On the morning of October 12, 1978, Sex Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious claimed to have awoken from a drugged stupor to find Spungen dead on the bathroom floor of their hotel room in New York. She had suffered a single stab wound to her abdomen and apparently bled to death. The following month he was arrested and charged with her murder. Vicious was also arrested in December 1978 after allegedly assaulting Patti Smith's brother Todd. Vicious died in February 1979 of a drugs overdose before he could stand trial.