Frank Sheeran

He was the son of Thomas Francis Sheeran Jr. (1886–1968) and Mary Agnes Hanson (1887–1972).

His father was of Irish descent, while his mother was of Swedish descent.

Frequently his father made him fight him with boxing gloves.

He claimed to have participated in numerous massacres and summary executions of German POWs, acts which violated the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the 1929 Geneva Convention on POWs.

In interviews with Charles Brandt, he divided such massacres into four categories:

Francis Joseph Sheeran (October 25, 1920 – December 14, 2003), also known as "The Irishman", was an American labor union official and enforcer for Jimmy Hoffa and Russell Bufalino.

He was accused of having links to the Bufalino crime family in his capacity as a high-ranking official in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the president of Local 326.

Sheeran enlisted in the United States Army in August 1941, completed basic training near Biloxi, Mississippi, and was assigned to the military police.

On July 14, 1943, he set sail for North Africa.

Sheeran served 411 days of combat duty—a significant length of time, as the average was around 100 days.

His first combat experience was during the Italian Campaign, including the invasion of Sicily, the Salerno landings, and the Anzio Campaign.

He then served in the landings in southern France and the invasion of Germany.

Sheeran said:

All in all, I had fifty days lost under AWOL—absent without leave—mostly spent drinking red wine and chasing Italian, French, and German women.

However, I was never AWOL when my outfit was going back to the front lines.

If you were AWOL when your unit was going back into combat you might as well keep going because one of your own officers would blow you away and they didn't even have to say it was the Germans.

That's desertion in the face of the enemy.

Sheeran recalled his war service as the time when he developed a callousness to taking human life.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for training in the Airborne at Fort Benning, Georgia, but he dislocated his shoulder and was transferred to the 45th Infantry Division, known as "The Thunderbirds" and "The Killer Division".

Sheeran was discharged from the army on October 24, 1945.

He later recalled that it was "a day before my twenty-fifth birthday, but only according to the calendar."

Upon returning from his army service, Sheeran married Mary Leddy, an Irish immigrant.

When he left the service, Sheeran became a driver for Food Fair and he met Russell Bufalino in 1955 when Bufalino offered to help him fix his truck, and later worked jobs driving him around and making deliveries.

Sheeran also operated out of a bar located in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania which was run by Bill Distanisloa, a soldier for Angelo Bruno.

According to his biography, Sheeran's first murder was killing Whispers DiTullio, a gangster who had hired him to destroy the Cadillac Linen Service in Delaware for $10,000.

However, Sheeran did not know that Angelo Bruno had a large stake in the linen service.

Sheeran was spotted outside the business and was brought in for questioning.

Bufalino had convinced Bruno to spare Sheeran but he ordered Sheeran to kill DiTullio as retribution.

Sheeran was a leading figure involved in the infiltration of unions by organized crime in the 1960s and 70s.

The couple had three daughters, MaryAnne, Dolores, and Peggy, but divorced in 1968.

Sheeran then married Irene Gray, with whom he had one daughter, Connie.

Sheeran was also suspected of the murder of Joe Gallo at Umberto's Clam House on April 7, 1972.

Bufalino introduced Sheeran to Teamsters International President Jimmy Hoffa.

In 1980, he was convicted of labor racketeering and sentenced to 32 years in prison, of which he served 13 years.

Irene died in December 1995.

Shortly before his death in 2003, he said he had killed Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa in 1975.

Author Charles Brandt detailed what Sheeran told him about Hoffa in the narrative nonfiction work I Heard You Paint Houses (2004).

The truthfulness of the book, including Sheeran's confessions to killing Hoffa and Joe Gallo, has been disputed by some.

The book is the basis for the 2019 film The Irishman directed by Martin Scorsese which starred Robert De Niro as Sheeran, Al Pacino as Hoffa, and Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino.

Sheeran was born and raised in Darby, Pennsylvania, a small working-class borough on the outskirts of Philadelphia.