Police to investigate latest lead in missing Hoffa mystery

James R. Hoffa, then Vice-President of the Teamsters Union, testifies 20 August 1957 in Washington, D.C. before the Senate Rackets Committee. / AL MUTO/AFP/Getty Images

(CBS/AP) ROSEVILLE, Mich. - Police in a Detroit suburb plan to take soil samples from under a driveway Friday after a tipster said it could be the final resting place of missing Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.

According to CBS Detroit, the latest tip comes from a man dying of cancer.

Roseville Police Chief James Berlin says the man claims to have seen a body buried there approximately 35 years ago. Berlin says the man believes it could be Hoffa.

He says the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality recently found "an anomaly" while using radar to check the driveway on Florida Street, near 12 Mile and Gratiot. After the Friday dig, a soil sample will be sent to a forensic anthropologist at Michigan State University to check for human remains.

Local mob expert Scott Burnstein, author of "Motor City Mafia," said the area in and around Roseville was a hotbed for mob activity in Hoffa's era -- but he also thinks it's not likely Hoffa's remains were buried.

Many, including Burnstein, believe his body was destroyed.

Hoffa disappeared in suburban Detroit in 1975, and his remains haven't been found. The FBI had no immediate comment.

[ludvig1-2009]

I was working at the Naval Nuclear Power Unit at Ft. Belvoir, Va. as a GS 840-5 or 7 Nuclear Engineer in 1972-73. An electrical engineer whom I worked with showed me a shortcut home through the back gate up the Mt. Vernon Parkway or some name like that and then I made a left turn to head toward the Richmond Highway on which I lived. My car started leaking radiator fluid so I was borrowing water from houses along the way and finally managed to limp into a service station real close to the Richmond Highway. There was a Rolls Royce up on the rack with a man standing next to it. I told him "Nice car you got" and he asked if I wanted to go across the street to a quickie mart and he bought me a soda with a $100 bill. He then told me he was the chauffeur for the head lawyer for the Teamsters Union. I told him I had an honorable withdrawl card from work at a warehouse during the summer while in college. He said "You can take it from me, the arrangements have already been made, Jimmy Hoffa (who just got a presidential pardon with stipulations) would be the next president of the Teamsters. He didn't say anything else, but I thought it out and figured that had to mean Hoffa had a secret agreement with the Nixon White house to get rid of the pardon stipulation as that was the only way he could become president of the Teamsters. The stipulation was that he refrain from union activities for like 10 years or so. Then I got a job in California and while watching the news saw there was going to be an additional half hour news like show with 3 stories, the last one was "What is Jimmy Hoffa doing now?" I had to watch that. For 9 1/2 minutes he killed time saying absolutely nothing remarkable and then the last 30 seconds he said the following "I know a lot and if things don't start happening, I'm going to start talking." I said "My God he's blackmailing the president of the United States. Then you and I both don't know what happened next and hopefully someday we'll learn all the gory details.

[TLUnrine]

Why waste tax money on another investigation, turn it over to Discovery Channel or something.

Be like the new leads on Natalie Wood - she still didn't float.

Law enforcement has better things to do with there limited budgets.

[cattiej]

We have always believed that Hoffa was cremated and his ashes scattered..we don't think he will ever be found...shows what happens we people get too big for their britches.