Michael Alig, the NYC club promoter and convicted killer, has died aged 54, reportedly from an overdose of heroin.

The self proclaimed King of New York’s Club Kids was served 17 years in prison for the 1996 manslaughter of drug dealer Andre ‘Angel’ Melendez. Alig was released on parole in 2014.

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s Alig organised different club nights in New York which were attended by a group of parties who dressed wildly and displayed a petulant attitude. Many of the original ‘club kids’ have remained in the public eye including RuPaul, Lady Bunny, James St. James, DJ Keoki, Amanda Lepore and actress Lisa Edelstein.

In 1996 Alig and his roommate Robert D. ‘Freeze’ Riggs brutally killed drug dealer Andre ‘Angel’ Melendez. The trio were reportedly high on drugs and been arguing over a drug debt. After killing Melendez the pair kept his body in the bathtub of their apartment covered in ice. When the body began to have an odour, Alig dismembered the body and threw it’s separate parts into the Hudson River.

Alig boasted about killing Melendez, but people thought he was just trying to get attention. Police did not investigate the crime until it had been widely reported in the media, and after children playing in Straten Island discovered the torso of Melendez washed up on the beach.

The story was dramatised in the film ‘Party Monster’ in which Macaulay Culkin portrayed Alig.

Alig was found dead on Christmas Day at his Washington Heights apartment.

OIP Staff

Love OUTinPerth Campaign

Help support the publication of OUTinPerth by contributing to our
GoFundMe campaign.