Posted on 10/18/2004 12:30:03 PM PDT by Radix
An independent filmmaker is mining the real-life tale of a former Quincy dominatrix and the New Hampshire man who disappeared after visiting her Wollaston ‘‘dungeon'' for his first movie.
‘‘Cricket Snapper'' is loosely based on the Quincy case of Barbara McLaughlin-Asher, known to her clients as ‘‘Mistress Lauren M.''
Asher is currently awaiting trial on charges of manslaughter and unlawful disposal of a body in connection with the death of Michael Lord, 53, of North Hampton, N.H.
In real life, police say Asher admitted in 2000 that she and her boyfriend cut up Lord's body, packed it in garbage bags and dumped it in Maine after the divorced father of four died while tied up in Asher's sadomasochistic shop.
Asher's lawyer is trying to get those statements to investigators thrown out of the court case, arguing police violated her civil rights during questioning.
In filmmaker Scotty Stets' version of the story, the events unfold in the fictional New England town of River Falls and the dominatrix and her boyfriend are murdered.
The film was screened last month in Fall River and is currently being re-edited for final release, which Stets hopes will be in the spring. ‘‘Cricket Snapper'' is the first in a planned trilogy of films from Stets.
‘‘I was living in Quincy at the time, and I read about the dominatrix in the paper,'' Stets said. ‘‘I thought to myself, this has got to be a movie.''
Stets said he wanted to move the setting of the story from a ‘‘big city'' like Quincy to a small town to make the story even scarier. In his story, a River Falls selectman dies at the hands of the dominatrix and her boyfriend. Later, the couple is murdered.
In reality, Asher faces charges, and her boyfriend is wanted by police.
Lord's remains have never been found, but police say Asher told them that she and her boyfriend, Miguel Ferrer, also known as ‘‘Mr. Versace,'' got rid of Lord's body during the Fourth of July weekend in 2000.
A warrant was issued for Ferrer's arrest in January 2003 when the 59-year-old Argentina native failed to show up for arraignment on a charge of being an accessory after the fact. He has yet to be found.
Asher, who was running a dominatrix business in Quincy out of a Weston Avenue condo she called her ‘‘dungeon,'' allegedly told police that Lord had paid $300 for a two-hour sadomasochistic session but died while he was strapped to a rack with a hood over his head and a collar around his neck.
According to police, Asher told them that Lord apparently died of a heart attack. They say she also told them that she panicked and not wanting the police and tax officials to find out about her secret business, had her boyfriend help her get rid of the body.
Asher was living in an upscale apartment at Marina Bay at the time and working out of a Wollaston condominium. She now lives in Rhode Island, where filmmaker Stets, a freelance journalist, musician and self-proclaimed Dracula expert, often works.
The bizarre tale shocked Asher's Wollaston neighbors who described her as a well-dressed woman with a soft voice and impeccable manners.
Asher's lawyer has since said there is nothing to tie Asher and Ferrer to Lord's disappearance and is now trying to get her statements to police tossed out.
‘‘Any statements that are alleged to have been made by me were not made of my own free will,'' Asher, 54, stated in an affidavit filed in Norfolk Superior Court.
‘‘I was told several times that if I told the detectives what they wanted to hear, I could leave the station. I asked whether or not I needed a lawyer, but the officers ignored the question and continued to question me.''
A hearing for Friday on the motion to suppress Asher's statements to Massachusetts and New Hampshire State Police as well as Salem, N.H., detectives who came to the Quincy police station.
A judge earlier this year refused to dismiss indictments against Asher despite her attorney's claims that there is no proof that Lord is dead.
Asher's court-appointed lawyer, Stephanie Page, argued that the grand jury lacked the evidence to indict Asher.
‘‘There is no body,'' Page said. ‘‘There is no forensic evidence of any kind that Mr. Lord is dead. There has to be some evidence to corroborate criminal activity that was allegedly said in a confession.''
Lord's doctor testified at an inquest that the 280-pound man had high blood pressure that was being treated with medication.
Police linked Asher, a Norwood native, to Lord through phone records.
It is hard to believe that she has not been locked up after confessing to mutilating a corpse, and destroying evidence of a possible negligent homicide at the very least.
for a second I thought this involved Jack Klugman.
Me too. Then I realized its about a different TV coroner: Miguel Ferrar
If they were observed by a wheelchair-bound reporter with a broken leg, then it's already been done.
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