THE incredible story behind the murder of homeless Irishman Michael Malloy in New York City in the 1930s is a shocking tale of greed, deception and violence, alongside one poor’s man unbelievable refusal to die.
Michael would come to be known as ‘Iron Mike’, ‘Durable Mike’ or ‘Rasputin of the Bronx’ after he survived at least nine attempts on his life.
He was killed as part of an insurance scam to save a failing speakeasy amid the days of Prohibition in the US.
Michael Malloy – sometimes referred to as Molloy – and his murder have since been the subject of books, TV episodes and documentaries, songs, a radio drama and even a jazz musical.
Born in Donegal in 1873, how he came to live in New York is unclear.
Variously described as being in his 40s or 50s but looking like he was in his 60s by the time of his death in 1933, Michael, who had worked as a firefighter and stationary engineer, eventually became unemployed and homeless.
He had also developed a drinking problem.
By 1932, Prohibition had been in place for 12 years. And so Michael came to hang around a speakeasy at 3804 Third Avenue near Crotona Park in The Bronx, owned by one Tony Marino.
Given that Michael was a loner, had no known family and had taken to grabbing a drink when he could and often sleeping at the speakeasy, he came to be a prime target for a gang that tabloids would later dub the ‘Murder Trust’.
The Murder Trust – speakeasy owner Marino, 27, as well as barman Joseph ‘Red’ Murphy, 28, undertaker Frank Pasqua, 24, cabbie Harry ‘Hershey’ Green, 24 and fruit-seller Daniel Kreisberg (also widely spelled Kriesberg), 29, who all lived in The Bronx – put together a plan to kill Michael through alcohol poisoning and collect a small fortune in life insurance.
However, this turned out to be a lot harder than anticipated.
Marino, though, had already seen one plot bear fruit.
In early 1932, he convinced a woman called Mabelle ‘Betty’ Carlson, a 27-year-old hairdresser, to sign a $2,000 life insurance policy (worth over $43,000 or €37,000 in today’s money) that had him down as the beneficiary.
Marino cashed it in by plying Carlson with alcohol before soaking a mattress in water and leaving her naked on it beside an open window in his apartment at 3806 Third Avenue – beside the speakeasy – on a freezing cold St Patrick’s night.
This led to her death – and Marino collected his money.
In late July 1932, Marino joined his pals Pasqua and Kreisberg for a drink at the small bar he owned.
He was heard to complain that business was not going well, when Pasqua turned to him and, according to contemporary newspaper reports, said: “Why don’t you take out insurance on Malloy? I can take care of the rest.”
They walked into the local office of the Prudential Insurance Company and asked for coverage with a double indemnity clause, in case anything happened to Michael, with Pasqua as the beneficiary.
And they walked out with a policy of $2,000.
The pair did the same at the Metropolitan Insurance Company, this time for a policy of $3,000.
RED FLAGS
However, these plans had to be reviewed by the firms and, unfortunately for the Murder Trust, both policies raised red flags and were rejected.
The New York Times reported Joseph Porreca, an agent for Metropolitan, testified that the $3,000 policy was rejected as Pasqua was not a relative.
Another newspaper report states that District Attorney Samuel J Foley revealed the policies were rejected when agents learned from Michael that he hadn’t sought the insurance and didn’t want it.
However, in December 1932, barkeep Joseph ‘Red’ Murphy decided to take out three insurance policies for a ‘Nicholas Mellory’.
Posing as this fictional man’s brother, he signed one $800 cheque from Metropolitan Life and two $494 cheques from Prudential as the beneficiary.
‘Nicholas Mellory’ would come to be worth $1,788 – or around $38,650 (€33,665) in today’s money.
However, the payout on the event of his death would be doubled to over $3,500 if it was deemed an accident, due to the double indemnity clause.
And now the plan was set: cause the death of the loner Irishman Michael Malloy by making it look like some sort of accident and cash in on the life policies.
PLOT IS HATCHED
Hatching the plot, later that month the men gave Malloy some papers to sign that would purportedly help Marino get elected to local office – just like Betty Carlson.
They promised to ply him with free drinks for the next few days if Malloy would put pen to paper and write his name.
However, the delighted Malloy actually signed the life insurance policies obtained by Murphy.
And so all was in readiness.
Now the gang just had to throw free liquor at Michael and watch him drink himself to death.
Starting out, Marino gave Michael an unlimited tab at his speakeasy and even provided him with space in the back to sleep off the hangovers.
But reports indicate that Michael, if anything, improved from imbibing the spirits throughout the day.
After several weeks of this, Marino started to realise that he was burning money through this method – and it didn’t seem to be working.
DRINKS POISONED
So he added antifreeze to the liquor he was serving to Michael at the advice of ex-chemist Murphy.
Michael collapsed and the gang dragged him to the back room, ready to pay off a physician for a death cert and claim their money.
An hour later, however, Michael bounced back to the bar still thirsty and seemingly unaffected by the antifreeze.
Following that drastic but unsuccessful move, more antifreeze was tried, as well as turpentine, horse liniment (or heat rub) and eventually rat poison.
But Michael kept drinking with a cheery disposition.
The Murder Trust then turned to food instead in an attempt to bring about Michael’s demise.
Marino served the Irishman raw oysters soaked in wood alcohol. The New York Daily News reports Michael downed two dozen and “was so enthused by the cuisine that he encouraged Marino to open up a restaurant”.
Then he was given a sandwich of rotten sardines, mixed with tin shavings, as well as broken glass and carpet tacks. Michael is said to have eaten it and asked for another.
CHANGE OF PLAN
Fed up, the gang changed the plan and decided what killed Betty Carlson would be good enough for Michael.
In January, they got the Irishman well-lit at the bar once again and then walked him to the nearby Crotona Park, put him on a bench and waited for him to pass out.
Then the men ripped his coat and shirt open and poured 19 litres of water on him, leaving the freezing night – New York was a frosty -26C – to take care of the rest.
Malloy was said to have been rescued by cops, who took him to a homeless shelter to be re-clothed – and was back at the bar the next day.
Funnily enough, The New Yorker noted how this attempt had left Pasqua with a bad cold.
The gang then decided to turn to a more violent approach, as February was nearing and another insurance premium payment was due. This is where Harry ‘Hershey’ Green comes in.
Green, who ran a taxi firm, was asked to arrange an “accidental” collision for the princely sum of $150, on January 30, 1933.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, the gang piled into Green’s cab, “a drunken Malloy strewn across their feet”.
CAB SMASH
They drove a few blocks to Pelham Parkway and then dragged Malloy out of the car and held him up by his arms, “crucifixion-style”.
Green, according to the New York Daily News, “backed up his taxi two full blocks to build up enough speed to complete the job”.
However, the somehow sprightly Irishman managed to hop out of the way.
They then took Michael to Gun Hill Road.
Smithsonian Magazine then reports how Green raced towards him in the third attempt at 50mph (80kmh).
This time the target was hit, and apparently Green backed up over Michael “for good measure”.
Confident Michael was dead, the gang was spooked by a passing car and didn’t verify.
They didn’t hear anything for the next five days, despite Murphy ringing hospitals and morgues to find his ‘brother’.
‘MORE OF THAT GOOD LIQUOR’
Michael, according to a later report, suffered concussion, a possibly fractured skull and a fractured shoulder at least from the incident.
He was picked up by a policeman, Patrolman Lampe, who was the one to identify Michael after his exhumation, and taken to Fordham Hospital for treatment.
Associated Press copy from the time reports that Michael “got up from his hospital cot” after a few days, walked back into the speakeasy again and said: “Let’s have some more of that good liquor.”
Apparently this prompted the gang to contact a professional hitman to finally put Michael to rest, but they balked at the $500 fee.
SECOND BODY SOUGHT
Another problem was that, in the intervening period, the gang thought they’d lost Michael’s body entirely – and they needed another one to claim the policies.
So they’d canvassed local speakeasies in the meantime and found a guy in Harlem called Joseph Patrick Murray, 31, who was apparently the spit of Michael, according to court testimony from Marino.
On the night of February 6, the Murder Trust got him drunk, bundled him into Green’s cab, shoved a fake ‘Nicholas Mellory’ ID card in his pocket, drove him out to Austin Place in the Bronx and ran him over as well, reportedly at 30mph (nearly 50kmh).
Murray, an out-of-work plasterer, was later found in “a rickety shack in a Depression colony” next to the Hudson Parkway. He’d spent 55 days in Lincoln Hospital.
FATE ARRIVES
The whole thing was seen by a local watchman, who recorded Green’s license plate.
It’s around now that the cops get involved.
It’s also at this point when Michael walked back into Marino’s speakeasy asking for another drink, leaving the gang speechless.
Finally, on February 22, Michael’s fate had come.
The New York Daily News, in a 2007 report on the story, states how that night Marino challenged Michael to a drinking match, with the former drinking whiskey and the latter wood alcohol.
When he finally passed out, the gang took him to a hired, furnished room at 1210 Fulton Avenue, dropped him on the floor, stuffed a hand towel in his mouth and attached a rubber hose to a gas jet in the wall.
After sticking the hose in Michael’s mouth, Kreisberg turned the jet on and the conspirators heard a hiss, meaning it was working.
Michael was dead within an hour from carbon monoxide poisoning.
FAKE DEATH CERT
It was reported that Murphy sat up all night with the corpse and, the next morning, the Murder Trust got a false death cert from another accomplice, Dr Frank Manzella, made up saying Michael died of pneumonia as a side effect of alcoholism. The gang paid Dr Manzella $50 for this.
They buried him, unembalmed, in a pine box coffin worth $10 in a $12, 12-foot pauper’s plot in Westchester County that same day, February 23, 1933. One report says he was buried as soon as four hours after he was certified dead.
That seemed to be that.
Pasqua wrote out a bill for $400 for funeral expenses to impress the insurance companies, according to cops. Murphy got the $800 from Metropolitan but when Pasqua applied for the ‘Mellory’ policies, Prudential asked for a physical examination of the body and that plan was dropped.
Meanwhile, cops at local speakeasies had reportedly heard of one ‘Iron Mike’ and how he had cheated death several times before dying under curious circumstances.
Others had variously overheard the plot and it all unravelled pretty fast after DA Foley ordered a probe and for Michael to be examined.
Ten months after the saga started, on Thursday, May 11, 1933, the “forlorn charity plot” in Ferncliff Cemetery, Woodlands, Westchester County was opened and Michael Malloy was exhumed for identification and an autopsy, which revealed he had been killed by asphyxiation from “illuminating gas”.
CASE BEGINS
His killers would soon be found.
A report in the Times Union newspaper on Friday, May 12, 1933 reported how five men were “locked up” in the Bronx charged with killing Michael to collect insurance policies worth $1,294 – later determined to be $1,788.
It also listed a sixth suspect, Dr F A Manzella, the former Republic Alderman, who was held as an accessory after the fact.
Another man, John McNally – who, it turned out, was offered money to run over Michael and ended up blabbing about the gang’s exploits – was detained as a material witness, the report stated.
‘LIQUID GIFTS’
It also added that the “syndicate” – the Murder Trust – tried to kill Michael “by giving him enough liquor to drink himself to death”.
It noted that Michael “apparently thrived on the generous libations” and was then given “liquid gifts. . . in the form of wood alcohol”.
After the taxi incident came the reporting of Michael’s actual murder.
The report continued: “Stupefied by drink, he was taken to a furnished room and a gas tube placed in his mouth.”
Dr Charles H Hochman, assistant medical examiner and pathologist, and Dr Alexander O Gettler, city toxicologist, would eventually take the stand and testify that Michael had died of monoxide gas poisoning – and had not had pneumonia.
‘MURDER TRUST SMASHED’
The Brooklyn Eagle’s report from the same day notes how DA Foley believed that the “most cold-blooded ‘murder trust’ in the city’s history. . . had been smashed”.
The New York Times’ report from the same hearing on May 13, 1933 told how the five men were charged with murder, while Dr Frank Manzella was held on $10,000 bail as an accessory after the fact and two others were detained as material witnesses.
It reported how police and the DA told a “story of horror” about “a man who proved so hardy of life that another man, with a false identification card, almost was done to death as a substitute”.
It stated the authorities “were admittedly skeptical” when informed of the plot but their first search for proof uncovered the murder and the killing of Betty Carlson.
It also listed how John McNally, 26 and James Salone, 22, both of The Bronx, were detained as material witnesses as the gang “was said to have offered them first $200 and then $400 to run down Malloy – offers which they rejected”.
The trial began on October 2.
Evidence shown during it revealed how the gang was only able to obtain around $800 of the insurance money because Murphy, the beneficiary, was in county jail being held as a material witness in the murder of gangster ‘Tough’ Tony Bastone.
DA Foley, according to The New York Times, said the Metropolitan paid out $800 on March 1 to Murphy and Prudential refused payment. Murphy only ended up seeing $60 of this, while Pasqua got $150 and the rest was turned over to Marino, who divvied it up amongst the others.
‘DESPERATION’ TALE
The defendants had alleged Bastone had kept them in the murder plot by threatening them with death and wanted a piece of the claims.
However, DA Foley said they had put this story up in “desperation” as Bastone was murdered on March 18, 1934 – two months before the men were arrested – in Marino’s speakeasy on Third Avenue.
Additionally, detectives were helped by the fact that Green was already awaiting trial on a Sullivan law charge (a gun control matter), while Kreisberg had been arrested for assault and robbery several weeks prior to the case opening in court.
Nearly three weeks later, at 4.16am on October 19, 1933, the four men were found guilty of murder in the first degree, with the jury having retired at 7.16pm the night before to consider their verdicts.
PUT TO DEATH
A report in the New York Times on June 8, 1934 indicated that Pasqua, Marino and ‘Creisberg’ – Kreisberg – were put to death by electric chair (nicknamed ‘Old Sparky’) at Sing Sing Prison on the evening of June 7.
Joseph Murphy won three reprieves from the chair as evidence concerning his mental condition was examined, but he was eventually put to death at Sing Sing Prison at 11.06pm on July 5, the New York Times reported the following day.
It was the undertaker Pasqua’s failure to embalm Michael that allowed medical examiners to perform the autopsy and determine that the Irishman died from gas fumes.
Dr Frank Manzella, who issued the false death cert for Michael attesting he passed from lobar pneumonia with alcoholism as a contributing cause for around $100-$150, was found guilty of failing to report a suspicious death and was sentenced to “an indefinite term up to three years” in a penitentiary by Judge Lester Patterson in December 1934.
‘VICIOUS IN NATURE’
The New York Times reported how Manzella heard himself be described by District Attorney Foley as a man “low in character, vicious in nature, and a danger to the community”.
He was however acquitted on a charge of being an accessory after the fact in the murder.
Harry ‘Hershey’ Green, 22, who was originally charged with murder but turned State’s evidence against the men, pleaded guilty to assault in the first degree to knocking down and injuring Malloy with the taxi.
He was sentenced to serve from five to 10 years in prison by Judge James M Barrett in Bronx County Court.
Despite the counsel for Green pointing out that his evidence had helped convict the four men, Judge Barrett said he regretted he could not impose a more severe punishment.
REBURIED
Michael, who was reburied at Ferncliff Cemetery, is the subject of a recent book, The Many Murders Of Michael Molloy: The Unbelievable True Story Of The Irishman Who Refused To Die, by Simon Read.
He was also the subject of a TG4 documentary in 2015, Deoch an Dorais (Name your Poison), which director Paddy Hayes said was inspired by mention of the tale on BBC’s QI programme, hosted by Stephen Fry.
Michael’s one is, ultimately, a sad tale. It was an untimely and horrific end for someone who was, by all accounts, decent company despite falling on hard times – and in spite of the several attempts on his life.
While his true identity and previous life remain a mystery, his tale is immortalised as one of the most incredible stories ever told.
