Jimmy Hoffa ‘Put Through Sausage Grinder’ by Detroit Mob, New Claims Allege

Posted on: July 29, 2025, 09:45h. 

Last updated on: July 29, 2025, 10:14h.

Philip Conneller @casinoorgphilc Read More
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  • Mobster allegedly confessed to Hoffa’s murder twice before
  • Sausage grinder, incinerator cited in new disposal theory
  • FBI probe resurfaces amid explosive new wiretap evidence

Fifty years after powerful union leader Jimmy Hoffa vanished from a suburban Detroit parking lot, a new set of allegations is breathing life into one of America’s most enduring cold cases.

Jimmy Hoffa, Detroit Mafia, Tony Palazzolo, Sausage grinder murder, Vito Giacalone
Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance is one of US history’s greatest mysteries — or is it? New claims point to a Detroit mob hit and a gruesome cover-up involving a sausage grinder and incinerator. (Image: Alchetron)

According to recent reporting by Gangster Report and Fox News, federal investigators have been evaluating previously undisclosed eyewitness testimony and underworld confessions that point to a clearer picture of who might have killed the Teamsters boss and what happened to his body.

A recent Gangster Report story claims a now-deceased Detroit mob figure, Anthony “Tony Pal” Palazzolo, confessed to murdering Hoffa in a 1993 wiretap captured during a joint FBI, DEA, and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigation.

Palazzolo told an undercover agent he killed Hoffa and disposed of his body using a sausage grinder at Detroit Sausage Company, the Eastern Market-based front he operated for decades, according to GR.

Alleged Confession

But the story doesn’t end there. The same article reports that Palazzolo allegedly confessed to the murder once before, in 1977, while threatening a man over a drug debt in Florida. The unnamed individual told GR that Palazzolo put a gun in his mouth on the porch of a swamp trailer and said he “murdered Hoffa two years earlier.” The man reportedly paid up and severed ties with Palazzolo out of fear for his life.

The new accounts follow a public panel held July 23 in Macomb County, Mich., where journalist Scott Burnstein, former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino, and ex-mobster Nove Tocco revealed details of Palazzolo’s wiretapped boast and named him as the main suspect in Hoffa’s disappearance.

Those revelations were reinforced by a companion segment in Fox Nation’s documentary series “Riddle: The Search for James R. Hoffa,” in which Hoffa’s son, James P. Hoffa, publicly endorsed the theory that the Detroit Mafia and Hoffa’s political successor, Frank Fitzsimmons, orchestrated the hit.

While previous reports have alternately blamed mob enforcer Frank Sheeran or pointed to burial sites in New Jersey and Oakland Township, the new narrative – based on Palazzolo’s alleged admissions, surveillance data, and a reappraisal of FBI priorities – has elevated the gruesome grinder-and-incinerator theory.

According to GR and sources familiar with the federal probe, Hoffa was picked up outside the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township on July 30, 1975. The vehicle, a maroon Mercury Marquis registered to Tony Giacalone’s son, contained a single hair tied to Hoffa via DNA, but yielded no blood evidence.

Did ‘Billy Jack’ Pull the Trigger?

Investigators now believe Palazzolo was behind the wheel. The triggerman, however, may have been Vito “Billy Jack” Giacalone, based on testimony from a confidential informant who reportedly told the FBI he witnessed the murder.

The body, GR alleges, was then ground up in a sausage auger and incinerated at Central Sanitation, a trash facility owned by Palazzolo’s mentor, mob capo Peter “Bozzy” Vitale. Employees said they were instructed to leave the premises that night, and the building housing the incinerators was later destroyed in a pair of suspicious fires in 1976 and 1978.

Palazzolo died of stomach cancer in 2019. According to sources cited by GR, he was rewarded for his role in the Hoffa hit with a promotion to capo and later consigliere in the Tocco-Zerilli crime family. Federal interest in him as a suspect intensified after former underboss Anthony Zerilli named him during 2012 debriefings.

The FBI hasn’t commented publicly on the renewed allegations but continues to classify the Hoffa investigation as open and active. No charges have ever been filed.