Hoffa case gets DNA clue

Published 9:00 pm Friday, September 7, 2001

Newsday

NEW YORK — The FBI has found a hair belonging to the long-missing Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa in the car used by a close Hoffa friend on the day the labor leader disappeared, Hoffa’s son, James Hoffa, said Friday.

Using DNA tests, FBI scientists matched a strand of hair taken from Hoffa’s brush to a hair found in a 1975 Mercury Marquis Brougham car that was driven by longtime Hoffa associate Charles O’Brien on July 30, 1975, according to a report in Thursday’s Detroit News.

On that day Hoffa, then 62, vanished from a Detroit area restaurant, and his body has never been recovered.

O’Brien, known as Chuckie, has maintained that Hoffa was never in the car and has denied involvement in Hoffa’s disappearance.

At a news conference in Manhattan late Friday James Hoffa, now the Teamsters Union president, called the news a "startling development" in the mystery of his father’s disappearance. He urged officials to move quickly and prosecute those responsible for his father’s death. He declined to name any suspects but urged them to "come forward."

"The good news is that they are projecting that there’s finally going to be a prosecution in the disappearance," Hoffa said.

"We’re heartened by this because our family seeks closure on this important issue which has torn us apart. Hopefully the federal government can follow through with this. I am urging them, they have our full cooperation with regard to this prosecution … We should bring to justice those people who are responsible for my father’s disappearance."

The labor leader vanished after driving himself to a restaurant in Bloomfield Township to meet with alleged organized crime figure Anthony Giacalone and Anthony Provenzano, a New Jersey Teamsters boss and organized crime associate.

Neither man made the meeting and later insisted none had been scheduled. The Mercury driven that day by O’Brien reportedly belonged to Giacalone’s son, Joe.

Hoffa, who called his wife from the restaurant, was never seen again, triggering a huge investigation.