Report: DNA tests show hair found in car came from long-vanished Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa

DETROIT (AP) -- A hair from Jimmy Hoffa was found in a car that a longtime friend was driving the day the former Teamsters president disappeared 26 years ago, The Detroit News reported Friday.

FBI scientists matched DNA from hair taken from Hoffa's brush with that of a strand found in the borrowed car that Charles "Chuckie" O'Brien had been using on July 30, 1975, the newspaper reported, citing unidentified two sources familiar with the investigation.

O'Brien has maintained Hoffa never was in the car, and he repeatedly has denied any role in Hoffa's disappearance.

Hoffa, the legendary Teamsters boss from 1957 until 1971, disappeared from a Detroit-area restaurant and is presumed dead. He was 62. His son is now Teamsters president.

Hoffa disappeared after going to the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township, ostensibly for a meeting with reputed Mafia figure Anthony Giacalone and New Jersey Teamsters boss and underworld associate Anthony Provenzano.

Neither man showed up; both said no meeting had been scheduled.

The car O'Brien was using was owned by Giacalone's son Joe.

Investigators believe Hoffa was picked up outside the restaurant and killed. Despite a massive investigation, his body never has been found.

Investigators and Hoffa family members have said O'Brien, who was taken in by Hoffa as a child, was one of the few people who could have persuaded Hoffa to get into a car that afternoon.

"We have re-interviewed Mr. O'Brien, but I can't say anything more about that," said John E. Bell Jr., special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI bureau.

O'Brien could not be reached for comment after phone calls were placed to his office in Memphis, Tenn., the newspaper said.

Bell said DNA tests were done on all the evidence, but he declined to comment on the results. Federal agents have met regularly in the past 11 months to discuss the case, Bell told the newspaper.