PA admits murdering Ramones' ex-manager

The personal assistant to Linda Stein, one-time manager of punk band the Ramones, friend of Elton John and real estate agent to Steven Spielberg and Angelina Jolie, confessed to her murder early yesterday, New York police said.

After lengthy questioning by detectives, Natavia Lowery told how she bludgeoned Stein, 62, to death in her Fifth Avenue apartment on 30 October. It was, said police, a morning of insults capped by having marijuana smoke blown in her face that launched the personal assistant of punk music pioneer Stein into a murderous fury. Seizing a weighted yoga stick from her boss's hands, Lowery clubbed Stein in the head and neck.

Lowery, 26, was charged late on Friday with the second-degree murder of Stein. A judge ordered her to be held without bail.

Stein was found by her daughter face-down in a pool of blood on her living room floor, the Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said. She had been battered half a dozen times with the yoga stick, which has not been recovered. Lowery was captured on a surveillance tape leaving the building shortly after the brutal attack.