Sid Vicious was charged with 2nd degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Nancy Spungen. He did some time (a few weeks?) in a detox unit but seems never to have been sentenced.
Why was that? Why did he not do time in the barry place for murder?
He bailed out of jail for the murder and overdosed on heroin the next day.
[Bones]He’s dead, Jim [/Bones]
He died the day after he made bail.
Or, on preview, what **pravnik **said.
No.
- Nancy was stabbed on or around October 12, 1978
- Sid’s manager, McLaren, “secured” the bail money from Virgin records on October 16, 1978. (Sid was upset that he missed the funeral).
- Sid OD’d on the evening of February 1, 1979 or thereabouts.
He was still out on bail at the time. Bail was posted on the 16th, but I don’t think that was when he was released. He probably had to finish detox before they let him out.
Sid Vicious was rearrested while on initial bail for the murder, for assaulting Patti Smith’s brother in a nightclub in December 1978. While he was in jail, he was indicted for second degree murder on January 2, 1979, and had to post bail again. He posted bail again on February 1, 1979, and died either that night or the next day.
I don’t mean to be testy, but he was released upon posting bail.
He was living with mom, tried a couple times to kill himself, got in a bit of a fight in December 1978 spent a couple months in detox for violating his parole and was released (again) on February 1, 1979.
There is a period of time between 10/16/78 and 12/09/78 where he was At Large. Even had a new girlfriend (or at least a steady date).
The GQ bit of the question, as I seem to need to frame it another way, is: Is it normal to enjoy 2-4 months of freedom after being charged with 2nd degree murder? Was anyone going to get around to doing a trial? Or is posting a $50k for bail essentially the same as buying one’s way out of responsibility for a murder? Had he not slashed up some guy in December and wound up back in detox, would a trial ever have been scheduled? or was the time in the detox unit putting the due process on hold?
On the Pistols documentary, I think it’s the “The Filth and the Fury” one, there is a filmed interview with Sid. I’m pretty sure it’s after Nancy died, and the interviewer asks him if he’s having fun.
Sid: [with the deadest expression you’ve probably ever seen] You must be joking.
Considering that he was the only suspect, and all the circumstances fit, it had to be pretty obvious he was going to prison for the death. I’ve always thought that he had to have pretty much committed suicide.
Don’t do drugs, kids.
It’s perfectly normal and common for someone accused of a crime (even 2nd degree murder) to be released from jail after posting bail. Bail is simply a refundable deposit intended to discourage you from failing to show up for your trial (or sometimes, to encourage your bail bondsman to hunt your ass down if you flee).
In this case, Sid had a court date set, and was allowed to go “free” until that date. IANAL, but normally the only instances where they can refuse to release you on bail in that situation are if you are deemed a serious risk to flee, or a serious continued risk to other people.
I know that in America there’s no way to buy your way out of a criminal case, unlike a civil one, in which you can settle out of court for an agreed sum or apology or whatever. Kobe Bryant didn’t buy his way out. As I understand it, the girl was unwilling to go through with the public testimony, and it was obvious Bryant had the money to fight very hard and call into question every aspect of her life and character. Without its only witness, the state closed the case.
I’ve read a good bit about the Pistols, and I’ve never heard that the case was not planned to go to trial. It seemed like they had a very good shot. Two junkies are locked alone in a room, one is now bloodily dead, and the other has no memory of the night and is not at all the kind of character who “could never have done this.” I wonder if I couldn’t get a conviction myself with that one.
Murder trials don’t just happen the week after they find the body. There are investigations, reports, more investigations, more reports, and a presentation to the grand jury, which is no small matter. Murder trials are a serious biz and the DA’s office only gets one shot; they like to make absolutely sure that they have all their ducks in a row before they proceed, and the process takes several months. Even in my modestly-sized Texas town, one court has about five serious assault and/or murder cases currently on its docket that are going to trial, and it will take at least a year to dispose of them all.
The wheels of justice were grinding on in Vicious’ case, as evidenced by his January indictment. He would probably have gone to trial before the end of 1979.
Either that or “don’t play punk music.”
I would like to piggyback a question. How much evidence did they have against him?
Google is our friend. Snips from around the interweb:
“These solo ambitions were abruptly brought to an end in October, when he was arrested for killing Spungen, found dead in their apartment from a single stab wound on the morning of the 12th. The drug-addled musican could not remember the incident, but the knife responsible for the wound was still in the room when Spungen’s body was discovered. Police found Vicious wandering the hotel hallways, crying; he was immediately taken into custody and charged with second-degree homicide, although Virgin Records put up the money required for bail shortly afterwards.”
The bellboy entered Room 100 and found the scantily clad, blood-smeared body of a 20-year-old woman in the bathroom. The platinum blonde lay face-up on the floor, her head under the sink. She wore only a black bra and panties, both items soaked with blood from a one-inch knife wound in her lower abdomen. The bed was also extensively stained with blood.
After the paramedics confirmed the woman was dead, police checked the room and found drugs and drug paraphernalia as well as a blood-stained Jaguar K-11 folding knife with a five-inch blade and a black jaguar carved into the handle. The victim had been living in Room 100 with her drug-addicted boyfriend whom police located in the hallway soon after their arrival.
Vicious was wandering the hallways, crying and agitated, when police arrived. His face was battered, but the bruising indicated that the beating had happened some time before police arrived. When his next-door neighbor came out of her room to see what was going on, Vicious reportedly said to her, “I killed her…I can’t live without her.” He was also heard muttering through his tears, “She must have fallen on the knife.” A known heroin addict, Vicious was obviously high. Officers attempted to arrest him, but he resisted. Police subdued him and put him in handcuffs. Later that afternoon he was charged with second-degree homicide in the death of Nancy Spungen. (In New York first-degree homicide is reserved for the killings of police and court officers in the line of duty.)
This site has a picture of the note Sid wrote that claimed they had a death pact. I don’t know how much to believe him. http://www.theviciousfiles.co.uk/frame1.html
Of all the things you expect about Sid, there was something that still surprised me. His mother bought him the heroin he died from. Now THAT is a screwed up family.
Nah, Johnny is very much alive still (if cantankerous), and pointedly hates the idea of drugs. He tried to push Nancy away, and I think he was involved in the plot to stuff her in a cab and make sure she used the plane ticket to New York they’d bought for her. She didn’t allow herself to be caught, and Sid continued on under her influence.
I read somewhere that a few days before his death, he tried to commit suicide and when stopped he started screaming, “Leave me alone-I want to be with my Nancy!”
So did the record company ever get the bail money back?
He obviously failed to show up for the trial, but he had a good excuse, being dead.
This may very well be true now, but I think you’ll find Mr Lydon has consumed a fair amount of dope in his time, particularly during his PiL days. His contempt for drugs seems to stem mainly from his dislike of weak people who let the drugs take over, rather than using them and controlling them for a creative purpose.
OB
I would like to point out that in New York City “first degree murder” only applied to cop killing.
Sid’s manager was planning a defense of a robber broke into the room and killed Nancy (the famous SODDI–Some Other Dude Did It–or that Nancy “forced” Sid to kill her in a suicide pact. If the case had been brought to trial, Nancy Spungen would have been dragged through the mud in a case of “blaming the victim.”
Deborah Spungen’s “And I Don’t Want to Live This Life” is a good (if ancedotal) book on the subject.
Also good for the anecdotal references is a book I’ve quoted many times here- “Please Kill Me-An Uncensored Oral History Of Punk” by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. In the section covering the Sid and Nancy story there are several people who don’t think that Sid was guilty of killing her at all. There was supposedly a Quaaludes dealer in the room that night who was known to be a very unsavory character, and there he was with two junkies with a boat load of cash. The version of the story says that after they passed out from partying, this guy tried to rob them, and Nancy, having lived a rather “street” life woke up and attempted to stop him, and he stabbed her before fleeing. Sid, dead to the world until morning woke up and assumed he must have done it in a haze.
We’re not talking about rocket scientists here you know. I think that that story is just as plausible as him killing her, if not even more so.
Actually Google and I had it out, we are no longer friends
Don’t be shocked by the amount of time that can go by between an alleged crime and the trial. I mean, isn’t Phil Spectre still out and about?
Feb 2003- present, and still waiting… the trial may begin in January 2007…