The room contains three men and a bed.
One of the men is drunk, flailing about with
little control of his body, and the other
two are stone cold sober.
Then things turn violent.
One man grabs the drunkard and pins him down
— in such a state, he can hardly put up
a fight.
The other sober man starts fiddling with something
by the bed, and a few moments later, he unhooks
the tube from a gaslight and shoves it into
the mouth of the drunk man.
He switches it on.
Carbon monoxide floods into his mouth and
he remains pinned down until his body goes
limp.
The mission was nearly complete — after
at least nine attempts, it was finally time
for Iron Mike Malloy to die...
How had things come to such a sorry state?
Two words: the Great Depression.
Oh wait, that’s three words, but never mind.
Desperate times call for desperate measures
— and few points in history have been more
desperate than the period after 1929.
Unemployment was soaring, and you’d struggle
to meet someone who wasn’t looking for money.
A certain five men sat in a New York speakeasy
in 1933 were no exception.
They were Tony Marino, Joseph Murphy, Francis
Pasqua, Hershey Green, and Daniel Kreisburg.
The one thing binding them together was the
need to make some quick dough, and that’s
exactly what they were discussing one night
in the bar.
Jobs were almost out of the question.
None of them were morally opposed to a life
of criminality, but they knew they had to
be smart about it.
A bit of petty thievery here or there just
wasn’t going to cut it.
They had to think big.
That’s when a eureka moment hit.
Life insurance.
They’d all heard the tales of people doing
themselves in, or doing their loved ones in,
to cash in on a good policy.
But there had to be a better way to do it.
What about if you knew someone who was already
really ill?
You could persuade them to sign up for a life
insurance policy and cash out when they tragically
met their end a few weeks down the line.
The perfect crime.
There was just one problem.
Nobody could think of anyone who was dying.
Luckily, one man had a better idea.
What if someone took out a life insurance
policy and later died in a tragic, very accidental
accident?
Straightaway, they thought of just the guy.
Mike Malloy.
That tragic Irish immigrant who’d lost his
job and now spent all his time drinking.
He was in this bar almost every night — it
would be easy to try some funny business.
Besides, he didn’t have much life left in
him anyway.
If they cut his life short artificially by
a few months then so what?
There’s no way they could have known that
the man they selected would turn out to be
almost entirely indestructible...
But the five of them agreed.
They’d take out a life insurance policy
in a fake name, and make a fake identity card
in the same name.
As long as Mike had the fake identity in his
pocket when he died, they’d be able to make
a claim on the life insurance.
One of the other men would take out a fake
identity to pose as his brother.
It would require a bit of upfront investment
of course, but it’d be well worth it in
the end.
Or so they thought.
So, off they went to the insurers.
Spending almost every last penny the five
men could pool together, they took out one
policy from Metropolitan Life and another
from Prudential.
Mike Malloy became Nicholas Mellory and Joseph
Murphy became Joseph Mellory.
Ah, to be alive in the times when scamming
people was that easy.
In total, Mike’s life would be worth just
under $3,500, or $65,000 in today’s money.
Not bad for a total washup.
What could go wrong?
The only thing at stake was their lives if
they got found out and accused of murder…
but no need to worry about that...
Hundreds of people were already dying in New
York from alcohol poisoning each year, which
is pretty impressive considering alcohol was
illegal there at the time.
That was why Mike Malloy was the perfect victim.
It seemed perfectly plausible that a known
alcoholic with little to live for would join
the hordes of men passing away at the hands
of their favorite vice.
Shortly after taking out two life insurance
policies…
Soon enough, the fateful night rolled around.
Mike — or should I say Nicholas, wink wink
— entered the speakeasy, like he did most
other evenings.
There was just one crucial difference: this
time, he was given copious amounts of alcohol
for free.
The five men greeted Mike as if he was some
kind of legend, royalty, or a long-lost brother.
Instead of him waiting in the corner of the
establishment until someone got drunk enough
to buy him a drink, tonight the booze was
flowing as if money was no object.
A beer here, a shot there.
The plan was that he’d gradually get drunker
and drunker, until he eventually succumbed
to alcohol poisoning.
But somehow, it wasn’t working.
Mike downed one, two, ten, twenty drinks,
until the men were unable to keep count anymore.
Yet he never reached that pitiful state of
drunkenness where you lose all sense of reality
and become helpless.
In fact, he kept coming back for more.
He didn’t even look tipsy.
How could someone with no money for alcohol
build up such a huge tolerance?
The gang realized they’d have to play dirty.
This man might be able to stomach endless
quantities of beer, but there was no way he’d
be able to defy actual poisons.
Well, that’s what you’d think — but
Mike was no normal man.
Unfortunately, there was no arsenic on hand.
That was too expensive.
But barman Tony did have some methanol — you
know, the byproduct of wood alcohol and coal
that destroys the optic nerve and poisons
the central nervous system of regular people.
But not Mike.
He continued to laugh and joke, like he was
on Cloud Nine.
He might have had a stomach of iron, but his
social intelligence was lacking.
The men gathered behind the bar, plotting
their next move.
Maybe the alcohol and the methanol didn’t
kill him.
But there was one thing that couldn’t possibly
fail: denatured alcohol.
The definition of denatured alcohol is literally
alcohol that’s unfit for drinking.
And why is it unfit for drinking, I hear you
ask?
It contains toxic additional chemicals.
It doesn’t even taste like regular alcohol
— it’s completely disgusting.
So, let’s see how our good friend Mike fared
this time…
You’d think he’d spit it out in disgust
at least.
But there was nothing.
No reaction.
He downed it like it was whiskey.
Eventually, it came to closing time for the
speakeasy.
Mike departed in great spirits, thanking everyone
for the free drinks.
He even had the nerve to walk in a straight
line as he left.
In a moment of last-ditch hope, you wondered
if maybe he’d die in his sleep.
Instead, he was back again the next night.
What had happened defied everything you could
have predicted.
How was this man still alive?
But still, there had to be another way.
One man proposed using food as poison instead.
Everyone conceded it was at least worth a
go.
So, someone sourced a tin of who-knows-how-old
sardines that smelled like death, and prepared
them in a sandwich for Mike, who was once
again drunk.
I can’t imagine he was thrilled to be presented
with a sardine sandwich, but this was a man
who enjoyed drinking denatured alcohol, after
all.
The five men waited anxiously as Mike wolfed
down the sandwich.
And… nothing happened.
In fact, he asked for another one.
This was ridiculous.
Did he have no sense of taste at all?
Was he just challenging them and playing along?
But still, the men weren’t about to give
up so easily.
Not after shelling out so much money on life
insurance.
This time, the men filled out the sandwich
with as many ridiculous and toxic yet cheap
things as they could think of.
Bits of broken glass, carpet tacks, finely
ground bits of metal tin.
Joseph tried oysters marinated with denatured
alcohol, knowing oysters and hard spirits
formed a deadly combination that should pickle
the stomach.
Can you guess what happened?
Nothing.
Once again, Mike waltzed out in high spirits.
And if you thought any of the previous attempts
on Mike’s life were savage, you’ve seen
nothing yet.
The next night, the men suggested that everyone
could go for a walk together.
Nothing like a bit of fresh air on a freezing
winter night.
Once they reached a park, they encouraged
Mike to sit down on a bench, and hung around
waiting until the alcohol took hold and he
fell asleep.
And then they did what all good friends would
do in such a situation — left him there
to die.
Few people can survive a winter night in New
York city with no protection from the elements.
But this wasn’t just anyone, it was Mike,
so they had to be sure.
They ripped open his clothes, poured water
over him, and left.
So, would that be it?
Would that finally be the end?
Of course not.
The next morning Mike returned to the speakeasy
in perfect health but with an interesting
tale, explaining the cold had shaken him awake,
allowing him to leave before he reached a
bitter end.
Meanwhile, one of the men who had walked him
to the park had come down with a bad cold.
And they say Karma isn’t real.
That night served as a kind of turning point.
Although the men had been trying to murder
Mike, they’d at least been doing it in a
nice way.
They hadn’t tried to strangle or hang him
or anything too cold-blooded — they’d
just been preparing him dodgy sandwiches or
suggesting questionable activities.
Now, things were about to change.
One of the men, Harry Hershey Green, was a
cab driver.
And he reckoned he could orchestrate a car
crash.
At first, Hershey tried to bribe some of his
acquaintances into doing his dirty work for
him.
But it turns out that even during the Great
Depression some people have either morals
or a sensible risk management approach.
So, he resolved to do it himself.
A few days later, the fatal crash happened.
Mike took a harsh battering and was admitted
to the hospital.
Everyone thought he’d be dead within hours.
They were wrong.
Once again, Mike lived.
He’d broken his shoulder and suffered a
concussion, but he was still very much alive.
In fact, a week later he was back at the speakeasy
looking for some free booze.
Oh, Mike, if only you knew what was good for
you.
You need to find some real friends.
That night, things turned violent.
The men had thought of one thing that no man
could possibly survive.
Carbon monoxide poisoning.
Rewind back to the scene at the start of the
video.
Joseph Murphy and Daniel Kriesberg had pinned
a drunk Mike down on the bed as they used
a gaslight tube to poison him with carbon
monoxide.
You might doubt that the man who died was
really Mike.
But come on, you didn’t really think he
would survive this one, did you?
It took twenty minutes to finish the job,
which is surprisingly long, but eventually
his body had to give in.
So, what happened next?
Did they check in their life insurance premium,
wander off into the sunset and live happily
ever after?
Not quite.
They did succeed in getting the money.
At first.
They paid a doctor to sign a death certificate,
citing lobar pneumonia as the cause.
It was a downright lie — the doctor falsely
claimed Mike had visited the doctor complaining
of flu twice before dying.
There was just one problem.
A few months later, there was a murder at
the speakeasy, and Joseph Murphy was taken
into custody as a witness.
Meanwhile, one of the life insurance agents
became suspicious after failing to track them
down the nonexistent Nicholas Mellory
There were already rumors going around about
the plot to kill Mike, and eventually the
police caught wind of it.
Everything was going to pot.
The police decided to give Mike’s body an
autopsy.
The murdering fivesome hadn’t bothered to
embalm the body, which would have removed
all traces of what had happened.
Rookie mistake.
It soon became clear that Mike hadn’t died
because of his lobar pneumonia or flu.
It didn’t exactly take a forensic pathologist
to figure it out — there was a cherry red
discoloration all over the corpse, a clear
sign of what had really happened.
All five men, plus the doctor who signed the
fake death note, were arrested.
All in all, the gang had blown almost two
thousand dollars trying to earn the three
thousand five hundred life dollar premium.
If only I’d be there with them, I would
have suggested they use that as to bribe a
journalist to report a fake death.
The power of hindsight, I suppose.
Now, begin your own journey towards immortality
by checking out our videos on how to survive
a crocodile attack or falling out of an airplane.
