06/16/2022
October 12th, 1978. Nancy Spungen was found dead, lying on a pool of her own blood, in the bathroom of her and Sid Vicious' Chelsea Hotel room in New York City. She had suffered stab wounds to her stomach. Her boyfriend Sid Vicious was accused with her murder.
In 1975, a 17-year-old Philly girl named Nancy Spungen dropped out of the University of Colorado and moved to NYC to push her way in with the emerging punk crowd. She met influential rockers like Johnny Thunders and Cheetah Chrome. Nancy was known to be... vulgar and abrasive. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was 15 but Miss Girl has had problems since she was young, according to her mother. Deborah Spungen claimed in her book And I Don't Want to Live This Life: A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder that Nancy "had wanted to die since she was eleven years old." In 1977, at merely 19 years old, Nancy relocated to London.
Sid Vicious was the bassist of the rising punk band "Sex Pistols". Vicious was known for his violent behavior, as any other punk star, but Sid was young and had a very innocent side to him. The two met in a show in London and it was "love at first sight" according to his bandmates. In the "Pistols", It's shown that Nancy took away Vicious' virginity and re-introduced him to heroin, as his mother introduced it to him when he was 14-years-old. Sid Vicious' drug addiction would be one of the factors that created a rift in the band.
The Sex Pistols detested Nancy. In his 1994 book, John Lydon (lead singer of the Sex pistols) referred to her as "that beast" and a "spoiled cow." But he wasn't being "vindictive," he assured. Rather, "She was a very self-destructive human being who was determined to take as many people down with her as possible. Nancy Spungen was the complete Titanic looking for the iceberg, and she wanted a full load." Nancy taught Sid all about drugs, sex, and what it takes to be a New York City rocker. It seemed like they were encouraging eachother to be the worst version of themselves that they could be, but they were in love.
Sid Vicious never publicly commented about Nancy's murder. That didn't stop theories going around. Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren said he doesn't believe Sid did it. According to police, Sid tearfully said at the time, "I killed her," but he was also heard muttering, "She must have fallen on the knife." A blood-stained hunting knife was found among the couple's drugs and paraphernalia. But Sid was also... very high on every opiode imaginable. There's theories that it was their drug dealer, Rockets Redglare, who did it because he was trying steal cash but Nancy caught him, so he stabbed her because he panicked. Nancy Spungen's death was never really investigated. Sid Vicious died from an overdose as he was awaiting trial. No one to this day knows what happened that night.
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