# FBI Miami report and Bureau memoranda, July-August 1976: John Roselli's disappearance and death, and the obstruction inquiry (Vault Roselli Part 08)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/fbi-vault-roselli-p08-disappearance-homicide-1976/

A Bureau memorandum and a Miami report record that Roselli left his sister's home in Plantation, Florida on July 28, 1976 and did not return, that his body was recovered from a sealed oil drum near Miami Beach on August 7, and that the FBI was asked to determine whether his killing related to his Senate testimony.

A Bureau memorandum of August 9, 1976 (p. 147) says Roselli left his sister's residence in Plantation, Florida on July 28, 1976 and did not return; that his car was found in a parking garage at Miami International Airport; and that on August 7 fishermen saw a sealed 55-gallon oil drum with holes cut in it floating in the intracoastal waterway off Miami Beach, which homicide detectives of the Dade County Public Safety Department recovered.

The Miami report (file 92-517, Bureau file 72-2382, character "Obstruction of Justice"), dated in March 1977, says the Dade County Medical Examiner stated that death was caused by asphyxiation. Its synopsis (p. 160) gives "JOHN ROSELLI, true name FILIPPO SACCO," and "born 7/4/05, Esperia, Italy"; elsewhere the report attributes the birth data to Dade County records. The synopsis also states, in the FBI's words, that in late 1960 Roselli, with Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante, "cooperated with the CIA in a plot to assassinate FIDEL CASTRO, which was unsuccessful." It says the inquiry was begun on an Attorney General's memorandum of August 13, 1976, which said Senators Inouye and Baker had advised that Roselli testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on three occasions and had expressed fear for his life, and which asked the FBI to determine whether his homicide was related to that testimony (18 U.S.C. § 1505) without interfering with the Dade County investigation.

The body of the report (pp. 173 and after) was not read in full. No finding about who killed him is recorded here. Relatives' names and the street address of his sister's home are not repeated. Roselli's own sworn testimony of 1950 gave a birth in Chicago; see [Kefauver Part 5](/items/kefauver-p5-rosselli-testimony-1950-10-07/). This archive read the page through the Vault viewer's OCR text layer. The scans are poor; names, dates and figures can be garbled, and many names are redacted under FOIA exemptions (b6, b7C, b7D).

## Sources

- FBI Records: The Vault, John (Handsome Johnny) Roselli Part 08, pp. 147-149, 160-166, 172: https://vault.fbi.gov/John%20%28Handsome%20Johnny%29%20Roselli/John%20%28Handsome%20Johnny%29%20Roselli%20Part%2008/view