Sid & Nancy: Punk Rock Homicide | #426

Summary

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RedHanded Podcast Episode #426: "Sid & Nancy: Punk Rock Homicide"

Date: November 20, 2025
Hosts: Saruti & Hannah

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the hosts explore the infamous and tragic story of Sid Vicious (of the Sex Pistols) and Nancy Spungen—punk’s most legendary and destructive couple. The focus is on the murder of Nancy Spungen at the Chelsea Hotel in 1978, the complex relationship between Sid and Nancy, the context of the punk scene, and the enduring mystery of what truly happened that bloody night. Unpacking both the cultural backdrop and rival theories, the hosts try (with their usual irreverence and depth) to understand who killed Nancy—and whether the world will ever know for sure.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Punk Rock Royalty (03:27–05:13)

• The story begins in legendary fashion: Sid Vicious waking up, expecting a drug-induced mishap—but instead lying in Nancy’s blood.

• Nancy Spungen was found stabbed in the abdomen with an 11-inch folding knife; the crime and its perpetrator remain shrouded in chaos and intrigue.

  “His first thought was that he must have pissed himself overnight…Vicious was no stranger to heavy nights. He had been a heroin addict ever since his mother gave him a baggie and two needles for his 16th birthday.” – Saruti (04:06)

2. Sid Vicious’s Troubled Upbringing (07:57–14:37)

• Sid, born Simon John Ritchie, had a childhood marked by abandonment, instability, and drugs—his mother smuggled hash in his trousers, faked being an IV drug user to secure council housing, and ultimately became a full-blown addict.

• Sid’s teenage years featured close friendships (notably Johnny Rotten) and an early introduction to the punk scene and drugs.

  “For Sid’s 16th birthday, his mum gave him a bag of heroin and two needles and soon after that she kicked him out...I’ve got to try and preserve myself, so you just fuck off.” – Hannah, quoting Sid’s mother (14:41)

3. Birth of Punk & The Sex Pistols (16:16–25:55)

• Punk emerges in reaction to stagnation and establishment British society.

• The influential shop 'SEX' (run by Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood) is described as the heart of the scene.

• The Sex Pistols are formed partly as a vehicle for the shop’s iconography—musical skill being less valued than attitude and provocation.

  “Before the Sex Pistols even released a single, they told the press, ‘We’re not into music, we’re into chaos.’” – Hannah (20:47)

• Sid Vicious, ill-suited as an actual musician, becomes critical for his presence and charisma, not ability.

• The culture of punk: community over individualism, authenticity over perfection.

4. Nancy Spungen’s Parallel Descent (28:14–35:24)

• Nancy grows up in an affluent but troubled household, diagnosed with severe behavioral issues, and prescribed barbiturates as a child.

• Her descent involves expulsion, mental health struggles, drug addiction, and an obsession with rock culture, culminating in a move to New York’s gritty music scene.

  “Nancy was an incredibly difficult child from the very beginning. She’d have endless screaming tantrums and lash out in violent fits…” – Saruti (30:20)

• Nancy’s mission: “shag as many rock stars as humanly possible”—she becomes infamous for her brashness and ready supply of drugs.

5. Sid & Nancy: Toxic Love Story (35:24–43:19)

• Despite—or because of—their shared dysfunction and addictions, Sid and Nancy fall into an intense, mutual self-destruction.

• Nancy is both Sid’s champion and his enabler, allegedly pushing for a suicide pact and stoking chaos.

• Malcolm McLaren (Sex Pistols manager) viewed Nancy as an obstacle and attempted to physically separate her from Sid—including plotting to have her run over or sending her back to New York.

  “He [Sid] told Nancy’s mum that he’d made Nancy a promise: if anything happened to her, he’d kill himself. And he seemed hell bent on sticking to his word.” – Saruti (71:04)

6. The Chelsea Hotel & Downward Spiral (43:19–49:11)

• Sid and Nancy move into the infamous Chelsea Hotel, surrounded by artists, addicts, and criminals.
• Their days consist of drug use, violence, and codependency—Nancy managing Sid’s gigs but both growing increasingly unstable.

7. The Fateful Night: Complicated Timeline (49:11–54:34)

• The hosts reconstruct, as best possible, the events of October 11–12, 1978:

  • Sid and Nancy attend dinner with friends; there’s talk of depression, drugs, and protection (Nancy buys Sid the fatal knife).
  • Sid takes a massive dose of Tuanol (a strong barbiturate), ostensibly passing out.
  • Nancy is found stabbed the next morning; Sid’s stories to police shift repeatedly—from ignorance to accidental stabbing.

  “Eventually, Sid told police, ‘I stabbed her, but I didn’t mean to kill her. I loved her, but she treated me like shit.’ But then he took it back, saying that’s not what he meant.” – Saruti (53:15)

8. Alternate Theories & Mystery Suspects (54:34–68:35)

• The hosts explore various theories:

  1. Sid killed Nancy, whether accidentally or in a rage.
  2. Suicide pact or drug-fueled accident.
  3. Sex game gone wrong (dismissed by the hosts as highly unlikely due to the wound’s severity).
  4. Third-party involvement—criminals or dealers regularly moved through the hotel.
  5. Notorious suspects include “Rockets Red Glare” (Michael Morrow)—alleged confessions and circumstantial evidence tie him to the scene, such as his sudden display of cash, and reports of blood-stained bills.

  “But when the police dusted for prints, they found six sets that weren’t Sid’s or Nancy’s.” – Hannah (67:14)

  “Rockets confessed to the murder, not to the police. But over the next few decades, he would tell multiple people in confidence that he had killed Nancy Spungeon for her cash.” – Saruti (68:35)

9. Aftermath: Sid’s Demise (70:41–77:25)

• Sid is arrested, but the case against him is weak. He makes bail (with support from Virgin Records and, secretly, Mick Jagger).

• In deep depression and withdrawal, Sid attempts suicide more than once.

• His mother Anne delivers him heroin on his release from prison—he overdoses and dies at age 21.

  “On the 1st of February, the day after Sid left Rikers island…as a gift, Anne gave her son a wrap of heroin.” – Saruti (73:53)

• The hosts describe conflicting stories about Sid’s remains, but agree that the tragedy is complete: a cycle of abuse and self-destruction that consumed both Sid and Nancy (and eventually Anne).

10. Cultural Legacy & Closing Thoughts (78:06–81:48)

• Sid and Nancy are immortalized as punk cautionary tales—loved, loathed, and mythologized in equal measure.

• The hosts reflect that, whatever happened, their deaths appeared almost inevitable given their lifestyles.

  “And you can’t argue that they didn’t die as they lived—doing exactly what they wanted, whenever they wanted to do it.” – Hannah (81:48)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s so difficult when people change their names…I can’t remember what’s left and right. I can’t remember my own name, my address.” – Hannah (13:43)
• “He was a punk purist, sure, but he also wanted to be famous—with all the sex, drugs, and rock and roll that it brought with it.” – Saruti (23:26)
• “They spat, they snarled, they whipped up every crowd they played to into an anarchic whirlpool.” – Hannah (21:15)
• “Nancy knew what she wanted and she knew how to get it. In its way, this was pure punk.” – Saruti (32:55)
• “The only thing sicker than killing your own son with heroin is dining out on his legacy for the rest of your life.” – Hannah (80:21)
• “Her death…is all entangled in mystery. It’s no real mystery, though. If you’re going to get yourself involved in drugs and narcotics in that way, accidents are going to happen.” – Johnny Rotten, quoted by Hannah (81:08)

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Timestamps for Critical Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |----------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Opening: Sid wakes in blood, not urine | 04:03 | | Sid’s early life and parental neglect | 07:57–14:37 | | Punk scene, McLaren, Westwood, Sex Pistols formed | 16:16–25:55 | | Nancy’s troubled youth & rock groupie era | 28:14–35:24 | | Sid & Nancy’s volatile relationship | 35:24–43:19 | | Descent at the Chelsea Hotel | 43:19–49:11 | | The murder night reconstructed | 49:11–54:34 | | Competing theories and alternate suspects | 54:34–68:35 | | Sid’s arrest, suicide attempts, and death | 70:41–77:25 | | Reflections and legacy | 78:06–81:48 |

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Tone & Style

Throughout, Saruti and Hannah use their trademark blend of irreverence, dark humor, and empathy for the tragic figures involved. They balance punk’s swagger with genuine pathos for Sid and Nancy as victims of their upbringings, the scene, and themselves. Academic curiosity, pop culture references, and a healthy skepticism abound—with lively banter and cultural commentary never far away.

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Concluding Thoughts

The episode refrains from a definitive answer—embracing the chaos and uncertainty that both defined punk and shrouded Nancy’s death. Was Sid guilty, or an easy scapegoat? Did the toxic scene swallow them both, or were there darker machinations at work? Whatever the truth, Sid and Nancy’s story remains one of the most iconic and sobering tales in rock history—a punk rock tragedy as unforgettable as their era.

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Transcript

[A]

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[A]

I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah and welcome to Red Handed Reference.

[B]

Hey ho, let's go.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Punk edition.

[A]

I like line.

[B]

Cultural reference, please.

[A]

Yes, please. I know nothing about anything. Of which we are going to discuss over the next hour. And a bit How.

[B]

How nothing?

[A]

I know what the Sex Pistols are, okay? And I know that the man in this was in the Sex Pistols. And I can picture his face.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And that's it.

[B]

I think you're gonna surprise yourself.

[A]

Ooh, I like when that happens.

[B]

I think you know more than you think you do.

[A]

Okay, okay. Well, let's find out. On 12th October 1978, Sid Vicious woke up in room 100 of the Chelsea Hotel. His bed was soaking wet. His first thought was that he must have pissed himself overnight. Which wasn't exactly unbelievable. Vicious was no stranger to heavy nights. He had been a heroin addict ever since his mother gave him a baggie and two needles for his 16th birthday. He and his band, the Sex Pistols, were famous across the world for their raucous punk shows and lyrics that sent 1970s England into Pearl clutching frenzy. They were anarchists, anti monarchy, anti establishment, anti everything. And Sid was the most provocative of all. The most notorious member of the world's most notorious band. A snarling, nihilistic, smack addicted hellraiser. And when he paired up with loudmouth groupie Nancy Spungeon, they became the ultimate loved up dysfunctional punk power couple.

[B]

But on that October Morning in 1978, Sid Vicious hadn't wet the bed. He wasn't lying in piss, he was lying in a Pool of Nancy Spungeon's blood.

[A]

Much, much, much worse.

[B]

His girlfriend Nancy was lying slumped against the bathroom wall in her underwear. An 11 inch folding knife had been stabbed through her abdomen hard enough to come out the other side.

[A]

Jesus. Okay, can I tell you a story that I was going to say for under the Duvet And I'll bring pictures to under the Duvet because it's to do with what you're talking about.

[B]

What, getting stabbed with an 11 inch folding knife? What have you been doing?

[A]

Living in London? No. Finding unexpected things in your bed sheets. Okay, look, I bought some brand new bed sheets. I bought them and I was like, right, Looked at them, folded them out and I was like, yep, cool, here are the bed sheets. And then I was like, I'm gonna wash them because they have like a weird smell to them. Washed them, took them out, put them out to dry. Next day, came and looked at them. Looks like there's blood on them. So it's just like patches of some sort of brown something all over these sheets. And I do not for the life of me know where they came from. Weird, right? Anyway, for the full story of Sruti's mystery sheets, come listen to under the Duvet.

[B]

But for now we have another arguably more interesting mystery for you. Yes, who killed Nancy Sponge.

[A]

That is more interesting in the grand scheme of things. I appreciate that.

[B]

Well, we probably won't be able to find out because everything, and I mean everything, about the night she died is up for debate. There are hundreds of overlapping contradictory stories and quite a lot of details have disappeared into the mists of punk rock legend. But today we're going to try our very best to get to the bottom of it once and for all. Did Sid Vicious live up to his name and stab his girlfriend to death in a drug addled fury? Was he carrying out his end of the couple's fuck em all suicide pact? Or was he innocent, so whacked out on dope that he slept through the whole brutal murder of the love of his life with a hotel full of shady characters coming and going, thousands of dollars in cash nowhere to be found, and enough drugs to make a blue whale see God. This is one rock and roll story that you don't want to miss.

[A]

The man who would become Sid Vicious was born in Lewisham Hospital on May 10, 1957 and he was christened Simon John Ritchie. His mum, Anne Jeanette MacDonald was just 25 and she'd already been married, got divorced and joined the RAF.

[B]

She's packing it in. She's getting it done.

[A]

Classic 50s for now.

[B]

She very quickly stops doing things, I must add.

[A]

Yes. And it was when she joined the RAF that she met John George Ritchie, Simon's father. After the pair left the raf, Ritchie guarded Buckingham palace by day and played jazz trombone in smoky bars by night. Even early on in baby Simon's life, daddy Ritchie would leave his new family for weeks on end. Eventually, Ritchie announced a grand plan to keep them all together. The three of them would go and start a new life in Ibiza. So off went Anne and two year old Simon to the Spanish island in the sun. But Ritchie, well, he never turned up. Simon's father never sent any money and was never seen again.

[B]

That left Ann stuck on a foreign island, single, jobless and with a toddler to deal with. So she embraced her hippie leanings and started selling pre rolled joints to tourists. And as he grew up, young Simon Sid was a hitmaker out the gate, constantly singing songs and impressing locals with the Spanish swear words that he learned. And his mum said apparently all of her friends predicted that he would either be nothing, a total dropout or the Prime Minister of England. And where her son eventually sat on the scale of societal scourge had a lot to do with Anne's rock bottom parenting.

[A]

It's already sounding quite Charles Manson y. Yeah, worse.

[B]

I would argue she never tried to sell him for a for a pitcher of beer. But she does do this. When it was time for them to return to the uk, Anne stuffed a brick of hash down her son Simon's trousers in an attempt to smuggle it through customs.

[A]

Fucking hell, the drug mule parenting. Exactly.

[B]

And I think she got away with that one. But once she was back on England's green and pleasant lands, she really fucked up. She had heard a rumour that if you were a registered intravenous drug user, then you would be a shoo in for a council house. So one night she stayed up all night smoking weed and pricked her arm with needles to look like she had been injecting herself and then took herself to the council to apply. Next day she looked so rough when she turned up that she wasn't even issued a drug test. They were like, here you go, have a council house, you're obviously in dire need. And it worked. Pretty soon Anne and her son Simon, who would become Sid Vicious, were given a flat on Drury Lane.

[A]

Oh, Drury Lane.

[B]

I would add back then, sure, rough as fuck.

[A]

Got it.

[B]

Horrendous. Like not close to what it is.

[A]

Sure, sure, sure.

[B]

Not even in the same universe.

[A]

Got it. But once they were in, the other shoe dropped. Those flats were known in the area to be held by the council for drug users. So soon enough, in a cruel twist of irony, harder drugs arrived at Anne's door. Weed became speed, which opened the door to heroin. By the time young Simon went to school, his mum was a full blown smack addict and dealer to boot. Simon's main memory of his childhood was being pushed away so she could shoot up. He went to the Clissold Park School in Stoke Newington. There he laughed off his unconventional upbringing with his friends. But there was always a rage burning behind his eyes. Furious at being forced to bring himself up, little Simon resigned himself to doing everything on his own terms. And that meant fucking off normal school sharpish. So he enrolled himself at Hackney Technical College. There he showed some definite skill at art, painting watercolours and producing lifelike sketches. But much more importantly, this is where he met John Lydon, soon to be known as Johnny Rotten, future frontman of the Sex Pistols and eventual butter peddler.

[B]

I really had a moment of silence for society when Johnny Rotten started doing butter adverts. I remember I was just like, what have we become? Maybe that was the moment it all unraveled.

[A]

What have you become? Johnny Rotten?

[B]

But what have I become? Why am I. What am I like, what have we all become? But I know my favorite Johnny Rotten moment of all time is him calling the British public's cunts on I'm a Celebrity. Do you remember that? Live tv?

[A]

I do remember.

[B]

Mwah. Beautiful. When we were still the best at reality TV back then, in the golden.

[A]

Era, the golden age of terrible, terrible George Galloway meowing like a cat. Reality tv. So, yes, teen Johnny Rotten had a hamster named after Sid Barrett from Pink Floyd. And one fateful day, that psychedelic hamster bit young Simon. And from that moment on in our story today, Simon Ritchie became Sid Vicious. It's like a Spider man origin story.

[B]

It is exactly that and I'm very glad we've got it out the way because it's so difficult when people change their names and you have to like, refer to them by their childhood name and then I can't remember, like, what's left and right or I can't remember my own name, my address.

[A]

I know I'm writing a shorthand on Akhenaten right now. It's.

[B]

I don't know what that word means.

[A]

Very different world we're in. He was a pharaoh who changed his name. That's a very niche reference for all the Egyptologists. Out there he was Tutankhamun's dad. Very overshadowed by his son. But, you know, fun story. I'll tell you about it on shorthand.

[B]

Thanks. Back home on Drury Lane, things had escalated in the drug department. Anne wasn't pushing Sid away from her anymore. Now mother and son were injecting each other, her syringe full of heroin, his full of speed.

[A]

Yeah, it's very depressing, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah, that's what Jory Lane was like. For Sid's 16th birthday, his mum gave him a bag of heroin and two needles and soon after that she kicked him out. She later told the press this. I remember saying to him, it's either you or me and it's not going to be me. I've got to try and preserve myself, so you just fuck off.

[A]

I like that. That's the bit she's saying out loud. So imagine what she really said.

[B]

Mm. Well, it's painting him as an evil influence, isn't it? Not something she created.

[A]

Sure, sure.

[B]

So off Sid went, alone into the wide world with his new name, his intense mummy issues and a hunger for purpose. He lived in various squats, got into a lot of trouble and there are stories from this time about him like mugging people, selling fake drugs, dabbling in sex work, stuff like that. We can't confirm or deny any of them, but I buy it. But soon he made his way to Chelsea and rumour had it that is where it was all happening. Just like Drury Lane is very different now. Chelsea was quite different back then. The punk scene was always and is still defined in opposition and it was no different in SW1. By the early 70s, there was a feeling among some, quite a lot of disaffected youth that rock music had lost its bite. There was the soft radio friendly rock of the Eagles, etc. Then there was the high minded concept rock bands like Pink Floyd and Genesis. But for Sid Vicious and his newly found punks, all of the above were just a bunch of privately educated toffs making pretentious wanky art. Which, like arguably true, none of it seemed to speak to what was happening around them. They didn't see themselves in any of it.

[A]

In the decades after the Second World War, the middle and lower classes in Britain were being squeezed and wages were stagnating and the political system didn't seem to be doing anything about it. The bright young things had no future. All they had ahead of them was work, obey, consume and and then die. So a group of anti establishment misfits started expressing this anger and the beating heart of this budding movement was on the King's Road in Chelsea in a shop called Sex.

[B]

Capitals, capital letters, capital sex.

[A]

Yes, Capital S, capital E, capital X.

[B]

Sex was a clothes shop owned by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. See, I told you. You know more than you think. Vivienne obviously needs no introduction. Her boyfriend, however. I'll give it a crack. Malcolm McLaren was an upper middle class art school dropout with an eye for style and a definite grifter streak. Vivienne Westwood was the architect of the entire punk look, all of which could be purchased in her shop on the Kings Road. It's very clever, isn't it, marketing strategy, to be like, I'm gonna create the look of this subculture and sell it to you.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Create the problem, sell the solution.

[A]

Look, I'm a big fan of Vivienne, but, yeah, absolutely. The idea that you're, like, selling back punk, I mean, yeah, you gotta laugh. You gotta laugh at the irony there.

[B]

As well as dog collars and whips and fetish wear, Sex sold counterculture T shirts, ripped jeans and accessories as well.

[A]

I see. So they are the precursor to Tammy Girl, where we got our dog collars and ripped jeans and punky slogan T shirts.

[B]

But it was more than just a place to pick up your punk uniform. Members of the scene would hang out at Sex for hours on end days. Even the shop was a roaring success. But it wasn't quite enough. Next, Malcolm McLaren wanted a band. He already had a guitarist and a drummer. Two school dropouts with a healthy rap sheet of petty crimes and punk attitude coming out of their ears. They called themselves the swankers. And after McLaren added bassist Glenn Matlock to the lineup, all he needed was a lead singer. And even if you've never heard God Save the Queen, you've probably guessed where this is going.

[A]

Sid Vicious was already a regular at Sex, mostly dealing from the back room. Knowing a star when she saw one, Vivivienne Westwood urged MacLaren to take the storeroom speedslinger on as the frontman. I had no idea that Vivienne Westwood was the Simon Cowell of Sid Vicious. This is wild.

[B]

She kind of is. Malcolm McLaren's definitely the Louis Walsh.

[A]

Sure, sure, sure.

[B]

A bit more sort of like hitman hiring, a bit more schemey. But he's like, he's the on site manager. Vivian's the ideas gal.

[A]

Sure, sure, sure. But this idea wasn't to be, because one day a guy walked into the shop with green hair and a T shirt that said I hate Pink Floyd. It was Sid's old college pal and hamster wrangler, Johnny Rotten. He was asked to audition for McLaren's band and chose to lip sync to an Alice Cooper song as his opening number. Jumping around like a wild man and pulling faces to Malcolm McLaren. He was perfect.

[B]

That's a very famous image in like punk history of Johnny Rotten just going fucking mental and the whole room being like, that's our Hitler.

[A]

So can he sing? Why is he lip syncing? He can't sing. Got it, got it.

[B]

It's punk. You don't need to.

[A]

Sure, sure. So the band was rechristened the Sex Pistols to promote the shop and Westwood designed outfits that they wore on stage. Very smart. Again, not very punk. Very smart.

[B]

Before the Sex Pistols even released a single, they told the press, we're not into music, we're into chaos. Great. It's great in so many ways because it's. Yeah, it's very anti establishment. It's very fuck you. But it's also like, I don't have to be good at what I'm doing to make it happen for it to be valid. I don't have to be talented at music in any way. Which, to be fair, nobody had done before. They spat, they snarled, they whipped up every crowd they played to into an anarchic whirlpool. And since the whole idea was to be as provocative as possible, the Sex Pistols got a reaction. They were often chased down after their shows, having to sprint to their van to avoid getting the shit kicked out of them. Still, for those that liked the band, the music and the total chaos, it was life changing stuff. And despite missing out on the band, Sid Vicious didn't have a Lawrence from School of Rock style mope about not being cool enough. People in bands are cool. I'm not cool. He just became the Sex Pistols number one fan. Sid Vicious was a big dog on the punk scene. The real deal. If he thought you were cool, you really were. Inside sex and beyond Sid Vicious, approval meant everything.

[A]

Which again, just doesn't feel very punk.

[B]

It's incredibly punk.

[A]

Is it because this idea of like you're looking for approval from somebody of one person. Okay, okay.

[B]

The punkest of the punk.

[A]

Okay, fine. But you know what I mean. This idea of like, it's meant to be, like, I don't give a shit what anyone thinks, but I get what you think, Sid.

[B]

I know. I don't think I agree.

[A]

I think, like, everything's sceny. So obviously we're just humans, so we all look for that Validation as an ethos. I just think it's quite funny.

[B]

Yeah, no, I know what you mean. But it's like nothing about punk is individualist. It's about community, it's about tearing down structure, it's about challenging the oppressor and like identifying with other members of the oppressed. So seeking approval from inside your community, kind of the archetype of your community. Makes sense, I think. And he looked good. So everyone started to dress like Sid. And he was also great company. He was funny, he was charming, he was witty and he was up for anything. And if you want to give that look a try, you will need a black studded leather jacket, ripped black jeans with a white cloth around your left thigh for extra points. Black spiky hair, chains, razor blades and safety pins hanging everywhere. That's your starter pack.

[A]

But what Sid really wanted was to be in a band. He was a punk purist, sure, but he also wanted to be famous with all the sex, drugs and rock and roll that it brought with it. Having been overlooked for frontman, he needed something else to offer. But he couldn't play an instrument and two front men jumping around would just be ridiculous. So Sid scored some speed and stayed up for three days listening to the Ramones first album on repeat and only seeping when he could play the bass part.

[B]

I love. I fucking love that. Can't do it, not sleep until I can. That's straight out of the Hannah McGuire book of how to learn things.

[A]

Hey, man, I respect that. You gotta respect it. So after his self imposed musical boot camp, he played with a band called the Flowers of Romance for a while. Then he switched to playing drums with Susie and the Banshees. And when we say playing drums, we really mean just bashing his drumsticks around indiscriminately and occasionally hitting the wall. Sid's M.O. on stage was to be as obnoxious as he possibly could. He was more adored than ever. And soon enough there was an opening in the Sex Pistols. Yeah, it seemed to be a lot more vibes based than specific musical talent.

[B]

It's an excellent business model. While Sid Vicious had been banging away at the bass and the drums elsewhere, the Sex Pistols controversy courting was making them huge stars. In buttoned up 70s Britain, Rotten's anarchic lyrics were headline news. They won a $40,000 contract with EMI in 1976, which is just about £900,000 in today's money. But when he called a presenter a dirty fucking rotter live on the BBC, that deal was swiftly cancelled. As were all of their future gigs. But outrage was their stock in trade and it only fueled the fire, so they doubled down. They also sacked their bassist. Glenn Matlock had been there from the beginning for not being punk enough. Johnny Rotten actually called him a choir boy. And for his replacement, Johnny Rotten wheeled in his old mate, Sid Vicious. And I have to. We've been joking, we've been laughing, but this is very serious business. Sid Vicious, terrible bassist. Terrible, terrible. Inexcusable. Unrescuable. Inadmissible.

[A]

Awful butt.

[B]

Showman.

[A]

Straight vibes.

[B]

Straight vibes. Look the part. Everyone loves him. He's the king of punk. Of course. King of punk or choir boy. What are you gonna pick? Actual musical talent or vibe? There's a great book on this case which is called no One Is Innocent, written by Alan Parker. And in it, Malcolm McLaren writes. To watch Sid was to watch a raw, open, wounded creature being loved for doing something different. He was his own audience and star. If Johnny Rotten is the voice of punk, then Vicious is the attitude. And it was in these wild, freewheeling years at the top of his game that Sid Vicious met Nancy Spungeon. Everyone knows that the best holiday outfits, the one you think about for the rest of your life, that one starts with the right foundations. So why spend the season tugging at digging in bras or shapewear that rolls down or up or in, God forbid, Honeylove give you comfort and confidence. Whether you're in sparkles at a party or cosy jumpers at home with your family, I promise everybody will be pleased to see a Honey Love parcel under the tree this year. I don't trust any other brand to keep me feeling confident on the dance floor at New Year's. Using intelligently designed technology to support your curves whilst being comfortable, Honeylove moves with you through every festive moment. And if you're looking for a wireless T shirt bra that's light as a feather, the all new cloud embrace bra is the perfect stocking filler for your loved ones. And let's face it yo self, treat yourself or someone you love this holiday season to honeylove. And right now you can save [e-mail] Redhanded just use our exclusive link HoneyLove.com Redhanded and grab your discount. After you order, they'll ask you how you heard about honeylove. So please support our show and let them know that we sent you. Celebrate the season feeling confident and comfortable.

[A]

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[B]

Also, one of my favorite drag queens is called Fina Barbital.

[A]

Oh, that's a good name.

[B]

Shout out Fina.

[A]

Now. When this prescription didn't calm the chaos, successive doctors prescribed more and more drugs to no effect.

[B]

Nancy was kicked out of her public school age 11 and packed off to Devereux, a school in Philadelphia for students with extreme emotional and behavioural issues. While she was clearly smart, with an IQ of 160, Nancy didn't exactly excel academically or socially. A former classmate called her, and this is a quote, the most hateful person I have ever met.

[A]

Wow, that's so specific.

[B]

Which in and a school for children with emotional and behavioral issues to the extreme.

[A]

Yeah, it's quite something.

[B]

Nancy's school years were packed with trauma and tragedy. A schizophrenia diagnosis at least one suicide attempt, a self inflicted coat hanger abortion and a whole load of LSD. But Devereaux couldn't keep her forever. At 17, she went to the University of Colorado. After a few months she was kicked out for stealing. And there was only one place for a burnt out, drug addled teenager to go. New York City. Nancy moved to Chelsea, the other one, and took up stripping and sex work to earn cash. From the minute she got there, Nancy had one mission and one mission. Shag as many rock stars as humanly possible.

[A]

Ok, equally depressing.

[B]

And she went on to become a sort of super groupie, hanging out with and bonking members of Aerosmith, the Ramones and Queen. When she slept with Iggy Pop, she phoned her best friend immediately afterwards. She couldn't help crowing about the new glittery notch on her rock and roll bedpost. To be fair, if it was the 70s and I just shagged Iggy Pop, I would ring everybody I'd ever met.

[A]

This is what I mean, what she's doing. As depressing as it all sounds, she's doing the best of it.

[B]

Oh yeah, and people hate her for it.

[A]

And I had to Google image her because I actually, I didn't know what Nancy looked like. Do we think Courtney Love was inspired by the Nancy Spungeon look?

[B]

Absolutely. But Nancy was the first one to look like Nancy.

[A]

Got it.

[B]

So, so, so many women, knowingly or not, have based themselves on Nancy Sponge.

[A]

So this approach, as Hannah mentioned, did piss a lot of people off. Groupies were nothing new, but the stick thin, pretty young things that had fawned over rock stars since time immemorial looked down their noses at Nancy. She was a junkie and a stripper to boot. And to make matters worse, she wasn't the shy, adoring type. She was brash, loud, unashamed and unapologetic. To paraphrase the Sex Pistols. Nancy knew what she wanted and she knew how to get it in its way. This was pure punk. And she also had another leg up on the other groupies. She always had drugs. Nancy was getting $200 a night stripping on top of whipping bankers in a dominatrix house on the Upper east side, which paid very well.

[B]

So she's not dependent on the rock stars to give her anything. She's got her own money and they others hate her for it.

[A]

And she'd spend the lion's share of her cash on drugs for herself and whoever happened to be around. Still, despite her confidence, Nancy was clearly in trouble by this point. She. She had a full blown heroin addiction. She attempted suicide at least twice more during these first years in New York. And she'd go from life of the party to a screaming rage in a matter of seconds. Life was wearing her down. Nancy Spungen was tired. And a change is as good as a break.

[B]

So she changed strategy. Her new goal was to go to England, get a rock star boyfriend and bring him back to New York.

[A]

Okay, it's a plan.

[B]

She did it.

[A]

It worked.

[B]

And so in December 1976, Nancy flew to London and started hanging around in the other Chelsea, our Chelsea on the Kings Road. She knew how the scene works. She'd done it all before. She bought the clothes, she hung around the people, she went to sex and the 100 Club. And just like Madonna, she adopted a weird pseudo English accent pretty much straight away. It took about a year of graft, but soon enough, American import Nancy Spungen and the king of the UK punk scene, Sid Vicious, were an item. Sid and Nancy were perfect for each other. Furious at the world, dysfunctional, all attitude, no fucks to give. Plus they shared one very important all consuming hobby, drugs.

[A]

Mm, yeah, they look like a Halloween costume.

[B]

I'm sure they have been many times. Yeah, they're both very. Even though they have different upbringings, very, very tortured, but in very different ways. And they found the same solution. You can see just how constantly out of it they both were in every interview they ever did. It wasn't perfect. Destructive for sure, but they were quite clearly head over heels in love with each other. We've got an example of a handwritten note from the time, which was titled what makes Nancy so Great by Sydney. And sid vicious lists 12 of Nancy's best assets, from number one, beautiful, number two, sexy, all the way down to number 12, a great hustler. Moving to London, however, didn't stop Nancy from being difficult. She was verbally abusive and physically aggressive. And to put it very mildly, the scene surrounding Syd did not take to his new squeeze. There was a real Yoko vibe to the conversation surrounding Nancy. We all know how that one goes. Great man who would have been fine if it wasn't for this strange, meddling, whiny, unpredictable woman getting her claws in. And we can argue about Yoko Ono and her bowler hats full of perfume another day, but in this case that attitude, that rhetoric of the meddling woman is kind of half true.

[A]

Another Courtney Love comparison also. But did she shoot him?

[B]

I don't think so.

[A]

I don't think so either.

[B]

I really don't.

[A]

No.

[B]

Courtney, come on the show. I love you.

[A]

For Sid and Nancy definitely amplified the worst parts of each other's personalities. She was far from a grounding presence, but it's not like he was an angel before her. And Nancy also did a lot of campaigning on his behalf because all Sid's money went straight into his arm. MacLaren limited his payment from Sex Pistols.

[B]

Royalties, which, like, arguably not a terrible management move from punk Louis Walsh.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Which meant that although Sid was one of the most famous people in the country, he was also broke. Nancy fought tooth and nail, angry that he wasn't getting his dues, convinced that she could manage him better than anyone else. She even talks for him in interviews. Even questions directed at Sid, she would take off camera. Friends were starting to get seriously worried. Sid told them that Nancy wanted him to kill himself or that she wanted them to die together, to go out in a blaze of glory.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely worrying. Things are happening and I think people around Syd had every right to be concerned about Nancy's influence over him. And I don't doubt she was a nightmare, but it's not like he was completely fine before she showed up. She made it worse for sure, but I don't think that he would have been a dream to work with had she never shown up.

[A]

And the leading member of the I Hate Nancy club was definitely manager Malcolm McLaren. In Malcolm's eyes, she was the only thing standing between the Sex Pistols and world domination. All Nancy wanted was money, drugs and Sid. And she had plenty of all three.

[B]

So why would she go anywhere?

[A]

MacLaren was determined, however, to solve the Nancy problem, so he, MacLaren, arranged for Nancy Spungeon to be run over by a car. He even bought Nancy a one way ticket to New York. And while Sib was at the dentist, Nancy was dragged out of her hotel and driven kicking and screaming to the airport. But nothing could keep the punks apart.

[B]

June 1977 was the Queen's Silver Jubilee. The nation was gripped with a royal fever. And the day before the Sex Pistols released their most controversial song yet, God Save the Queen, a venomous, no filter takedown of the Royal Family. We cannot explain to UN British people how taboo that was. We're talking 50 years ago. Being a flag waving royalist was part of the national character. That's what being British was about. So lines like God save the Queen, she ain't no human being. And references to a fascist regime that she ran were really not cricket at all. This was serious business. The Sex Pistols were attacked with knives in the street. By royalists MPs literally called in the Commons for the band to be hanged at Traitors Gate.

[A]

Oh, my God, you're just adding to it.

[B]

Exactly. It's beautiful. It's just. Mwah. Ugh. I love it. Hoisted by your own petard. Fantastic stuff. And to top it all off, the Sex Pistols, God Save the Queen was the highest selling single in the UK that week. And then they released their album, Never Mind the Bollocks. Here's the Sex Pistols came out on October 28, 1977. It was a rebel yell taking aim at every authority structure there was and it went straight to number one. And if you've heard this album, which I hope that you have, and you think that the bass isn't that bad, well, that sausage is. Because Steve Jones, the guitarist, re recorded all of Sid's bass parts.

[A]

Good. At the peak of their powers, Malcolm McLaren plotted his next big management move. And I'll be honest, it's a strange one. He planned a US tour. Not of the major cities where US punk was already making waves, but of bumfuck towns in the Deep South. The Sex Pistols played a series of honky tonk country bars to rednecks in cowboy hats. And as for why, there are two possible reasons. A, it was another attempt to whip up maximum hate and controversy, and B, to get Sid Vicious as far away from heroin and Nancy as possible.

[B]

I strongly suspect it is option B. Yeah.

[A]

Either way, none of it worked. Every show was a total war zone. Glasses and bottles would fly and guitarist Steve Jones once smashed an audience member over the head with his actual guitar. And yes, Sid was separated from his two loves, but he was not a happy bunny. He was kept on methadone, putting him in a constant state of semi withdrawal. And he was furious that they banned Nancy from coming on tour. He'd also show up late for all the shows or not at all. And when he did turn up, he was fucked out of his mind.

[B]

I do think it's an interesting thing to have built this whole thing on punk and counterculture and then expect everyone to turn up on time and sober. Like, come on.

[A]

Now. Before the Dallas show on 10 January that year, vicious carved the words gimme a fix into his chest with a razor. In their efforts to court controversy, McLaren and the band had been encouraging Sid to be as damaged and reckless as possible. And now they were paying the price.

[B]

Yeah, like that's part of the deal.

[A]

Yeah. For the rest of the band, this was a warped cartoon of what they'd set out to do. The last US show was in San Francisco on 14 January 1978. When it was over, Johnny Rotten famously asked the crowd, ever get the feeling you've been cheated? They never played again. After just two breakneck years, the Sex Pistols were done and Nancy had Sid all to herself.

[B]

Just for the. Well, actually, as I know, the Sex pixels reunited in 1996 and they played, but it's not important. The Sex Pistols were done for and London didn't want Sid and Nancy. So Sid got on the first flight to New York. On the way, he overdosed on diazepam, methadone and alcohol and went into a coma. In August 1978, Sid and Nancy checked into the Chelsea Hotel and the names they gave to the guestbook were Mr. And Mrs. John Ritchie. The Chelsea Hotel has a legacy all of its own. It became known as a hub for literary figures including Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. Throughout the 60s, it hosted the cream of the zeitgeist y crop, everyone from Andy Warhol to Bob Dylan. It is truly iconic. However, cheap rent and an incredibly permissive free bohemian attitude attracted a much rougher clientele as well. By the mid-70s, the first three floors of the Chelsea Hotel were filled with drug addicts, their dealers and sex workers.

[A]

In other words, Sid and Nancy paradise were drug dealers just down the landing. They lived in a constant haze of weed, bottom booze, pills, and as much smack as they could get their grubby little hands on. They fought constantly in front of their friends, trading venomous insults and savage physical blows. Nancy grew violently protective, and the more people tried to separate them, the more intense Nancy got. When Sid got back from Paris, where he had been filming a documentary, Nancy cut her wrist to protest being left alone. Bit by bit, the pair alienated themselves from the outside, developing a repetitive routine. Mostly, their world was at the Chelsea Hotel. Nancy would go out stripping, Sid would go into friends rooms, get high and wait for Nancy to get home with more drugs. But it has to be said, Nancy wasn't a bad manager. She did get Sid a string of gigs and even put together a backing band. His notoriety worked a charm, and tickets sold like hotcakes. Sid was quickly bringing in $4,000 a.

[B]

Night in the 70s. Yeah, and it's not like their overheads are high.

[A]

But he was a mess on stage, barely able to finish a song. But the crowds were electric and the money propped up their 2 gram a day heroin habit, which, to Sid and Nancy, was truly all that mattered.

[B]

One night, after a particularly large heroin binge, Sid passed out with a cigarette in his hand and the mattress caught on fire. The fire spread quickly around the passed out couple and they were only saved because a neighbour called the fire department and somehow the legendary passivity of the Chelsea Hotel meant that they weren't kicked out. Instead they were moved to room 100. So the first three floors are all junkies, artists, but like second, third, less intense. The first floor is the real hardcore people and that's where they were moved to. It was solidly the drug addict floor and that came with its own set of problems. Plus people were attacking Sid Knightley at his own shows and both of those things did no one's paranoia any favors. Nancy bought her boyfriend sid a Jaguar K11 knife for protection. Just over 24 hours after she bought it, that knife would be sunk into her own chest. Here at Red Handed, thanks to all your amazing support over the years, we've now got an office and a team helping us make bigger and better content. So I know for a fact that running a small business ain't that small. It's a lot actually. And when we started, one thing that made everything quite a lot easier was Shopify. Shopify's point of sale system is a unified command center for your retail business. It brings together in store out and online operations and it's ready for when you strike it big. Working across up to 1000 locations. Guarantee that shopping is always convenient for your customers, letting them shop however they want. Based on a report from EY, businesses on Shopify POS see real results like 22% better, total cost of ownership and benefits equivalent to an 8.9% uplift in sales on average relative to the market set surveyed. Get all the big stuff for your small business right with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com redhanded go to shopify.com redhandedshopify.com redhanded everyone wants to be stronger. Not just physically, but in every part of life. But between confusing workout advice, complicated equipment and trying to figure out nutrition, where does anyone even start? Well, to get stronger mentally and physically, go to Anytime Fitness. You'll get a personalized training, nutrition and recovery plan, all customized to your body, your strength level and your goals. You'll get expert coaching to optimize your results anytime, anywhere in the gym and on the Anytime Fitness app. And you'll get anytime access to 5,500 gyms worldwide, all with the right equipment to level up your strength gains and your life. So get started@anytime fitness.com that's anytime fitness.com.

[A]

The 11th of October 1978 was the last night of Nancy Spungeon's life. And like we said, the facts of that night are hazy. Every moment has been told in a hundred different ways over the years. But we've done our digging and here's what we're confident probably happened. At about 9:30pm Sid and Nancy went for dinner at their friend's apartment. Those friends were Neon Leon Webster, an artist and drug dealer, and Kathy o', Rourke, his stripper girlfriend. That evening Sid was morose, looking at old photos of himself saying he'd lost his looks, that he had no future, whilst idly stroking his face with a giant fuck off knife. Nancy was pacing around saying that what they needed was drugs. Good ones. She said her dealer Rockets would come over later. Kathy then had to go out to work and Leon went out to a club called the Nursery. There's good evidence that Sid and Nancy then left the Chelsea Hotel for about an hour or so. When they got back they stopped by a few friends flats asking around for heroin. They didn't find any. What they did have was 2 null a prescription sedative hypnotic which like Quaaludes.

[B]

You can't get anymore. One of the Guildford Four was on Tuanol when he was arrested. It is so fucking hard. It's not even prescribed medically anymore.

[A]

Yeah, incredibly potent. It has two barbiturate salts and according to the manufacturer it's designed to provide a rapid yet prolonged hypnotic action. At about 10pm back in room 100, Sid took 33, 02 and I's he stayed awake for another few hours.

[B]

Fucking heroic how?

[A]

But by 1am he was passed the fuck out. And this is where the story goes in a million different directions. So first we'll give you the story that Sid told police initially, which is that he was so knocked out by the two annals that he slept through the night. Whatever had happened to Nancy, it hadn't woken him up. He was out cold until about 9:30am when he woke up in a pool of Nancy's blood.

[B]

The police arrived on the scene at about 10:45 in the morning. Room 100 was a bomb sight. It stunk. There was rubbish everywhere, dirty clothes all over the place. And there were several mattresses lying around the room. One sporting a blood stained handprint. In the bathroom, Nancy was lying in her black underwear, slumped between the sink and the toilet. She had a single knife wound just below her right breast, deep enough to come through. The other Side on top of an open suitcase sat an 11 inch folding knife. It had been wiped clean. There was no blood, no fingerprints. Nancy's corpse was taken out of the Chelsea Hotel in a body bag. Sid came out in handcuffs. Inside the Chelsea, everyone was convinced that Sid had killed Nancy. It seems obvious, so were the NYPD. Syd was charged with second degree murder. @ the station, Sid changed his tune. He claimed that when he first discovered Nancy, she was breathing alright, but she wasn't bleeding. So that meant that she was unconscious when he found her, but not stabbed or dead. So he didn't call an ambulance, he went out to get her some methadone instead. And on this second telling, Nancy wasn't covered in blood until he returned. And his first move after discovering his girlfriend drenched in blood, was to wash the massive knife and then try to wash Nancy. Sid told his interrogators that when he realised Nancy just wasn't going to stop bleeding, he called for help. And he also insisted that he absolutely did not stab her.

[A]

Then he changed his story again. In version three, Sid said that he'd had a fight with the bellboy out in the hall. I love that the Chelsea Hotel has bellboys. Hey, man, when you're strung off your tits, you're not going to move your own shit, are you?

[B]

Absolutely not. So, yeah, he says he had a.

[A]

Fight with a bellboy in the hall and then had a row with Nancy back in room 100. He said that she punched him in the nose right where the bellboy had hurt him. So he got out a knife to threaten her. Apparently she leaned forward and he stabbed her accidentally. According to Syd, neither of them thought it was that serious, so they both fell asleep. When Sid woke up, he went straight out to get his methadone and when he came back, he discovered Nancy's corpse on the bathroom floor. Eventually, Sid told police, I stabbed her, but I didn't mean to kill her. I loved her, but she treated me like shit. But then he took it back, saying that's not what he meant. After a mess of different stories, finally Sid conceded that he might have done it. He was just too fucked up to know. And yeah, after taking 30 sleeping pills plus God knows what else, he probably was.

[B]

Yeah, sleeping pill just isn't quite strong enough either. Like, just. I'll come on to what I think. It didn't look good for Sid Vicious for obvious reasons, but let's point out some specifics just for the fun of it. He had told police that he came back to find Nancy dead in the bathroom. But all of her blood was on the mattress. Which seems odd. How did Nancy crawl all the way to the bathroom after losing all of that blood on the mattress? Surely it makes much more sense that she was stabbed and then bled out on the bed and then moved, presumably by Sid, to the bathroom to wash up the evidence. Pretty open and shut, it feels like. And for Sergeant Kilroy of the nypd, the one who arrested Sid, it was the only explanation of events that mattered. As far as he was concerned, these two were dysfunctional junkies and one of them was dead. End of story. As for why CID stabbed Nancy, you can take your pick of theories. There's a suicide pact. CID had told friends that they had talked about ending their lives together. Neon Leon actually told the Soho Weekly News that he believes Sid was planning on suicide that night. Because Sid had given him all of his prized possessions just the night before. His gold records, newspaper clippings, a beloved leather jacket. Felt like he was saying goodbye.

[A]

Or like Sid's testimony. Could it have been an accident? Or a fight that got out of hand? Easily done when you're totally out of your fucking tree and you've got a giant knife. Or was it some sort of sex game gone wrong? Sid and Nancy's sub dom games were known to extend to knives. Could he have just gone too far before they both passed out, leaving Nancy to slowly bleed to death?

[B]

You will see, people say that a lot. No, I feel like they were absolutely in a sub dom relationship. In pictures of Sid, he's wearing a padlock on a chain like Youngblood used to. Like that is a symbol of being in a sub dom relationship. And I don't doubt that, like they engaged in knife play, but the difference between knife play and stabbing her so hard it comes out the other side is not an accident. It just isn't. And I know we've spoken about this before, but I feel like the sex game gone wrong thing is thrown around so casually and it just. No, that, like, there are many things I am unsure of. In this case, I am sure it wasn't sex game gone wrong because things literally never are.

[A]

No, I just don't buy it. And it's just one of those things that as a society we've like, accepted. I'm not saying everybody has, obviously, because a lot of people like screaming against it, but it's just the idea of like, well, you know, why have you got a knife that. Well, it's just part of my sexual fetish. How dare you question that? And then if you can't question that. Well then, you know, sometimes things get dangerous and sometimes people get stabbed like it's just an accident. But don't you dare question why we were doing it. It's just. It's so fucking weird. It's so fucking weird. Anyway, we're not buying into that sex game gone wrong. But there are plenty of things that could have happened that night between Sid and Nancy. But they were also far from the only people around that night. And Sid is far from the only possible culprit. Plenty of people saw and spoke to Sid and Nancy that evening. So here's a quick ish timeline of what those people say they remember. At about 2am Nancy called a man named Rockets Red Glare. His nickname comes from the fifth line of the American national anthem. But his real name was actually Michael Morrow. Born to a 15 year old heroin addict mother, Morrow's star wasn't exactly much better than sits. In fact, he became addicted to heroin while still in the womb. And after he was born, doctors gave him opiates in his baby formula to wean him off. He was also beaten by his drug addicted stepfather who later killed his mother. But that didn't stop Murrow becoming a comedian and even starring in a film with Madonna.

[B]

Can't keep a good man down. I don't think he's a good man. I think he's quite possibly responsible for Nancy's death, actually.

[A]

I mean, yes, bad people, lots of bad people doing bad things in this story. But what I will say, it's a tale that if nothing else, tells you that no matter how shit and fucked up your star is, you can be anything you want. Even if you have no talent as well.

[B]

By 1978, Rocket's red glare was Sid and Nancy's personal bodyguard, slash drug procurer. And the night Nancy died, she rang Rockets just like she had told Neon Leon she would, saying that she had $1,400 to spend on drugs. But remember, no money was found in.

[A]

The hotel room in the 70s. How much fucking drugs can you buy for that amount of money?

[B]

That's bonkers if you're Sid and Nancy. Not enough. Clearly what Nancy wanted that night was Dilaudid, another legal ish drug, an opiate prescribed as a painkiller. And Rocket said that when he got to room 100, Sid was out cold. Nancy grabbed the money from a bag of new notes and they spilled out all over the floor. And he crucially says that nobody else was with them. So he goes out, goes to find the drugs and then later he came Back to room 100 with actor Ned Van Zant and he agrees with the story. He confers that that is what happened. According to Rockets, while him and Ned Van Zant were there, Sid actually got up a couple of times to check on the door and briefly leave the room. Additionally, the hotel manager told NYPD that he saw both Sid and Nancy returning to the Chelsea hotel at about 3:30am and that Sid was shouting at Nancy. Sid and Nancy's regular Quaalude. And two and old dealer Steve C. Told a reporter much later that Sid and Nancy came to his room at 4am all of these people live in the Chelsea Hotel? Yeah, it's kind of like student halls.

[A]

Of horror.

[B]

And very American Horror Story Hotel as well.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Rocket's red glare also says that he saw Steve C. In the building entering a lift just before 5am I've got.

[A]

To say, we've covered a lot of cases in our time and typically people are like, oh, I heard this thing or I saw this thing, but I have absolutely no idea what time it is or what time it was. I didn't look at the clock. But like we are expected to believe in these stories that a bunch of people who are all smacked, yeah, just fucking out of their tree on all sorts. It was around 5am everyone's gotta watch. Everyone's just like having a little look, a little check, just in case I need to remember this for some reason later. Just a little sprinkle of skepticism on my part that I'm gonna throw out there.

[B]

You're allowed it.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

An actor called Victor Coliccio says that Nancy called him around the same time, so 5am and that he went down to room 100 to see what she wanted. When he got there, Sid was passed out on the bed. But there was another man in there as well who was not. Rocket's red glare. He's very annoyingly fuzzy on more details. He can only remember the first letter of this man's name. He says it was something like Snake or Skippy or Stevie. But I'm inclined to believe him more than anyone else. He's like, ooh, not sure. Yeah, yeah, was quite fucked. Anyway, not that much help. But it does raise the possibility that this mystery visitor, who nobody can identify, Snake, Skippy or Stevie, killed Nancy and then fled. In the following weeks, Colicio fled to the Bronx terrified that this mystery S man would come and find him.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, you couldn't really describe a more high risk lifestyle than what's going on here.

[B]

I don't think you could describe a more perfect environment to get away with murder.

[A]

Also true.

[B]

Malcolm McLaren.

[A]

Now Kenneth west, the poor fucking long suffering, no doubt bellboy at the Chelsea Hotel.

[B]

There's a reason he's there. He's getting something out of it, I'm sure.

[A]

True, true. You don't have to be a Beato to want to work with kids, but it probably helps. I don't think everyone who works with kids is a Peter.

[B]

I do.

[A]

It's just a little joke.

[B]

I certainly do.

[A]

So, yes, Kenneth the bellboy testified under oath that he did indeed scrap with CID that night, just as CID had said. And this is what went down. At about 5am he responded to a complaint by a resident on the second floor. West went up there and found Sid being loud and aggressive. Then Sid launched at him. West was pretty trim and surprisingly sober. And Sid was a stick thin heroin addict. It's like in the land of the blind, the man with one eye and all that. So it wasn't a particularly long fight. And Sid was left bleeding from the mouth and nose. And west said that he left the hotel at about quarter past five. A Chelsea resident who stayed anonymous testified to police that Sid staggered into their room at 5:30. He was disorientated and his face was covered in blood. According to the autopsy, Nancy was stabbed between 6am and 7am and she died between 8am and 10am and this random room invasion is the last reported sighting of Sid for the all important next few hours.

[B]

So we know that the fight between Sid and Kenneth west happened and it's pretty likely that Sid is wandering around for a bit after that. Bleeding hurt pride, office tits.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

At 7:30am, the resident of room 102. So the one next door heard a woman's voice coming from room 100. The woman inside room 100 was moaning and she sounded like. Like she was alone.

[A]

How does that.

[B]

I think those walls are real thin.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

But interestingly, room 102 didn't report shouting or fighting or any other disturbance. However, she does live on the first floor of the Chelsea Hotel, so I don't think we can.

[A]

Yeah, a room, you know, a hotel full of witnesses, all certified unreliable.

[B]

Yes, and the plot thickens yet again. At 9.30am, the Chelsea's front desk got a call from an outside line saying that there was trouble in room 100. So the manager on the desk sent a bellhop upstairs to see what was going on. And after the bellhop left, the manager got another call from Sid Vicious saying that his girlfriend was hurt and needed an ambulance. Sid was also seen at 10:30am entering the hotel. Where he'd been wasn't clear. And then at 10:45 the police were there and they arrested Sid Vicious. His lip was split, his right eye was puffy and swollen from his bellhop beating. And his perp walk photos, he looked really, really rough. You've probably seen them. He looks exactly like the kind of low life who would have killed his junkie girlfriend with an 11 inch knife. But what if he didn't?

[A]

So yes, there are plenty of alternatives. And of course, many of the above accounts come from individuals and often fairly, as I said, unreliable witnesses. But if we take this timeline, what could have happened? Well, one theory goes that it was a hit said was a star on the verge of being signed by virgin. Anyone with an interest in his career wanted Nancy gone. Practically everyone in his life back home had been furiously watching her suck the life out of him for years. Hitting him, screaming insults at him, keeping him on the smack. And while the list of Nancy haters is a long one, Malcolm McLaren's name is often thrown into the ring. He had tried to get rid of.

[B]

Her before, multiple times, not non violently.

[A]

And as for the hired killer, well, people came and went from the Chelsea all the time. It'd be very easy to slip out unnoticed.

[B]

And let's briefly revisit Victor Coluccio's mystery S man. There was a roadie drug dealer called Skip Wayne, and he fits the bill very nicely for this mystery intruder. He was known to have sold drugs to Nancy before. He would have had no problem getting into the room. And it's easy to believe that a pissed off dealer could have lost his cool and stabbed her. Maybe she owed him money, maybe he just wanted her cash. All of these are very reasonable assumptions, but the reality is there could have been any number of criminals coming in and out of room 100 within those lost 12 hours. When the police dusted for prints, they found six sets that weren't Sid's or Nancy's. But mostly, when talking about real alternative suspects to who killed Nancy, the name that comes up time and again is a memorable one. Rockets Red Glare. Writer Phil Strongman, who wrote the book Pretty Vacant on this case, is convinced that it was Rockets that stabbed Nancy for her cash while Sid slept. And Ned Vanzant told police that he saw Rocket's red glare with loads of money tied up with a purple hairband. And Rockets tried to kill Ned Van Zant a few weeks after Sid was arrested.

[A]

And that's not all. On the day before Nancy was killed, Rockets Red Blair was reportedly in a bar begging drinkers to lend him a dollar for a beer. But the next day, he was seen in brand new clothes, spending money all over the East Village. One witness even saw him in a bar with a wad of blood stained banknotes. And that's not all either. Rockets confessed to the murder, not to the police. But over the next few decades, he would tell multiple people in confidence that he had killed Nancy Spungeon for her cash. He, even, just before he died, approached several people trying to sell what he called a snuff film of Nancy's death. Perhaps it was just a last ditch attempt to cash in on his proximity to the infamous murder. But Rocket's red glare certainly had the means, motive and opportunity.

[B]

Yeah, I think with any sort of, like, infamous murder like this, there are always gonna be confessing Toms and like, I don't doubt that he could be just lying and trying to, like, make money off the fact that he knew her. Yeah, but I could also see it. I think he absolutely could have done it. I don't know. I buy the bloodstained banknotes thing, but, like, I can see it either way.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Anyway, for the police, it was Sid all the way. He was charged with second degree murder, but the evidence was quite weak. There were no reliable witnesses and shady folk coming and going. Other suspects just couldn't be ruled out. So Sid was granted bail at $50,000. Malcolm McLaren hounded the bosses at Virgin Records to stump up the cash. And amazingly, they did. Before you're too impressed. Though, lifelong grifter Malcolm McLaren didn't waste any time cashing in on the tragedy. Within days of the arrest, he'd already started selling T shirts with Sid's face on them that read, she's dead, I'm alive, I'm yours. Okay? Did he fuck.

[A]

Fuck it.

[B]

Sid also found himself being represented by hotshot lawyer F. Lee Bailey. That arrangement was secretly funded by none other than Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger.

[A]

How.

[B]

And that is star power.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

Talent. That's my ass.

[A]

So Sid was out after three days, and he was not well at all, as you can imagine, despite his showbiz connections. He drifted around Manhattan, staying with friends. His mum Ann had flown in to take care of him, which we're putting in the world's largest air quotes, because what she actually did was supply him with heroin. After this, Sid became more and more erratic and sunk into a deep depression. He told Nancy's mum that he'd Made Nancy a promise. If anything happened to her, he'd kill himself. And he seemed hell bent on sticking to his word. A week after his arrest, Sid unscrewed the lightbulb in his hotel room, smashed it and slashed his wrists. When he was found, he screamed, I want to go to Nancy now. I don't want to carry on. Later, he tried to jump out of a window. He then spent a month in Bellevue Hospital psychiatric ward.

[B]

Almost as soon as he got out of Bellevue, he was rearrested. He'd broken his probation and the investigation had thrown up some fresh evidence against him. So he was sent to Rikers island. And actually, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. He was whacked on a methadone program. And this time, for the first time, it worked. Sid Vicious was drug free for weeks at a time. His mood shifted. He was calmer, more reflective. And even after he was released on bail, for a while, he stayed clean. He went to shows, he hung out with friends and said he was working on a new album. He even got himself a new girlfriend, a nice one called Michelle Robertson. While Nancy had been depressed and angry and difficult, Michelle was a bit more stable. Fine. It wasn't like completely fine. He did have a little slip up in January 1978 when he smashed a bottle over the head of Patti Smith's brother. So straight back to Rikers he went. But again, it was good for him. This time he was totally clean for over a month. His legal team were getting ready for trial and they felt like they had a pretty good shot of winning. According to his friends, Sid was jovial, happy and contemplating a bright future. A future that would never come all down to his dear old mum, Anne.

[A]

On the 1st of February, the day after Sid left Rikers island after 55 days, his mates threw him a jail springing party at Michelle's apartment. Members of the Misfits and the New York Dolls came over, as did his mum, Anne, who served up a spaghetti bolognese. And as a gift, Anne gave her son a wrap of heroin.

[B]

I think, and maybe this is just being autistic, but I think I could quite happily only eat spaghetti Bolognese for the rest of my life. I think that's why I don't really care about restaurants that much.

[A]

That is very autistic, because I'm just.

[B]

Like, oh, like, no, this is fine, we're having a nice time, but like, I'd actually rather just be eating spaghetti bolognese. That's fair enough, that I have to make no one else.

[A]

Okay, okay.

[B]

Only I know how to do it.

[A]

Got it. Fuck it, man. Eat what you like. That's what I believe.

[B]

I can't just eat spaghetti Bolognese for the rest of my life. The size of a house.

[A]

Don't eat spaghetti Bolognese for the rest of your life. But I think it's okay to feel like you only want to eat spaghetti Bolognese for the rest of your life.

[B]

Sometimes I'm like, how far could I push it?

[A]

What's your like, Max, in a row, eating spaghetti bolognaise?

[B]

I've never allowed myself to try.

[A]

Oh. Oh. What do you think would happen? What do you think you could do forever? There is no limit.

[B]

Limit does not exist.

[A]

So, yes, she makes up her spaghetti Bolognese.

[B]

She's like, here.

[A]

Here you go. Here's a wrap of heroin. Does heroin make you hungry?

[B]

No. Makes you constipated.

[A]

Oh, God. Heroin and a spaghetti Bolognese. That sounds fucking horrible. Oh. Anyway, it's such a horrible thing that she gives him this, though, because Sid had been a month clean by this point. But of course, you know it's a gift from Mummy, so he took it and immediately shot up and later, as you can imagine, demanded more and more. So his friend, a man named Codrick, left to get some. Why? Well, Anne said that if they didn't, then Sid would just have left to get it himself, which would violate his curfew.

[B]

I feel like Anne might have wanted some more heroin.

[A]

Yeah, fuck him.

[B]

Well.

[A]

Well, it's like that thing where it's like, well, if your child wanted heroin, would you give it to them? And I was like, yes, yeah. Yes, I would.

[B]

He loves heroin.

[A]

He fucking loves heroin. I love heroin. Of course I would.

[B]

Super. Cut that so we can send it to all the people on the Internet convinced of your addiction.

[A]

I can't believe I forgot that you guys thought I was addicted to heroin. That's just the best thing ever. Anyway, Codrick returned from this little heroin run just before midnight and the stuff he'd picked up was unbelievably strong, 98% pure. Sid couldn't resist. And after 55 days, cold turkey, his tolerance was down. So he immediately overdosed and started to turn blue.

[B]

To be clean for 55 days and your mum to just be like, straight.

[A]

Away, that fucking bitch, man. Oh, gross. So, yeah, he's turning blue. His friends dragged him to his feet and shoved Percocet in his mouth and walked him round until he eventually came to. After this, Sid apologised To everyone. And the party was over. Everyone apart from his new girlfriend and mum, Anne went home. But by the morning, Sid Vicious was dead. His naked body was found at 5.30am, surrounded by a syringe, a spoon and a bag of 98% pure heroin. He was 21 years old.

[B]

Fucking wild.

[A]

That's unbelievable.

[B]

It's a lot of life to have lived by 21. Ann later told police that Sid must have got up in the night, found the stash and shot up again. The coroner's report, however, made it very clear that Sid had been helped. His own mother gave him the shot of heroin that killed him.

[A]

Why, like, obviously she smacked out of her head, but why, like, surely in a purely cynical sense, he's your fucking cash cow.

[B]

I don't think she wanted him to die.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think she possibly just miscalculated how long he had been clean for. And, yeah, it's an easy, easy mistake to wait. We've all mis. Prescribed heroin to our sons, you know.

[A]

Killed them by accident. Yeah, it's just all so depressing. Yeah, I feel like I need to go have a shower and a bowl of spaghetti Bolognese.

[B]

In the end, Sid was cremated. Where he ended up depends on who you ask. His friends claimed that they wanted to honour his wishes of being next to Nancy forever. But since her remains were in a closed Jewish cemetery that would never accept Sid Vicious. They had to improvise. So they drove down there themselves. And on the way, Howie Pyro, a bassist in various bands, suggested that they all snort Sid's ashes.

[A]

What?

[B]

I mean, they're not the first people to have that idea.

[A]

Did they do it?

[B]

He did. No one else joined in.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

So that just means that. Just the world's loudest awkward silence I can imagine. Fuck me. And then when he realized that no one else was gonna partake, they all jumped the cemetery fence and Sid and Nancy were reunited.

[A]

I'm gonna say little life hack, if you're gonna suggest something completely mental, don't be the first one to do it. Make someone else do it and then do it.

[B]

If you are the person who's going to be suggesting the thing that is mental, your impulse control might not be that strong.

[A]

Quite true. Sid's mother, Anne, tells another story about how it all went down. She told Johnny Rotten that she took Sid's ashes on a plane back to London, and true to form, she hid two bags of heroin in her son's fucking earn. This woman just will not stop. Apparently, when she got to Heathrow, she panicked and threw the whole thing down an air conditioning shaft. Right.

[B]

I've spent a lot of fucking time at Heathrow. Not once have I seen an open air conditioning shaft that I could hurl an urn down.

[A]

What is she on about? So, yeah, it's one of those chills that we don't know if it's true, but we kind of hope it's the first one. At least it ended up with just bit of Sid getting snorted by his mate rather than getting shoved down a fucking air conditioning shaft at Heathrow. So after her son's death, Ann moved to Derbyshire and carried on selling drugs and started playing in a punk band called Road Rage. And they'd end every show by playing Sid Vicious version of My Way.

[B]

The only thing sicker than killing your own son with heroin is dining out on his legacy for the rest of your life.

[A]

She's gross. But she didn't kick around for too long because one night Anne went home after a gig, shot up and died at the age of 58.

[B]

Despite their short lives, Sid and Nancy's reputations are etched into the cultural landscape, consciousness, whatever you want to call it, for ever. And they ain't going nowhere. And in a way, whichever version of the story you believe, it was inevitable that it would come to an end like this. Johnny Rotten later said what we're all thinking, her death, as in Nancy's, is all entangled in mystery. It's no real mystery, though. If you're going to get yourself involved in drugs and narcotics in that way, accidents are going to happen. And I think he's right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think Malcolm McLaren fucking knew that. Here's what I think happened. Right.

[A]

Hit me.

[B]

I don't think Syd accidentally stabbed Nancy in any sort of way. I think that Rocket's red glare, or someone else, was put up by Malcolm McLaren to get rid of Nancy.

[A]

I can buy it. He saw her as the big stumbling block. Thing is, I can buy any of these things happen.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Which is why it's obviously such a mystery.

[B]

And you can't argue that they didn't die as they lived.

[A]

No.

[B]

Doing exactly what they wanted, whenever they wanted to do it.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Your mum killing you with heroin, though.

[A]

Is just very, very miserable. It really does feel like a. You know when we were in New Zealand and we did that little, like, who killed this person Mystery pack.

[B]

Oh, God, yeah.

[A]

It feels like a story written for that.

[B]

It does, doesn't it?

[A]

Because there's just so many possible people that could have done it. So that's it guys. Let us know who you think did it. I know that feels like such a terribly hacky little plug at the end, but I am curious. I've had a very interesting time recording this episode though.

[B]

I feel like I've learned a lot.

[A]

Hopefully you guys guys have. Let us know what you think and we will see you next week for another episode of Red Handed.

[B]

Go and listen to the Sex Pistols, please. If you haven't, especially if you haven't, because otherwise they don't let you into Britain at custom. Bye Bye. In the fall of 1620, a battered merchant ship called the Mayflower set sail across the Atlantic. It carried 102 men, women and children, risking it all to start again in the new world. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of American Historytellers. Every week we take you through the moments that shaped America. And in our latest season, we explore.

[A]

The untold story of the Pilgrims, one.

[B]

That goes far beyond the familiar, familiar tale of the first Thanksgiving. After landing at Cape Cod, the Pilgrims.

[A]

Forged an unlikely alliance with the Wampanoag people, who helped the Pilgrims survive the.

[B]

Most brutal winter they'd ever known, laying the foundation for a powerful national myth. But behind that story lies another one of conflict, betrayal, and brutal violence against the very people who helped the Pilgrim survive. Follow American Historytellers on the Wonder Yam or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of American HistoryTeller's the Mayflower early and ad free right now on Wondery. How hard is it to kill a planet?

[A]

Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot.

[B]

Of carbon pumped into the atmosphere.

[A]

When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

[B]

Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our tap.

[A]

And crimes like that, they don't just we call things accidents. There is no accident.

[B]

This was 100% preventable.

[A]

They're the result of choices by people.

[B]

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.

[A]

These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet. Stories of scams, murders and cover ups.

[B]

That are about us and the things.

[A]

We'Re doing to either protect the earth or destroy it.

[B]

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app.

[A]

Or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of.

[B]

Lawless Planet early and ad free right.

[A]

Now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.