On the morning of October 12, 1978, police were summoned to Room 100 at the Chelsea Hotel. Nancy Spungen, the apartment’s resident, was found lifeless on the bathroom floor, dead from a stab wound to the abdomen. Her boyfriend was Sid Vicious, the notorious former bass player for the Sex Pistols, and he was the obvious suspect in the murder. But did he do it? Room 100: Sid, Nancy, and the Night Punk Rock Died takes a long, detailed look at the facts of the case. 

Sid Did It: Sid was unfortunately a junkie who had a temper. He had bought a knife a few days before Nancy’s murder, saying it was for protection from other junkies when he went to get his methadone treatment. Sid admitted to having washed off the bloody knife after finding it. Sid had shown aggression a few hours before the murder when he violently tried to knock on the door of a neighbor, only to get into a scuffle with the Chelsea manager. There was also talk of a suicide pact as well, with Nancy often declaring she would not live to 21. 

Sid Didn’t Do It: Sid deeply loved Nancy, and although their relationship had moments of sexual violence, he never aggressively attacked Nancy. Furthermore, Sid had taken quite a bit of the barbiturate Tuinal and witnesses that night said Sid was catatonic from the pills, hardly moving for most of the night. He called the police when he found her dead in the bathroom, and told police he had no idea how it had happened—he’d left the apartment earlier to go to the methadone clinic and found her on his return. 

Who Did It, Then?: Sid and Nancy had company on the morning she was murdered, both drug dealers. One dealer, Rockets Redglare, was known to have a violent reputation, and further, Nancy owed him money. The couple had recently received an advance from Virgin Records and had two to three thousand dollars in cash, which was not found in the apartment search. Redglare, who died in 2001, would on many occasions claim that he had killed her, often admitting to it in a joking fashion. But Redglare also told the police of the presence of a second drug dealer, Stephen, who he saw entering when he left the Chelsea that morning. Stephen was a relative stranger to the couple, and who had a tendency towards psychotic behavior. He also claimed to have brandished a knife that evening. 

So, if this is the case, why were these leads not examined further? Simply put, the NYPD had better things to do. They didn’t think much of Nancy—often dismissing her as a stripper and a prostitute—and they certainly didn’t think much of Sid, either. When Sid died, the department announced that the case was officially closed, all the while they had a legitimate suspect in Stephen. 

Room 100 does a good job of sifting through the lies, half-truths, and outright wrong information that has been generated since the tragedy of that night. Key friends of the couple are talked to and they paint a picture of the couple that’s pointedly different from the mythos of the couple.  There’s no punk rock romanticism in here; this was a tragic event and is treated as such. Furthermore, Room 100 humanizes Nancy in a way that makes you see her as a tragic figure—born with mental illness, she was given Phenobarbital as a newborn, which facilitated her mood swings and addictive personality. 

At this point, we’ll never fully know the truth about what happened on the morning of October 12, 1978 in Room 100 of the Chelsea Hotel. But Room 100 does an excellent job of making certain things known and will cause you to rethink what you think you know about that dark and tragic day. 

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