2. Michael Malloy and His Slimy Friends
In June 1932, Tony Marino, the proprietor of a rundown speakeasy in the Bronx, was in desperate need of money. So he and four acquaintances hatched a plan to murder somebody and collect the life insurance. Working with a corrupt insurance agent, they would take out life insurance policies on one of the habitual drunks who frequented Marino’s establishment. They would then get him to drink himself to death, and collect it when he perished. They chose Michael Malloy (1873 – 1933), a homeless Irish immigrant. Malloy was an alcoholic and a longtime client of Marino’s, where he drank on credit until he passed out. He paid when he could, whenever he found temporary employment, and let the tab run for months whenever he drifted out of employment and was broke.
Malloy seemed the perfect mark for a slimy scheme. Life insurance policies were taken of the Irishman, then Marino extended him unlimited credit at the speakeasy. However, Michael Malloy turned out to be extremely difficult to kill – a toughness that earned him the nicknames “Iron Mike” and “Mike the Durable”. The assumption was that Malloy would drink himself to death, but every day, the old Irishman drank all his waking hours without any noticeable decline in his health. So to speed things up, Marino and his accomplices added antifreeze to their mark’s booze. Old Malloy simply drank it until he passed out, then asked for more when he came to.