On February 1st, 1979, Sid Vicious was released on bail from Rikers Island prison in New York. He had spent 55 days inside after being arrested for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. A charge that his lawyer was sure they would beat considering that Sid was so drugged out that he could barely walk, let alone have committed the brutal stabbing that had occurred in room 100 of New York's Chelsea Hotel.
Sid couldn't remember any of the events from the day that Nancy was murdered. Not even his supposed confession to police. Witnesses reported drug dealers going in and out of the room and Sid's lawyers were using the high probability of robbery or a drug deal gone bad to cast a shadow of doubt upon Sid's involvement.
During his incarceration at Rikers, Sid had been beaten and raped repeatedly. He had also gone through a cold-turkey withdrawal from heroin. For the first time since meeting his heroin addicted girlfriend Nancy two years earlier, Sid Vicious was clean.
In London, at the same time that Sid was being released, Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren was locked in his own heated court battle with the band's lead singer, Johnny Rotten. Rotten, who had gone back to using his birth name, John Lydon, was suing McLaren for unpaid royalties and the use of his name. The Sex Pistols had broken up the year before, and there was no love lost between these two London punk legends. Their life-long hatred of one another would make them the most famous rivalry in punk rock history.
McLaren had paid to bail Sid out, but he would later say he regretted not being present when Sid was released. Instead he was turned over to his mother, a heroin and speed addict who had introduced her son to drugs at a young age. The first thing on both mother and son's agenda was getting Vicious a fix of heroin.
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