Michael Alig, the notorious 'Club Kid Killer' and the flamboyant party promoter, who ended up serving 17 years in jail for the sordid murder and dismemberment of his drug dealer, looked disturbed and anxious in the last months of his life. He would also often scream for hours inside his pad, neighbors said. And that was probably because of his want for more drugs.
Alig, 54, was found dead on Christmas Eve just before midnight by his boyfriend in his Washington Heights pad of an apparent heroin overdose, authorities said. Several bags of a variety of drugs were recovered by detectives from the scene, which once again reflects his troubled life post his release from jail six years back.
A Troubled Life
According to Alig's boyfriend, he had been using heroin shortly before his death. Authorities recovered several zip-lock plastic bags from the scene containing heroin, along with drug paraphernalia. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Alig reportedly moved to his Manhattan apartment six months back. According to a report in New York Post, his neighbors would often hear him screaming from inside his pad. They would also see several men waiting for him outside his door. Alig would often look disturbed and anxious looking for something and would stumble in the last months of his life.
He would not shave regularly and looked like a haggard. One of his last photos taken in June shows him looking lost and perturbed.
To put it in simple words, Alig's never overcame his problems with drugs. Alig was paroled from prison in 2014 but was arrested briefly again in February 2017, this time for trespassing and smoking crystal meth in a park outside Bronx Supreme Court.
End of a Complicated Life
Alig's death is the final chapter in a sordid, sensational — and decidedly cautionary — tale about striving to become famous in New York and ultimately succumbing to its excesses. The co-founder of the 'Club Kids' underground party movement of the 1980s and 90s, Alig served 17 years in prison for brutally killing and dismembering his roommate over a drug debt. He was released in 2014.
However, Alig, who reigned over the Manhattan club scene as a party promoter for Peter Gatien's immensely popular Limelight and Palladium dance clubs, was already infamous outside the city's lushly attired demimonde even before the murder.
Things took a wild turn changing Alig's life forever with the March 1996 disappearance of Andre "Angel" Melendez, a nightlife staple who DJ'd, wore angel wings and dealt drugs. In November 1996, parts of Melendez's body carried by the Hudson River washed ashore in Staten Island.
He along with fellow 'Club Kid' Robert 'Freeze' Riggs were arrested for a brutal murder, with Alig pleading guilty to manslaughter in 1997 for killing Melendez.
The pair had placed the body in a bathtub, covered it with ice and baking soda, and continued partying inside the apartment for the next week as the victim's corpse decomposed. Later, they cut out the body and dumped the parts in Hudson River.
However, he could never leave drugs even during his term in jail and the last six years of his life after he was paroled in 2014.
