ATMB moment:
You don’t need the search engine to find the May 33 thread. Go to GQ, change the date range to “From the beginning”, and click on the “replies” link at the top of the replies column. This will sort the GQ threads by number of replies. It turns out that May 33 is the fifth-longest thread in GQ, being beaten by Scalar Weapons, Uniquely Distinct Americanisms, the Plane on the Treadmill, and one of the .999… threads.
Cool, neat tip.
I remember that .999… thread fondly, it was a great read. The May 33rd thread? Not so much…I found it painfully uninteresting.
I read about Michael Malloy in Where Death Delights, by Marshall Houts. It’s the story of Dr. Halpern, the medical examiner in New York City in the 1960’s. I think Cecil references this book in his column about peeing on the third rail of the subway.
I finally located the book by Dr. Houts. Even the good doctor seems to have been taken in by the senasationalism-he states that Malloy had been given a “ptomane” sandwich (made with rotten sardines)…although maybe this was sorta like surstromming. He also states that Malloy consumed pieces of the sardine can ("as sharp as razor blades).
at any rate, when anntifreeze, alcohol, and exposure were not enough, the gang killed Malloy by having him inhale town gas (carbon monoxide).
That Malloy was one tough cookie!
I’ve heard of Walmart taking out life insurance policies on their employees*. If the “interest” can be that tenuous, why couldn’t a business owner take out a policy on his best and most loyal customer? Seems like there’s interest there.
*http://consumerist.com/2007/07/walmart-took-secret-life-insurance-policies-out-on-employees-collected-after-their-death.html
That’s not a tenuous interest. Employers can suffer a lot of damage due to the sudden loss of an employee. Many states now require the employee’s consent for the employer to take out a life insurance policy, though.
This story was also featured on an episode of QI. The original posters who answered this question can be forgiven for not mentioning that, since QI didn’t exist back then. Or at least the relevant episode didn’t. I don’t remember when it premiered.
I understand that, what I don’t understand is why business owners don’t have an equally valid interest in their most lucrative customers. The Wikipedia article said it was a “corrupt insurance agent” that enabled the Malloy plot. Why couldn’t a bar owner have a legitimate interest in their customers?
I understand, in early '33 there were no legitimate bar owners at all. Let’s bring this to the present day. Can a business owner take out a policy against his customers, and if not, why not? What is the salient difference between a customer and an employee in this case?
Series I, in 2011.
The segment is available on YouTube here. It begins with a bit on Rasputin, but then they tell the tale of Durable Mike Malloy and the terrible fate that befell him.
I found an article about the case that was published on October 20, 1933.
How to I share it on SDMB (I saved it to my desktop)? Posting rules say I can’t post an attachment…
Posting links is super.
“Bit,” as I was learned repeatedly in a recent thread of that title.
Or was my name just alluded to?
Edward G. Robinson would have solved the fraud right quick, as Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler showed us.
Ruth Snyder was convicted of mariticide–a word I never heard of until just now–in a spectacular case of a murderous insurance plot, with double indemnity (showing that the deceased had committed suicide, which the policy pays out double). Apparently she had tried to murder her husband seven times before getting it right.
(If you check the Wiki, you can see an in-action photo of her electrocution.)
I wonder how the bar owner and patrons when someone who should have died walked back in the door? I bet they thought they were seeing a zombie! Sort of like how readers of this thread might feel, I suppose.
Just to clarify, the book Where Death Delights was written by Marshall Houts, but he wasn’t a doctor, he was an author and a lawyer; the subject of the book, Dr. Milton Helpern[sup]1[/sup], was the chief medical examiner for New York City and is the one who told Houts the story of Michael Malloy.
[sup]1[/sup]Often reported as “Halpern,” including on the cover of my copy of the Houts book, which is why I spelled his name that way in my previous post in this thread, six years ago.