Acting on a tip from January, investigators are digging up a vacant field that could hold the key to the mysterious disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.
According to WXYZ, members of the FBI and the Oakland County, Mich. Sheriff's Department began investigating a plot of vacant land on Monday . It's located east of Adams Road and north of Buell Road in rural Oakland Township.
(See video above. Scroll down for updates and watch live feed from the dig site at WXYZ.)
Back in 1972, reports WXYZ, suspected Detroit mobster Jack Tocco purchased 45 acres of land near the vacant field. Hoffa, the head of the Teamster's Union, went missing in 1975, after possibly being kidnapped en route to the former Machus Red Fox restaurant in the Metro Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Twp.
The Tocco family reportedly incorporated the land into a family business and later built homes on it, according to WXYZ.
Federal agents first heard about the vacant property in January, when the son of Joseph Zerilli, known as one of the city's legendary alleged crime bosses, came forward. Anthony "Tony" Zerilli, 85, told investigators that Hoffa's body was buried in a shallow grave in the Oakland Twp. field. Plans to move his body were abandoned.
But the FBI might have reason to doubt Zerilli's story. For one, it was reported in January that he's writing a book. The 85-year-old also said he has knowledge of Hoffa's death from his father, although he claims to have never been a mobster, and was serving time at the time of the disappearance.
Zerilli said it's important that people know the truth.
"I’d like to just prove to everybody that I’m not crazy," Zerilli told NBC. "And it means a lot to me. What happened, happened while I was in jail. And I feel very, very bad about it and it should never have happened to Jim Hoffa. He didn’t deserve what happened to him."
Although Hoffa disappeared nearly 40 years ago, the feds haven't given up trying to locate his remains around Metro Detroit. Investigators have searched beneath many innocuous suburban fixtures for the Teamster boss's body: a backyard swimming pool, Roseville driveway, Detroit home and even a horse farm.
UPDATE: 12:20 p.m. -- Investigators are digging around a cement slab in the middle of the Oakland Twp. field, according to WXYZ. Watch live feed from the dig site at WXYZ.
UPDATE: 2:20 p.m. -- An attorney for Tony Zerelli told WXYZ that Hoffa's body is buried underneath the cement slabs where investigators can currently be seen digging. "The body is in that field, no doubt about it," Attorney David Chasnick told WXYZ.
Check out the slideshow for a few more theories about what may have happened to Jimmy Hoffa.
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