Associated Press, 08/14/00

QUINCY - A dominatrix told police she and her boyfriend dismembered and disposed of the body of a New Hampshire man after he died during a sadomasochistic sex game, according to a published report.

The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, quoting unnamed sources close to the investigation, reported Monday the woman was with Michael Lord, 54, of North Hampton, when he died at her condominium July 3.

The woman, who was not identified, told police she was afraid to report the death, so she and her boyfriend decided to get rid of the body themselves, unnamed sources told the newspaper.

The two cut up the body with a hacksaw and removed the man's organs - preserving them in ammonia - before putting all the body parts in eight double-bagged trash bags and tossing them into a trash bin in Maine, the woman told police, according to the Ledger.

Police would not comment Monday on the record about the report.

Lord was reported missing after he drove to Quincy on July 3 and met the woman. Police said cellular phone records indicated he made several calls to the woman's condominium, and visited her Web site several times, the Ledger reported.

The woman told police that Lord stopped breathing during their encounter and she couldn't revive him.

His body has not been found.

Police in Quincy and North Hampton, N.H., referred all calls to Norfolk County District Attorney William Keating's office. Keating's spokesman, David Traub, told the Ledger the man's cause of death may have been related to "consensual adult contact.'' He did not immediately return a call for comment Monday from
The Associated Press.

 

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/14/quincy.htm

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DA's hands seem tied in dominatrix death case

by J.M. Lawrence and Dave Wedge
Wednesday, February 20, 2002

The family of a retiree who was dismembered and dumped by a Quincy dominatrix in July 2000 accused the Norfolk District Attorney's office yesterday of letting Mistress Lauren M beat justice.
``He could have been murdered and she's pretty much getting off scot-free,'' said Timothy Lord, son of ``Big Mike'' Lord of New Hampshire.
DA Michael Keating told Lord's family last week the case against dominatrix Barbara Asher, 52, and her boyfriend, Miguel Ferrer, has gone cold.
Asher claimed Lord, who had come to her apartment Fourth of July weekend, stopped breathing while he was bound and wore a hood. She said she tried CPR but could not revive the 240-pound man and panicked. Asher told police she sought help from Ferrer the next day and they decided to dismember the body and dispose of it somewhere up north.
DNA tests on a power saw and sex toys taken from her condo failed to forge a link to the retired 53-year-old phone company worker.
His double-bagged body parts have never been recovered.
But a law enforcement source said the DA just isn't fired up about prosecuting a case involving leather and landfills.
``It's viewed as a pervert who went to a dominatrix and those aren't things that voters relate to. There's no political upside for him,'' the source said.
Meanwhile the dominatrix is back in business after phoning Lord's mother in Texas last year to say she's sorry but would not answer questions about where she dumped the man's body.
``I'm just trying to put my life back together,'' she told the Herald yesterday.
The DA's office defended its investigation into what happened inside a suburban condo complex where Asher kept harnesses and an electric shock machine.
``We have gone to substantial lengths to try and make a prosecution possible and to find out what happened,'' Keating spokesman David Traub said. ``But we can only go where the evidence leads us and at this time, it hasn't allowed us to charge her.''
Lord's family called the investigation ``sloppy.``
They said Keating failed to test the casing on the power saw and never searched a Salem, N.H., landfill near the spot where Asher left Lord's 1994 Nissan.
Asher originally said she and Ferrer dumped Lord's double-bagged body parts in New Hampshire.
But when New Hampshire police corrected her mistaken belief that New Hampshire trash gets incinerated, Asher then claimed she drove Lord's remains further north, according to a New Hampshire law enforcement source.
An extensive state police search with cadaver-sniffing dogs at an Augusta landfill in August 2000 failed to turn up the missing man who spent his retirement crafting wooden paddles which he sold on the Internet.
``I just think they've messed it up,'' Lord's elderly mother, Audrey Lord, said yesterday from her home in Jonesboro, Texas. ``She's back at work and finding another victim I guess.''
According to the law enforcement source, investigators mishandled Asher's confession. ``They spoke to her for a number of hours before she was given her Miranda rights,'' the source said.
But Traub denied police let Asher talk without knowing her rights.
``Nothing done in the course of the investigation would hinder any information or evidence from being used should there be a trial,'' Traub said.
Ferrer immediately hired an attorney and has refused to answer police questions about Lord, sources said.
Under state grave-robbing laws, the DA has enough evidence to charge Asher with felony improper disposal of a body, the law enforcement source said.
In addition to Asher's own statement to police, a credit-card receipt and cell-phone records link Lord to her sex business. ``There's enough there to push it and let a court decide,'' the source said.
But Timothy Lord said investigators told him the DA had decided against the charge because it is only a misdemeanor.
In her surprise phone call to Mike Lord's mother, the dominatrix implied she was afraid to reveal where she dumped Lord's remains.
``She said, 'I can't tell you because I fear for my life,''' Audrey Lord said.