Malloy was a homeless alcoholic man. Five men took out life insurance policies on him and tried to get him to drink himself to death by giving him unlimited credit at a bar that one of them owned (so that they could collect the money from the insurance company). This wasn't working fast enough, so they started putting anti-freeze in his drink... then turpentine, then horse tranquiliser, and finally rat poison. None of them killed Malloy. The men then tried feeding him raw oysters with wood alcohol and poisoned, spoiled sardine sandwiches (filled with carpet nails). Again, none of this worked, so they waited for him to pass out drunk one night, then dragged his body out into the -26 °C night and left him there to sleep (pouring 20 litres of water on him for good measure). The next day, Malloy came into the bar and ordered another drink. The group then ran him over with a car at 70km/h. This hospitalised him for a few weeks, but again, didn't kill him. Eventually they succeeded by putting a gas pipe down his throat (after he passed out drunk of course) and pumping gas into him for an hour. The group were later convicted of murder (due, in no small part, to the fame of Malloy's durability), with four of them receiving the death penalty.