The Man Who Wouldn’t Die: The Insane Story of Michael Malloy | The Spill

Let’s get this out of the way: Michael Malloy should not have survived. 

But somehow, this Irish-born New York City drunkard became the most hilariously unkillable man in Prohibition-era history.

In this episode of The Spill, Matt, Jason, and Kendra unravel the unbelievable tale of Michael
Malloy, a man so dedicated to booze, and so impervious to death, that he turned a murder plot
into a months-long disaster for the people trying to kill him.

We're talking poisoned drinks, gas chambers, frozen nights, car crashes, and more. All in a
plot so stupid, so desperate, and so darkly funny, it could’ve been written by the Coen Brothers.
This is easily one of the wildest, most entertaining stories we’ve ever told on this show. We
guarantee you'll laugh, wince, and immediately start retelling it to your friends.


#MichaelMalloy #TrueCrime #DrunkHistory #Prohibition

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Transcript

0:02

Welcome back to Arsenic. Do you like Guns? Welcome back to Arsenic Culture where beer don't count bad decisions do, I am Jason. I am Kendra and, and, uh, That was a stupid fucking thing. Uh, I wanna talk about something fun for this spill. This is really fun. Yeah, it is fun. I think enough time. has passed that we can say it's fun. It's actually absolutely horrible. But it's crazy 'cause this guy's, what they call him? Like Iron Mike? Yeah. Uh, you ever heard of Michael Malloy? Kendra? I I don't think so. you definitely man who wouldn't die? The man who wouldn't die. That's his moniker. This is the craziest fucking. story, and I absolutely love it. Ties in with kind of like old prohibition history in the United, this was this united, Yeah. This was, in yeah. It is the us. Yeah. Um, but yeah, this is the story of, uh, a man Who was a raging alcoholic, um, but could hold his liquor. And, uh, as the story goes, we're gonna find, out. Should I just, should we just get into it or should we like, gimme some more? Well, first off, let's tell us what we're drinking because of this Oh, yeah, yeah. So we are, uh, we're gonna open up a bottle of Dogfish at Old school. Uh, Mr. Michael Malloy's beverage of choice was whiskey, but this is, I think his beverage of choice is whatever's in Whatever's in front of him. Actually, that's probably more like what it is. uh, but one of our buddies on Instagram, p James P. do James, or petty Patty Sea Cakes. We see you buddy. He was talking about how he saw this in the cellar. Um, so, uh, we're gonna open one of these. and honor of him. Thanks, man. I don't know why I thanked him. Wait, was he like excited that you had that or, or, okay. Yeah. He saw it in the background. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, hey. We have many of those. Yeah. If anybody I think I got one coming your way too, buddy. Uh, So lemme give you a little background on Michael Malloy and, but I, I guess I gotta set it up a little bit. I'm gonna cut some of You're good. Lemme set it up just a little bit. Michael Malloy, uh, was, uh, an older guy who. Um, a group of people took out an insurance policy on him and tried to collect on the insurance policy by having him killed and make it look like an accident, shouldn't he have had to sign the, um, Back then? You didn't have to. This was back in 1933, Shortly, I guess that was after prohibition. was so it looks like the, looks like the plot started in 1932. 32. Gotcha. So I think he'd actually passed away in like 33, 34, somewhere around Yeah. Yeah. He, died in 33. You're right? he was born in 1873 in Ireland. He was an Irish drunk. Makes sense. So, um. He was a former, Michael Malloy was a former firefighter and a stationary Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah, His nicknames were Mike the Durable Iron, Mike and Rasputin of, the Bronx. Like he had, he had like this whole tire just like, like fan fiction kind of like thing. People follow his. had like, what, 20 lives or some shit? Oh yeah, yeah. By the early 1930s, unfortunately, uh, Malloy was homeless and struggling with alcoholism in New York City, which I think a lot of people were, you know what I mean? Um, oh, I thought you poured me one too. So let me set up the, uh, the group of people that did you get some Kendra? I'm just, I'll just take a little Thanks. Uh, lemme set up the group of people. They called 'em the murder Trust. Uh, Tony Marino. He was the speakeasy. owner, Um, of the bar that Michael Malloy frequented, right? Joseph Red Murphy was the bartender, at, said establishment. Francis Pasqua, uh, was the possible mastermind of the, uh, entire thing. He was undertaker. He was the undertaker at. a funeral Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, uh, he had a Little Experience with dead bodies. guy. They all like, this guy's gonna die any minute. Pretty much. Let's cashless cash in on Daniel Berg was, considered, he was a, he owned a grocery. couldn't even see what, what his, his deal was. he was basically the money man. Like he had money. He owned a successful, uh, grocery store, I think. Yeah, it said Grosser. Um, but he funded like whatever they needed. in order to like put this guy to bed. Um, and then Hershe Green was kind of unfortunately brought up. He's a taxi. driver in this thing. Uh, but like I said, these guys got together, they're like, Michael Loy is a raging alcoholic. He's gonna die any second. back then. I guess you didn't need to have the assigned party sign off on their own insurance policy. So they Opened up an insurance policy on him. it was$3,500. You know what that is in today's money? Six? No. Are You guessing? No. 200,000. if you, I didn't know if you saw a different number. I might've. What'd Okay. Uh, well that's, I what I saw It's around 86,000. today. That is not that much really? not that. much. No, Even in today's money, it'd be kind of like That's That's a lot of I guess, I guess if you're insur a, a career drunk though, it might be Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was like all the money they had to put in on it. put in all the, Pretty much. yeah. They're all guy's grocery store must not been that successful. they go any higher, it's gonna like make a physical they Yeah, a lottery ticket. pretty much. Yeah. Um, do you wanna tell us about some of these attempts? to try to kill This motherfucker. So the first attempt they did, they actually gave him a tab at the speakeasy. Yep. So they kept, they kept essentially pouring for him whatever he wanted, essentially for about three days. Just fucking, let whatever. So they're like, let's let him, he's already an alcoholic. This was, I think this was the crux of the Original plan was to let him drink himself. to death, And then that way it would just be like, seen as like, oh, he just fucking, died of alcohol poisoning. So they did that and it didn't work. So what they did is they used, gave him hold on, back up. Could you imagine just drinking nonstop? for three days? And being like, keep him coming. Keep him coming. Three fucking days. and he's he fell asleep. Bashed out for a minute and won't back up. Where's the next like, just one more one. More's gonna get him one more. And they kept giving it to him for free. Like I wonder how much money he blew through in the bartender was like, are we gonna come out on top on this? You know what I You ever want shameless? Uh, no, no. I heard it's a I, I want to. Yeah. but he is the same thing. Frank is his dam mon there. But anyway, so after that, when he didn't die from that, they said, let's give him shots of wood alcohol. So wood alcohol causes blindness and death. Like it is awful. Is it it like moonshine? It's essentially like paint thinner, like essentially what it is. Yeah. So he drank that and he came back for more. So he kept going, kept going and Tony Marino just wanted to kill him. It's like, let's just kill this dude 'cause we're not I, I saw that they also tried to, uh, lace some of his drinks with different poisons. Oh, I didn't see that To try to Try and kill him because it wasn't working. poor guy. On top of the wood alcohol. They apparently used antifreeze. anything. He was so drunk he didn't even know he was getting poisoned. Turine Horse lineament, which is a horse salve I I think what it is, all that's wood alcohol, but you're Do you think all, oh yeah.'cause there's all kinds of different I didn't see that. But horse lineament is a horse salve. like, this is an actual, Like industrial thing. Um, and it's made of menthol camp for an alcohol. Um, and I guess they, use it on horses and then also rat poison. But here's, here's what I saw is that like something about where he was such a raging alcoholic, like I guess the nerve receptors that were supposed to bind to these poisons were all blocked because he like what alcohol had done to his system, like they, the poison wouldn't bind with the system. So he just passed, it all. like he just survived through all of this It's like a fucking cockroach. but in the best way possible. So next plan, after all that, they say, let's soak the oysters. Yeah. In Denatured, I think alcohol. So this is a solvent, like a fuel for camp stoves. Like those little, you know. Yeah. Portable fuel things. They fed him oysters that were poisoned, so he ate them and then he washed them down with wood alcohol and he's still going, dude, dude's not even missing a beat. Ate a shit ton of the oysters. Kept drinking wood alcohol, also saw that they, did you See the sardine thing? Uh, yeah, I did. That's the next one. Oh yeah, Go ahead. No, go No, go ahead. Go ahead. So they gave him a sandwich, uh, that had spoiled sardines in it. with shrapnel. Yeah. With poison, like carpet tax or some shit. He fucking ate it. He was just like, Hey, free food too. This is amazing, for another one. This dude's a fucking baller. Um, one night, uh, after he had passed out from drinking, they put him outside in the snow. Poured water on him To try to freeze him to death. his head everywhere. Took his shirt off. Somebody like a bystander found him and took him to a homeless shelter off. No, somebody saved him. like He was freezing to Well, actually it said he walked back, so he walked back to town. Then they, the next morning he's at the bar, like in there, like sitting at yeah, I think a lot of this stuff is kind of like anecdotal. I think people were just kind of like, this is what happened, whatever. then it's like, only thing he complained of is, I got a little bit of a chill. Mm-hmm. Gimme the Gimme the next drink. Fucking hilarious. Uh, so, um, plan's a great one. Go ahead. So the next plan was to actually run him over with a cab. This is, where the, this is where the taxi driver comes in. You see how this whole thing is like, devolved, like a comedy, model. Yeah. Yeah. This should be a movie. should be a movie. So he walked him to the middle of the road, right? He's drunk as hell. So the cab's coming at him. He dodges it, he moves out the way, then they try it again. He dodges it again. Third time. The guy's coming at him really fast, hits him. Runs him over, backs up over him. And then from there they thought he's dead, right? They leave him, he's dead. Five days later he shows up to the bar, just battered and bandaged. Sits down, starts drinking up he's like, I still have that somebody took him to the hospital. got that. Tap him up. And he came back to his open tab and he is like, you're not gonna believe the story I did last night. And they're just like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? He would not die. Um, on February 22nd, 1933, after he became, uh, unconscious from drinking again, uh, they took him to Murphy's room. Murphy was the. who is Murphy? Murphy was the bar, the bartender At the bar. Um, yeah. They took him to his room, connected a hose from a gas jet. To his mouth. Yeah. turned it on, and just shoved carbon monoxide into him until he died. Killed him? That's how I killed him. That's how him. They he killed. Killed. They killed him. Yeah. He actually he ended up. dying. 1933, They murdered him. So a year they tried to kill him for over a year Bless his heart. He thought they were his friends and they were all trying to murder him. Mm-hmm. to murder him. Mm-hmm. But see, here's the thing, like. He got so much like free alcohol and like food with carpet tax in it. Like he was probably like. he's Pretty good right now. He probably thought he was living it up. Yeah. Yeah. God love So then they actually, they had a, a doctor that they knew. So they faked the death certificate. They gave him low bar pneumonia as a cause of death instead of the, you know, inhalation of whatever, carbon Carbon monoxide. So they received $800 from the insurance, 800, it. That was one policy. They had multiple policies, so they went to collect another policy and then that, that insurance agency's like, we wanna see the body. Well, they couldn't, it was already buried. So that's when the investigation started and that's where they figured this out. So all these guys were tried and convicted of first degree murder and all of them were sent to electric chair and they were killed on the first try. Isn't that crazy? Oh my God. How many people were involved? was six, I believe. Well, five. Five plus 6, 5? Uh, and I guess, the, the taxi driver was implicated holy think he rolled on 'em though. So Frank, Tony, Daniel, and Joseph were the four that like, That's the grocery store owner, the bartender, the bar owner, and then the undertaker. Correct. And then you think the taxi driver rolled uh, he must have gave him some information on 'cause he must, he didn't mention karma. is some fucking karma. So here is what? Low bar. pneumonia is just We're good. Here's what low bar. pneumonia is. Uh, it's an infection that causes inflammation and consolidation or solidification of a Whole lobe of the lung, Um, but, and it's usually caused by streptococcus pneumonia, Um, although other bacteria can be, uh, responsible. flattens your lung out, basically So it'll pretty much like kill part of your lung. Okay. Like, it'll, it'll, uh, it, it won't be able to use it. So you'll hear like, and they always check your chest and stuff. That's what they're checking for those quadrants, they're listening for that. And apparently that was a pretty common. way, uh, for alcoholics and homeless people to die. So this doctor basically just kind of threw that up. as kinda like, oh, it's, a, it's another homeless guy dying. um, and then the exhumation came in, they did the autopsy or whatever, and they're like, no, exhumed him and they dug dug his dead. body up. Yeah. And I didn't see, like the doctor had to have been. in on, to some degree. I think they must have paid him off. The first doctor. Well, the guy that that that ruled his death, he was a, he was a friend and they just kinda like yeah, I, I think they probably threw him like 50 bucks and they were like, can you just say it's low bar. of Yeah. Sign off on this. Yeah.'cause I don't think he was implicated in it, but it, for all intents and purposes, it sounded and purposes, they could have also just taken him to him and said, Hey, we found this drunk out here. He froze to death. It's probably pneumonia. He is like, yeah, okay. I see 10 these day. Yeah. So Um, but he did die. But, uh, it fucking took a long time. He had a hell of a run. He had a solid year going amazing. I think that's an Bless his heart. I know. What do you think of the beer I didn't try it yet. We regaled you with our story. It's, definitely old school. Um, it's not as bad as I would've thought it would've would be. Oh my God, I love this. This is then what year is this one? 2017. 17. So This is why does mine look all chunky? And your olds you the bottom pour. Oh shit. It's fine. It's okay. It's protein. It's mine's better it. actually probably all carbs, honestly. I I need carbs after last night. Uh, but this is what, this is an 8-year-old beer. eight. This ages. Really? Well if anybody actually like, sellers beer, if you can get a hold of Dogfish head. Oh, it's cool. I, I, think this this, this ages so got a bunch of 'em. I'm thinking a lot of these do actually some of the barrel age stouts, some of the 1 21 20 men L and then this is a 20 year. I remember me and you were drinking this several years ago. Was a little harsh, fresh. fresh. It was. We drank that at the old village. Idiot, man. Yeah, we got hammered on that Yeah, we did On one bottle. Yeah, So that's, the story of Michael Malloy. sticking to it. The Man that Wouldn't Die. Old Iron Mike. The original Iron I'm gonna drink these chunks for Mike. There you go. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed it, then share it. If you didn't, then just keep drinking. Until you do. For more Arsenic Culture, you can take us out on all the socials. We are @ArsenicCulture. Like and subscribe on YouTube. And we'll see you on the next one.