Durable

and apply wood bar along the back. Times were hard in the winter of the end of both the Great Depression and Prohibition were still a year away. On most days when customers paid, That is, Tony made enough to occasionally pay bar keep Red Murphy and stay out of the breadlines. On a cold January night, four of the speakeasies regulars joined Red and Tony at the bar, undertaker Francis Pasqual, Daniel Kreisberg, Tough, Tony Bestone, and Joe Magleone.

Like everyone else, the men were doing what they could to keep themselves afloat. Tough times often inspired creative ways to make a little money on the side, and the men had come up with a doozy. The idea had actually come to them back in the summer, but now more than seven months later, it still hadn't earned them a cent. Not only that, but the expenses kept piling up. The men began to think their money maker was more of a money pit. Red poured every one another drink

as they discussed their options. Should they start over, and, to make matters worse, Mike, a real regular at the bar, had vanished a week before. Until then, you could set a watch by Mike, and without him their plan would fail. Days had scoured the papers and called around looking for a sign of him. Tony even called the local hospitals and morgues, but found nothing. Francis had reached a level

of desperation the others hadn't seen before. Maybe they needed someone else, he suggested, anyone that would solve part of their problem, but not without additional risks. So the men down to their liquor and complained that the whole thing had become too challenging, too complicated. And that's when the door blew open, bringing in a blast of winter air and with it Mike man. Mike said, I sure, I am dying for a drink, And that was their problem. You see, Mike had more lives than an alley cat.

So as he settled down at the bar, eager to tell his friends what had happened to him, the men around him wondered just how many times would they have to kill him? Because some people, it seems, just don't know when their time is up. I'm Lauren Vogelball, Welcome to American Shadows. Before he showed up at the speakeasy,

no one had known much about Mike malloy. He had once told them that he came from Ireland, but he had no friends or family to speak of, and like many of the men in the Bronx at the time, Mike was rarely employed and certainly down on his luck. He had once been a firefighter, but alcoholism had cost him his job. Now he did whatever he could, working the occasional gig as a janitor or a garbage collector. Where he went or slept when he wasn't at the

speakeasy was anyone's guests. He lived a hard life, Yet every morning, like the one back in July two, Mike often walked into the speakeasy with a smile on his face. Another morning's morning, if you don't mind, he'd say in his thick Irish brogue. He'd slide up to the bar and drink until Tony's arm tired of pouring or he passed out. It could honestly go either way. This particular morning, though, it was the ladder, and now he lay snoozing at

the foot of the bar. Mike, along with others like him, lived and died on the streets. If the winters didn't kill them more, they didn't starve to death, then the drink got them. No one noticed guys like Mike, and it seemed as if no one cared, and that had sparked the idea. Tony had been letting Mike drink on credit for a while, but he rarely paid anymore. Tony turned to Francis and the others, shaking his head. Business is bad, Francis regarded Mike's disheveled sleeping form, and why

don't you take out insurance on Mike. The men looked quizzically at Francis. I'll take care of the rest, he added. One by one. The men nodded. This could work. In fact, Tony had done this before with a homeless woman. He had befriended her and then convinced her to take out a life insurance policy with none other than himself as the beneficiary, and had gotten away with it too. No one seemed to miss people like her. The men huddled closer,

working up the details. Francis would befriend Mike, and all Tony needed to do was supply the alcohol. Tony glanced over at Mike, currently snoring on the Speakeasies floor. Mike was fifty and looked sixty. He's all in, Tony said, he ain't got much longer to go anyhow. The stuff is getting him. The stuff, as Tony put it, was alcohol that contained any number of things that could kill

a person, namely methodon also known as wood alcohol. Most came from bootleggers who stole industrial grain alcohol to make whisky, another liquor. In nineteen twenty seven, the government, in an effort to thwart bootleggers, had mandated that all cleaning supply manufacturers double the amount of wood alcohol in their products.

But that's not all. Some formulas from federal officials even had producers add kerosene and puritying to give alcohol a truly unpleasant taste, with the side effect of potentially poisoning the drinker. None of that, however, stopped people from drinking bathtub gin, moonshine and whatever the bootleggers made. Drinking was risky and people were dying all over the place, so why not Mike. The six men figured the job would be easy. They smiled and toasted to their new side hustle,

the murder Trust, they called it. We should finish it all up in a couple of weeks, Tony said, and anyone looking at Mike would agree. He drank the worst of the bootleg whiskey. People were not only dying on the stuff he drank, they were going blind, having seizures. Some even became paralyzed. Mike was already on his way out the way he drank. It didn't take long to get things going. Whenever Mike showed up, the men slapped him on the back and welcomed him at the bar.

Tony and Red kept the drinks flowing, starting with higher grade stuff, but then gradually adding more wood alcohol. Mike never noticed. On one such night, they told Mike that Tony was running for office and handed him a petition design and Mike, who thought these men were his friends, never read a word. If he had, he would have seen had signed an insurance policy application. Mike was happy to help them out. He had once told another patron they were the only friends he had in the world.

While the men waited on insurance approval, Mike drank and drank some more. But when the insurance agency's reply finally came back, it stated that they were denying the application. Mike was a bad risk, they said, and refused to ensure him. Apparently alcoholics and the prohibition era weren't good investments. A second insurance company echoed the first. Finally, a third agency, who had never met Mike, agreed, and the gang took out three policies on Mike, as well as a double

indemnity clause. If Mike died, they'd get close to eight hundred dollars worth over thirty thousand today. Tony passed to the good news to the others. With the double indemnity clause, which offers an additional payout in the case of accidental death, they stood to make a nice little profit. But Mike didn't die for months. He drank his fill of whiskey laced with wood alcohol, wiped his mouth on a dirty shirt sleeve, thanked Tony for his gracious gift and then left.

If anything, Mike seemed happier, and he even looked healthier. Tony worried he would go bankrupt, and Francis complained that the monthly cost of the insurance premiums had started eating into their future profits, so the men doubled down their efforts. One night, a short while later, Red slid a shot glass over to Mike. New stuff came in, he told the man, and Mike grinned and drank it down. Red refilled it a few more times, each one vanishing into

Mike's open mouth. Smooth, the drunk said, and then promptly collapsed. They dragged Mike to a cotton the back, thinking they'd have to pay off a doctor on the death certificate. And the new stuff was of their own concoction, you see, wood grain alcohol laced with anti freeze. But Mike didn't die. An hour later, he shuffled back to the bar and asked for more. So the men added even more anti freeze, as well as rat poison and finally turpentine, but Mike

just kept drinking, happy to have finally found friends. To him, this was the good life. But what they needed was a new plan. Mike loved seafood, so why not spike some oysters with d natured alcohol. All the men agreed Mike was as good as dead. The next time Mike joined them at the bar, they served him a meal of the oysters. They waited patiently as he ate each one, savoring every bite. Two dozen oysters later, he licked his fingers and washed it all down with more tainted alcohol.

Here it comes. The men thought, there's no way this could fail. But Mike just belched, banked his hosts, and left, and just like clockwork, he showed up the next night for more of the same. Oh, there were a few close calls, or so the men thought. One night, after Mike collapsed onto the floor, Francis knelt beside his body and checked for a pulse. He was still alive, but barely. The rise and fall of his chest had slowed, and his breathing was ragged. So the men played cards and waited.

But wouldn't you know it, Mike began to snore, eventually sleeping off the liquor. Upon waking, he rubbed his eyes, got to his feet and said, boy, and I got a thirst, give me some more of the old regular Milad. Frustrated, the gang held another planning meeting. This time they let a can of sardines spoil for a few days. Not satisfied the food alone would do the trick, though, Red added shrap knoll and made it into a sandwich. All

that metal would surely tear Mike's insides to ribbons. But he ate the sandwich and liked it so much that he asked for another. Annoyed, the gang ditched their concoction of laced whiskey and upgraded to straight what alcohol. It was a death sentence for sure, but Mike proved them wrong. Months of free alcohol, alcohol that had killed upwards of fifty that are Americans, mind you, and Mike handled it like it was afternoon tea. For the members of the

Murder Trust, it was time to get serious. It had been snowing hard that winter, but that didn't stop Mike from showing up for his daily round of free drinks. The men came up with another plan. If the alcohol, spoiled food, and shrapnel didn't kill him, then maybe a New York winter could. One night, after Mike passed out, Tony and Frances lugged him into a car and drove to a nearby park. There they hauled him out, dragged him through multiple snow banks, and then laid him out

on a park bench. For good measure, they stripped off his shirt and doused him with five gallons of water. Mike never woke up through the whole process. Good riddance, the men thought, as they left him there to die, and someone would find just another homeless drunk frozen to death on the bench tomorrow. With the deed completed, the men went home. The following morning, Tony went into the speakeasy's basement for stock. They're resting on a cot, was Mike, I have a wee bit of a chill, he said.

He went on to explain that he certainly had tied one on the night before, in fact, had ended up half naked on a park bench. The police had found him before he had caught his death of cold, and drove him to a welfare house. The good people there had supplied him with new clothing, and then had walked the quarter mile back to Tony's speak easy. By this time,

Tony was in a hot blooded rage. He'd go bankrupt with Mike drinking so much so a week later, Tony did what any desperate scumbag in his situation would do. He hired a hit man. At first, he tried to hire a professional, but the guy proved too steep, so the men asked another speakeasy regular, one Eddie Smith, if he would do the job. Eddie seemed a logical choice to his shady reputation was well known. All he needed to do was run down Mike with his car and

they'd pay him two hundred dollars cash. Eddie listened, but ultimately walked away from the offer undaunted. The members of the Murder Trust tried a third time, finding success with a cab driver named Harry Green known as Hershey. This time, the men dropped the price a hundred and fifty dollars for the hit, and Hershey still took the offer. The following night, Tony and the others loaded Mike up with

the usual drink until he blacked out. Then Tony, Francis and her She took Mike for a ride in the back of the cab. They drove to a dark side street and tossed him out into the middle of the road, and then her She drove down the road and circled back with the cab bearing down on him. Mike woke up and got to his feet. The cab struck him, sending him onto the sidewalk. Her She turned the cab around and came at his target again. Mike dodged the cab a second time, though so her She circled around

once more. Mike, teetering on his feet, managed to leap out of the way again. On the fourth round, her She hit the gas and barreled toward Mike. His body thudded heavily against the cab, rolled over the hood, and landed behind the vehicle with a softer but audible thud. But her she wasn't done yet, Oh no. He wanted to make sure Mike wasn't coming back from this one, and of course there was a hundred and fifty dollars at stake, so he threw the cab into reverse and

backed over Mike. Hershey then pulled over and they all got out. They had to be sure as they approached to get a better look, though headlights shone from down the street. The three men jumped back in the cabin took off, leaving the driver of the other car to either run Mike over again or at least discover his body. Either way, the deed was done and in a day or two they'd file for the insurance. Days went by with no sign of Mike. Nothing in the newspapers either,

although that wasn't definitive proof. After all, Mike was a homeless drunk. Maybe the papers didn't feel that his loss was very newsworthy. And this is why our group of co conspirators were panicking that January evening in three. Mike's body hadn't shown up at any funeral home, nor at any morgue that Tony contacted, nor even the hospitals. And no body meant no proof Mike was dead. No death certificate, no insurance payout. As Red poured the drinks, they frantically

discussed their options. Francis suggested finding some other drunk, any drunk, who they could pass off as Mike, But as the men lamented how complicated things had become, the door opened and Mike limped into the bar. Astounded and curious, they listened to his story. Mike told them that he had been in the hospital. A card hit him and had him bad, he said, and for the life of him, he couldn't recall much of it. He had no idea how he had gotten to the side street, or how

had managed to get hit so hard. He had a fractured skull, a concussion, and a broken shoulder. All he knew was just how darn lucky he was to be alive. Now, at this point, you'd think the gang would just give up, cancel the policy and the offer of free booze, and let Mike live out his days. The money they stood to earn hardly seemed worth the risk anymore. But they weren't going to give up now, not after all they'd

been through. A showdown was coming. Mike Malloy was just another derelict drunk, and there is no way that allow him to outsmart them. So collectively, the members of the Murder Trust decided that they needed to put an end to Mike once and for all. Besides, they had one more idea. No one could live forever, not even Mike. Mike got hammered on February twenty two, I mean blackout drunk. He had help, of course, Tony, Francis, Red and Daniel were all there to challenge him to a drinking contest.

Mike could hardly turn down a little fun with his best friends, especially when it involved free drinks. Tony naturally drank whiskey, but Mike drank would alcohol, and naturally, Tony won the contest. When Mike keeled over at the bar out but still not dead. Then they lifted Mike off the floor, out the door and carried him down the street to a room they rented at a nearby hotel on Fulton. Once in the room, they dropped him on

the floor. As Mike lay snoring, the men put a rubber hose into the side of his mouth, wrapped his head in a towel, and connected the other end of the hose to the gaslight. And then they turned on the gas and waited. This time there was no escape. It only took minutes from Mike the durable to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. After that, the four men lifted his lifeless body and put him in the bed. With the job complete at last, they returned to the speakeasy,

where the entire gang celebrated their success. The next day, they sent Red to the hotel. He feigned shock upon finding Mike's cold body. Francis called a doctor, a crooked one. They paid fifty dollars to write up a false report, and the doctor signed off on the death certificate. He listed the cause of death as pneumonia. Francis being the undertaker, didn't bother embalming Mike, and just two days later they buried him in a twelve dollar pine box in a

pauper's grave plot in Westchester County's Ferncliff Cemetery. No fanfare, no special funeral, no one mourning at his graveside. At long last, the gang was rid of Mike without wasting another moment. They filed for the payout, but the insurance company told them they'd have to wait a week between Mike's death and sending the check. Oh and there was one more catch. They also wanted to see the body. Mike may have been a drunk and forgettable to some,

but not everyone. The insurance agent thought Mike's quick burial was suspicious and withheld the money until an inquiry could be conducted. And the insurance agent wasn't the only one who was on to the gang. You see, during card games and drinks and other Bronx bars, people had been talking about the man who refused to die. That heard it firsthand from Tony's regulars. It seems that bits and pieces of the murder Trust gang's conversations had been overheard

at the small speakeasy. And then there was the cab driver, Hershey. The gang had stiffed him, paying just twenty dollars of the hundred and fifty that they owed him. Disgruntled insiders are always likely to talk, and talk he did, not to the police, of course, but to just about everyone else. Even the professional hit man chimed in, telling patrons and various bars that had been approached to kill Mike, but

Tony and the others couldn't afford him. Before long, everyone in the area along Third Avenue was talking about Mike the Durable. The story was so incredible that even the beat cops had caught wind of it, and one of them passed the story along to a homicide detective. After a little sleuthing, the detective realized this wasn't some off the wall fabrication, and he contacted the Bronx's district attorney. Before long, Mike's death was under investigation from the insurance

company and the Bronx authorities. Meanwhile, the talk on the street set the gang on edge. Joe Maglione and Tony Bastone got into a heated argument one night over how much Bastone's part in the scheme was worth. Joe felt sixty five dollars was fair. The men took it outside, and with Red looking on, Joe shot and killed Bastone right there in front of the speakeasy. Both Red and Joe were taken into custody by the police that night. On May night, the d A had Mike's body exhumed.

The coroner knew immediately that Mike hadn't died of pneumonia. The color of his skin strongly suggested monoxide poisoning. An autopsy and toxicology reports soon proved this, and within two days the four remaining members of the murder Trusts were arrested and indicted for murder. Police also arrested Harry Hershey Greene and charged him with felonious assault, and the doctor who had falsified the death certificate was arrested and charged

as well. Upon their arrest, Tony Marino, Frances Pasqual, Daniel Kreisberg, and Red Murphy all pled insanity. When the judge didn't buy their plea, they turned on each other and then, in a last ditch effort to explain themselves blamed the only dead member of their gang, Tony Bastone. He had forced them into the plot and was a known gangster, They said, of course, it wasn't like he could defend

himself by this time, though. The badly botched insurance fraud and murtyr scheme fooled no one, and honestly they had told so many lies who would believe them at this point it didn't work. All of them were charged with Mike Malloy's death, except for Joe, who was already facing charges for the murder of Baston. Joe was found guilty of that crime and sentence to fifteen years in prison.

Despite the mountain of evidence. He proclaimed his innocence to the bitter end, saying it had only killed Bastone in self defense. The others, however, met a different fate. The d A sought the death penalty for Mike Malloy's murder, and the jury spent little time seeing through the men's lives. They were quickly found guilty, and Tony Marino, Francis Pasqual, Daniel Kreisberg, and Red Murphy were all sentenced to the sing Sing Correctional Facility to await their execution. Justice had

finally come for Mike malloy. In the summer of ninety four, all four of the men were sent to the electric chair, and as of highlighting the resilience of Mike, the durable, the chair known as Old Barque, was successful. Like killing the members of the Murder Trust on the first try. Mike is gone, of course, but he's not forgotten. He was reburied, and his story lives on in history, not only for being the most tenacious of murder victims, but also for becoming the first death that the New York

Medical Examiner's Office ever investigated. Mike lived a hard life, that much is true. But even though the Murder Trust killed him, he still managed to outsmart the people who called themselves as friends. Despite their plotting, their lies, and their deception, Mike could have offered them one piece of advice. Honesty isn't always enjoyable, but it's a lot easier than the alternative. Deception. You see, is hard work, and that's the truth. We can all raise a glass too. There's

more to this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. The Prohibition era lasted from ninety three. It was an attempt by the government to reduce crime, improved family life, and prevent industrial accidents, among other things. After all, statistics showed that the average man drank half a pint of whiskey a day, and since it was so readily available and cheap, alcoholism was on the rise, but the US was making a lot

of money off of taxing alcohol. People found a solution though, running everything underground and paying off the politicians, judges, and police. And while the materials used by most bootleggers were tainted to reduce the allure, it didn't stop people. And it turns out that even while Congress was voting to ban alcohol,

it was thriving in the city around them. Some estimates put the number of speakeasies in Washington, d C. At that time at around three thousand, and they were close to five thousand bootleggers working to make and sell the stuff. The biggest supplier to those on Capitol Hill was George Cassidy, also known as the Man with the Green Hat due

to the green felt hat he always wore. He had become DC's most prolific bootlegger after his return from World War One, all while serving a very small highly select number of clients members of Congress. Like many bootleggers, George didn't go completely unscathed. He was eventually busted for supplying liquor and was sentenced to eighteen months in jail, but

he never spent a single night there. You see, every evening he would check out of his cell, go home to his business, sleep in his own bed, and then check back into jail in the morning and George's clients. Unsurprisingly, not a single member of Congress was ever charged. During the days as he served his sentence, George had a lot of time on his hands, so in October of nineteen thirty he wrote detailed notes on his dealings with Congress. He never named a single politician, though he was a

proper gentleman after all. Still, it wouldn't take much speculation to uncover those names. You see. By George's account, of Congress were drinkers of hard alcohol despite what they voted for, and of course they got the good stuff, while most other Americans were left with the tainted stuff that could kill them. Critics used George's findings and ran newspaper articles in the week before midterm elections that year, when all

the votes were in. The results showed just how disastrous the confessions of the Man with the Green Hat had been for supporters of prohibition. In fact, historians believe that George and his notes might have even paved the way for repeal in the cases of the Murder Trust and those hypocritical politicians. I think that this line from Sir Walter Scott sums up the eam of both quite nicely. Oh what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to to see. Oh and one more thing before

we go. While George Cassidy doesn't have a statue or monument in d C, he does have a place dedicated to him, a Gin distillery aptly named the Green Hat. American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was written by Michelle Muto with researcher Robin Miniter, and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Minky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn more about the show,

visit grim and mil dot com. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.