Nathan 'Bodie' Barksdale, the Baltimore drug kingpin who provided inspiration for the seminal TV show The Wire, has died.
Barksdale ran a notoriously violent heroin empire in the east-coast city during the 1980s, but passed away at a prison medical facility earlier this week aged 54.
Fans of the HBO show - readily branded the greatest show ever made by at least one Hot Press-er - will recognise Barksdale's influence immediately; not only was one of the shows major protagonists, Avon Barksdale, named after him, but even his nickname was lifted for the spittin', wise-cracking Bodie Broadus.
Creator David Simon had admitted the corrolation was no coincidence. “There are some anecdotal connections between his story and a multitude of characters,” he told the Baltimore Sun two years ago. “We mangled street and given names throughout The Wire so that it was a general shout-out to the Westside players. But there is nothing that corresponds to a specific character.”