The Tragic Murder Of Sid Vicious Girlfriend, Nancy Spugen

Publish date: 2024-05-03

Nancy Spungen, a pretty girl from Philadelphia who had relocated to New York City a few years earlier, was tragically killed under uncertain circumstances.

She was well-known in the punk music community for being a groupie and a hard-core partier.

Before Spungen died, the Chelsea Hotel residents in Manhattan noticed sounds coming from Sid Vicious’s room during the early hours of October 12, 1978. Screams, moans, and cries were typical at the hotel in the 1970s, given the wild clientele. 

But the hotel guests soon realized that these screams were unusual when Nancy Spungen’s body was carried out of the building the following morning in a body bag.

Photographer Eileen Polk, who knew Spungen in the 1970s, remarked that Spungen was “blatantly honest about it: She bought drugs for the bands.”

Months before her violent death, she had a turbulent relationship with the punk singer, which some people attribute to Vicious.

The sad love story of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen has captivated the public, almost to the point where they have been romanticized as a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

The 2016 book “Lonely Boy: Tales from a S*x Pistol,” written by guitarist Steve Jones, is the basis for the F.X. and Hulu series “Pistol,” in which English actress Emma Appleton plays Spungen and actor Louis Partridge portrays Vicious. 

The Relationship between Vicious and Nancy 

In 1977, after Sid had taken over for Glen Matlock as the S*x Pistols’ bass player, the two met for the first time in London. 

According to Rolling Stone, Nancy was a groupie who had traveled from New York to follow Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan of the Heartbreakers.

They started dating right away, feeding each other’s substance addictions. The band’s boss Malcolm McLaren claimed that Nancy “taught Sid all about s*x and drugs and the lifestyle of a New York rocker.”

Although Nancy was the object of Sid’s affection, the other S*x Pistols disapproved of her and forbade her from joining them on their 1978 U.S. tour. Later, Spungen and Vicious got back together and spent time in the U.K. and the U.S.

Sid and Nancy started living at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City in August 1978, where they would party and indulge in drug binges.

According to Sherill Tippins, the author of Inside The Dream Palace: The Life And Times of New York’s Legendary Chelsea Hotel, Sid reportedly took “30 tablets of Tuinal” on October 11 and fell into a coma.

At 10 a.m., Sid discovered Nancy on the bathroom floor and phoned reception for assistance. The 20-year-old had been stabbed in the stomach before dying.

Sid was the main suspect in Nancy’s slaying; although he first admitted to killing her, he changed his story and claimed to have been unconscious on the bed.

The musician was detained and accused of killing his woman. He was supposed to go on trial, but after being freed on bond, he overdosed on heroin and passed away at 21 in February 1979.

McLaren defended Sid’s innocence, claiming that while he “was capable of a wide range of self-destructive behaviors, I didn’t think he could kill someone, especially his fiancée unless it were a bungled double suicide.

In his book Pretty Vacant: A History of U.K. Punk, Phil Strongman alleged that Nancy might have been stabbed to death by Rockets Redglare, a bodyguard and drug dealer after she challenged him about stealing.

He claimed that Redglare was overheard bragging about carrying out the murder at New York’s CBGB punk club.

Redglare passed away in 2007, and Nancy’s actual cause of death is still unknown. The Nancy murder case is still unsolved.

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