The Red Fox Restaurant parking lot, Bloomfield Township, Michigan. July 30th, 1975. 2:45 in the afternoon. James Riddle Hawa stood near the pay phone, sweating through his blue golf shirt, checking his watch for the eighth time in 20 minutes. He’d called his wife Josephine at 2:15.
Said Tony Jackaloney hadn’t shown, said he was being stood up, said he’d be home by 4 to grill steaks. He was never home again. A maroon Mercury marquee pulled into the lot. Hawa walked toward it. He got in the back seat. The car drove east on Telegraph Road. And one of the most powerful labor leaders in American history vanished from the face of the earth.
This wasn’t just another missing person. Hawa ran the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 2 million members strong, controlling the largest private pension fund in the country. He’d loan the mob over $300 million to build Las Vegas. He’d done 13 years in federal prison for jury tampering. And in the summer of 1975, he was 3 weeks away from filing a federal lawsuit that would have ripped the Teamsters back from the men who’d taken it from him.
Powerful men, dangerous men, men who decided Jimmy Hawa had become a problem with only one solution. This is the story of who actually killed Jimmy Ha. Not the version Hollywood sold you. Not the deathbed confession Martin Scorsesei turned into a three and a half hour film. This is what the FBI’s Hoffex report concluded.
What forensic evidence proves. What investigators who worked the case for 50 years still believe. and why Frank Sheran’s claim that he pulled the trigger at a Detroit rowhouse is, according to nearly every serious investigator who’s looked at the case, a complete fabrication. But here’s the part that’s going to change how you see the entire Irishman story.
The men who actually drove Hafa to his death weren’t even named in Sharon’s confession. The FBI knew who they were within 72 hours. They’ve been the prime suspects for half a century. And the reason no one was ever charged comes down to one missing piece of evidence that vanished along with Hoffa’s body.
To understand why Hawa died, you have to understand who he’d become by the summer of 75. He was 62 years old, 5’5, built like a fire hydrant. He lived in a modest lakehouse in Lake Oran, Michigan with Josephine, his wife of 39 years. He drank dietright cola. He didn’t smoke. He went to bed at 9:00 and woke at 5.
He swam in his lake every morning, even in October. He kept a framed photograph of his daughter Barbara, a federal judge, on his desk. But Jimmy Hawa was also a man at war. In 1967, he’d entered Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary on a 13-year sentence. While he was inside, his handpicked successor, Frank Fitz Simmons, took the Teamsters’s presidency.
And then Fitz Simmons did something Hawa never expected. He gave the mob unlimited access to the pension fund. No oversight, no questions, just signed the loans. Anthony Provenzano, the Genevese family capo who ran Teamster’s local 560 in Union City, New Jersey, had fit Simmons in his pocket. So did Russell Buffalino, the quiet boss of the Northeastern Pennsylvania family.
So did Tony Jackaloney of the Detroit Partnership. When Richard Nixon commuted Hawa’s sentence in December 1971, there was one condition buried in the paperwork. Hawa was barred from any union activity until 1980. Hawa believed Fitz Simmons had engineered that restriction himself, working with the mob to keep him out forever.
And by 1974, Hawa had filed a federal lawsuit to overturn the ban. He was talking to reporters. He was meeting with old loyalists. He was telling anyone who’d listen that he was coming back. And he was threatening to expose every pension fund loan, every kickback, every dirty deal the mob had made while he was in Lewisburg.
You have to understand what that meant. Hawa knew where the bodies were buried financially speaking. He knew which casinos were skimmed. He knew which cappos got which envelopes. He could have brought down Provenzano. He could have brought down Buffalino. He could have torn open the entire Las Vegas skim that was funneling millions a month to Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Cleveland.
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The mob couldn’t allow it. And by the spring of 1975, a decision had been made. Hawa had to go. Here is where the names matter. Anthony Provenzano, known as Tony Pro, was 68 years old in 1975. He’d been a Teamsters official and a Genevese Cappo for 30 years. He’d done time in Lewisburg with Hawa, and the two men had fought viciously over a pension dispute.
Witnesses said Hawa had threatened to tear out Provenzano’s guts. Provenano allegedly told Hawa he’d kill his grandchildren. They left prison hating each other. By 1975, that hatred had become institutional. Russell Boufalino was 71. The boss of the Buffalino crime family out of Pittston, Pennsylvania.
Softspoken, wore wire rim glasses, looked like an accountant, ran one of the most disciplined organizations in the country. He was the man other bosses called when they needed something handled quietly. And he was the one who reportedly delivered the verdict to Hawa through intermediaries. Stop the lawsuit, stop the comeback, or face the consequences. Hawa didn’t stop.
So Buffalino working with Provenano and the Detroit Partnership arranged what looked on paper like a peace meeting. Tony Jackaloney, the Detroit underboss, would sit down with Hoffa and Tony Pro at the Matchis Red Fox restaurant on Telegraph Road. They’d work it out. Barry the Hatchet.
Hoffa, who’d been burned a dozen times in his life and should have known better, accepted the meeting. He told Josephine. He told his lawyer. He told his friend, Lewis Lento. He drove himself to the restaurant in his green Pontiac Granville. He parked. He waited. And then the Maroon Mercury pulled in. Now we get to the men the FBI believes actually drove Hawa to his death.
Three names that should be as famous as Shiran’s but somehow aren’t. Salvator Brigulio known as Sally Bugs, 45 years old, a Genevvisi soldier. He worked directly under Tony Provenano at Local 560 in Union City. He was a stone killer with a reputation for being clean, careful, and absolutely loyal. The FBI had him in the Mercury Marquee.
They had witnesses placing him in Detroit on July 30th. They had phone records linking him to the planning meetings. He was in the bureau’s own internal documents, the lead suspect in the actual abduction. Thomas Andreta, 38 years old, Genevvisi associate, Provenzano’s right hand for muscle work, lived in Hudson County, New Jersey.
The FBI’s Hoffix report, the bureau’s internal master document on the case completed in January 1976, named Andretta as one of the men in the marquee. Witnesses at the Red Fox parking lot described a younger man with dark hair driving. The physical description matched Andreta perfectly. Gabriel Brigulio, Sally Bugs’s younger brother, 36 years old, also a Provenzano associate.
The FBI believed he was the third man in the car, providing backup and serving as the connection to the Detroit crew that would handle the disposal. Together, these three men, all reporting directly to Tony Pro, all answering ultimately to Russell Buffalino, formed what investigators called the New Jersey crew that came to Detroit to do the job.
Here’s the thing about how it actually went down. Hoffa knew Sally Bugs. He’d met him at union events. He’d seen him at local 560 functions. When Hawa saw a familiar face in the backseat of the marquee, he relaxed. He got in. That was the trick. You don’t send a stranger to pick up a man like Hawa. You send someone he recognizes, someone he trusts just enough to take the ride.
The Hoffix report declassified in 2007 lays out what the bureau believed happened next. The car drove Hawa to a private location, almost certainly a house in suburban Detroit. Sources within the Detroit Partnership later told informants the location was a residence on Beaverland Street. Hafa was killed there, likely shot, though some accounts suggest strangulation.
His body was wrapped, transported, and disposed of within hours. By nightfall on July 30th, Jimmy Hoffa was gone in every sense. Then came the cleanup. The Mercury Marquee was returned to its owner, Joey Jackaloney, Tony Jalon’s son, who’d loaned it out that day. The FBI later found Hawa’s hair and DNA traces inside the vehicle.
They found a single dark hair on the rear seat that matched Hawa with near certainty. They had the car. They had the suspects. They had the motive. What they didn’t have, what they could never get was a body or a witness willing to testify. Now, let’s talk about Frank Sheeran. And let’s talk about why nearly every serious investigator who’s worked this case considers his confession to be at best wishful thinking and at worst a complete fabrication designed to sell a book.
Shiran was a Teamsters official from Philadelphia, a World War II veteran, 6’4, a Union enforcer who claimed close ties to Russell Buffalino. In 2003, dying of cancer, he gave a series of interviews to investigator Charles Brandt. Shiran claimed he flew to Detroit, met Hawa at a house on Beverland Street, shot him twice in the back of the head, and walked out while a cleanup crew disposed of the body.
Rant published the book in 2004. It became a bestseller. Scorsesei turned it into the Irishman and Sharon became in popular culture the man who killed Jimmy Ha. But here’s what the FBI found when they actually investigated Sharan’s claims. They tested the Beaverland Street house. They found blood traces in the floorboards.
Initial reports were sensational. Then the lab work came back. The blood didn’t match Hafa. It didn’t match anyone connected to the case. It was old. It was unrelated. The forensic foundation of Sheran’s confession collapsed within months. The FBI agent who ran the Hawa case for decades, Andrew Sluss, has stated publicly that Sheran’s account contradicts what the bureau established about that day.
The timeline doesn’t work. The geography doesn’t work. The witness placements don’t work. She claimed to be in two places at once. He claimed details that contradicted phone records. He claimed a level of operational involvement that no one in the Buffalino organization corroborated before, during, or after. Dan Mulia, the investigative journalist who spent 40 years on the Hawa case and wrote the definitive book on it, called Shiran’s confession what he believes it actually was.
A dying man’s attempt to leave his daughters something valuable. A story, a book deal, a piece of mythology that would outlast him. Moldia interviewed Sharan multiple times in the years before the deathbed account. Sharan told him different versions, named different killers, couldn’t keep his story straight. Then near the end, he locked in on the version Brent wanted to hear.
The forensic evidence points elsewhere. The Mercury Marquee pointed elsewhere. The bureau’s own internal conclusion, after thousands of interviews and decades of work, pointed elsewhere. Sally Bugs Brigulio, Thomas Andreda and Gabriel Brigulio operating under Tony Provenzano sanctioned by Russell Buffalino carried out in cooperation with the Detroit Partnership.
That’s the story the evidence tells. So what happened to the man who actually did it? This is where the mafia eats its own. Sally Bugs Brigalio, the lead trigger man in the FBI’s theory, was indicted in 1978 in a separate murder case involving a local 560 official named Anthony Castalito. Regulio knew the federal pressure was closing in.
He was talking to his lawyers about cutting a deal. The mob found out. On March 21st, 1978, Sally Bugs walked out of Bonito’s restaurant on Malbury Street in Little Italy. Two men approached him. They shot him five times in the face and chest. He was dead before he hit the sidewalk. The message was clear.
Whoever else knew about Hawa was being closed out. Thomas Andreta and Gabriel Brigulio were both convicted in the Castalito murder in 1978. They went to prison for decades. Neither ever spoke about Huffa. Both followed the code. Tony Provenzano was convicted in the same case, sentenced to life, and died in a California prison in December 1988 at age 71.
Russell Buffalino died in February 1994 at age 90. Tony Jacalone died in 2001. Every man named in the Hoffix report as part of the Hawa hit died without ever confirming what happened. The code held, the evidence stayed buried, and so did Jimmy. Which brings us to the four most credible theories about where Hawa’s body actually went.
Because if you understand mob disposal methods in 1975, you understand that the body was never going to be found in any place anyone would think to look. The first theory, and the one many veteran investigators consider most likely, involves a New Jersey landfill. specifically a dump owned by a Provenzano associate named Phil Muscato, often called Brother Muscato.
The dump was in Jersey City. It was operational in July 1975. It received truckloads of construction debris daily. A body wrapped in canvas, dropped into a 40ft trench, covered with 50 tons of concrete and rebar within 24 hours, would never be recovered. The FBI dug at the site in 2004. They found nothing recoverable, but the theory remains and the timing, the geography and the provenano connection make it the leading hypothesis.
The second theory points to the construction of Giant Stadium, now Metlife Stadium in the Meadowlands. Construction was underway in the summer of 1975, pouring concrete, tons of it daily. The legend says Hawa was buried beneath the end zone. Investigators have largely dismissed this one as too cinematic, too convenient, and too logistically improbable.
Moving a body from Detroit to New Jersey within hours required risks the mob didn’t take. The story persists because it’s perfect for television. The evidence for it is essentially zero. The third theory involves cremation. A funeral home in suburban Detroit owned by a Detroit partnership associate had a working crematorium.
The theory goes that Hawa’s body was driven to the home that night, processed within hours, and the ashes were scattered or disposed of in industrial waste. Cremation eliminates DNA, eliminates dental records, eliminates everything. No body, no case. Investigators have looked at multiple funeral homes connected to the Detroit organization.
They’ve never found definitive proof, but it remains plausible. The fourth theory, the simplest and in some ways the most chilling, is that Hawa was buried in a shallow grave somewhere in rural Michigan or Ohio within hours of his death. No concrete, no theatrics, just a hole in the ground in a field owned by a connected farmer plowed over the next morning. 50 years of weather and crops.
The body would be unrecognizable today. The bones, if they survive, are mixed with top soil across acres no one would ever search. What this story reveals is something the movies never quite get right. The mafia didn’t kill Jimmy Ha because of personal vendetta. Although the Provenano hatred was real, they didn’t kill him because of Frank Sheran’s loyalty oath.
They killed him because $200 million in pension fund control was at stake. Because a 62-year-old man with a federal lawsuit could expose two decades of organized crime financial infrastructure. Because the cost of letting him live was measured not in feelings but in indictments, forfeitures, and the collapse of empires from Las Vegas to New York.
And the cost of killing him was nothing. Three men in a Mercury marquee, a 2 and a half hour drive. A house in suburban Detroit, a clean disposal. Nobody, no witnesses, no convictions. The perfect crime, if you measure perfection by the absence of consequence. Frank Sharon died in 2003, 6 months after his interviews with Brandt concluded.
He went to his grave believing he’d secured his legacy, and he had in a way. Millions of people now believe his version. But the FBI files, the forensic evidence, and the men who actually worked the case tell a different story. A story where the killers were named decades ago, where the planners died of old age, and where Jimmy Hoff’s body lies somewhere no shovel will ever find.
That’s the real ending. Not a confession in a Philadelphia rowhouse. Not Robert Dairo pulling a trigger. Just three men in a borrowed car, a labor leader who trusted the wrong handshake, and 50 years of silence that has never once broken. That’s the cost of crossing the wrong men in 1975. And that’s the truth the Irishman couldn’t quite tell you.
