You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart Radio and Greyman, and from Aaron Minkey. To anyone passing by the small store on Third Avenue never seemed to be open. Locals knew better, though, behind the unlocked screen door and stacks of filthy boxes, proprietor Tony Marino operated a small speakeasy. The place didn't look like much, just four tables, a sofa that doubled as Tony's bed and a plywood bar along the back. Times were hard in the winter of nineteen thirty three, the end of both the Great Depression and Prohibition, we're still a year away on most days when customers pay.

That is, Tony, made enough to occasionally pay barkeep Red Murphy and stay out of the bread lines. On a cold January night, four of the speakeasies regulars joined Red and Tony at the bar, undertaker Francis Pasqua, Daniel Kreisberg, Tough Tony Batstone and Joe McElhone. 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 everyone another drink as they discussed their options. Should they start over? And to make matters worse, make 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.

For days that 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 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 downed 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 my man Mike said, I sure 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 Belgacom.

Welcome to American Chateaux. Before he showed up at the speakeasy, no one had known much about Mike Malloy 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 passed 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 guess. He lived a hard life. Yet every morning, like the one back in July of nineteen thirty two, Mike often walked into the speakeasy with a smile on his face. Another morning demand and 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.

That could honestly go either way. This particular morning, though, it was the latter, and now he was snoozing at the foot of the bar, Mick, along with others like him, lived and died on the streets. If the windows didn't kill them or 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 any more.

Tony turned to Frances 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 and 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 out 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 50 and looked 60. He's all in. Tony said he ain't got much longer to go anyhow. The stuff is getting them. The stuff, as Tony put it, was alcohol that contained any number of things that could kill a person, namely methanol, also known as wood alcohol. Most came from bootleggers who stole industrial grain alcohol to make whiskey and other liquor. In 1927, 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 inspiriting 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 make 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. What alcohol? Mike never noticed.

On one such night, they told Mike that Tony was running for office and handed him a petition to sign. 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 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 more.

But when the insurance agencies reply finally came back, it stated that they were denying the application. Mike was a bad risk, they said, and refused to insure him. Apparently, alcoholics in the Prohibition era weren't good investments. A second insurance company echoed the first. Finally, a third agency who'd 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 eighteen 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 what alcohol wiped his mouth on a dirty shirtsleeve, 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. Read refilled it a few more times, each one vanishing into Mike's open mouth, smoothed, the drunk said, and then promptly collapsed. They dragged Mike to a cot in the back, thinking that have to pay off a doctor on the death certificate when the new stuff was of their own concoction, you see wood, grain, alcohol laced with antifreeze.

But Mike didn't die. An hour later, he shuffled back to the bar and asked for more. So the men added even more antifreeze 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 denatured 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 left his fingers and washed it all down with more tainted alcohol. Here comes the men thought. There's no way this could fail. But Mike just belched, thanked his hosts and left. And just like clockwork, he showed up next night for more of the same.

Oh, there were a few close calls, or so the men thought. Well, one night after Mike collapsed onto the floor, Francis not 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. The old regular Malad. 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 shrapnel and made it into a sandwich. All that metal would surely tear Mike's insides to ribbons, but he ate a 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 50000 other 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 called 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 man 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 speakeasies basement for stock. They're resting on a cot. Was Mike. I've 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, 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 speakeasy.

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 Hirshey. This time, the man dropped the price. One hundred and fifty dollars for the hit, and Hirshey 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 Hershey 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 Hirshey 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. Hershey turned the cab around and came at his target again. Mike dodged the cab a second time, though, so Hirshey circled around once more.

Mike, teetering on his feet, managed to leap out of the way again. On the fourth round, Hirshey hit the gas and barreled toward Mike, his body that had heavily against the cab, rolled over the hood and landed behind the vehicle with a softer but audible thud. But Hershey wasn't done yet. Oh, no. He wanted to make sure Mike wasn't coming back from this one. Then, of course, there was one hundred and fifty dollars at stake.

So he threw the cab into reverse and backed over. Mike Hirshey then pulled over and they all got out. They had to be sure as they approached to get a better look, though, headlights shown from down the street. The three men jumped back in the cab and 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, that file for the insurance.

Days went by with no sign of my 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 nineteen thirty three. Mike's body hadn't shown up at any funeral home, nor at any morgue that Tony contacted, nor even the hospitals. And nobody 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 a story. Mike told them that he had been in the hospital. A car had 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'd 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 22nd of nineteen thirty three, 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 what? 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 at 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 was 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 for 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 popper's grave plot in Westchester County. His friend Cliff Cemetery, no fanfare, no special funeral, no one morning 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 gangs conversations had been overheard at the small speakeasy.

And then there was the cab driver, Hirshey, the gang, and stiffed him, paying just 20 dollars of the one 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 hitman chimed in, telling patrons in various bars that he'd been approached to kill Mike Bertoni 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 got 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 McGlone and Tony Bastone got into a heated argument one night over how much best owns part in the scheme was worth.

Joe felt sixty five dollars was fair and the men took it outside. And with Red looking on, Joe shot and killed Bastogne right there in front of the speakeasy. Both Red and Joe were taken into custody by the police that night. On May 9th, the day 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 report soon proved this. And within two days, the four remaining members of the murder trust were arrested and indicted for murder.

Police also arrested Harry Hirshey Green and charged him with felonious assault and the doctor who'd falsified the death certificate was arrested and charged as well. Upon their arrest, Tony Moreno, Francis Pasqua, Daniel Krayzelburg and Red Murphy all plead 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. And by this time, though, the badly botched insurance fraud and murder scheme fooled no one and honestly had told so many lies who'd believe them? At this point, it didn't work. All of them were charged with Mike Malloys death, except for Joe, who was already facing charges for the murder of Bastogne. Joe was found guilty of that crime and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Despite the mountain of evidence, he proclaimed his innocence to the bitter end, saying he'd only killed Bastogne 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 Pasqua, Daniel Krayzelburg 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 nineteen thirty four.

All four of the men were sent to the electric chair. And as if highlighting the resilience of Mike the Durable, the chair, known as Old Sparky, was successful at 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 a story lives on in history, not only for being the most tenacious of murder victims, but also for becoming the first death with 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 his 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 a truth we can all raise a glass to. There's more to this story.

Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. The prohibition era lasted from 1920 to 1933. It was an attempt by the government to reduce crime, improve 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.

And 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 there were close to 5000 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'd become D.c.'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 18 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 1930, he wrote detailed notes on his dealings with Congress. He never named a single politician, though. He was a proper gentleman, after all. And still, it wouldn't take much speculation to uncover those names, you see, by George's account, 80 percent 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, in 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 theme of both quite nicely. Oh, what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive.

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 Chateaux is hosted by Lauren Vogel Bomb. This episode was written by Michelle Muto with researcher Robin Midnighter and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young with executive producers Aaron Manque, Alex Williams and Matt Frederich. To learn more about the show, visit Greyman Mile Dotcom for more podcast from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.