RedHanded - Sid & Nancy: Punk Rock Homicide | #426

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

When Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious woke up in a pool of his girlfriend’s blood, most people thought they knew the score. Sid & Nancy were famous across the world: the ultimate dysfunctional, smack-addicted punk power couple – and their reckless lifestyle was bound to end in tragedy.But they were far from the only people in Room 100 of the infamous Chelsea Hotel that night. With a building full of shady characters coming and going; thousands of dollars in cash nowhere to be found; an endless list of dangerous enemies with a lot to gain; and enough drugs to make a blue whale see god: it’s the rock’n’roll mystery that just won’t quit.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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What if I told you that the crime of the century is the one being waged on our planet? Introducing Lawless Planet, Wondry's new podcast exploring the dark side of the climate crisis. Uncover shocking tales of crime and corruption threatening our world's future. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. Fleeing persecution, a small band of pilgrims set sail across the Atlantic, risking everything to start again in the new world. But behind that story lies another, one of conflict, betrayal, and brutal violence

against the very people who help them survive. Listen to American history tellers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Surruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red-Handed. Reference. Hey, ha.

Let's go. Okay. Punk edition. I'm like, line. Cultural reference, please. Yes, please. I know nothing about anything of which we're going to discuss over the next hour and a bit. How nothing?

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. Yeah. And that's it. I think you're going to surprise yourself. Oh, I like when that happens.

I think you know more than you think you do. Okay, okay. Well, let's find out. On the 12th of October in 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 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 hell-raiser and when he paired up with loud-mouthed groupie Nancy Spungeon they became the ultimate, loved-up, dysfunctional punk power couple. 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 Spongan's blood. Much, much, much worse. 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. Jesus. Okay, can I tell you a story that I was going to say for Under the Duve? And I'll bring pictures to Under the Duvee because it's to do with what you're talking about. What, getting stabbed with an 11-inch folding knife? What have you been doing with us? 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, yeah, cool, here are the bed sheets. And then I was like, I'm going to 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. 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 Surruti's mystery sheets, come listen to Under the Dufu. But for now we have another arguably more interesting mystery for you. Yes. Who killed Nancy Sponsion?

That is more interesting. In the grand scheme of things, I appreciate that. 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 sea god. This is one rock and roll story that you don't want to miss. The man who would become Sid Vicious was born in Lewisham Hospital

on May the 10th, 1957. And he was christened Simon John Ritchie. His mum and Jeanette MacDonald was just 25, and she'd already been married, got divorced and joined the RAF. She's packing it in. Getting it done. Classic 50s. For now.

She very quickly stops doing things, I must add. Yes. And it was when she joined the RAF that she met John George Ritchie, Simon's father. After the pair left the RAF, Richie guarded Buckingham Palace by day and played jazz trombone in smoky bars by night. Even early on in baby Simon's life, Daddy Richie would leave his new family for weeks on end.

Eventually, Richie 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 Richie, well, he never turned up. Simon's father never sent any money and was never seen again. That left Anne 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 slash Sid was a hitmaker out the gate,

constantly singing songs and impressing locals with the Spanish swear words that he learnt. Anne, 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 society, Diet or Scourge had a lot to do with Anne's rock-bottom parenting. It's already sounding quite Charles Mansonie. Yeah, worse, I would argue. She never tried to sell him for a picture 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. Fucking hell. The drug meal parenting. Exactly. 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 shoe 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 Drory Lane I would add Back then rough as fuck Got it Horrendous

Like Not close to what it is now. Sure, sure. Not even in the same universe. 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 Clissall 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 life-like sketches. But much more importantly, this is where he met John Leiden. Soon to be known as Johnny Rotten, future frontman of the sex pistols and eventual butter peddler.

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 What have you become Johnny Rotten but what have I become why am I what

like what what have we all become but I my favourite Johnny Rotten moment of all time is him calling

the British public's cunts on I'm a celebrity to remember that live TV I do remember beautiful

when we were still the best at reality TV back then in the golden 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. came Sid Vicious. It's like a Spider-Man origin story. 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 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. I know. I'm writing a short hand on Akanatin right now. I don't know what that word means. 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 Tutankhammon's dad. Oh, was he? Very overshadowed by his son. But, you know, fun story. I'll tell you about it on shorthand. Thanks. Back home on Jewelry 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. Yeah, it's very depressing, isn't it? 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. I like that that's the bit she's saying out loud. So imagine what she really said. Mm-hmm. Well, it's painting him. as an evil influence, isn't it? Not something she created. Sure, sure.

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 Jory 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. 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 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. Capitals, capital letters, capital sex. Yes, capital S, capital E, capital X. Sex was a clothes shop owned by Malcolm McLaren and Vivian Westwood. See, I told you, you know more than you think. Vivian 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. Vivian 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 going to create the look of this subculture and sell it to you. Absolutely.

Create the problem, sell the solution. Look, I'm a big fan of Vivian, but yeah, absolutely. The idea that you're like selling back punk, I mean, yeah, you've got to laugh. You've got a laugh at the irony there. As well as dog collars and whips and fetish wear, sex sold counterculture t-shirts, ripped jeans and accessories as well.

I see. So they are the precursor to Tammy Girl, where we got our dog collars and ripped jeans and punky slogan t-shirts. 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 call themselves the swankers. And after McLaren added bassist Glenn Matlock to the line-up, 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. Sid Vicious was already a regular at sex,

mostly dealing from the back room. Knowing a star when she saw one, Vivian Westwood urged McLaren to take the storeroom Speed Slinger on as the front man. I had no idea that Vivian Westwood was the Simon Cowell of Sid Vicious. This is wild. She kind of is.

Malcolm McLaren's definitely the Louis Walsh. Sure, sure, sure. A bit more sort of like hitman hiring, a bit more schemy. But he's like he's the on-site manager. Vivian's the ideas, gal. 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. 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. So can he sing? Why is he lip syncing? He can't sing. Got it, got it. It's punk, you don't need to. 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. 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 very anti-establishments.

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 snared 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's approval meant everything. Which again just doesn't feel very punk. It's incredibly punk. Is it? Because this idea of like you're looking for approval from somebody of... One person. Okay, okay. The punkest of the punk.

Okay, fine. But you know what I mean, this idea of like, It's meant to be like, I don't give a shit where anyone thinks, but I care what you think is. I know, I don't think I agree. 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. 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 art. archetype of your community makes sense I think and he looked good so everyone started to dress like Sid and he was also a 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 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 frontmen jumping around would just be ridiculous. So Sid scored some speed and stayed up for three days, listening to the Ramon's first album on repeat and only seeping when he could play the bass part. I love, I fucking love that. Can't do it, not sleep until I can. That's straight out of the Hannah Maguire book of how to learn things.

Hey man, I respect that. You've got to 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 indiscriminate. 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 seems to be a lot more vibes-based than specific musical talent. 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 the MI 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 so wiftly cancelled. As were all of their future gigs. But outrage was their stock in trade, and it only fuelled 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 basest. Terrible, terrible, inexcusable, unrescuable, unrescuable,

inadmissible. awful but showman straight vibes 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 going to 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. 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 Lindsay Graham, the host of American history tellers. Every week we take

you through the moments that shaped America, and in our latest season, we explore the untold story of the Pilgrims, one that goes far beyond the familiar tale of the first Thanksgiving. After landing at Cape Cod, the Pilgrims forged an unlikely alliance with the Wapinog people who helped the pilgrims survive the 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 help the Pilgrim survive.

Follow American History Tellers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of American History Tellers The Mayflower early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus. Picture this. You're standing on the beach when you notice something strange. The horizon doesn't look right. At first, all you can see is a thin white line.

line stretching as far as your eyes can see. Then the line starts to rise. But it's not the horizon at all. It's a wave, a 30-foot wall of water, and it's racing straight toward you. On the day after Christmas in 2004, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Indonesia, triggering a devastating tsunami. It struck Thailand without warning. No alarms, no cell phone alerts, no evacuation. In this season of Against the Odds, experience one of the deadliest natural disasters in history through the perspectives of those who did everything they could to survive. Follow Against the Odds on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Against the Odds tsunami in Thailand early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.

So, press pause on our London story for now. And let's start again. This time in the well-to-do Philadelphia suburbs in February 1958. Nancy Spungent had a wildly different start to Sid. Her family was comfortable, stable, respected in the community. But that's not to say it was an easy ride. Nancy was an incredibly difficult child from the very beginning. She'd have endless screaming tantrums and lash out in violent fits,

making life a living hell for her siblings and parents. At their wits end, the Spongens took young Nancy to a doctor, who prescribed her phenobarbital. That's right. They gave phenobarbital to a toddler. Today, phenobarbital is sold under the brand named Luminol and is an extremely strong barbiturate and anti-epileptic. Also, one of my favourite drag queens is called Fina Barbatol.

Oh, that's a good name. Shout out of Fina. Now, when this prescription didn't calm the chaos, successive doctors prescribed more and more drugs. To no effect. Nancy was kicked out of her public school age 11 and packed off to Devereaux, 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. Wow, they're so specific. Which in a school for children with emotional and behavioural issues to the extreme. Yeah, that's quite something.

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 Devereux 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 only. Shag as many rock stars as humanly possible. Okay, equally depressing. And she went on to become a sort of super-groupy, 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'd just shagged Iggy Pop, I would ring everybody I'd ever met. This is what I mean. What she's doing, as depressing as it all sounds, she's doing the best of it. Oh yeah, and people hated her for it. And I had to Google image her because I actually didn't know what Nancy looked like. Do we think Courtney Love was inspired by the Nancy Spongan look?

Absolutely. But Nancy was the first one to look like Nancy. Got it. So, so, so many women, knowingly or not, have based themselves on Nancy Sponger. 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 in Memorial 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 group. 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. 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. 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 entombed. trouble. By this point, 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 Spungeon was tired. And a change is as good as a break. So, she changed strategy. Her new goal was to go to England. get a rock star boyfriend and bring him back to New York. Okay. It's a plan.

She did. It worked. And so, in December, 1976, Nancy flew to London and started hanging around in the other Chelsea, our Chelsea, on the King's Road. She knew how the scene worked. 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 Spungeon 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. Yeah, they look like a Halloween costume.

I'm sure they have. 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 Sid 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. 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. Another Courtney Love comparison also. But did she shoot him? I don't think so.

I don't think so either. I really don't. No. Courtney, come on the show. I love you. So 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 Ors's money went straight into his arm,

McLaren limited his payment from Sex Pistols royalties. Which, like, arguably, not a terrible management move from Pals. punkler we want. 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.

Yeah, absolutely worrying things are happening and I think people around Sid 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-okay. A-okay. A dream to work with had she never shown up. 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. So why would she go anywhere? McLaren was determined, however, to solve the Nancy problem. So he, McLaren, arranged for Nancy Spungian

to be run over by a car. He even bought Nancy a one-way ticket to New York. And while Sid 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. June 177 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 traitor's gate. Oh my God.

You're just adding to it. Exactly. It's beautiful. It's just, uh, I love it. Hoisted by your own pittard. 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. 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 bum-fucked towns

in the deep south. The Sex Pistols played a series of honky-tong country bars to rednecks and 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. I strongly suspect it is option B.

Yeah. 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-witrawl. 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. I do think it's an interesting thing to, like, have built this whole thing on punk and counterculture, and then expect everyone to turn up on time and sober. Like, come on. Now, before the Dala show on the 10th of 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. Yeah. Like, that's part of the deal. 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 the 14th of 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. 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 zeitgeisty 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. In other words, Sid in Nancy Paradise. With drug dealers just down the landing, they lived in a constant haze of weed, 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 try 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 of 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 night. In the 70s. Yeah. And it's not like their overheads are high. But he was a mess on stage, barely able to finish a song.

But the crowds were electric. and the money propped up their two-gram-a-day heroin habit, which to Sid and Nancy was truly all that mattered. 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 show. And both of those things did no one's paranoia any favours. Nancy bought her boyfriend, Sid, a Jaguar K-11 knife for protection. And just over 24 hours after she bought it, that knife would be sunk into her own chest. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly.

And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well researched. Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group. With a touch of humor. Shout out to her.

Shout out to all my therapists out there's been eight of them. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. That mother f***er is not real. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tail of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the way back machine and dissect the details of some of history,

's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast. Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondery app

or on Apple Podcasts. How hard is it to kill a planet? Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our time. And crimes like that, they don't just happen. We call things accidents. There is no accident. This was 100% preventable. They're the result of choices by people.

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime. These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet. Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us. And the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 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 Tuinal, a prescription sedative hypnotic.

Which like Quayludes, you can't get anymore. One of the Guilford Four was on two and all when he was arrested. It is so fucking hard. It's not even prescribed medically anymore. 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 30-30 to annals. He stayed awake for another few hours. Just fucking heroic, how? But by 1 a.m., 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 inals that he slept through the night. Whatever had happened to Nancy, I hadn't woken him up.

He was out cold until about 9.30 a.m. When he woke up in a pool of Nancy's blood. 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 and 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. Sid was charged with second-degree murder. At the station, Sid changed his tune. He claimed that when he first discovered Nancy, she was breathing all right, 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 realized Nancy just wasn't going to stop bleeding, he called for help. And he also insisted that he absolutely

did not stop her. Then he changed his story again. In version 3, Sid said that he'd had a fight with the bellboy out in the hall. I love that the Chelsea Hotel has Bellboy is. Hey man. When you're strung off your tits, you're not going to move your own shit, are you? Absolutely not. So yeah, he says he had 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 Sid, 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, that he probably was. 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 Sid stabbed Nancy, you can take your pick of theories. There's a suicide pact. Sid 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. 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? 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, that is a symbol of being in a sub-dom relationship. And I don't doubt that, like, they engaged in nine. 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 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, 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 2 a.m., Nancy called a man named Rockets Redglare. 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 Sitz. In fact, he became addicted to heroin while still in the womb. And after he was born, doctors gave him opiates in his baby form. me there to wean him off. He was also beaten by his drug-addicted stepfather, who later killed his mother. But that didn't stop Morrow becoming a comedian and even starring in a film with Madonna. Can't keep a good man down.

I don't think he's a good man. I think he's quite possibly responsible for Nazi's death, actually. I mean, yes, bad people. Lots of bad people doing bad things in this story. But what I will say is it's a tale that if nothing else tells you, that no matter how shit and fucked up your start is, you can be anything you want. Even if you have no talent as well. By 1978, Rocket's red glare was Sida 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 the hotel room. In the 70s, how much fucking. drugs can you buy for that amount of money? That's bonkers. If you're Sid and Nancy, not enough. Clearly.

What Nancy wanted that night was delorted, 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 3.30 a.m. And that Sid was shouting at Nancy. Sid and Nancy's regular Kweilud and to an old dealer Steve C told a reporter much later that Sid and Nancy came to his room at 4 a.m. All of these people live in the Chelsea Hotel.

It's kind of like student halls of horror. And very American Horror Story Hotel as well. Oh, yeah. Rockets Red Glair also says that he saw Steve C in the building entering a lift just before 5am. I've got to say. We've covered a lot of kids. 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 probably, yeah, yeah, there's just fucking out of their tree on all sorts. It was around 5 a.m. Everyone's got to watch. Everyone's just like having a little look, a little check, just in case I need to

remember this for some reason later. That's just a little sprinkle of skepticism on my part that I'm going to throw out there. You're allowed it. Thank you. 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 Rockets 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, for Skippy or Stevie. But I'm inclined to believe him more than anyone else because he's like, oh, not sure. What's 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, Coliccio fled to the Bronx, terrified that this mystery S-man would come and find him.

Yeah, I mean, you couldn't really describe a more high-risk lifestyle than what's going on here. I don't think you could describe a more perfect environment to get away with murder. Also true. Malcolm McLaren. Now Kenneth West, the poor fucking long-suffering, no doubt, Bellboy at the Chelsea Hotel. There's a reason he's there. He's getting something out of it, I'm sure.

True, true. You don't have to be a B-Doh to want to work with kids, but it probably helps. I don't think everyone who works with kids as a penis I did. It's just a little joke. I certainly do.

So yes, Kenneth the bellboy testified under oath that he did indeed scrap with Sid that night just as Sid had said. And this is what went down. At about 5 a.m.,

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 Wes 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 blue. According to the autopsy, Nancy was stabbed between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. And she died between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. And this random room invasion is the last reported sighting of Sid for the all-important next few hours. 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. Sure. At 7.30 a.m., 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 she was alone. How does that? I think those walls are real thin. Sure.

But interestingly, Room 102 didn't report shouting or fighting 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... Yeah. A room, you know, a hotel full of witnesses all certified unreliable. Yes. And the plot thickens yet again. At 9.30 a.m., 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 bell 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 10.30 a.m. entering the hotel. Where he'd been wasn't clear.

And then at 1045 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 purple walk photos, he looks 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? 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.

Sid 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. Yeah, tried to get rid of her before.

multiple times not non-violently and as for the hired killer well people came and went from the Chelsea all the time it would be very easy to slip out unnoticed and let's briefly revisit Victor

Coluccio's mystery S-man there was a roadie slash 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 call 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 SIDS 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 Glair.

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 Van Zant told police that he saw Rockets Red Glair with loads of money tied up with a purple hair band. And Rockets tried to kill Ned Van Zant a few weeks after Sid was arrested. And that's not all. On the day before Nancy was killed,

Rocket's red glare 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 Spungan 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 Rockets Red Glair certainly had the means, motive and opportunity. Yeah, I think with any sort of like infamous murder like this, there are always going to be confessing Tom's. I'm like, I don't doubt that he could be just lying and trying to like make money of the fact that he knew her. 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. Totally. 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, diddy, fuck. Sid also found himself being represented by hot-shot lawyer

F. Lee Bailey. That arrangement was secretly funded by none other than Rolling Stone's frontman Mick Jagger. Wow. And that is star power. Mm-hmm. Tell on this my ass.

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, Anne, 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, they'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 light bulb 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 get it. carry on. Later he tried to jump out of a window. He then spent a month in Bellevue Hospital

Psychiatric Ward. Almost as soon as he got out of Bellevue, he was re-arrested. 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. Oh, fine, it wasn't like completely fine. He did have a little slip-up in jazz. January 1978 when he smashed a bottle over the head of Patty Smith's brother. So, straight back to Reich as 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. old mum, Anne. 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 rap of heroin. I think, and maybe this is just...

being autistic. But I think I could quite happily only eat spaghetti walernets for the rest of my life. I think that's why I don't really care about restaurants that much. That is very autistic. Because I'm just like, oh, like, no, this is fine. I'm having a nice time. But like, I'd actually rather just be eating spaghetti balanets. That's fair enough.

That I have to make. No one else. Okay, okay. Only I know how to do it. Got it. Fuck a man. Eat what you like. That's what I believe. I can't just eat spaghetti bolognais for the rest of my life. No. Don't eat spaghetti bolognais for the rest of your life. But I think it's okay to feel that. like you only want to eat spaghetti boldnays for the rest of your life.

Sometimes I'm like, how far could I push it? What's your, like, max in a row eating spaghetti bowlanets? I've never allowed myself to try. Oh, oh. What do you think would happen? What do you think you could do? Forever. There is no limit.

The limit does not exist. So yes. She makes up her spaghetti bolognais. She's like, here, here go. Here's a wrap of heroin. Does heroin make you hungry? No. Makes you constipated.

Oh, God, heroin and a spaghetti bowl nays, that sounds fucking horrible. 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 for a mummy, so he took it and immediately shot up. And later, as he 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,

would just have left to get it himself, which would violate his curfew. I feel like Anne might have wanted some more heroin. Yeah. Fucking, 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. He loves heroin.

He fucking loves heroin. I love heroin. Of course I would. Supercut that so we can send it to all the people on the internet convinced of your addiction. I can't believe I forgot that you guys thought I was addicted to Harriet. That's just the best thing. 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. To be clean for 55 days. And your mum to just be like straight away. That fucking bitch, man. Oh, gross.

So yeah, he's turning blue. His friends dragged him to his feet and shoved percassette 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 5.30 a.m., surrounded by a syringe, a spoon, and a bag of 98% pure. heroin. He was 21 years old. Fucking wild. That's unbelievable. It's a lot of life to have lived by 21. Anne 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. Why? Like, obviously she's smacked out of her head, but why? Like, surely, in a purely cynical sense, he's your fucking cash cow? I don't think she wanted him to die. Yeah. I think she possibly just miscalculated how long he had been clean for.

And, yeah, it's an easy, easy mistake. So we've all, we've all misprescribed heroin to our sons, you know? And killed them by accident. Yeah. Oh, it's just all so depressing. Yeah. I feel like I need to go have a shower and a bowl of spaghetti bowl of nose. 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 Pyrro, a bassist in various bands, suggested that they all snort Sid's ashes. What?

I mean, they're not the first people to have that idea. Did they do it? He did. No one else joined in. Oh my God. 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 going to partake. take, they all jumped the cemetery fence and Sid and Dancy were reunited. I'm going to say, little life hack, if you're going to suggest something completely mental, don't be the first one to do it. Make someone else do it and then do it. If you are the person who's going to be suggesting the thing that is mental, your impulse control might not be that strong. Quite true.

Sidd's mother Anne tells another story about how it all went down. She told Johnny Rodden that she took Sid's ashes on a place. plane back to London. And true to form, she hid two bags of heroin in her son's fucking urn. 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. I've spent a lot of fucking time at Heathrow. Not once have I seen an open air conditioning shaft that I could hurl and urn down. What is she on about? So yeah, it's one of those tales. 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 a 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, Anne 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's version of My Way. The only thing's sicker than killing your own son

with heroin as dining out on his legacy for the rest of your life. 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. Despite their short lives, Sid and Nancy's reputations are etched into the cultural landscape, consciousness, whatever you want to call it, forever 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. Yeah. And I think Malcolm McLaren fucking knew that.

Here's what I think happened, right? Hit me. I don't think Sid accidentally stabbed Nancy in any sort of way. I think that Rockets Red Glair or someone else was put up by Malcolm McLaren to get rid of Nancy. I can buy it. He saw her as the big stumbling block. The thing is, I can buy any of these things happen. Totally.

Which is why it's obviously such a mystery. And you can't argue that they didn't die as they live. No. Doing exactly what they wanted whenever they wanted to do it. Exactly. Your mum killing you with heroin, though, is just... It's 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. Oh, God, yeah. It feels like a story written for that. It does, doesn't it? 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'm curious. I've had a very interesting time recording this episode, though. I feel like I've learnt a lot. Hopefully you guys have. Let us know what you think, and we will see you next week for another episode of Red-handed. 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. I'm Raza Jafri, and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Morton Storm, the spy who lived inside Al-Qaeda. Unfulfilled with his life in a notorious Danish biker gang, Morton Storm is lost. One afternoon, he stumbles into a library looking for answers. He finds them in the form of a book about Islam. The towering ginger-haired Dane doesn't know it yet,

but that moment will hurl him into a world of radicalism and see him rise through the ranks of militant Islamist organization, Al-Qaeda, only to suffer a huge crisis of faith. He turns from devotee to spy, tasked with rooting out some of Al-Qaeda's most feared generals. The CIA and MI5 bid for his allegiance as he loses himself in a life of cash-laden suitcases, double crosses and betrayal.

Follow the spy who on the Wondery app, or wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can binge the full season of the spy who lived inside al-Qaeda, early and ad-free with Wondery Plus. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests,

but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices? Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, and each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry

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