Verdict in Ramones curse murder

The killing of Linda Stein, aka The Ramones Curse Murder, was a hot topic on this site in late 2007, after the punk band's manager turned real estate mogul, was found bludgeoned in her swank apartment and her personal assistant was charged.

Natavia Lowery claimed she snapped because the tough-taking 62-year-old cancer survivor yelled and cursed and blew marijuana smoke in her face.

This evening in Manhattan, more than two years down the line, a Manhattan jury convicted Lowery of second-degree murder. It was the top charge; she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Prosecutors says it wasn't the pot smoke, but that the assistant got caught stealing.

As we'd predicted at the time, the case inspired an episode of Law & Order.


The Ramones Curse, of course, encompasses the early deaths of Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee, and, according to the excellent, brutal and depressingly honest new book I Slept with Joey Ramone, written by Joey's brother Mickey Leigh with Tabloid Baby pal Legs McNeil, everyone even remotely connected to the group.

Personal assistant tells how she killed Linda Stein

The New York City tabloids lay out the details of the Ramones curse murder, in black and white:

NY Daily News:

Natavia Lowery, 26, was charged with second-degree murder in the baffling Oct. 30 slaying of Linda Stein, a punk-rock pioneer who became wealthy by selling Manhattan's best real estate to Madonna, Sting, Steven Spielberg and other celebs.

Natavia Lowery calmly cleaned up the Fifth Ave. penthouse after killing the "Realtor to the Stars" in a rage-- then filched the dead woman's cell phone and used her ATM card to steal $800, cops said.

NY Post:

In the end, it appears the 62-year-old Stein's infamously volatile personality clashed violently with Lowery's short fuse, triggering the murder.

"She claimed Ms. Stein had been verbally abusive to her and had blown marijuana smoke into her face several times over her objections," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said as he announced the arrest.

"She claimed Stein used profanity and derogatory language, and she waved an object that Lowery described as a yoga stick at her. Lowery said she grabbed the yoga stick from Stein's hands and struck her with it six or seven times."

Lowery, who is black, said some of that derogatory language was racially offensive.

NY Times:

Officials said they believed that Ms. Stein... had tempestuous dealings with Ms. Lowery that escalated from animosity to violence.

“It was that Linda just kept yelling at her, over everything,” one law enforcement official said. “They fought. It was like a continuous thing, like a buildup.”

The final episode exploded in Ms. Stein’s 18th-floor apartment at 965 Fifth Avenue.

Ms. Lowery’s account... was videotaped.

NY Daily News:

She said on the morning of Oct. 30 she got into an argument with the brash Stein, who co-managed the Ramones before she began selling penthouses to the rich and famous.

Stein, 62, who was battling cancer, started blowing pot smoke in her face and berating her as she worked on the computer, Lowery told cops.

NY Times:

(A family lawyer said that Ms. Stein occasionally smoked marijuana to ease the pain from recurring bouts of cancer.)

NY Daily News:

"Get the f---ing e-mails! How can you be so f---ing slow!" Stein supposedly bellowed, a police source said.

Stein, who had private yoga sessions in her $2.5 million pad, was waving a 4-pound strength-building yoga stick at Lowery as she yelled, the assistant told cops.

After Lowery retrieved the e-mails, Stein offered to buy her lunch as a peace offering.

"I've got my own money. I don't need you to buy me lunch," the assistant said indignantly.

"Black people don't have any money," Stein retorted, according to Lowery. "Save your money and I'll buy you lunch."

An enraged Lowery grabbed the yoga stick from Stein and hit her with it a half-dozen times until she was face-down in a pool of blood, police said.

NY Times:

Ms. Lowery told the detectives that she used the pole-like stick (which another official said might be a Pilates stick) to hit Ms. Stein in the back of the head and neck, officials said. At five feet three inches, according to her driver’s license, Ms. Lowery would have been only slightly taller than the five-foot Ms. Stein.

NY Daily News

Authorities said Lowery had the presence of mind to tidy up the apartment after the slaying and leave with the murder weapon, which is still missing.

She also took Stein's phone, and even answered it, telling a caller the broker was too busy to talk, police said. She later returned the phone to the apartment, a source said.

Her trips in and out were captured on surveillance tape, which showed her nonchalantly carrying out a bag, police said. She checked the bottom of her shoes once after leaving, possibly examining them for blood, sources said.

NY Post:

The big break in the case came Thursday when Lowery out of the blue called Detective Kevin Walla, of Manhattan North Homicide, to complain about the reporters who had staked out her Williamsburg apartment building.

Walla and his partner on the case, Detective Antonio Rivera, met her at the Kellogg's Diner on Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn, where it became clear that Lowery was ripe for a confession. They took her back the station house on the Lower East Side.

"It evolved into something totally different, because we took her out of her atmosphere and brought her into our atmosphere," Walla said.

NY Daily News:

During the interroga-tion, which began Thursday night and ended at 6 a.m. yesterday, Lowery presented herself as a victim who snapped under abuse.

NY Post:

About four months ago, Lowery somehow connected with Stein through a temp agency.

Stein had fired her former assistant, Raul Diaz-Bernal, 49, who rebuffed her romantic advances while getting too chummy with her clients, her friends said. She then fired her personal assistant whom she accused of siding with Diaz-Bernal.

So, the petite and fashionable Lowery got the job and began working out of Stein's home.

NY Daily News:

The suspect's lawyer, Gilbert Parris, declared her "innocent" and blasted cops for ignoring his request that Lowery not be interviewed again without him.

Police sources said Lowery waived her Miranda rights and police allowed her to eat and sleep while she was held.

NY Post:

"She's innocent! My baby is innocent," Lowery's distraught mother shouted as police led her in handcuffs out of the downtown 7th Precinct station house in handcuffs.

"Don't say a word. God is with you, baby," she said.

NY Daily News:

Lowery's family charged cops targeted her because she's black and said Stein's daughters should be suspects.

"They know who did it," said one male relative.

"But whenever there's someone involved with power and influence black people get scapegoated."

"Tell them to check on the two daughters [Mandy Stein and Samantha Stein-Wells]. They have the means and the motive."

Walla said he broke the news of the arrest to Stein-Wells, who vowed at her mother's funeral last week to get justice.

"It was very emotional," Walla said. "We had to stay with her a while and it took a while for her to take it all in. This was a shock to her. ... It was a shock it was this person."

NY Times:

Personal assistants say they face unlimited tests in a job with no fixed job description… and… say that the relationship can be complicated and far more nuanced than what moviegoers saw in “The Devil Wears Prada,” the movie based on the best seller that was a thinly disguised portrait of Anna Wintour of Vogue magazine, or in “Swimming With Sharks,” in which one character was said to have been inspired by the agent Scott Rudin.

The demanding fashion editor in the book and film “The Devil Wears Prada” “was Snow White compared to Linda,” said Steven Gaines, the author of “The Sky’s the Limit,” a book about New York real estate, and a longtime friend of Ms. Stein’s.

“I bet you Linda had been bickering, fighting and saying nasty things to this girl all along,” he added. “Linda was very, very bad on her underlings. She was really, really bad.

“Linda talked out of the side of her mouth and opened up a really big, loud, dirty mouth,” he said.

Edward Hayes, a lawyer for Seymour Stein, Ms. Stein’s former husband, and their daughters, Samantha Stein-Wells and Mandy Stein, said he believed there must be more to the story than an argument over a lunch invitation. “That’s not a good reason to beat somebody to death,” he said, adding that in his long experience as a prosecutor, he never heard of a woman beating another woman to death.

Ramones curse murder: A tale of two daughters

Linda Stein, who went from co-manager of the Ramones to realtor-to-the-rock stars to tragic victim of the Ramones curse, is being turned in death into “New York’s tough, gutsy, brilliant, funky & spunky poster child.” At her funeral services at the Riverside Memorial Chapel, mourners eyed each other suspiciously, and New York City’s ’s tabloid reporters looked for clues (but which one used a tape recorder to get the quote right?):

The New York Times:

Mara Hennessey, who met Ms. Stein while working on a book about the Ramones, said that investigators should have attended the service and done “a Miss Marple.”

“It was probably someone who knew her, so this is where they should start,” she said, eyeing the parade of mourners.

“We have not identified a suspect,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.

The law enforcement official said that investigators had spoken briefly to an associate of Ms. Stein’s, Raul Bernal.

The police corrected one detail of their initial account of the killing, saying that Mandy Stein (right, with mother) was alone, not with a friend, when she discovered her mother’s body at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday. It is thought that Ms. Stein was killed sometime in the afternoon.

Ms. Stein’s other daughter, Samantha Stein-Wells (top, with husband)… described how she and her sister had gone to see their mother’s body yesterday morning and had vowed that the killer would be found.

“We had to see her one last time,” she said, to see what the killer “had done to her.”

NY Daily News:

"I had to see her one last time," said a choked-up Stein-Wells, who, with her younger sister, Mandy, viewed their mom's body Thursday night. "One last time to see what this bastard had done to her.

"And we stood there and we promised that justice will be served. We won't stop until justice is served."

The Fifth Ave. murder remains a mystery.

The NY Post:

Stein-Wells said she and her sister Mandy had viewed their mother's remains for the final time Thursday night as morticians struggled to cover up the damage the killer had wrought.

"It took them three hours to prepare her body. Usually it takes one hour," she said. "I had to see one last time what this bastard had done."

Investigators have been slowly interviewing everyone close to Stein - including a disgruntled ex-employee, Raul Bernal, 49, who was fired after he fought with her over a commission on a high-priced real-estate deal. They also collected DNA samples and fingerprints from nine members of a construction crew that had been working on the roof at the time and took some hand tools in for analysis.

Detectives have been stumped because no one remembers anyone going to Stein's apartment that day and no one suspicious appears on the surveillance tapes.

(NOTE: Mandy directed the recent Johnny Ramone documentary, "Too Tough To Die.")

Ramones curse update: The murder suspects

The New York Times loves a tabloid murder mystery, but the real clues in the Ramones curse killing of Linda Stein are revealed by the tabloid crime reporters from the New York Daily News and New York Post:

Cops spent hours Thursday grilling the 62-year-old victim's ex-lover, contractor Francisco Arena, before cutting him loose.

Arena, known for expert stone and glass work, did several renovations for Stein.

Sources said the murder weapon was likely a hammer.

Detectives also grilled Stein's ex-assistant, Raoul Garcia Bernal, a handsome Romeo type, the sources said. Bernal, 49, was not charged, but could be questioned again. NYPD officials were careful not to call him a suspect.

Bernal, whom Stein's friends called "The Cuban," recently had a falling-out with her, pals said.

"Raoul was a handsome young guy, and he led Linda on so she thought they would have an affair. So far as I know, they never did," said a friend.

The friend said Stein and Bernal co-brokered several deals, but she grew tired of his skirt-chasing shenanigans. "

Bernal was one of the few friends who did not call the Stein family with condolences after her murder, a family friend said.

Raul Diaz Bernal, 49, had been fired as Stein's assistant at the powerful Prudential Douglas Elliman brokerage firm a few months ago following the dispute, in which he allegedly accused her of stiffing him on a sale.

He had the keys to her posh Fifth Avenue apartment, where she was found bludgeoned to death.

Bernal, described by neighbors in his East 90th Street building as handsome man who lives with a beautiful blond girlfriend. (Note: The News refers to him as “Garcia Bernal,” the Post as “Diaz Bernal.” We’ll see who got the name right.)

Investigators also wanted to speak to several others who knew Stein.

Police also believe that several other people had the keys to Stein's apartment, and want to talk to them.

Other friends of Stein, who survived bouts with cancer and had two mastectomies, told cops to hunt for her high-end marijuana dealers. All of them dressed well and some delivered weed to her flat in wooden boxes inlaid with ivory.

(Note: The Post headlines the "Axed Aide," while it's the "Ex-Lover" and "pot dealers" topping the News story.)

Ramones murder: Another day, another suspect

Police remained baffled in the bludgeoning curse-related murder of former Ramones manager turned realtor-to-the-rock-stars Linda Stein. But the New York Daily News reports that the shady past of one of her associates has turned the spotlight to another suspect. "Cops want to reinterview Stein's 26-year-old assistant, Natavia Lowery, who apparently was the last person to speak with Stein before she was murdered, sources said. Lowery was arrested in December on a misdemeanor charge of identity theft. Unknown to Stein, Lowery was accused of stealing a high school buddy's identity and using it to open accounts at Target and T-Mobile. The alleged victim said additional bills were racked up in Virginia."

Sources tell the News that the misdemeanor charges against Lowery were eventually dropped and the case sealed. A friend says, "Linda had no idea about the arrest. She had a few complaints about her assistant's computer skills, but that was it."

Daughter has an alibi in Ramones curse murder

As we’ve shown over the past few days, a read between the lines of stories in the murder of former Ramones manager Linda Stein indicated suspicion cast in the direction of her 32-year-old daughter, Mandy Stein.

Mandy directed the Johnny Ramones documentary, Too Tough To Die. She found the bludgeoned body. She ran the NY Marathon on Sunday. Now, according to the NY Daily News, she’s got a bigtime attorney, Ed Hayes (the model for the laywer in Bonfire of the Vanities) and a “rock solid alibi.”

The News says that Mandy met with cops and prosecutors two hours Saturday.

"She has nothing to hide," said Hayes. "She has an absolutely tight alibi, composed largely of strangers. What she doesn't have is any blood on her or her clothing, and no motive-- she loved her mother, there were no disputes.

"Mandy went from a business meeting, was walked to the subway by one of the people at the meeting and came home and found her mother. She was in the same clothing she wore all day when police arrived. She was not covered with blood. She had no bruises on her hands."

Hayes said Mandy Stein went alone-- no lawyer-- when she met with the law. "She loved her mother. There was no dispute that day, nothing," he told the News.

Cops say they have no prime suspect. Because of tight security in the building, it’s likely that the killer either knew the victim or work dint he bulding. Sources say they’re looking again at Stein’s other personal staff and at least one construction worker with a prior burglary arrest and a swollen hand.

The New York Post says that cops removed a section of Linda Stein's metal apartment doorframe, hoping it will yield a "ridge detail print" - a fingerprint or other portion of the hand - that could identify a suspect after lab analysis. They also removed a portion of Stein's bathtub drain and pipe.

Police are studying Linda Stein’s emails. They have not found her will.

Ramones curse murder: Latin lovers off the hook?

The New York Post reports that “cops apparently don’t have any suspects” in the Linda Stein murder case. The paper reports that police have apparently ruled out Stein's former lover, Francisco Arena, 65, and her fired 49-year-old office underling Raul Diaz-Bernal, because neither man appears on the security videotape of her building on the day she was killed.

The Post says that the former Ramones manager “was repeatedly smashed in the head and neck with a weapon with a jagged edge, suggesting… a crime of passion.”

It mentions that her body, “lying in a pool of blood, was found in the living room of her 18th-floor apartment by her filmmaker daughter, Mandy, 32.”

And the Post points out that “despite her grief, Mandy, who has climbed mountains and plays hockey, ran in yesterday's New York City marathon,” and “completed the 26.2-mile course in six hours, one minute and 17 seconds.”

"Beat on the bat with a baseball bat?"

There's shock from the posh Upper East Side to the punk Lower East Side of Manhattan after the murder of former Ramones manager turned realtor-to-the-rock stars Linda Stein in her ritzy apartment on 78th Street. No sign of forced entry. No apparent robbery. And, according to the NY Post, she was clubbed to death. Random act of violence, act of passion-- or twisted clue? Whether the perpetrator was a building employee, part of a construction crew in the very secure building, stranger or acquaintance, the facts add a queasy link to the Ramones curse.

Beat on The Brat
(from the Ramones' first album)

Beat on the brat
Beat on the brat
Beat on the brat with a baseball bat
Oh yeah, oh yeah, uh-oh.

What can you do?
What can you do?
With a brat like that always on your back
What can you do? (lose?)

Exclusive: Who Killed Linda Stein?

"I think it was her Latin lover who showed up at her beach house unanounced."
-- Legs McNeil to Tabloid Baby

"A friend of Miss Stein said she recently ended a relationship with a 'Latin lover-type'."
--London Telegraph

"She would have loved the publicity, friends said. One music-business friend said she might even have loved being part of a tabloid story."
--The stately New York Times

The murder of former Ramones co-manager Linda Stein (whose ex-husband gave the cursed band their record deal) remains a mystery and a real-life Law & Order episode (and you can bet the Law & Order writers are already working up a script befor the impending strike forces them to lay down their pencils. It is an ultimate tabloid story, which in the end will result in an arrest either all too obvious, unexpected or depressingly mundane, but whose juicy details are lovingly, meticulously savored and laid out by the stately New York Times:

"Linda Stein, the punk-rock manager turned real estate broker who was found bludgeoned to death on Tuesday in her Fifth Avenue penthouse, was a vibrant and volatile person who aroused strong and often contradictory feelings in those who knew her, friends and colleagues said yesterday as the police struggled to find a motive in her killing.

"Police... stressed that the case could still go in any direction.

"Detectives questioned nine construction workers who were on the roof... The construction foreman, Manuel Chiqui, said that the workers had signed forms allowing DNA tests and that investigators had fingerprinted them and vacuumed their clothes.

"Perhaps seeking to dispel parallels to the death last year of Adrienne Shelly, an actress who was killed by a construction worker after complaining about noise, Mr. Chiqui said the workers had nothing to do with the crime...

"The police have also questioned several people who knew Ms. Stein, including friends and relatives, an acquaintance who once worked with her, and a former companion. But they have not officially identified a suspect in the case.

"Investigators... believe Ms. Stein spent time with someone in the middle of the afternoon and then received some telephone calls.

"(Former Ramones co-manager Danny) Fields, a longtime friend, said she was struggling to break ties with a 'distasteful' ex-companion whom she dated about a year ago.

“'She hated him,' he said, adding that Ms. Stein had told him the last straw was taking the man to a $5,000 charity ball where he walked off saying, 'I’m going to work the room.'"

Assistant arrested in murder of Linda Stein

Police today arrested the personal assistant of murdered former Ramones manager Linda Stein in Virginia Beach, Va. Natavia Lowery was in Virginia visiting her boyfriend when NYPD cops slapped on the cuffs.

An NYPD spokesman says the 26-year-old "made statements implicating herself" in the killing.

Lowery is the suspect we told you about yesterday, the woman who apparently was the last person to speak with Stein before she was murdered. She's also the one who was arrested in December on a misdemeanor charge of identity theft. She wasaccused of stealing a high school buddy's identity and using it to open accounts at Target and T-Mobile, and used the money to buy furniture.

Sources say Stein hired Lowery in early summer after firing her previous personal assistant.

Now the latest chapter in the Ramones curse has been written, and as soon as the Writers Guild strike is over, so can the ripped-from-the-headlines episode of Law & Order.

Ramones curse claims another life

Linda Stein was married to Seymour Stein, who signed the Ramones to Sire Records. Linda managed the band with Danny Fields. Linda and Seymour divorced. The New York Times reports "The Steins eventually grew apart, and divorced in the late 1970s. A Vanity Fair profile of Ms. Stein later quoted her ex-husband as saying: 'Our marriage for me was like eight years on a roller coaster, and not always strapped in'... Despite the divorce, the Steins stayed in touch. 'They fight and then they make up,' Mr. Fields said. 'It’s like they’re married, but they’re living separate lives.'”

Linda (above, next to Joey Ramone) "went on to become known as a real estate agent to the stars." She "was found bludgeoned to death Tuesday night in her apartment at 965 Fifth Avenue... shortly before 10:30 p.m. by her daughter Mandy and a friend.. Ms. Stein’s body was found face down in the living room in a pool of blood, the police said. She was wearing a sweatshirt with a hood, which was pulled over her head. Investigators at first believed the bleeding could have resulted from a fall, but when the hood was pulled back, a severe skull injury was exposed. Yesterday, the medical examiner’s office ruled the death a homicide."

Joey died of lymphoma in 2001. Dee Dee OD'd in 2002. Johnny died in 2004. Pal Legs McNeil's followup to Please Kill me didn't sell all that well. CBGBs closed in 2006. Producer Phil Spector went on trial for murder this year. CBGBs owner Hilly Krystal died in August. Etc. Curse?

'Personal assistant' confesses to killing Linda Stein

Natavia Lowery, Linda Stein's personal assistant, has confessed to the murder of the former Ramones manager. The suspect told cops she bludgeoned her boss in her posh FIfth Avenue apartment because Stein yelled at her, swore at her, waved a stick at her and blew marijuana smoke into her face.

At a news conference, Police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Lowery had confessed to striking the former Ramones manager six or seven times on Oct. 30 with a four-pound exercise stick. (The New York Post describes it as a "metal yoga rod.")

Kelly said that in Lowery’s account, Stein (described as "tough as nails" by the Post and "rough and tumble" by the Daily News) had used “profanity and derogatory language” and refused to stop blowing smoke at her even though the smoke was making her sick. Lowery had worked for Ms. Stein for about four months, but said Ms. Stein had not verbally abused her until the day of the killing.

Natavia Lowery is set to be charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office this evening. By later this afternoon, the "snarky" websites shoud have a lot of personal assistant jokes at the ready, and with the charges, the case is tailormade for a Law & Order spin.