Crime
On this day, Oct. 12, 1978
October 12, 2008
Nancy Spungen, girlfriend of English punk rock bassist Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, was found stabbed to death in a New York hotel. Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie, was charged with Spungen’s death the following month.
The couple had become locked in their own world of drug addiction and self-destruction. Vicious himself came very close to death following a heroin overdose and was hospitalized for a time. Their love affair was portrayed in the 1986 movie “Sid and Nancy” with Gary Oldman playing Vicious.
On the morning of Oct. 12, Vicious claimed to have awoken from a drugged stupor to find Spungen dead on the bathroom floor of their room in the Hotel Chelsea in New York City. He claimed to have no memory of the event. There are theories that Spungen was murdered by someone else: by a drug dealer, or in a botched robbery.
Vicious died less than four months later, Feb. 2, 1979, after spending 55 days in Rikers Island and posting bail. He obtained some heroin and overdosed. Vicious was discovered dead the next morning. He was 21.
The couple had become locked in their own world of drug addiction and self-destruction. Vicious himself came very close to death following a heroin overdose and was hospitalized for a time. Their love affair was portrayed in the 1986 movie “Sid and Nancy” with Gary Oldman playing Vicious.
On the morning of Oct. 12, Vicious claimed to have awoken from a drugged stupor to find Spungen dead on the bathroom floor of their room in the Hotel Chelsea in New York City. He claimed to have no memory of the event. There are theories that Spungen was murdered by someone else: by a drug dealer, or in a botched robbery.
Vicious died less than four months later, Feb. 2, 1979, after spending 55 days in Rikers Island and posting bail. He obtained some heroin and overdosed. Vicious was discovered dead the next morning. He was 21.
