Overdose victim Mellie Carballo, Last Night's Party Regular

If you live in NYC, you’ve see her picture on the cover of almost every newspaper (specifically the picture to the left of both victims). You’ve probably heard or made a joke about bad heroin. You’ve read about it in Gothamist, Gawker, Newsday, the Daily News, the NY Sun, and especially the NY Post.

If you frequent club nights featured on Last Night’s Party like Misshapes and Trash, you may already know how this frontpage story hit close to home…

“But she also was a fashionista whose sexy picture graced a banner on the edgy Web site Last Night’s Party, and was someone who would have gotten a “twisted kick” out of the headlines her death generated, a club land buddy said.” [Daily News]

“The last few weeks in NYC clubland were tumultuous. The L.E.S. was abuzz with the bad news of the ODs of two 18-year-old girls—one of whom was a familiar face on the club and bar scene. Two weeks ago, Mellie Carballo and her high school friend Maria Pesantez were found dead with a combination of heroin, cocaine, and alcohol in their systems. (Since August 10, four others have died of apparent ODs in downtown Manhattan.) Though The New York Times reported the two met their friends at the Dark Room at 10 a.m., a Dark Room spokesperson says they reviewed videotape of that night shot both inside and outside the club: “We watched the tapes and they weren’t at the club. And we were closed at 10 a.m.”

Despite being underage, Carballo was a regular on the downtown club scene. A tribute to her with an accompanying photograph briefly appeared on the website for the weekly party Trash! (It has since been taken down.) (NOTE: It’s there) On lastnightsparty.com, she was pictured with Motherfucker‘s Michael T. The site’s photographer, Merlin Bronques, wrote: “I met Mellie at Beauty Bar a few months ago. She loved having her picture taken, and she made any photographer look good. She called me a week before she died to say that the panoramic pinup I took of her at ‘Bust’ a few days ago was her ‘favorite picture ever,’ and we scheduled to shoot again at her house this week. She was buried in her yellow ‘100% Mellie’ Fightcats T-shirt right next to Jam Master Jay and not too far from Aaliyah, Malcolm X, and Christopher Reeve. I’ll miss her.” [Tricia Romano]