Did you know that The Ramones manager was murdered recently? (me neither)

A story about a band's old manager getting murdered? Yeah? So what? Well, this is no ordinary band manager. This person was Linda Stein who briefly managed The Ramones. Yeah? That sounds kinda important... well you wouldn't believe. Lemme put it this way: As a manager, Linda Stein did very little and wasn't able to turn The Ramones into stars in the US... however, she made one decision which us limeys should be eternally grateful for. 

She managed The Ramones between '76 and '80 and convinced her co-manager, Danny Fields, that the Ramones should play in England. Their shows at London's Roundhouse and Dingwalls in July '76 pretty much invented punk in this very country. During those shows, members of audience included the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Damned. So it's with that we should mourn her loss and talk about this murder business.

Linda Stein was found dead in her 5th Avenue apartment last October. Stein was bludgeoned to death, and her assistant Natavia Lowery is currently being held without bail. Now a forensic report says a tiny speck of male blood was found in the sink of Stein’s bathroom, and Lowery’s lawyer Ron Kuby is asking that police look for the male with matching DNA of that blood. "Wouldn't you expect the DA’s office to say, Aha, we have a suspect here, let's try to find him, rather than to try to explain away the physical evidence?" he asked ABCnews.com.

Meanwhile a statement from the DA’s office says: "It's a tiny speck of blood that was found in the master bathroom. There's nothing to suggest it was the blood of the murderer." No blood was found on Lowery’s clothing or shoes, and with no murder weapon found, she is not linked forensically to the murder. She did confess to the murder, but retracted her confession - her lawyer saying she would have “said anything” to get out of the interrogation room.

Another footnote in the rollercoaster annals of The Ramones' back pages.