WWW- THE original cowboy character from the Village People has written possibly the most macabre musical ever. Randy Jones has penned a show about a socialite turned prostitute, Connie Crispell, who ended up dead, stuffed into a trunk that was dragged outside onto her balcony when her corpse started to smell.
Crispell was the wealthy and attractive daughter of the dean of the medical school at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville who became a regular at the legendary Studio 54 in the late 1970s.
"She had worked for me as a secretary and we had become great friends," the ex-disco star told Webster Hall curator Baird Jones. "She had a diary when she had been a patient in Bellevue for a month. She was in Bellevue after the police found her standing on a ledge after she got high on something.
"Connie was the only person who had a maid who came into Bellevue every day to bring in clean linen and lip gloss."
Randy Jones recalled, "The night of the Kentucky Derby, we had a party before going over to Studio 54. Everyone was there and we made mint juleps, but Connie stayed behind and went out and met someone.
"Connie got killed by a guy who strangled and suffocated her before stuffing her corpse in a trunk. I ended up the main witness in the case. I was stunned when I found out she was a hooker. She did not need the money in the least."
Crispell lived in an expensive West 57th Street apartment she sublet from an older Philadelphia couple. One weekend a month, she had to vacate the place so the couple could use it.
"After the killer murdered her on Sunday, the guy was sitting on the sofa in her raincoat running hookers in and out. The family from Philadelphia came in and said, 'What is going on here?' They turned right around and called the police," Jones said.
"He had moved the trunk he stuffed her body in out onto the terrace because Connie's corpse was stinking. He just closed the glass doors to keep the stench out and carried on with his pimping."
Charles Ransom was convicted of her murder in 1984 and sentenced to 12 years to life. "At the trial I had to stand up and point at him ... when he gets out of prison, if he comes looking for me, then it is all in God's hands," Jones said philosophically. Fortunately, Ransom is still in jail.
