Has a Black man solved the mysterious disappearance of former Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa
Michael Yarbough went to Detroit’s Renaissance Center to look for a job on July 30, 1975, because his sister told him Clean America, an employment agency, was hiring. He made a wrong turn inside the building and witnessed Jimmy Hoffa, former president of the Teamsters Union, being murdered and buried in concrete. A man saw Yarbough, a former high school track star, and chased after him. Yarbough hid in a restroom stall, pulling his knees and legs tight to his chest so no one could see him. After several minutes, a frightened Yarbough carefully left the men’s room. He isn’t the only one saying that Hoffa has been given a concrete bath in the Renaissance Center.Marvin Elkin, Hoffa’s chauffeur, also said his boss was buried in the Renaissance Center during the building’s construction. Hoffa was last seen on July 30, 1975, at Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township. He was expected to meet with Anthony Giacalone and Anthony Provenzano, Teamsters and officials from N.J., at the restaurant. They weren’t there, but Hoffa’s car was still in the parking lot. According to scuttlebutt of the time, when Giacalone walked past the Renaissance Center, he told his pals,” Say hello to Jimmy Hoffa.” The murder of Hoffa traumatized Yarbrough Michael Yarbrough said the harrowing scene he witnessed has left him “traumatized” to this day. Yarbrough, a former corrections officer, was heading to a job interview at Detroit’s still-under-construction Renaissance Center in 1975 when he stumbled upon what he believes was a group of mafia members burying Hoffa in wet cement in one of the building’s support columns. He heard Hoffa screaming for his life. He ran home and told his family what he witnessed. “I said, ‘I just saw the weirdest thing downtown at the Renaissance Center. I saw some people burying a man alive.” “They pushed him in this hole, and they buried him,” Yarbrough told his family members. “They told him, ‘Mike, if I was you, I’d leave that alone. That’s the mob. They’ll kill you and our whole family.’” Once Yarbrough saw reports that Hoffa had gone missing, he realized what he had just witnessed. Now he’s finally gone public with his story, further sharing that he’s still haunted by the crime. “I want closure, that’s the bottom line,” he shared. “I want to get this off my chest because I’ve been harboring this for 50 years, and I’m still traumatized by it. It’s not something that can just go away like that.” He has gone to the FBI multiple times, but they continually brushed him off. “I’m very traumatized to this day. I’m still fearing for my life, but it’s like nobody really cares in law enforcement,” Yarbrough said. Yarbrough recalled getting lost in the depths of the soon-to-be Renaissance Center. After walking through the wrong door, he heard a man yelling for help. When he went to investigate, Yarbrough came upon a group of finely dressed men. “They had this man whom I found out later was Jimmy Hoffa,” Yarbrough claimed. “They were holding him. He was yelling for help. And just right next to them, there was another guy. It was a construction worker. He was hammering on the concrete, trying to drown the guy out from screaming for help.” Yarbrough claimed the men brought in a cement truck and positioned Hoffa next to one of the hollow building columns. “The ball on the cement truck was turning real slow, and then next thing I know, they pushed the guy in the hole. The concrete cement starts gushing down the [chute]. I could see the ball turning fast, and they pushed him in the hole — buried him right away.” As the years went by, the horror of what Yarbrough saw ate away at him until he finally told his story to the FBI. They quickly dismissed him. “I came to them in November 2002. This is 2025, and they still haven’t gone in that building,” he said, adding that he has no idea why he wasn’t taken seriously. “They’ve searched everywhere — nine searches in 50 years.” “And each time they went on the search, I called the FBI and told them that they were wasting their time, energy, and resources, and they still searched those areas anyway. [Hoffa’s] been lying there for 50 years.” Elkin makes the claim in the book, “The Weasel: A Double Life in the Mob,” authored by Canadian journalist Adrian Humphreys. The former chauffeur said in the rush to get rid of Hoffa’s body, Detroit mobsters called in union carpenters to hurry up the construction of the Renaissance Center’s foundation, where they dumped the body in wet concrete.  |
| Former Teamster Boss Jimmy Hoffa |