Carlo writes, "Of the four [who traveled to Detroit], Richard was the only one who was a bona fide professional killer, who had a doctorate in murder."
Not true. Salvatore "Sally Bugs" Briguglio had murdered for Tony Provenzano before in a case that closely resembled the Hoffa disappearance. In 1961, Briguglio allegedly killed Teamster official Anthony Castelitto on orders from Provenzano and put the body through a tree shredder. No identifiable traces were ever found. So why would Provenzano's hit team need Kuklinski if they already had a seasoned assassin on board who was also a made member of the Genovese family? Every school boy knows that the Mafia is a secret society. Why would they bring along an outsider like Kuklinski on such a high-profile job?
And why would Tony Pro drive all the way from New Jersey to Detroit with the hitters? Provenzano would naturally have wanted to distance himself from the crime. Presumably a capo would too smart to risk being seen with the killers he's hired. He wouldn't want to be anywhere near the killing.
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| Frank Sheeran |
And why would the killers entrust Kuklinski, the outsider, with the body? For that matter, why drive Hoffa's body all the way to New Jersey, increasing the risk of discovery? Wouldn't it have made more sense to destroy the body in Michigan as soon as possible? That's what Frank Sheeran, another mobbed-up union official, told author Charles Brandt for his book, I Heard You Paint Houses. Sheeran claims that he shot Hoffa twice in the back of the head in a Detroit house in the presence of Andretta and the Briguglio brothers. The body was then taken to a nearby funeral home and cremated within the hour. Experts believe that Sheeran's account of the crime is perhaps the most plausible of any of the various stories floated over the years.
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| Book Cover: I Heard You Paint Houses |
The timing of Kuklinski's letter to me containing his version of the Hoffa story also made me suspicious. He had previously asked me in a telephone conversation how the book was coming along and if I needed "any more murders to spice it up." Shortly after than conversation I received the letter. I checked with various law enforcement officials in New Jersey, including former Deputy Attorney General Bob Carroll and former Division of Criminal Justice Chief Robert Buccino, who expressed serious reservations.
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| Bob Carroll |
When I later spoke to Kuklinski on the phone, I told him I wouldn't be using his Hoffa story and why.
"I have a feeling if I listened to you long enough," I said to him, "you'd tell me you killed Abraham Lincoln."
He laughed. "Yeah, probably," he said.
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