Oddities
The story of Donegal-born Michael Malloy has gone down in New York legend and it’s easy to see why
The man they couldn’t kill
Donegal-born Michael Malloy (1873–1933) was a homeless alcoholic who is famous for surviving several murder attempts by five acquaintances from a New York speakeasy, who had taken out a large life insurance policy on him. Their attempts to kill Malloy over several weeks were farcical. First, they gave him unlimited credit at the bar, hoping he would literally drink himself to death on the bar’s low-grade spirits. When this failed they started to feed him poisonous wood alcohol when he was too drunk to know what he was drinking. This was commonly used as a paint thinner and was not very far removed from antifreeze. When this had no effect on him either, one of the gang members had the idea of giving Malloy oysters that had been marinated in wood alcohol. This did not kill the Donegal man; neither did a sandwich of rotten sardines mixed with tin shavings, broken glass and carpet tacks.
The gang next decided on a more hands-on approach. One night, when Malloy had passed out drunk, they dumped him in a nearby park when the temperature was some 20°C-below freezing. They even threw a bucket of water over him and stripped the clothes from his chest. Certain he would freeze to death, they left the poor man to his fate. They were astounded to find him alive in the bar’s basement the next morning. Somehow he had woken and stumbled back to the warmth of the speakeasy.
On the sixth attempt they ran him over with a car after he had passed out from drinking. They were sure he was dead, but could not collect the insurance when they could not find his body. As a desperate measure they found another drunk who resembled Malloy and ran him over too, but had to flee the scene when someone spotted them. The substitute survived with no memory of what had happened to him or any realisation of how lucky he was. Malloy surprised them again by turning up at the bar a few days later with a few broken bones and no recollection of anything either. A good Samaritan had found him and brought him to a hospital, where he had been recovering.
The gang finally managed to kill Malloy on 22 February 1933. When he had again passed out from drinking, they stuck a pipe in his mouth and connected it to a gas jet. Malloy was dead in minutes. Rumours of the gang’s epic undertaking spread through the New York underworld and soon reached the police. They investigated the unlikely story and soon rounded up the gang. Most of them were executed.