s son. A strand of Hoffa’s hair was found in the vehicle, though DNA only revealed the match in 2001, ABC News reported. Police dogs also reportedly found Hoffa’s scent in the rear passenger seat of the vehicle.

Other theories place Hoffa’s body at various sites in Michigan, Jersey City, the Florida Everglades and Gardena, Calif., but his remains have still never been recovered. He was declared dead in 1982, but his case is still open.

No charges have ever been filed in relation to his disappearance, but some believe mobster Salvatore “Sally Bugs” Briguglio was the killer. However, others have confessed to the murder, including hitmen Frank Sheeran (who inspired The Irishman) and Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski.