Jimmy Hoffa’s infamous disappearance can be solved with playing card clue & FBI needs new search, insist investigators

THE puzzling disappearance of former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa can be solved with a clue scribbled on an ace of spades playing card, say investigators who are calling for the FBI to stage a new search.

Hoffa was last heard from on July 30, 1975, when he called his wife from a pay phone to inform her he’d been stood up at a scheduled lunch on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan.

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Then 62, Hoffa had due to meet with Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, a mob-connected New Jersey Teamster official, and Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone, a Detroit Mafia captain.

What happened to him after making that call continues to perplex investigators almost 50 years later.

But an independent, non-profit organization known as The Case Breakers believes they may have solved at least part of the mystery.

Late last year, Case Breaker’s founder, Thomas Colbert, announced that his team was in the possession of a dying police sergeant’s scribbled instructions which they believe point to Hoffa’s burial site .

The instructions – written on an ace of spades playing card from the Lake of The Torches Casino – point to the third base of the since-demolished Milwaukee County Stadium in Wisconsin as Hoffa’s likely resting place.

That site is now located beneath a parking lot next to the current Milwaukee Brewers stadium, American Family Field.

Jim Zimmerman, a 13-year member of Case Breakers and a retired Chicago police officer, was credited with recovering the cryptic playing card.

Zimmerman told The U.S. Sun earlier this year the card belonged to a relative of his ex-girlfriend named Harold Walthers who was a crooked cop believed to have been involved in Hoffa’s disappearance.

Walthers died in 1997, but before his passing Zimmerman says the ailing police sergeant gave the card to his niece, telling her, “If something happens to me, you’ll know what to do.”

Walthers’ niece, Michelle, looked at the card and saw “J. Hoffa” written at the top, along with a reference to infamous Chicago gangster Joey Aiuppa, a rendezvous date of “9-16-95”, and a location of “3rd base Milwaukee Ball Park.”

According to Case Breakers, Walthers had been indicted for jewelry robbery, bribery, extortion, and other charges during his 20-year law enforcement career.

The group believes he became a trusted associate of mafia don Aiuppa, who once reportedly gifted him a home next to his estate some years before Hoffa’s disappearance.

But Walthers’ playing card would stay a secret for three decades.

Michelle, fearful for her life and the lives of her family, made Zimmerman promise to tell nobody about the card, which he agreed to do until Michelle felt comfortable enough to come forward.

“Michelle was very worried in the 90s that the people involved in this were still alive and maybe even active in the mob,” shared Zimmerman.

“Fast forward to 2018, and while Michelle and I are no longer together, I called her when I was working for The Case Breakers and said now might be a good opportunity to investigate that card.

“I told her anyone with ties to Hoffa is either very old or long dead […] she eventually agreed to share it with Case Breakers.”

AN ACE UP THE SLEEVE

The Case Breakers believe Hoffa’s remains were moved to Milwaukee County Stadium in 1995, having been stored in an unknown location for 20 years.

According to the group’s research, months before Hoffa vanished in 1975, Walthers suddenly abandoned his home on Aiuppa’s estate to move to Minocqua, Wisconsin.

Zimmerman said Walther bragged to his fishing friends he had “cased” Hoffa before his murder and knew where he was buried.

He later moved into a trailer in a remote lot in Northwood within two months of Hoffa’s disappearance.

The Case Breakers are exploring whether Walthers may have been hiding Hoffa’s’ body in the Northwood area before the alleged 1995 stadium reburial.

The Case Breakers

Google Maps/The Case Breakers

According to Zimmerman, Walthers’ Wisconsin fishing friends told him that each year a group of “well-dressed men in suits” would come up to Northwood and hand him a stuffed envelope.

Zimmerman believes Walthers may have been getting paid by the mob for his silence or potentially a service related to Hoffa.

But short of a clear confession, and with the idiom “dead men tell no tales” at the forefront of his mind, Zimmerman is working on decrypting the truth of Walthers’ card to crack the Hoffa case once and for all.

Last fall, Zimmerman and other volunteers from The Case Breakers visited the old Milwaukee County Stadium site to obtain old aerial photographs and GPS satellite images and deploy ground-penetrating radar.

Today, there is a plaque on the outside American Family field that marks the location of home plate at County Stadium.

However, the Case Breakers say they created more accurate geotags using the old aerial photos collected and found the home base is 15ft from where it should be.

A 90ft line from the suspected old home plate location led investigators to a left-field pavilion, where third base would’ve been at County Stadium.

They deployed the ground radar there and claimed to have discovered one disturbed area almost exactly where the third base would’ve stood.

If something happens to me, you’ll know what to do.

Harold Walthers Suspected Hoffa Conspirator

Zimmerman said the radar was only able to detect 5ft below the third base plot because an unexpected layer of clay was blocking the radar, which Case Breakes believes suggests a dig took place that was quickly excavated and backfilled.

The crack team of sleuths also brought a top cadaver dog expert to the site, Carren Corcoran, whose K-9, Moxy, reportedly gave several positive signals of remains nearby.

Zimmerman shared, “We never told her where the third base would be and never told her that we expected to find something beneath the third base, and while the dog was out there doing its thing, it alerted right where third base was, on four different occasions.

“So with that being said, that shows me that our ground-penetrating radar was right and there was or there is a dead body there.

“The dogs are not going to alert on anything other than a dead body.”

Zimmerman added that while the believed location of County Stadium’s third base is now covered in concrete, the dog alerted in an area adjacent to the old base on a grassy patch.

NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK SEARCH

At the time of Hoffa’s believed reburial (Sept. 16, 1995), the Brewers were on a road trip with nine games still to play in their season.

They returned home on the 22nd to begin a season-ending homestand.

While it seems unlikely that conspirators could’ve buried a body below third base during the season, Zimmerman believes the date listed on Walthers’ playing card was the date Walthers was “told where Hoffa was buried, not necessarily the date Hoffa was buried on.”

Greg Hoffman – a veteran journalist who authored a book about the history of County Stadium, Down in the Valley – was brought in by The Case Breakers to consult on the matter.

In a statement, Hoffman told The U.S. Sun, “During my years of research for that book, I never heard of any rumors about Hoffa or remains.

“Plus, the site was extensively excavated for taking down County Stadium, building [the nearby] Miller Park and Helfaer Park. [It’s] Difficult to believe any transplanted remains could survive.

“That does not mean I discount the work done by Tom and his research team. I know they used sophisticated detection tech and techniques that could detect such things. “They struck me with their professionalism and thoroughness.

“Jimmy could indeed be there in some form or the other. But, I have no expertise to offer beyond my history of the stadium.”

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The Case Breakers

The Case Breakers submitted an 18-page report of their findings regarding Hoffa which was acknowledged by the FBI and the state governor’s office earlier this year, the group says.

(The FBI declined to comment on this story, citing the ongoing nature of the Hoffa investigation.)

Zimmerman and his fellow Case Breakers are urging the FBI or state officials to dig up soil samples from the plot of land in question to test for signs of human decomposition.

They are hoping to drill a hole 20 feet down through the concrete beneath the pavilion.

Zimmerman said the investigation remains at the mercy of the FBI and without the bureau’s blessing, the probe can go forward no further.

So far, the bureau had appeared “skeptical” of their findings, Zimmerman said.

“I believe they weren’t very receptive in the beginning because there have been at least seven others of these tips and leads, like in New Jersey and Michigan, which have turned up nothing,” said Zimmerman.

“And I’ve always paid close attention to those searches, and every time it was a no, I would smile and it made me feel that Jimmy was still under third base in Milwaukee.

“So each time every other search failed, it gave me enough confidence until I finally brought this case to The Case Breakers.”

Zimmerman added, “It’s now in the hands of the FBI, and we’re going to assist them as much as they allow us because they’re their own entity. I worked on an FBI task force for four years and they’re not necessarily good at accepting help or taking advice.

“So we’re at their mercy with how they want to run with this.”

‘DON’T BE A WISE GUY’

Jimmy Hoffa was a legendary labor leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters between 1957 and 1971.

For years, he was suspected of colluding with the mob and in 1967 was charged and convicted of jury tampering, landing him a four-year prison term.

After his release from federal prison, Hoffa emerged determined to regain his old title as the Teamsters president but the Mafia opposed his reinstatement.

Hoffa reportedly saw Anthony Provenzano, the head of a teamsters association in Union City, New Jersey, and a capo in the Genovese crime family, as his ticket back to the top.

The mafia leader was unimpressed by Hoffa’s bid to return to power, and relations between the two men apparently soured.

Walthers/Hoffa Timeline: The Case Breakers

The following information was shared by The Case Breakers in an 18-page Jimmy Hoffa dossier sent to the FBI to make their case:

March 1963: Harold Walthers is let go by Chicago PD over a bribery scandal and joins Oakbrook PD

August 1964: Walthers and his partner are indicted by a grand jury for a jewelry robbery

1967: Walthers is introduced to Joey Aiuppa by his partner and moves into a home on the mobster’s property

1969: Walthers retires from Oakbrook PD and moves to Northwood Wisconsin

Spring 1975: Walthers is fired from his part-time job with the Prieda County Coroner

July 30, 1975: Jimmy Hoffa vanishes

September 1976: Walthers moves to a remote lot and trailer near Woodruff, in Northwood

September 9, 1995: Hoffa’s remains potentially moved to third base at Milwaukee County Stadium

February 22, 1996: Joey Aiuppa dies

Spring 1996: Walthers shows his niece Michelle an ace of spades card pertaining to Hoffa, telling her “If something happens to me, you’ll know what to do.”

April 4, 1997: Walthers dies

April 2020: Michelle agrees to share the card with The Case Breakers

June 2020: Ground scan performed at the old Milwaukee County Stadium grounds

October 2023: K-9 search conducted, resulting in four alerts to human remains

Provenzano was supposed to be meeting Hoffa at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomington, Michigan, on July 30, 1975, to work out their differences.

An angry Hoffa called home to tell his wife Provenzano hadn’t shown but he’d be home at 4pm for a steak dinner.

He was never seen again and his green Pontiac Grand Ville was found idle in the Red Fox’s parking lot.

Hoffa’s disappearance was widely believed to be on Provenzano’s orders.

He was pronounced legally dead in 1982 and rumors and conspiracy about his death and place of burial have proliferated ever since.

Over the years, several excavations have taken place in the search for Hoffa’s body without a positive result, including five different locations in Michigan and two in New Jersey.

The two searches in the garden state are not related to the popular urban myth that Hoffa was buried during the construction of the old New York Giants stadium, which opened in 1976.

ANOTHER DEAD END

The most recent search came in 2022 under the Pulaski Skyway Bridge in New Jersey.

“Nothing of evidentiary value was discovered during that search,” said Mara Schneider, an FBI spokeswoman in Detroit at the time.

“While we do not currently anticipate any additional activity at the site, the FBI will continue to pursue any viable lead in our efforts to locate Mr. Hoffa,” she said.

Dan Moldea, a journalist who has written extensively about the Hoffa saga, claimed the FBI did not carry out the dig in the exact spot he’d recommended.

“I’m not thrilled with the result […] My impression today was them breaking the bad news to me: Thanks for the tip but this is over. That’s my interpretation,” Moldea told The Associated Press .

“They dug holes very, very deep,” he said.

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the Case breakers

The FBI reached out to Moldea in 2021 after he published a detailed account from Frank Cappola, who was a teenager in the 1970s when he worked at the old PJP Landfill near the bridge.

Cappola said his father, Paul Cappola, who also worked at the landfill, explained how Hoffa’s body was delivered there in 1975, placed in a steel drum, and buried with other barrels, bricks, and dirt.

Worried that police might be watching, Paul Cappola dug a hole on New Jersey state property, about 100 yards from the landfill, and subsequently moved the unmarked barrel there, according to Moldea.

Frank Cappola signed a sworn statement before his death in 2020, but Moldea said the FBI told him it did not dig in the exact spot that he had recommended because radar showed nothing suspicious below ground.

“I do think they missed this one spot,” he said. “I think the body’s there. We just can’t find it.”

HOPING FOR CLOSURE

Zimmerman, meanwhile, remains confident that the ace up his sleeve bears the correct and true burial place for Hoffa.

He says he’s 50/50 on whether Hoffa’s remains may still be down there, or whether he was dug up and moved again, but he’s certain he was there at one point.

Either way, Zimmerman says he’s determined to get to the bottom of this compelling mystery once and for all.

“I’ve overseen investigations, I’ve investigated homicides, and I would love to know what the outcome of all this is,” he said.

“I’ve got patience, obviously, but being that close to all this […] hopefully we can prove it one way or the other.”

As to why the Hoffa mystery continues to intrigue almost five decades on, Zimmerman added, “It’s the mob. The fact you could have such large organizations making millions of dollars legally and illegally and just continuing, even when everyone knows they exist, to take care of business themselves.

“If Jim Zimmerman disappeared in ’75 nobody would care apart from my family – but there wouldn’t be any national interest.

“The interest comes from the intrigue with the mob.”

Zimmerman says he’s 65% sure he and The Case Breakers can solve Hoffa’s disappearance.

His doubt stems from the fact that if Hoffa’s body was later moved from County Stadium, any of the very few witnesses to that incident are likely long gone.

“We’d be out of luck unless someone comes forward who was either there or someone whose uncle moved the body for whatever reason and told them about it,” he said.

“There could be a domino effect if he isn’t still buried beneath that base.

“Because if I was in the mob, and I found out this new ballpark was getting built where I’d buried a body, I’d start getting very nervous thinking about moving that thing.”

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