Nathan 'Bodie' Barksdale, drug kingpin who inspired The Wire, dies

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.”