The Death of Nancy Spungen

In many ways, Nancy Spungen never had a chance...

Born six weeks premature and suffering from cyanosis, she exhibited a violent streak early; diagnosed with depression and paranoid schizophrenia in an age before effective treatments for these conditions were available, at the age of 17 she left home and paid her way to London by stripping and prostitution with the express purpose of nabbing herself a rock star boyfriend (she'd reportedly set her cap for Jerry Nolan of the New York Dolls).

She met Sid Vicious of The Sex Pistols instead, and moved in with him almost instantly. There followed a famous (and famously stormy) relationship, memorialized by the film Sid and Nancy, in which Spungen was performed with great verve by Chloe Webb.

Nancy Spungen was found in Room 100 - which she shared with Vicious at the Hotel Chelsea - on this day in 1978, dead from a single knife wound to the abdomen; she was just 20. Some blamed Sid Vicious for the crime, others Rockets Redglare*, or one of two drug dealers known to visit them.

In any event, Vicious himself died the following February; having gotten clean while incarcerated at Rikers Island he was dealt a small amount of very pure heroin by his mother - herself an addict - which was all it took to bring the foremost love story of the punk era to a sad close.

*Who himself died in May 2001 at the age of 52.
*