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‘Final 24’: Sid Vicious accused of killing girlfriend Nancy Spungen but what led to the tragic end in Room 100?

Ten days after Spungen's death, Vicious reportedly attempted suicide by slitting his wrist with a smashed light bulb

Uncloaking the life of bassist and vocalist Sid Vicious, the critically acclaimed docuseries ‘Final 24’ will highlight the final 24 hours of the late member of British punk rock band Sex Pistols as it explores his enduring legacy. 

Born as Simon John Ritchie in South London, he started off as a David Bowie fan and a "clothes hound" who first collaborated with the Pretenders. There, he met Chrissie Hynde — who reportedly wanted to get him a work permit through a sham marriage — which he eventually refused. He soon became popular as Sid Vicious reportedly after a weird incident where John Lydon nicknamed him so after his pet hamster Sid [named after Syd Barrett] bit Ritchie and Lydon uttered: "Sid is really vicious!"

After a brief liaison with the Flowers of Romance and Siouxsie and the Banshees, Vicious joined Sex Pistols in 1977 and he was soon known as the "attitude" of the band.  Nancy Spungen arrived as a groupie from the New York punk scene; she was considered loud and obnoxious by the rest of the groupies but found favor with musicians because she could get them heroin. After being spurned by Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten, she found Vicious - a star on the rise. Vicious, found in Spungen a kindred soul in matters of sex and drugs and soon the duo became inseparable.

According to Sid's Way: The Life and Death of Sid Vicious, the couple moved into a flat in the quiet west London neighborhood of Maida Vale, where they happily indulged in drug use, unmindful of the police. The duo's inability to be apart irked the rest of the Pistols as well. She was compared to what Yoko Ono had been to the Beatles. When they did manage to ban Spungen from a Pistols US tour in 1978, Vicious responded by smashing his bass on the head of an audience member. These and more instances led people to romanticize the couple as punk’s very own Romeo and Juliet.

Their relationship was struck by tragedy and became a public scandal when Nancy was found dead on the morning of October 12, 1978, in the bathroom of their suite at the Chelsea Hotel. 

What really happened in Room 100?

Vicious woke up in a drugged state to see her lying in a pool of blood after she suffered a stab wound in the stomach. According to New York magazine, at 2.30 am on the night of the murder, Spungen asked Rockets Redglare – a bodyguard for Vicious who also sold drugs, according to The New York Times – to get some Dilaudids, an opioid painkiller. Around 7.30 am, “female moans” were heard from the room from other guests in the hotel. At 10 am, Vicious called down to the front desk, asking for help. 

According to The Independent, "Vicious, who was found wandering the hallways in an agitated state, was arrested and charged with her murder." The report also said, "Though he initially confessed to the crime, he later denied it, claiming he had been asleep when she died." Here's a copy of the police report.

Who killed Nancy? Theories around her murder are still doing rounds and there is no clear answer. While many say it was a drug deal gone bad or a suicide attempt in an inebriated state. Many came to the defense of Vicious and said he couldn't have killed her. Former manager Malcolm McLaren told The Daily Beast that Vicious would not have killed his girlfriend unless her death was actually a “botched double suicide.” McLaren wrote: “She was his first and only love of his life. … I am positive about Sid’s innocence.” Hinting on a robbery, McLaren also said that money was stolen from the room that night while “stupid, clumsy fool” Vicious was “passed out on the bed.”

Another theory also linked Redglare to the murder of Nancy. According to author Phil Strongman's book 'Pretty Vacant: A History of Punk', Spungen confronted Redglare when he tried to steal cash from their hotel room so he stabbed her in the stomach. “Rockets Redglare casually admitted to several fellow drinkers that it was actually he who’d robbed and stabbed Nancy Spungen – and produced a handful of her blood-stained dollars to prove it,” Strongman wrote.

Reportedly, Nancy's death was never really investigated and Vicious was released on $25,000 bail by Virgin Records, their label at that time. Ten days after Spungen's death, Vicious reportedly attempted suicide by slitting his wrist with a smashed light bulb. When he was hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital, he tried to kill himself by jumping from a window and was heard saying something like, "I want to be with my Nancy!" Reports say that in a November 1978 interview, he said that Spungen's death was "meant to happen" and that "Nancy always said she'd die before she was 21." Later, in 1979, Vicious died of a heroin overdose.

A love story that ended with death, it spins with tragedy and turbulence and still remains a mystery about 40 years later. ‘Final 24’ premieres on Wednesday, June 3 at 9 pm. ET/6 pm PT on AXS TV. More weekly episodes will feature the lives of several other iconic celebrities like Jim Morrison, Tupac, John Belushi and more.