Mysterious death of a punk queen

A personal assistant has been arrested for the murder of iconic New Yorker Linda Stein, writes Marion McKeone.

It's a very New York murder; a plot that could have come straight from an episode of Law & Order. And given that Law & Order doesn't so much imitate New York life and crime as reconstruct it verbatim, it's a safe bet that its producers are already auditioning for the role of Linda Stein, the legendary punk queen turned real estate broker to the stars who was found battered to death 10 days ago in her Fifth Avenue apartment.

Stein's bloodied corpse - her face, skull and neck bludgeoned almost beyond recognition - was discovered in her penthouse apartment by her daughter Mandy. Yesterday, police arrested Natavia Lowery, Stein's 26-year-old personal assistant. Criminal charges from the Manhattan district attorney's office are pending. Lowery was being held at the Seventh Precinct on the Lower East Side.

According to an unnamed law enforcement official, Lowery's, tempestuous relationship with Stein had built from animosity to violence. "It was that Linda just kept yelling at her, over everything" the official said. "They fought. It was like a continuous thing, like a buildup."

NYPD detectives were as shocked by the location of the attack as its ferocity. This wasn't one of the after-hours flea pits the 62-year-old grandmother still loved to carouse in; the sort that offers all kinds of diversions after midnight - and none of them good. This was 965 Fifth Avenue, an elitist Wasp enclave hermetically sealed to keep out undesirables - including, for decades, brash Jews from Brooklyn. It was, all in all, an incongruous place for Stein to find herself murdered. As a friend observed at one of the many memorial services that have been held since her death on October 30th, "Linda would have laughed out loud at this."

A diminutive figure, who barely nudged past the five foot mark, Linda Stein was a bona fide New York icon, a force of nature in her eight-inch leather skirts and her five-inch stiletto heels. As co-manager of the seminal punk band The Ramones, she was a familiar figure at CBGB's and other Lower East Side music hangouts, snorting lines with Iggy Pop and the New York Dolls, downing shots with Debbie Harry.

When punk waned she embraced the excesses of the 1980s; she held court at Studio 54 with Andy Warhol and introduced Madonna to her former husband, music mogul Seymour Stein. When he signed the aspiring megastar to his Sire Records label, Madonna asked Linda to help her find a new apartment. In doing so, Stein found a new outlet for her formidable energy.

She muscled her way into New York's real estate market during the 1980s boom but quickly discovered that, compared to real estate brokers, punk rockers were pussy cats. Manhattan real estate is a brutal, cut-throat world and the world of celebrity real estate even more so. Clients are spoilt, demanding and unrealistic in their demands - and rivals are notoriously treacherous in their dealings.

Using her formidable music industry contacts, she became the conduit through which the stars swapped pieces of Manhattan. Richard Gere bought Debra Winger's apartment after an introduction by Stein. Sting, Elton John, Calvin Klein, Joan Rivers, Sylvester Stallone, Steven Spielberg and Angelina Jolie were players on her Celebrity Monopoly board.

NO ONE WHO knew Stein expected her to go out with a whimper. She was a fighter. Literally. She had fought many battles during her tempestuous life; with rock stars, celebrity clients, fellow brokers, her ex-husband, music industry suits, even alcoholism and breast cancer, which she beat. Twice. As fellow punk manager and life-long friend Danny Fields told mourners at her Riverside Memorial Chapel memorial, she wasn't averse to throwing the occasional punch when she deemed it necessary.

Linda Stein never shrank from a confrontation - her fall outs and feuds were legendary. "She lived for the battle. If fighting with Linda puts you on the 'suspect' list, there isn't a list long enough to hold all the names," a friend of Stein's told New York's Daily News. People seldom stayed angry with Stein and she was, it seemed, incapable of holding a grudge against anyone.

Initially the NYPD net was cast wide enough to haul in ex-boyfriends, former colleagues, family members including her ex-husband, even workmen on the roof of her apartment building, for questioning. But each was eliminated.

THAT LINDA STEIN knew her killer seems to be a given. There was no sign of forced entry. But the doormen insist they didn't announce any visitors in the 24 hours preceding her death. Detectives investigating the case have concluded whoever murdered her most likely had a key. But that, as her daughters told police, includes just about everyone. Big-hearted to a fault, Stein handed out keys to friends and acquaintances who were looking for a sofa for the night and to strays from the old days who were down on their luck.

The dozen security cameras inside and outside her apartment eliminated other ex-boyfriends, one of whom may have had motive, but not, it seems, means. As days ticked by and Stein's family sat the last day of shiva, the focus shifted to her personal assistant, whom police believe was the last person to speak to Stein before her murder.

Lowery came to the NYPD's attention when it emerged she had been charged with identity theft in December 2006, after she attempted to set up fraudulent accounts at Target, a low-end department store, and an account with the T-Mobile wireless phone network.

Investigators returned to the apartment to examine the door frame and collect fibre samples from the carpet, while detectives interviewed Lowery repeatedly. Parts of Stein's doors and fixtures have been bagged and tagged, as have pieces of art, punk memorabilia, personal mementos and detritus of a life lived large.