Ramones manager Linda Stein murdered by assistant

| Thursday February 25, 2010 00:00

Prosecutors said Natavia Lowery, 28, stole more than $30,000 (£19,500) from Stein, then clubbed her with a piece of exercise equipment to try and hide it.

Jurors spent less than a day reaching a second-degree murder verdict.Stein was found dead at her Manhattan apartment on October 30 2007 having died from blows to the head and neck.

Although Lowery's lawyers acknowledged she stole from Stein and at least one previous employer, they denied she killed her.They argued in their closing statements that police plied their client into a false confession after 12 hours of questioning.

Lowery had initially denied any knowledge of the killing, blaming it on a masked stranger who told her not to report it.

She eventually gave a videotaped account of beating Stein to death after her employer badgered her about the pace of her work and blew cannabis smoke in her face.

Authorities later determined there was no cannabis in Stein's body when she died, and she suffered far more than the roughly six blows Lowery described. Surveillance videotape also showed the personal assistant leaving Stein's building soon after the estimated time of the killing.

Stein managed The Ramones along with Danny Fields during the band's heyday.

The ex-wife of Sire Records head Seymour Stein, she went into property after parting company with the band in 1980.

Dubbed a 'broker to the stars', Stein's clients included Madonna, Sting, Steven Spielberg and Angelina Jolie. (BBC)