Dec.04.2008 The most amazing homeless man ever

I tend to not like the homeless. They smell, get in the way, and don’t offer me money for being awesome like other people do (in fact, they have the audacity to ask me for money! The audacity!). But even I have to admit that homeless man Michael Malloy is pretty great.

From his (completely sourced and actually credible) Wiki:

The events that led to Malloy’s death began in January 1933. He was, at the time, alcoholic and homeless. Five men who were acquainted with him, Tony Marino, Joseph Murphy, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, and Daniel Kriesberg (later dubbed “the Murder Trust” by the headlines), plotted to take out three life insurance policies on Malloy, and then get him to drink himself to death. The first part of the plot was successful (probably achieved with the aid of a corrupt insurance agent), and they stood to gain over $3,500 (almost $57,000 by 2008’s standards by the CPI) if Malloy died an accidental death.

Marino owned a speakeasy, and gave Malloy unlimited credit, thinking it would soon put an end to him. Although Malloy drank for a majority of his waking day, which would kill an average man, it did not. To remedy this, Antifreeze, a deadly poison, was substituted for liquor, but still Malloy would drink until he passed out, wake up, and come back for more. Antifreeze was substituted with turpentine, followed by horse liniment, and finally mixed in rat poison. Still, Malloy lived. The gang began to get creative, thinking raw oysters soaked in wood alcohol would do the trick (this idea apparently came from Pasqua, who saw a man die after eating oysters with whiskey, which was probably an anomaly). Then came a sandwich of spoiled sardines, carpet tacks, and metal shavings.

Realizing it was unlikely that anything Malloy ingested was going to kill him, the Murder Trust decided to freeze him to death. On a night when temperatures reached -14 degrees Fahrenheit (-26 °C), Malloy drank until he passed out, was carried to a park, dumped in the snow, and had five gallons (19 L) of water poured on his bare chest. (The gang had successfully used a similar method on their first victim the previous year.) Nevertheless, Malloy reappeared the following day for his drink. The next attempt on his life came when they hit him with Green’s taxi, moving at 45 miles per hour (72 km/h). This put Malloy in the hospital for three weeks. The gang presumed he was dead, but were unable to collect the policy on him. When he again appeared at the bar, they finally decided to take an even more direct approach. On February 22, after he passed out for the night, they took him to Murphy’s room, put a hose in his mouth that was connected to the gas jet, and turned it on. This finally killed Michael Malloy.

He was pronounced dead of pneumonia, and quickly buried. However, the members of the Murder Trust proved to be their own worst enemies — they talked too much and squabbled among themselves. Eventually police heard the rumors of what they did, and upon learning that a Michael Malloy had died that night, they had the body exhumed. When they discovered the actual cause of death, the five men were put on trial for murder. Green went to prison and the other four members were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing.

I admire this homeless guy for apparently having a stomach with the steeliness of a safe at Fort Knox but I have to confess that I’m a bit confused by the guys who killing him all getting death sentences. I mean, it’s a homeless guy. I always assumed that killing the homeless was at most a misdemeanor. Who would even notice? Their bindle? Bindles can’t talk, man.

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