Michael Alig (above), who s credited with fueling the early days of the “club kid” scene and reigned supreme over New York City’s gay party scene in the early 1990s, is due to be released from jail on May 5, after serving a 17 year  jail sentence for the murder of Andre “Angel” Melendez

Alig’s life and conviction inspired the Fenton Bailey-directed movie Party Monster, which detailed the events leading up to March 17, 1996 — the day Alig murdered and dismembered the body of his friend and  drug dealer Angel Melendez in the apartment they shared.

Alig has claimed many times that he was so high on drugs that the events are quite cloudy. On December 9, 1996, along with Robert “Freeze”Riggs Alig confessed to police.

According to Riggs confession:

On a Sunday in March of 1996 I was at home … and Michael Alig and Angel Melendez were loudly arguing … and getting louder. I opened the room and started towards the other bedroom … at which point Michael Alig was yelling, “Help me!” “Get him off of me” [Angel] started shaking him violently and banging him against the wall. He was yelling “You better get my money or I’ll break your neck” … I grabbed the hammer … and hit Angel over the head…

Then according to Riggs he hit Melendez a total of three times on the head. Then Alig grabbed a pillow and tried to smother him. When Melendez was unconscious Riggs went to the other room and when he came back he noticed a broken syringe on the floor. However, Alig’s story was that he injected Melendez with Drano, while Riggs claims that Alig poured it down Melendez’s throat and duct-taped his mouth closed. Since Alig and Riggs did not know what to do with the body they put it in the bath tub that they filled with ice. They kept the body from rotting, but after a few days the corpse began to smell. After discussing what to do next (and who should do it), Alig injected himself with heroin. He then cut the legs off the corpse, put them in a garbage bag and stuffed the rest in a box. Afterwards he threw the corpse into the Hudson River.

Alig’s arrest was largely credited to Village Voice columnist Michael Musto’s unrelenting reporting.

While in prison, Alig told Musto, “I know why I blabbed. I must have wanted to stop me. I was spinning out of control. It’s like the old saying ‘What do you have to do to get attention around here – kill somebody?”

While incarcerated in the New York prison system, Alig has been transferred from prison to prison and has also spent time in the psychiatric ward at Rikers Island. 

Money, Success, Fame, Glamour, Addiction, and Murder

Source:  Michael Tharrett/Queerty