Michael Malloy‘s friends doubtless thought they were getting some easy money when they concocted a scheme to take out life insurance on him and then manipulate him into drinking himself to death. After all, how hard can it really be to bump off an unemployed, alcoholic, homeless Irishman who already looks like he’s at death’s door?
And so, with the help of a corrupt insurance agent, Tony Marino, Joseph “Red” Murphy, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, and Daniel Kriesberg each took out an insurance policy on Malloy’s life in early 1933, with them standing to gain the modern equivalent of $85,000 once he’s in the ground.
The plan seemed foolproof. Marino owned a speakeasy bar in Manhattan and simply gave Malloy an unlimited bar tab, believing he’d quickly drink himself to death. Malloy dutifully pulled up a stool and began to drink… and drink… and drink with no signs of stopping, day after day.
Marino decided it was time to speed things up a bit and began tainting his liquor with antifreeze. This didn’t slow Malloy down one bit, so Marino decided to go hard or go home. Surely – surely – Malloy would die if his booze was adulterated with turpentine? Malloy simply tossed ’em back and asked for more.
Rapidly running out of ideas, Marino tried horse liniment (aka heat rub) to no avail and eventually rat poison. Malloy still kept drinking, with his would-be murderers failing to make a dent in his iron stomach. Wood alcohol – aka the toxin methanol – was then attempted but, guess what, Malloy kept drinking with no obvious ill effects.
The five men decided it was time to get creative. They served Malloy a dinner of raw oysters soaked in wood alcohol. Nothing. How about a sandwich filled with rotten sardines, rat poison, and carpet tacks? He gobbled it up like he was at a Michelin-starred kitchen.
“The man who wouldn’t be murdered”
At this point, the quintet grimly realized Malloy wasn’t going to die from eating or drinking anything, so decided to get more hands-on. On a freezing night, they waited for him to pass out, then dumped him in a snowy park, stripped him, and poured water over his chest. This may well have finished him off, were it not for a passing cop who spotted him and dropped him off at a homeless charity.
You can imagine their surprise when he walked back into the bar like it was no big deal. So they ran him down in a taxi at 45 miles an hour. This finally put a dent in Malloy, who spent three weeks in hospital with broken bones, but lived.
Finally, in desperation, the five men simply dragged Malloy away and stuck a hose connected to a gas jet down his throat and turned it on. Even the “unkillable” man couldn’t live through this, though is said to have survived even that for an hour. The five breathed a sigh of relief and tried to collect their ill-gotten gains.
Unfortunately for them, word had gotten out about “Mike the Durable,” and cops conducted a forensic examination of his body. The five were soon on trial and quickly convicted. Hershey Green was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 10 years. The other four of murder, rapidly finding themselves sitting in the electric chair at Sing Sing. Unlike Mike Malloy, their deaths were instantaneous.
