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Nation in brief

Lawyer dons mask in trial of dominatrix

By wire services
Published January 28, 2006

DEDHAM, Mass. - A prosecutor put on a black leather mask and re-enacted a bondage session Friday at a dominatrix's manslaughter trial, telling the jury the woman did nothing to help her client when he suffered a heart attack.

Prosecutor Robert Nelson also dumped a box of hoods, collars and paddles onto a table during his closing arguments, saying 56-year-old Barbara Asher was trying to protect her business and "that's why she didn't call the police."

The jury deliberated for about four hours on Friday before being sent home until Monday.

Asher, who called herself Mistress Lauren M, faces charges of manslaughter and dismemberment in Michael Lord's death.

Lord, a 53-year-old retired telephone company worker from North Hampton, N.H., died in 2000 while strapped to a replica of a medieval torture device in Asher's Quincy condominium, police say. His body was never found.

Police said Asher confessed that she and her boyfriend chopped up Lord's body in the bathtub and dumped it behind a restaurant in Maine.

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Washington lawmakers approved a gay rights bill Friday, giving passage to a measure that had failed in the Legislature for nearly 30 years.

The bill passed the Senate 25-23, with one Republican joining Democrats in voting in favor. The House approved it 61-37, and Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire said she would sign it on Tuesday.

The measure adds sexual orientation to a state law banning discrimination in housing, employment and insurance on the basis of race, gender, age, disability, religion, marital status and other factors. Sixteen states have passed similar laws.

House Republicans amended the bill to say that it would not modify or change state marriage laws. The state Supreme Court heard arguments on a case challenging Washington's ban on gay marriage last year, and a ruling is expected in the coming weeks.

ALMA, Ga. - After a two-day search, police found the body of a 3-year-old boy whose adoptive mother reported him kidnapped before confessing to killing him.

Searchers found Ahmad King's body on a tree farm off a dirt road in neighboring Appling County, about 15 miles from the boy's home in South Georgia on Friday.

"The body was approximately 20 yards off the road in a row of pines and concealed with straw," said Jeff Evans, special agent in charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation office in Douglas.

Evans said the body was taken to the GBI crime lab for an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Mary Jane King had told police that Ahmad was taken from her car in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart after she left him there briefly to get a shopping cart.

The GBI said Thursday that King, 34, admitted she concocted the story to cover up that she had killed the son she had adopted just last year. She was arrested on a murder charge.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - A Navy training plane crashed and burned Friday in Corpus Christi, killing the pilot and the student on board, the military said.

The victims' identities were being withheld until their family members were notified.

The two were in a T-34C Turbomentor, a low-wing turboprop that has been in use to train Navy pilots since 1977. They crashed during a routine training flight into a field about 3 miles south of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.

The cause of accident under investigation.

Earlier this month, a two-seat Navy T34 training plane was forced to make an emergency belly landing in the same area. Neither of that plane's two-member crew was injured.

[Last modified January 28, 2006, 01:39:07]