THE IRISHMAN

FRANCIS

JOSEPH

SHEERAN

Perhaps everything you want to know about Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran along with a bunch of stuff, you probably could do without, can be found in the publication: “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt.  Brandt has drawn out many critics from other “hoffaologists” due to his claims of solving the Hoffa mystery with his “one source” book.  Brandt references his work primarily through the testimony provided by Frank Sheeran.  The recent major motion picture by Martin Scorsese, also called “the Irishman” portrays much of what Charles Brandt has chronicled in his book. We have noticed chatter from those having capitalized on the Hoffa disappearance concerning the impact this film may have on their versions of the Hoffa narrative. We at findinghoffa.com will take it as what it is: A semi historical film of the life of one of the characters identified with the disappearance of  James R. Hoffa (JRH).  We look at it as being a source of entertainment in movie theaters as well as by means of streaming the film on a popular pay per view network. We do not ascribe that this movie, or Charles Brandt’s book, have correctly portrayed every detail about what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa.  We take it as one version of many on the subject. It is not the final authority concerning this topic. It’s just another film covering a yet to be solved mystery. 

 

Findinghoffa.com does admit that Sheeran is listed in the original FBI Hoffex Memo completed 6 months after the disappearance of  JRH. We have seen documentation that this memo was a product of Federal Agent Robert Garrity.  He may have worked along with others to complete this document as a summary of the steps used in the initial Hoffa investigation. It appears it was disbursed to others within the Department of Justice soon after compiling information from protected sources along with the verification of details regarding the scant forensic evidence obtained by the FBI in 1975. Within it’s pages we find also some of the facts drawn from the Federal Grand Jury, held in the Detroit area preceding it’s release. The memo remains the best authority we have to this day. Detroit Free Press reporter David Ashenfelter was one person responsible for bringing attention to this 56 page memo. In 1985 it could be copied and it was in 2006, some thirty years later, this memo was available to be downloaded and referenced in publications as a primary source document for public examination. The physical condition of the Hoffex Memo is mostly free of redaction but not in the greatest condition. Some of the quality in the available copies are difficult to read. Portions of the printing are often faded. None the less, we encourage our followers to read it.  We have made it available for download on this website.

 

Francis Joseph Sheeran was born on October 25, 1920 in Camden, New Jersey according to the Social Security index. Other sources say he was born in Darby, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, the place where he grew up. His family was of Irish Catholic ancestry.  Frank Sheeran is one of several people confessing to have murdered JRH.  However, he has also publicly denied having anything to do with Hoffa’s demise. Sheeran provided several different versions of what happened to Hoffa and even tried to sue journalist Dan Moldea, author of “The Hoffa Wars” published in 1978, for insinuating he had participated in the abduction portion of the “master plan”.  Moldea has stated on several occasions he believes Sheeran was a participant but not the “trigger man” in the mysterious plot.  Moldea believes the actual murderer was Salvatore Briguglio of the LCN Genovese crime family located in New York and New Jersey. Yet, it is in Brandt’s book, that we find most of the records of the account given to him as told by Frank Sheeran. In this publication, Sheeran states he also killed Salvatore Briguglio along with a few other well known mobsters. These accounts have also drawn much criticism from some of the other so called experts on Jimmy Hoffa lore. The result of all the latest media attention brings interest to the Hoffa narrative. We think it could inspire a new generation  to continue the efforts  to solve one of the greatest mysteries left over from the 20th Century. 

 

Sheeran apparently along with Brandt also claim more than one version of what happened to Hoffa’s body. It is suggested in the book that there was an incinerator in the basement of what is known as the “Beaverland house”.  It is inferred this incinerator (for burning paper) was large enough to handle a human body. The Beaverland property is the same place Frank Sheeran led Eric Shawn of Fox News to check out.  He said this place was the supposed murder house of JRH.  Later, after Sheeran’s death, floor boards were removed and traces of human blood droplets were uncovered. The DNA blood analysis, to the disappointment of Charles Brandt and Eric Shawn, did not match with Hoffa.  Perhaps Sheeran knew of this place as site where someone instead of Hoffa in mob language was “greased” by the Detroit LCN.  It may have been used to “hit” a different victim, thus giving Sheeran an “out” to “finger” the owners of the real location of the murder where Hoffa was “whacked”.  Incidentally, the phrase “paint houses” used by Sheeran was not a previously well known mob phrase until Brandt’s book was first published in October 2003.  It is supposed to be a phrase describing a type of organized crime assassination referring to blood spatters when someone is killed.  Sheeran’s father’s occupation is listed as being an actual house painter in the literal sense of the phrase. We can only surmise Sheeran and Hoffa used this phrase exclusively between the two of them, as we have had difficulty finding the phrase being used anywhere else.  We believe the real murder house was likely the Carlo Licata home which was much closer to the Machus Red Fox Restaurant abduction site. Previously mentioned Dan Moldea, and as recently as 2015; James Buccellato author of: “Early Organized Crime in Detroit: Vice, Corruption, and the Rise of the Mafia” have commented on this location as the probable murder site. JRH was familiar with this location and it is much more secluded than the Beaverland house. We checked out both locations and agree the Licata home better fits the circumstances than the other place does.

 

The conspirators would have driven inside the garage and killed Hoffa as he exited the car. Then, we surmise they would wrap the body up, in possibly a tarp, and immediately transport it to a rendezvous location to send the body on it’s way North for disposal. They would have used a readily available means that would not draw suspicion.  We believe such a means was by using a Gateway Transportation Company big rigged semi tractor trailer on a known regular delivery route to Northern steel mills, mines, quarries, and steel parts manufacturers.  We have mentioned this process in other posted information on our website. The owner of the Licata home, Carlo Licata (the son of Los Angeles LCN mob boss and Commission member Nicholas “old man” Licata originally from Detroit), was found shot to death in one of the bedrooms on the sixth anniversary of the Hoffa disappearance July 30, 1981. Licata’s death also remains a mystery to this day. This is consistent with other hits that were made on some of the suspects listed in the Hoffex Memo. Other opinions have surfaced over the long haul implicating the murder took place in the car, at an abandoned gas station, or the homes of Marvin Adell or Leonard Schultz. So, Sheeran may have had some second thoughts about “ratting” out any of his comrades. If so, he needed to provide a possible site to satisfy the journalists and investigators looking to establish validity to his confessions. We have heard that Fox News is trying to get the blood samples found in the Beaverland house a more definitive type of DNA testing in hopes the initial results were wrong.  At the time of this writing we noticed the house was listed for sale.   Any attempt to verify the real truth about Hoffa’s demise we certainly welcome. Our own opinions are based on current evidence but we are not locked out on ideas like this because they, non the less, are attempts to try to find out what really happened. 

 

The second place Sheeran mentions as the final resting place of Jimmy Hoffa was the Vitale and Quasarano Central Sanitation incinerator located in the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck. We note that the Hoffex Memo mentions Pete "Buzzie" Vitale and Raffaele "Jimmy Q" Quasanaro but does not go into any detail as to the method used to hide or destroy Hoffa’s remains by their participation.  Instead it says on page 55 of the Hoffex Memo “regardless of where the body is found the prosecution will probably be by the local authorities”.  We take note that both the Strike Force Prosecution and the FBI believed there was a body that could be found at the time of the writing of the Hoffex Memo.  It does not take much for the idea of the use of an incinerator to become another convenient excuse.  Since a body was never found, one of the members of the Strike Force prosecution later backed the Hamtramck incinerator version but has also made public statements as to the plausibility of what we are suggesting happened.  

 

Quasarano and Vitale's businesses were being watched by surveillance teams in 1975.  Findinghoffa.com discovered documentation that Jimmy Hoffa's successor and opponent Frank Fitzsimmons had associations with Vitale and Quasarano and his son had been allegedly employed by them at one time. We know prior to Hoffa disappearing from sight, on a sunny Detroit afternoon, that a bomb had been planted and detonated in Fitzsimmon's  son Richard's  car.  This act drew unwanted attention to the LCN and both the rival IBT groups in Detroit.  It would not be a good idea to show up at any place already under suspicion and known to be associated with Fitzsimmons or these two specific LCN characters to dispose of Hoffa's body. They were aware they were being tailed and watched before Hoffa vanished from sight.  Frank Sheeran admits he was not present to witness what happened to Hoffa's body.  He said he was later told by others some of the details as to what happened.  Researcher Dan Moldea reports of a statement the FBI provided in 1978 denying the credibility of the Central Sanitation theory and addresses this issue allegedly in his  book Confessions of a Guerilla  Writer in Chapter 38 entitled "Yes, we have no Central Sanitation".   

 

We already know that Brandt has changed horses on this idea and provides yet a third idea of the location based on a recent publication by Jeffery Hansen’s: “Digging for the Truth, the Final resting place of Jimmy Hoffa”. Hansen was a former suburban Detroit police officer and fictional crime novelist. He along with Brandt now push the idea that JRH was cremated by a local funeral home.  The crematorium either was nearby the Machus Red Fox restaurant, where Hoffa was abducted, or very close to the Beaverland house. There are more than a few problems with this “theory” too.  We want to point out that early in the search for JRH, the authorities checked out the local funeral homes and cemeteries.  Cadaver/search dogs were highly accurate in locating Hoffa's scent which led to the discovery of just one hair belonging to JRH in the car used for his abduction weeks after the fact. But we do not have any forensic evidence recovered from the other areas we know were under surveillance or physically searched to validate this cremation theory. No evidence suggests that Hoffa was taken to any of these places in 1975. 

 

The Bagnasco family ran a legitimate funeral business and had handled interments for some of the Detroit LCN. They were also visited by the authorities and they freely admitted they had provided their services to the Zerillis and other known Detroit LCN families prior to the Hoffa investigation. They cooperated by supplying records of any recent burial and cremation activity to the investigators in 1975.  They are even quoted in news papers concerning this early investigation and their cooperation with the authorities. We saw  the Bagnasco family business brought up again as late as February 2019 by Eric Shawn of Fox News. 

We feel revisiting an already covered story will not help us find out what happened to JRH unless there was something missed in the original investigation. Since cremation itself was a rare thing in 1975 Detroit,(and we checked out this fact), it did not take the FBI long to cover these angles.  But now, over four decades later, the same story has been re packaged as a totally new idea.  We have noted that media and publishers are still capitalizing on some old and faulty speculations circulated with the facts concerning the search for Jimmy Hoffa.

 

We believe the facts from some of the early FBI investigation, related files and corroborating news articles are the most reliable information from that era. They emerged along with all kinds of ruse tactics and wild theories.  So, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction.  Quite often it was long shot theories getting more attention back then rather than the conclusions reached  by the investigators of the case.  All of it seems to recycle as time goes on.  When this happens it is usually presented as something new to the public.  In addition, we see attempts made decades later to unhinge or derail the solid information we know is true and replace it with a story line that is nothing more than an opinion with almost nothing to back it up.  We need to keep looking based on what we know is true and uncover facts that compliment this truth.  Any new discoveries should clarify the details already presented instead of ignoring them.  If gaps appear in the investigation, it would be the best approach to take note of them and see if further information comes to light.  

 

In Brandt’s latest version of “I Heard you Paint Houses”, he records Sheeran saying that the notorious crime boss, from Pennsylvania known as Russell “McGee” Bufalino, told him the body of JRH was handled by friends from a local Detroit funeral business. Brandt and others subscribe to the incinerator/cremation theory originally put forth by Steven Brill in his 1978 publication: “The Teamsters”.  Yet very few of them agree as to who and where the supposed cremation took place. Some websites covering the Hoffa case openly declare that the reason his body was not recovered is due to the idea it was incinerated, cremated, ran through a mob owned meat rendering plant, or chopped up and fed either to pigs, gators, or sharks. None of these things are new ideas yet even now there are those still making a fortune pedaling such stories. These things parallel all the ridiculous burial sites in very public places or private mob owned businesses or properties that could easily have been witnessed by many people or traced back to the murderers of JRH.  The perpetrators of Hoffa’s disappearance would likely not have chosen a means involving that much risk to them.  So, how did they do it?  It is very evident that Sheeran as well as a long list of others did not know the details involved in the final steps of the “master plan”. The closest one to provide information on the subject was probably Anthony Zerilli in 2013.  He may have got it wrong, but he did leave us with some interesting clues. We have uncovered some startling new discoveries by looking into these things.

 

We could elaborate more on the factual or fictitious life of Frank the Irishman Sheeran but he has gotten enough press already, and it has not led us to what really happened to the physical remains of James R. Hoffa.  We will say that his involvement with the disappearance is a strong possibility and he gave Charles Brandt a few items of information that seem to ring true.  One piece of information involves the nature of the “master plan” itself.  It was compartmentalized.  Another fact to consider is that Sheeran was a close and trusted friend with Jimmy Hoffa.  He was able to have set Hoffa at ease to get into a familiar car along with other occupants JRH was expected to be there. The Hoffa family had made statements to this effect too.  Frank Sheeran would be one of only a handful of individuals Hoffa would get into a car with for such an event. These others were likely Charles “Chuckie” O’Brien, and Vito “Billy Jack” Giacalone.  We don't believe Hoffa would get into any car occupied by Salvatore Briguglio.  Briguglio was already a well known hit man for Tony Provenzano.  Findinghoffa.com surmises Briguglio was driving another car reported to be seen by a credible eye witness in the Machus Red Fox parking lot.  He may have later been at the scene of the murder and possibly committed it himself.  It appears he was with other identified members of the Tony Provenzano's crew along with some of the Detroit Partnership involved in the clean up of the crime scene and the  transport of the body.  This could explain other names surfacing recently that show involvement with Hoffa's disappearance but  we acknowledge the list of suspects continues to grow over time and are usually connected to orchestrated ruses made by LCN officials that were aware they were being bugged by electronic surveillance.  Findinghoffa discovered examples of this behavior dating back to the 1960s involving some of the Hoffex memo suspects connected to the Detroit Family Partnership. 

 

The FBI knew Frank Sheeran was in contact by phone with Hoffa leading up to the disappearance. We know he was the president of the Local Teamsters Union 326 of Wilmington, Delaware and an ardent Hoffa supporter. He was a suspect in cases where he had attempted to hire others to murder his enemies and he was convicted of labor racketeering and served 13 years of 32 year prison sentence. He eventually wound up at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri and released early due to the nature of his failing health.  He was an associate of LCN crime boss Russell “McGee” Bufalino and on occasion acted as his personal driver.  His access to Bufalino and Hoffa is a noteworthy fact and difficult to dismiss. We believe he could have been telling the truth about having a part in murdering Hoffa due to the nature and the circumstances of his final confession.  Just before he died, he shared his deepest regrets because his suspected participation with the murder had estranged him from one of his daughters as well as causing the grief this incident brought to the Hoffa family.  Whatever part Sheeran allegedly played in the abduction and murder of Jimmy Hoffa, he admitted he was not present to witness himself what happened to his body.  The Irishman's information  as to where Hoffa's body went seems to be less credible than the details he has shared concerning Hoffa's murder.  So, the claims made by Charles Brandt and Frank Sheeran, that the case has been solved, does not line up with some of the other discoveries made concerning the Hoffa mystery.  We will continue to search for the final answers and stay hot on a new trail.  The final chapter has not been written yet.  

 

Francis Sheeran died December 14, 2003.  Now years after his death he is showcased in a Martin Scorsese major motion picture "The Irishman" as yet another hit man claiming responsibility for the death of James R. Hoffa.   This leaves no doubt to us the James R. Hoffa story still permeates American society. It is considered to be unrivaled as history’s most famous unsolved mystery since he disappeared without a trace on July 30, 1975.

 

 Produced by Steve Drummond 2020

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