A dominatrix was acquitted of manslaughter Monday in the death of a man who prosecutors say suffered a fatal heart attack while strapped to a replica of a medieval torture device. The jury in Norfolk Superior Court deliberated for eight hours over two days before finding Barbara Asher, 56, not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and dismemberment.
During his closing argument, prosecutor Robert Nelson re-enacted the bondage session that allegedly killed Michael Lord, 53, of North Hampton, New Hampshire, in July Donning a leather mask and speaking to the jury through the zippered mouth, he said Lord flailed about and died while strapped to the rack in a makeshift "dungeon" in Asher's Quincy, Massachusetts, condominium.
Nelson said Asher did nothing to help him for fear authorities would find out about her business. Then she summoned her boyfriend, who chopped up the body of the pound retired telephone company worker before they dumped it behind a restaurant in Augusta, Maine, Nelson said. Police searched an Augusta landfill, but his remains have never been found.
Prosecutors said Asher confessed to police, but the alleged confession was not taped, and police investigators who testified said they did not save their notes from the interrogation. Asher's lawyer, Stephanie Page, said there was also no DNA evidence recovered from the bathtub, and without a body there was no real evidence that Lord was even dead.
But he also questioned whether police thoroughly investigated his father's disappearance. Another son, Nathan Lord, said Asher once called Michael Lord's mother in Texas and apologized for her role in his death, but that evidence was never presented at the trial.
