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October 12, 1978. British punk rocker Sid Vicious is arrested for murder after his girlfriend’s body is found in their New York hotel room.
This episode of History Daily has been archived, but you can still listen to it as a subscriber to Into History, Noiser+, Wondery+, or as a Prime Member with the Amazon Music app.
It’s October 12th, 1978 in New York City.
Detective Gerald Thomas of the NYPD steps out of the bustling Manhattan Streets and into the Chelsea Hotel.
The building has a reputation as a popular destination for actors and artists. But this morning, it’s about to hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Detective Thomas walks over to the first-floor hallway, where he sees a young man sitting on the floor, guarded by several uniformed officers. The suspect has dark spiky hair, a pasty white face, and a glazed, faraway look.
Detective Thomas ignores him for now and heads into Room 100. The place looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in weeks. Clothes are strewn on the floor, empty glasses are scattered across the table, and all over are overflowing ashtrays.
Detective Thomas walks over to the bedroom where a photographer captures images of a body lying inside. The deceased is a young woman, maybe around twenty years old. She’s slumped against the wall, like a marionette with its strings cut. She could even be mistaken for being asleep if it wasn’t for the bloom of blood on her shirt.
Detective Thomas gives the bedroom another quick scan, and his eyes settle quickly on a knife, its blade five or six inches long. It looks clean, but his gut tells him he might have just found the murder weapon.
He bags up the knife and heads back out to the hallway.
As investigators search the apartment, collecting more evidence, Detective Thomas begins to question the suspect. The twenty-one-year-old gives his name as John Ritchie, although the world knows him by another name - Sid Vicious, bass player in the punk band, The Sex Pistols.
Sid says the woman in the bathroom is his girlfriend, Nancy. When asked what happened to her, he simply tells Detective Thomas that he doesn’t know. He recalls seeing Nancy playing with a knife around 1 AM, the next thing he remembers is waking up, stumbling into the bathroom, and seeing her body propped against the wall.
Detective Thomas is unconvinced. He instructs Sid to stand up, and then he cuffs the musician, reading him his rights on their way out of the hotel.
With the arrest of Sid Vicious, the murder of Nancy Spungen will seem like an open-and-shut case. Police will waste no time in charging the punk rockstar with murder, saddling Sid with the possibility of life behind bars. But the musician will never be convicted. In fact, he’ll never go to trial at all.
A long-time drug addict, Sid often predicted that he would die young. And sadly for him, this prophecy will come true. Four months after his arrest, Sid will die of a drug overdose, leaving many questions unanswered as to how Nancy Spungen ended up dead on October 12th, 1978.
From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.
History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.
Today is October 12th, 1978: The Arrest of Sid Vicious.
It’s June 29th, 1976 inside the One Hundred Club in London, England. Punk rock is washing across the UK like a wave, and riding it front and center are The Sex Pistols.
As the band takes the stage, the packed venue erupts. Among those watching from the dance floor is nineteen-year-old Sid Vicious. But Sid is no ordinary fan. He’s known the group’s lead singer, Johnny Rotten since the two met at school several years ago. Sid’s real name is John Ritchie, but Johnny Rotten re-christened him last year, naming him after his own pet hamster, Sid.
As the gig starts, Sid struggles to see past taller members of the crowd. He starts jumping up and down to get a better look. And as he bobs to the music, he notices a face he recognizes. In the crowd in front of him is music journalist Nick Kent. Nick is an old friend of the band’s manager, and even used to hang around and play guitar with the Sex Pistols.
But tonight, Sid has it out for Nick. It’s not clear why. Perhaps it’s the drugs he took earlier this evening, although later, some will suggest Nick kept blocking Sid's view of the stage. Whatever the reason, Sid produces a bike chain from his pocket and lashes the journalist across the head, blood splattering the stage.
The assault makes headlines the following day. But no charges are filed. So Sid carries on with his life like it never happened, following the Sex Pistols from gig to gig, wondering what it would be like to be on stage with them, looking out at a sea of adoring faces.
As it turns out, he only has to wait nine months to find out. In February 1977, the Sex Pistol’s manager kicks their bass player out of the band. Sid is picked as his replacement, thanks more to his connection with Johnny Rotten than his musical talent.
And one month after Sid joins the band, they sign a new deal with A&M Records. They mark the occasion by doing a photoshoot, signing their contracts, and flashing peace signs outside Buckingham Palace. After policemen remove them from the premises, the band heads over to A&M Records headquarters. And as an after party gets underway, the group turns chaotic, trashing the office, while hurling abuse at staff.
Their rowdy behavior continues when they disappear to a private party at a nearby club. A drink and drug-fueled bar fight ensues and at one point, Sid jams a broken bottle into the face of a BBC recording engineer.
The band’s violent antics have consequences. Within a week of their signing, the Sex Pistols are dropped by A&M Records, and the UK-based network, Capital Radio, bans the group’s music from their stations.
But Sid and his bandmates don’t seem affected by the controversy, or loss of contract. Their unruliness only feeds into their image as icons of punk, and they still have plenty of fans when they play their next gig a few weeks later.
It’s at this show that Sid makes his debut on stage, and it quickly becomes apparent that there’s a problem with Sid’s rockstar dream: he’s not that great of a bass player. He’s nowhere near as proficient as the man he replaced.
But this doesn’t seem to bother Sid, who has bigger issues to deal with. Just a few days after his first gig, Sid is hospitalized with hepatitis, likely contracted due to his drug use. He misses most of the band's rehearsals that month, and as the group records their debut album, it’s actually guitarist Steve Jones, not Sid, who plays bass on the tracks.
It’s a chaotic start to life as a Sex Pistol, but within the mayhem, Sid finds something he’s long searched for, an identity. Raised by a drug-addicted, single mother, Sid has faced an uphill battle to find his place in the world, almost from the moment he was born. Many who know him describe him as soft and shy. But with a pension for erratic and often violent behavior too.
This contrast between his larger-than-life public persona and his off-stage battle with his own demons is one that will follow him throughout the rest of his short life. As a Sex Pistol, Sid finds a mask he can wear. A role to play. One that will eventually overwhelm him and those closest to him, including Nancy Spungen. She's something of a groupie on the punk scene and like Sid, a frequent drug user. And together, the pair will fall into a downward spiral that will lead both down tragic paths to an early death.
It’s Friday, May 13th, 1977.
Bass player Sid Vicious watches as his bandmates take turns scrawling their names at the bottom of yet another new contract. One of them hands the pen to Sid who follows suit. And when he’s done, the four men share a sly smile.
Superstitious folks may see today, Friday the 13th, an unlucky date, but it feels quite the opposite for the Sex Pistols. Only two months after being dropped by A&M Records, they’re signing with Virgin Records, an independent label founded by future billionaire Richard Branson.
And a new deal isn’t the only thing Sid has acquired recently. After he lays down his pen, Sid walks across the room and puts an arm around his new American girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.
A little over a month ago, the two met in a bar. They hit it off straight away, drawn together by a shared love of punk rock and addiction to drugs. They’ve been together ever since.
On the surface, the two seem quite different. Many around Sid see him as shy, despite his Pistols persona. Nancy, by contrast, is loud and brash and used to getting what she wants. And now that she has Sid, she intends to enjoy the high life.
In Nancy, Sid has found the spark that’s bringing his love affair with narcotics to a new level. She too has used drugs, mainly heroin, as a crutch for years. And back home in the States, Nancy has a talent for procuring drugs for herself and the bands she follows. Her time with Sid is no different.
But their relationship isn’t purely based on a mutual dependency on drugs. Those who move in the same circles as Sid and Nancy see genuine moments of love and affection between them.
But while Sid takes Nancy almost everywhere he goes, not everyone feels the same warm feeling for her that Sid does. Many feel she exerts too much influence over him. There are parallels whispered, comparing Nancy’s grip on Sid to the way Yoko Ono is reported to hold sway over John Lennon.
Perhaps most crucially, Nancy isn’t popular with the other band members. Sid’s increasingly erratic behavior, thanks in no part to his drug use, is wearing their patience thin – and they blame Nancy.
But despite the group’s inner turmoil, their popularity is soaring.
In July, with Nancy in tow, Sid and the Pistols set off on a European tour that sees them play across Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and the UK. Their debut album is released in October, and it goes straight to number one on the UK charts. It will remain in the top seventy-five for almost a year.
But even their stellar success can’t ease the undercurrent of resentment from the rest of the band toward Nancy. The tension grows so bad, that when a US tour is booked for 1978, the band puts their collective foot down: Nancy is not invited to join them on tour. The hope is that some time apart will give Sid the chance to curb his drug use. To stop the downward spiral before it becomes unrecoverable.
Sid reluctantly agrees to their demands and tries to clean up his act. But going cold turkey from both heroin and Nancy is a challenge he's not up for. Whether it’s being apart from his girlfriend, or having to make do with methadone in an attempt to kick the heroin, Sid’s behavior deteriorates quickly.
At one show in Texas, he clubs an audience member over the head with his bass guitar. At another just two days later, he appears on stage with the words “Gimme A Fix” carved into his chest by a razor, and blood smeared across his skin.
The stress of touring builds like a pressure cooker, right up until their final gig in San Francisco. Ahead of that show, lead singer Johnny Rotten comes down with the flu. Meanwhile, Sid manages to locate a supply of heroin and is barely in any state to perform. But they do, and it’s the group’s last concert together. The next day, Johnny quits.
As the Sex Pistols implode, Sid flies solo to New York. But after taking a potentially lethal mix of valium and methadone, he slips into a coma while on board his flight. Paramedics are waiting for the plane when it touches down at JFK airport, and Sid is rushed to a nearby hospital.
But the near-death experience fails to be a wake-up call for Sid. Without his bandmates or his family members to turn to, when Sid is well enough to be discharged, he runs straight back to Nancy, and to the rollercoaster life of addiction they share.
Eventually, the couple will take a room in the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan. This accommodation will become their home for two months, a place to get high and escape from the world until one fateful night when reality will force its way back in.
It’s 3:15 AM, on October 12th, 1978 at the Chelsea Hotel.
Twenty-nine-year-old actor Rockets Redglare knocks on the door of Room 100. He smiles as the door opens and Nancy Spungen’s face appears.
Rockets is a friend of hers and her boyfriend Sid Vicious. He’s also an occasional drug dealer, which is why Nancy has called him here at such an early hour.
Nancy steps back, beckoning Rockets inside. She smiles as she greets him, but her grin doesn’t last long. Because Rockets informs her that he hasn’t been able to find the drugs she has been asking for. Nancy brandishes wads of fifty and hundred dollar bills, imploring Rockets to go back out and try again.
Rockets shakes his head. But instead of leaving, he decides to hang out with Sid and Nancy for a while. He notes that Nancy is a little drowsy from whatever she took early in the evening. But Sid has taken it to another level.
Later accounts will reveal that Sid has already consumed a potentially lethal dose of a sedative. A dose that could kill a person less accustomed to this level of drug abuse.
And while Sid doesn’t look near death, he does look to Rockets like he’s on the verge of passing out, and the drug dealer is grateful that he didn’t bring anything else for the couple to take.
For a few hours, Rockets makes himself comfortable, chatting and drinking. And by the time he leaves Room 100, it’s around five in the morning, As he walks through the lobby, Rockets sees another familiar face saunter past him and head to the elevator. It’s a man he knows as one of Sid and Nancy’s regular dealers. But Rockets thinks little of it as he heads out into the crisp, early morning air.
What happens over the next few hours, will be the subject of speculation for years to come. Opinions over Sid’s guilt in Nancy’s death will be divided, both in the press and among friends. The police will say it’s an open-and-shut murder case. Others will point to alternative suspects, such as the drug dealer that Rockets saw entering the building, or even Rockets Redglare himself. Some will even entertain the idea of a botched double suicide.
But what's indisputable is that by 11:30 AM, Nancy will lie dead in her bathroom from a stab wound, and after calling the cops, Sid will become the main suspect in her killing.
Upon investigation, the knife used to kill Nancy will appear to belong to Sid, whose story will change several times over the coming weeks. At various points, Sid will claim that he stabbed Nancy but without intent to kill, that Nancy fell on the knife, and that he can’t remember the incident at all.
After his arrest, Sid will be released on bail. A short while later, he’ll land himself back in jail for assaulting the brother of singer-songwriter Patti Smith. But after seven weeks behind bars, Sid will make bail again. But that very night, at a party celebrating his release, Sid will overdose on heroin and die at the age of 21, before ever going to trial. With their prime suspect dead, police will drop Nancy Spungen’s murder case, leaving many to still speculate about what really happened inside Room 100 on October 12th, 1978.
Next on History Daily. October 13th, 1972. A plane carrying an Uruguayan rugby team crashes in the Andes Mountains, triggering a desperate fight for survival.
From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.
Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.
Sound design by Mollie Baack.
Music by Lindsay Graham.
This episode is written and researched by Rob Scragg.
Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.