Mike Malloy was a homeless man who was living on the streets of New York City during the 1920s. A former firefighter, Malloy had fallen on hard times and grew quite fond of liquor. He frequented local speakeasies and began to make a few friends. In 1933, five crooks decided to take advantage of Malloy. With the help of a crooked insurance agent, Tony Marino, Joseph Murphy, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, and Daniel Kriesberg plotted to take out three life insurance policies on Malloy and then get him to drink himself to death. The five men met up with Malloy at a bar owned by Marino and began giving him free drinks. They stuck an insurance policy under his nose and had him sign it. They figured he would then drink himself to death and they would split the $3,500. They were wrong. Malloy typically drank every day, all day, so drinking himself to death was pretty much out of the question. The crooks decided to replace Malloy’s alcohol with antifreeze. It made no difference….he was back in the bar the next day. They replaced the antifreeze with turpentine and then rat poison, but nothing changed. Malloy would get drunk and pass out, but every morning he was back at the bar. Next the men soaked raw oysters in wood alcohol and fed them to him. When that failed, they gave Malloy a sandwich made of spoiled sardines and carpet tacks. Not only did that fail, but Malloy asked for another. Realizing Malloy must have an iron stomach, the men upped their game. They waited for him to come out of the bar one night, stripped him naked, poured five gallons of water on his chest and face, and went home, sure he would freeze to death in the cold. Sure enough, Malloy turned up the next morning. Next they paid a taxi driver to run him down at 45mph, and then back over him for good measure. Although Malloy didn’t show up the next morning and was nowhere to be found, three weeks later he appeared at the bar again. He had suffered some broken bones and had no memory of the night he was run down. At their wit’s end, the men decided on one last approach. They kidnapped him and stuck an open gas pipe down his throat. Within an hour, Malloy stopped breathing. He was finally dead. His death was attributed to pneumonia, and the crew got their ill-gotten money. However, word soon spread that “Iron Mike” had died under suspicious circumstances, which caused police to launch an investigation. The five gang members were promptly arrested and convicted of murder. Green was sentence to life in prison, while the other four got the death penalty and were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison.
