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NANCY SPUNGEN
1958-1978 |
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 October 12 1978_________________________________________________________________________ (see also: Newspapers, Sid Vicious clippings, Scrapbook) After accidentally setting their mattress on fire in their original room at the Chelsea Hotel, Nancy and Sid were moved to room 100. They spent most of their time wasted on drugs, getting visits from drug dealers and friends like Rockets Redglare and DeeDee Ramone. They had entered a methadone clinic, where Sid was often threatened, attacked and beaten up by other addicts: Sid in turn beat up Nancy (In London he had already half ripped off her ear and broken her nose). Nancy bought Sid a knife to protect himself, but less than 24 hours later, that same knife had been used to fatally stab her in the abdomen. Sid was arrested. While it's possible someone else killed Nancy, we will never know for sure. The New York police closed the books on Nancy's death after Sid himself died of a heroin overdose four months later, awaiting trial for her murder. No one else was ever charged. This is a time-line of the events leading up to Nancy's death in October 1978. (Note: Accounts vary depending on source, and might not be completely accurate) ___________________________________________________________________________ Sunday Oct 8: Nancy calls her mother, to ask for money. Sid gets on the phone, very angry: they demand $3000 dollars to be sent immediately. Deborah refuses to send it, as she doesn't have the money. Nancy calls back later that same day to apologize, saying she might come home, she's hit the bottom, and could Deborah check out a detox hospital in Pennsylvania for her and Sid. (Deborah did call the hospital the following day, but was told to call back later in the week. She made a note in her calendar to contact them again on Oct 12) ___________________________________________________________________________ Wednesday Oct 11: Evening: Nancy goes shopping with Sid, Stiv Bators and Neon Leon, and buys a five-inch folding knife in a knife shop in Times Square. It's a gift for Sid: they attend the Spring Street Methadone Clinic, where Sid is often beaten up by other addicts. The knife is for protection. 9.45 pm: Nancy and Sid visits musician friend Neon Leon (Webster) and Cathi O'Rourke in room 119. Sid is depressed about himself, saying: "I'm ugly. I can't play bass.", he has no future. He's showing off his new knife, putting it to his face. Nancy walks around the room, asking for drugs: "Come up with some drugs! Good drugs!". On hearing Sid's moaning, she turns around and says "Fuck off", then proceeds to compare muscles, claiming she is stronger than Sid: she carried him up from the restaurant. 12.00 am: Nancy and Sid leave room 119: Neon Leon later goes clubbing (he returns to the Chelsea at 3.30), Cathi goes to work as a go-go dancer in New Jersey. ___________________________________________________________________________ Thursday Oct 12: 12. 15 am: Sid returns to Neon Leon's room with two gold records and a leather jacket for Neon to look after. He also gets his knife that he left behind earlier. 2.30 am: Rockets Redglare receives a phone call at his home in Queens from Nancy, asking him to bring some Dilaudids (:synthetic morphine/ D-4s) and needles to their room at the Chelsea. 3. 05 am: Lisą Garcia, in room 103, next door to room 100, hears loud knocking on Sid and Nancy's door, and a man shouting: "Let me in. Let me in. I'm not playing!" Lisą gets scared and goes to bed. 3. 15 am: Redglare arrives with or without drugs, depending on source. He later says Nancy and Sid were high on Tuinal, but they wanted to inject Dilaudid. He also says Nancy showed him her handbag full of 50 and 100 dollar notes. She said she had $1, 400 to spend on drugs. He took several hundred dollars and promised to deliver drugs later. 4. 00 am: Neon Leon receives a phone call from Nancy asking for marijuana, she says Sid's crashing out: they are both high on Tuinals. 4.15 am: Neon Leon hears four or five loud knocks on a door down the hall. 4.45 am: Neon Leon hears something fall on the floor in the hallway: "Something that made a metallic, tinny sound, maybe a knife" 4.55 am: Redglare leaves room 100 and spots Steve Cincotti, Nancy and Sid's "regular Quaalude and Tuinal dealer", entering the elevator in the lobby. (Cincotti in a police statement says he delivered Tuinal and left). 5 am: The guest in room 228 (the floor above) calls the front desk to complain about all the noise coming from downstairs. The desk clerk sends bellboy Kenny, who finds Sid wandering the halls, noisy and unruly. Sid challenges Kenny to a fight, coming at him with a fist while racially abusing him. Kenny beats him up. When Sid is on the floor he says to Kenny: "Is this what you do to a drunk?" 5.15 am: Kenny returns to the lobby. 7.30 am: Vera Mendelssohn in room 102 wakes up by the sound of a woman moaning in room 100. She later says: "(The sound was) coming from a person who was alone". Mendelssohn gets frightened and does not investigate. "It didn't sound as though someone was with her, because she didn't call someone's name. She was just moaning." When the moaning stops, Mendelssohn goes back to sleep. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Crime scene picture from October 12 1978; Sid outside room 100, shortly before his arrest for Nancy's murder; Nancy's body is taken away from the Chelsea Hotel. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 9.30 am-11.30 am: Herman Ramos, the Chelsea Hotel desk clerk, receives an outside call from an unidentified man saying "There's trouble in room 100". Ramos sends day bellboy Charlie to the room. Moments later Sid calls the front desk from room 100, saying "Someone is sick, need help." Charlie enters the room, and finds Nancy dead under the sink in the bathroom, wearing only black underwear, and soaked in blood. The bed in the room is also blood-stained. Ramos calls for an ambulance, that arrives shortly after with the police. 10.30 am: Sid is seen in the hallway, heading towards his room (witnessed by the guest in room 105). (A police report says this is the time Sid woke up, found her body, and not knowing she was dead, he went to a clinic to get her methadone, then came back to find she was soaked in blood.) 10.45 am: Paramedics and police arrive. 11 am-3 am: The police investigating room 100 find drugs and drug paraphernalia (needles), and a blood-stained folding knife with a five-inch blade. They do not find the money that Rockets Redglare later talks about. The police soon finds Sid in the hallway, crying and agitated. He's face looks as if he's been beaten, he's obviously high on drugs. The police photographer, who has just taken pictures of the mess in room 100 and of Nancy's body, takes a picture of Sid in the corridor. Sid is talking to neighbour Vera Mendelssohn, saying: "I killed her. I can't live without her..."  .gif) .gif) .gif)  ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Newspaper poster; Documents cont. He's confused, and giving different statements: "She must have fallen on the knife." / "I stabbed her but I didn't mean to kill her." When the police ask him why he left her in the bathroom (to go and get methadone) he says: "Oh, I'm a dog". Resisting arrest, Sid is subdued and put in handcuffs, and in the afternoon he's charged with second-degree homicide. 5.20 pm: Nancy's body is removed from the Chelsea Hotel in a green body bag. ___________________________________________________________________________ Friday Oct 13: Frank Spungen travels from Philadelphia to New York and identifies the body as being that of his 20-year old daughter Nancy. Nancy's belongings are examined soon after at the Chief Medical Examiner's office in New York by chief examiner Dr. Michael Baden, and Dr. Geeta Natarajan. ___________________________________________________________________________ Sunday Oct 15: Nancy's funeral takes place at King David Cemetary, Bensalem, Pennsylvania. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ NANCY'S GRAVE ________________________________________________________________________________________________________  The Hebrew text underneath Nancy's name reads: "Chaya Lea daughter of Ephraim Aharon", Nancy and Frank Spungen's Jewish names. Nancy is buried at King David Cemetary in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Picture/Translation ©Nick Kushner ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
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