NANCY Spungen was the notorious girlfriend of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, who many believe murdered her.
BBC2’s The Misinvestigations of Romesh Ranganathan dives into the mystery surrounding Nancy’s death. Here’s everything you need to know about Nancy Spungen.
Nancy was born on Febuary 27, 1958 and was raised in Philadelphia, USA.
She was exceptionally intelligent from a young age, but struggled to make friends at school.
Eventually, at the age of 15, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
She was accepted into University of Colorado Boulder but had her place taken away from her, when she was arrested for storing stolen property in her dorm room.
At the age of 17, she moved to New York and supported herself through prostitution, some journalism and jobs at retail stores.
She flew to London in 1976 and met Sid the following year.
The pair became inseparable and were the focus of much media intrigue.
She was nicknamed “Nauseating Nancy” by the media, because of her outrageous and sometimes anti-social behaviour.
Their relationship was known to be extremely volatile as Sid and Nancy were both addicted to heroin and Nancy was known for having a violent temper.
They both moved to New York, when the Sex Pistols disbanded.
Nancy was found dead in her hotel room on October 12, 1978 with a stab wound to her abdomen.
The knife used to kill her belonged to Sid, leading many to speculate that he had murdered his long-term girlfriend.
This evidence and the fact that Vicious gave conflicting stories about the night she died led to him being arrested and charged for Nancy’s murder.
Others have speculated that drug dealers could have been responsible for Nancy’s death.
Just four months after Nancy died, Sid was found dead too.
He died from a heroin overdose only a day after leaving rehab.
You can catch The Misinvestigations of Romesh Ranganathan on BBC2 or BBC iPlayer.
The show follows comedian Romesh Ranganathan as he investigates mysterious deaths.
Previous episodes have examined the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Tupac Shakur.
