‘Club kid’ killer Michael Alig dies of ‘heroin overdose’ inside his Manhattan home on Christmas morning

A convicted murderer and notorious party promoter dubbed the  “Club Kid Killer” died of a suspected drug overdose at his New York apartment.

Michael Alig spent 17 years behind bars for murdering and dismembering drug dealer Angel Melendez in 1996 and throwing his body in the Hudson River.

Alig, 54, was a fixture on the city’s party scene in the 1990s and was even played by Macaulay Culkin in the 1993 movie Party Monster, based on his life.

Police say his body was found at the apartment in the Washington Heights neighbourhood in the early hours of Christmas Day.

Detectives reportedly found drug paraphernalia and plastic bags containing heroin at the scene, according to the New York Post.

Alig was the found of the Club Kids group of club-goers in the 1980s and 1990s.

He was once described as “the Pied Piper to young clubbies” by the Village Voice newspaper.

“The biggest thing I learned in prison was patience,” he told Rolling Stone after being released from prison in 2014.

“I was demanding and self-centered, but in prison, you learn very quickly that you’re on their time.”