TONY JACK

Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone was a LCN mob “Capo” in Detroit, Michigan during the time Jimmy Hoffa “JRH” disappeared.  It was his initials noted on Jimmy Hoffa’s calendar for a meeting at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant scheduled with Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano on July 30, 1975.  This restaurant was located a few miles North of Detroit, Michigan in Bloomfield Township of Oakland County. It was in a highly visible place.

 

Anthony Giacalone’s son Joseph “Joey” owned the car driven on that same day by Hoffa’s surrogate “foster son” Charles “Chuckie” O’Brien. The only forensic evidence discovered in the Hoffa case is attached to this car.  A small amount of hair and blood was added to evidence when search dogs detected Jimmy Hoffa’s scent in the back seat and trunk of Gaicalone’s 1975 maroon Mercury Grand Marquis.  Years later this evidence proved, through DNA analysis, to belong to Jimmy Hoffa.

 

Anthony Giacalone’s family had been prominent with the Detroit La Cosa Nostra “LCN” Detroit Partnership and linked to other mafia figures for decades. A plot to take out Jimmy Hoffa is documented from the 1960s involving Tony and Vito Giacalone.  They are also linked to a break in at Hoffa's Washington DC apartment.   The plan to put into action a hit on Hoffa was rejected by mob boss Joseph Zerilli and the LCN Commission.  During the 60s, the LCN still valued their resources provided by Hoffa.

 

The FBI had a confidential informant in place as early as 1964 reporting on the movements and activities of the Zerillis, Toccos, and Giacalones along with a list of other Detroit Family operators.  They were aware of a meeting place well North of Detroit belonging to Joseph Zerilli at Higgins Lake, Michigan.  This secluded area was not regarded as a location highly prized by Joseph Zerilli's son and Detroit under boss Anthony. He never cared much for the place.  But, since the 1960s many LCN members from Detroit would use this location to take care of business in seclusion.  This theme persisted with many of the folks long connected to Jimmy Hoffa.  Most of them used secluded places in Michigan as a cover for some of their activities and a place to hide out from the authorities.  It's as old a concept as Al Capone and John Dillinger.  The Giacalones and others were always made aware when the "Don" Joseph was spending time "up at the Lake".

 

Tony Giacalone’s wife was also related to the LCN Provenzanos of New Jersey.  Tony Giacalone was seen in a mob restaurant hang out with Tony Provenzano in Miami not long before the Hoffa disappearance.  It was suspected they both were going over their parts in a master plan to get rid of Jimmy Hoffa once and for all.  Both men had plotted separately to kill Hoffa previous to 1975 but were not allowed to do so by orders from LCN Commission leaders. Tony Jack’s brother Vito William “Billy Jack” Giacalone is linked to the Hoffa case and was listed in the FBI Hoffex Memo as a possible suspect.   Vito failed to provide an alibi and the authorities suspected the entire Giacalone family to be involved with a conspiracy to cause the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.  For this fact Findinghoffa.com believes Vito was likely in the car with the other occupants that drove away from the Machus Red Fox when Hoffa was last seen.  It is further believed he and others may have sent Chuckie O'Brien out looking for another ride that day after Hoffa was delivered to the place where he met his demise.

 

On the other hand, Tony Jack’s alibi was provided by Leonard Schultz. Schultz owned the nearby Southfield Athletic Club, and it was known to be frequented often by Giacalone.  Schultz was also a former “left over” from the “Purple Gang” of the early gangster activities back in the days of prohibition in Detroit. Leonard Schultz and some of his employees vouched for Tony Jack’s whereabouts at that athletic club getting a haircut. Schultz, himself, was a person expected to attend with Giacalone, and Provenzano the pre-planned meeting with Hoffa. Schultz's home along with Marvin Adell and Carlo Licata's homes were under suspicion later in the investigation.  We believe we should also make known some similarities of another unsolved homicide from the same county in Michigan occurring a year prior to the Hoffa disappearance. 

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Not long before JRH disappeared, a well-known furniture manufacturer disappeared and was found murdered under similar circumstances in 1974. This high-profile unsolved murder parallels the missing person case in Oakland County a year later involving the disappearance of IBT’s James R. Hoffa. Murder had become common place in the Detroit area with 714 homicides reported in that year alone. These numbers continued to rise until 1986 when Detroit was dubbed “the murder capital of the nation”.

On March 16, 1974, the 34-year-old CEO and furniture manufacturer Harvey Leach was found dead in the trunk of his car. He had bled to death by means of having his throat slashed. His car and body were discovered in a suburban Detroit parking lot near the Congress building, located on 13 mile and Southfield Roads. The body was discovered only a few hours before he was to get married. Mr. Leach was the owner of the popular furniture chain “Joshua Doore”. 

 

This story gets interesting because Mr. Leach, like JRH, was also supposed to attend a pre-planned meeting with Leonard Schultz and Anthony Giacalone. He, as was Hoffa, became a missing person when he did not return home from this meeting! Sources and investigators of the FBI describe several motives for Leach’s homicide, and they all point back to his connections with the Giacalones and Leonard Schultz. Vito Giacalone was named as a third person suspected with Leach’s demise.  Some of the same cast of mob characters from Detroit are clearly attached to this case. In the aftermath of the Harvey Leach murder, we find Leach’s furniture chain had gone into chapter 11 bankruptcy and was later purchased by associates of the Giacalone family. Leonard Schultz died in September of 2013 in Florida. Vito Giacalone passed away Feb. 19, 2012, in Clinton, Michigan.

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So, now after all these years, all we really have are remnants of the same two original ideas provided early on in the investigation. These ideas are the primary consensus of most of the investigators who were involved with the summary of events contained in the Hoffex Memo and some of the details revealed thus far with the Detroit Grand Jury of December 1975.  Additional information came with the discovery of the misplaced "Hoffa Files" found in a building used as a field office for the FBI in Detroit.  Hoffa’s body was either incinerated at a Detroit mob associated business, or it was placed in a 55 gal. drum on a Gateway Transportation truck and driven to an unknown location for burial. The latter idea was often associated with an emphasis on a mob owned landfill in New Jersey.  By 1978, the books by Dan Moldea and Steven Brill seemed to perpetuate these two ideas and now the same ideas have been re framed by others. The newest versions are cloaked in slightly different views as to the basic “location” of Hoffa’s demise, but they are nothing more than another way to restate and repackage what we have already heard since the beginning of the Hoffa investigation more than 45 years ago.  Most of the other ideas connected to New Jersey or Michigan have been debunked.  Some of the older versions of what happened have been dusted off, dressed up, and recycled as new ideas. Knowing this, we have checked out the common denominators of the two dominant theories. We arrived at a conclusion that the common themes provide for a solid platform to build on.  We have looked at where the official record may indicate gaps or leads, and we were able to identify some of them. We noticed a few things we made an effort to follow up on them.  The results have provided us with some new information.   The investigation left out a group of people in the business world having been involved with Hoffa and in competition with the elements of organized crime. This premise opened up another avenue for us to learn more about what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.  

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It is the opinion of some researchers, the Central Sanitation Incinerator of Hamtramck, Michigan was the place Jimmy Hoffa’s body was taken and disposed of.  As late as July 2019, this view was expressed by a couple of researchers on a popular “gangster” podcast. To us, this view seems farfetched when you consider the FBI and Michigan State Police were already aware of the reputation of a similar business named Tri County Sanitation reportedly owned by a man named Joseph Barbara who had ties with the Detroit LCN. Tri County Sanitation was located in the 11400 Block of Mound Road in the Detroit area. It was this company that was originally suspected of being used by the Detroit mafia as a means of getting rid of a lot of bodies as early as the 1960s.  Tri County Sanitation is linked to the disappearance of Judith Gargano Ruggirello (the wife of Antonino "Tony the Exterminator" Ruggirello Jr.).  Judith went missing on August 18, 1968. Her body was never found.  Antonino and his brother Antonio "Toto" Ruggirello were also connected to the Timberland Game Ranch of Dexter, Michigan which was made famous when FBI agents and Michigan State Police uncovered the initiation of Jack Tocco as the new boss of the LCN Detroit Partnership on June 11, 1979.  So, the reputation of Tri County Sanitation well preceded that of Central Sanitation of Hamtramck.  Central Sanitation was still under development at the time of the Hoffa disappearance, and it may not have had an operational incinerator. It appears it had the shredder and compactor in working order, but the incinerator came into play months later.  We are looking at these things and the other factors that rule out Central Sanitation. For instance, the authorities had been watching two other men (Pete "Bozzi" Vitale & Raffaele "Jimmy Q" Quasarano) who had ownership of the establishment. The locations of both mob connected waste disposal companies were placed under surveillance along with other suspected locations before, during, and after Hoffa vanished. The additional surveillance was due to the intense violence preceding the Hoffa event involving much of the city of Detroit. We also note, shortly after the date of his disappearance, many of the already suspected businesses were visited and/or searched by the investigators looking for Hoffa’s physical remains. Hoffa Files indicate the suspected Hamtramck site was visited by FBI agents in September 1975 to inspect the cardboard shredder and incinerators. We found additional reports search dogs were brought in, and nothing was discovered.  Those believing in the incineration theory often bring up an arson fire that destroyed Central Sanitation shortly after the Hoffa disappearance.  The dates of this event vary from February 1976 to as late as 1978. Because of the stated evidence and other official records, we do not adhere to the belief that Hoffa's body was brought to this place on the afternoon of July 30th, 1975.  The LCN were aware of the fact that law enforcement agencies were watching anyone and anything that showed up on their radar. 

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Alleged meetings coming from rumors and questionable sources seemed to have gotten more publicity than they deserved with this incinerator idea. An example of this tact is noted with a highly publicized but “unsubstantiated” restaurant meeting of IBT’s President Frank Fitzsimmons with Detroit LCN’s Vitale and Quasarano before the disappearance of Hoffa. It was followed later by the “questionable” reason of a meeting at the Palma Boys Social Club, involving the same two mobsters with a Genovese family front man “Fat Tony” Salerno, after Hoffa vanished a week later. For all we know this could be another attempt to misdirect the authorities.  These meetings certainly were not enough to deter the FBI from the direction they chose to go with this case months later when they completed the Hoffex Memo in January 1976. We do know Frank Fitzsimmons visited the Detroit area the weekend prior to Wednesday July 30th, 1975.  A car belonging to one of Vitale and Quasarano's businesses, the Market Vending Company, was used during that time frame. It could have been used by Fitzsimmons and later other players involved with the Hoffa case.  We surmise that Fitzsimmons may have been briefed at that time by the Detroit LCN concerning their plans attached to Jimmy Hoffa's impending future.  But nothing more definitive can be derived from the early Fitzsimmons visit to Detroit.

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The FBI got much of their additional information from New Jersey LCN informants. We have seen the media statements about the incinerator theme as being favored by “most investigators”. Yet, the fact is, the FBI was still looking for a body as late as 2013, North of Detroit, Michigan. A related idea proposed was that Hoffa's body was cremated.  Again, it is an unlikely scenario because it would be difficult to do without someone knowing about it. Cremation was almost unheard of in Detroit at that time in 1975. We researched Detroit funeral home sources and statistics from the 1970s. We take into consideration the other funerals going on at those sites on that day.  There were too many people around to do this without someone noticing it.  No one reported anything like that on the afternoon of July 30th, 1975.  The few places providing a cremation service had been checked out quickly by the authorities. This includes the resurfaced idea of the Bagnasco Funeral Home.  This business was known to have handled funerals and interments for the LCN in the past. It was visited by investigators soon after Hoffa disappeared.  The owners gave full cooperation to the investigator's satisfaction.

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Former U.S. Strike Force Prosecutor Keith Corbett leans toward the incineration theories but was interviewed in 2019 and answered a question with these words: "As I had stated before" "it would not be impossible if it was a trucking company" "you might have some cover on that".  If the body was buried, he said: "They would bury it on you know" "They would be much better off driving it (Hoffa's body) up to the woods of Northern Michigan and burying it.".  His comments did not favor another idea. He pointed out that if Hoffa's body was buried it would not be taken all the way to New Jersey. He also said and it would not be placed on mob owned property.  He imagined that La Cosa Nostra and Teamster suspects would say things like: "You're not burying him here."  "Not on my property".  Findinghoffa.com agrees whole heartedly with that.  We further believe the LCN would not take a risk by bringing the body to one of their businesses to be disposed of.  They were already under great suspicion in Detroit.  Since the murderers did not deposit the body in a place to be discovered, then what would they do? Findinghoffa.com is presenting a well-documented opinion with plenty of credible sources outlining a new idea of what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa's remains.

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If anyone doubts the Detroit mob couldn't have taken out JRH on their own, this earlier homicide argues otherwise. They were certainly capable to have pulled it off under normal circumstances.  However, the Detroit LCN was being watched closely the weeks before Hoffa vanished. It would be a much more difficult hit to pull off. The presence of law enforcement was intensified. Hoffa was a public figure and well recognized. These facts made it necessary for the conspirators to change some of their earlier tactics. Further effort to conceal evidence was an issue in the JRH case too. So, it would have been necessary to include others to clean up the crime scene. The Detroit’s LCN signature was on both cases, but the major difference is what became of the bodies. Hoffa’s body could have been found just as easily as Leach’s was discovered. Since it wasn’t, it seems another angle was added for a purpose.  It looks as if a message was being sent to another unidentified target. Was it a warning to stay out of LCN and IBT ‘s business? It’s entirely possible. Hoffa's body would be hidden on real estate belonging to someone else.  It would not be taken anywhere near known mob property in the cities.  It would be placed at an obscure location providing a dual purpose for the top echelon of the mafia. It was meant to stay that way for as long as the planners needed it.  

 

On the day of the Hoffa disappearance witnesses say that Jack Tocco stopped by and met with Tony Giacalone briefly.  The Toccos and Giacalones rarely did such things.  It is known Jack Tocco was not happy with the flashy and sometimes bold "out in the open" style of the Giacalone family. Yet they met just after Hoffa was last seen.  It certainly appears that the plot to take out Jimmy Hoffa had left much speculation with many of the LCN members throughout the country. Both the "Detroit Partnership" and the "Provenzano Group" from New Jersey seem to have had some of the information but not all of it.  What reason can be given to explain this behavior? There are reports of Tony Jack being involved in some of the deliberate deception of steering even other LCN mobsters away from the truth of what exactly happened to Hoffa and where the location of his body is hidden.  He suggested once when walking into the Renaissance Center with Marvin "the Weasel" Elkind (a onetime driver for Hoffa) that his body was entombed in the foundation of the original building site.  He suggested this idea in 1985 at the Renaissance Center before another meeting with others connected to the LCN.  This idea was also taken up by Michael Yarbrough who we interviewed years later. In another instance Giacalone told former under boss Tony Zerilli that Jimmy Hoffa's body was buried on property once belonging to Jack Tocco.  This property was searched in 2013. 

 

Other associates of the Giacalone's have at one time or another made similar claims they know what happened. Nothing ever has come from any of it. If the body went to a place owned by the mob to be destroyed which would have been a high risk at the time, nothing and no one has come forth taking responsibility for it. None of the few mob owned businesses took any responsibility for any of it. Every mob lead was and most of the Teamster's leads were relentlessly checked out. Contrary to other reports even the Hamtramck site was visited early on in the investigation and several sources indicate there was no scent even search dogs could pick up at that site.  Findinghoffa.com hopes to elaborate more on this in the near future. It can be gathered from all this is that they either did not know the details of where the body went or, if some of them did, they were running a disinformation tactic on their own people.  Why would they do that?  The master plan was supposedly compartmentalized. Each did their part. But it was the last part involving whoever disposed of the body to absolutely tell no one.   Most of the participants in each case are no longer living. Giacalone denied there ever was a meeting, scheduled between he and Provenzano, with Jimmy Hoffa.  Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone was regarded as a prime suspect in both investigations. He provided nothing more to the authorities. He died on February 23, 2001. 

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Produced by Steve Drummond 2022