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Introduction

Murder: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines it as “the unlawful killing of one human being by another, especially with malice aforethought. ” The mother of a murdered child has a different definition: “The blackest hell accompanied by a pain so intense that even breathing becomes an unendurable labor. ” I know; I am the mother of a murdered child.

Our oldest daughter, Nancy, was murdered on Thursday, October 12, 1978. She was twenty years old. I was at work when I received the phone call from the New York City police that changed my life and that of my family forever. “I’m sorry to tell you that your daughter is dead. ” I had been expecting that phone call and those words for years. Nancy has been emotionally disturbed since a neurologically traumatic birth. There was no cure for her pain and suffering, nor for ours. She self-medicated with heroin and other drugs, and by the time she was a teenager, I began to anticipate and fear the inevitable “overdose,” “suicide. ” These were words that I could understand. I heard the detective continue, “Mrs. Spungen, you daughter’s boyfriend, Sid Vicious, has been arrested for her murder. ” Murder!!! That was a word I could not comprehend. It only happened to other people on the six o’clock news.

The first few days after the death of a loved one are usually filled with a numbing sadness as the family goes through the ritual of saying good-bye, as they begin to mourn. This is not the way it is for the family of a murder victim. We had to contend with so much that we were not prepared for: identifying “the body,” involvement with the criminal justice system, dealing with the media. As we stumbled through this maze, we discovered that we, too, had become victims. I kept wondering if another mother had ever experienced and survived this horrible ordeal. “Where is another mother?” I asked over and over again, but no one answered.