The Last SupperThe ill-fated Juliet Supperclub seduced A-list stars, sports heroes, sex symbols and millionaires-before falling to a murderous end.

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Famous faces (clockwise from top left) Jay-Z, Perez Hilton, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Jessica Szohr, Chace Crawford and the Black Eyed Peas dropped by Chelsea's Juliet Supperclub, doomed by stabbing and shooting deaths last fall.

On an unseasonably warm night last November, the flashy and wildly popular Juliet Supperclub boomed with hip-hop music. Servers lofted vodka bottles adorned with sparklers in the purple-hued, heavily mirrored resto-club. Actor Ryan Phillippe and singer Estelle wandered between low-slung tables and banquettes. Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz toasted his 25th birthday with Big Blue teammates and NBA stars.

But as the party amped up in the wee hours, gunshots shook the Chelsea hotspot. Around 2:20 a.m. a mysterious gunman slipped past security into the club and fired a 9mm pistol into the crowd of nearly 300 revelers. Bullets flew, striking Tracy Ryals, 28, from the Bronx, in the arm and back and injuring Long Islander Jonai Washington, 28. Arthur Artis, 43, from Brooklyn, lay dead from two shots to the torso. (NYPD only recently pegged Victor Walker, 47, as a suspect.)

Frighteningly, the shooting came just weeks after a fatal stabbing outside the club. Washington tweeted a photo of her bleeding leg on the night of the crime, asking, "How someone get in with a big gun in an elite club.[sic]" It was a question many in the city were asking. How could an exclusive megaclub, which quickly climbed the heights of Champagne-soaked success (the Black Eyed Peas played its opening just two years earlier), tumble so rapidly and violently to its demise?

By all accounts, Juliet made a glamorous and auspicious splash on the NYC nightlife scene when it opened its doors in October 2009. Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys and LeBron James all held court.

"It was models, fashion people, big spenders-we had tables that were spending $30,000," recalls Juliet doorman Ruben Rivera. "The first Porsche Panamera had just come out. One night we had four of them there-all in different colors."

A-listers like Rihanna, Jay-Z and Chace Crawford sprinkled famous dust on the windowless, industrial-baroque club. Serving a seafood-heavy Mediterranean menu devised by chef Todd English until 11 p.m. and house music by elite DJs until 4 a.m., the supper club delivered on its promise as a glitzy celebrity petting zoo. Wall Street types happily plunked down huge bucks to mix with big stars and hip downtowners. The club was so successful it didn't bother opening its doors on most Sunday or Monday nights.

The first cracks in the club's sparkling façade emerged about a year and a half later.

"We had a successful run with it-they were doing good numbers, great people," says nightlife insider Mark

Baker, who joined Juliet as marketing director in 2009 and spent many a night in Juliet's plush booths with the European models and millionaire playboys who follow him around the city's boîtes. "But it just started to deteriorate."

Baker blames the beginning of the end on too many cooks with far too little club experience in Juliet's proverbial kitchen. The club's ownership lineage is nebulous at best. Veteran club developer Jon Bakhshi (aka "Jon B.") and partner Barry Mullineaux were backed by a team of investors led by Vincent Miceli, a 27-year-old former Wall Streeter. Miceli, who many believe was out of his depth in the noir of NYC's nightlife business, sunk at least $1.4 million in investments into the club, according to Miceli's lawyer.