A 31-year-old woman has been charged with murder after a man who paid her to engage in fetish acts died after he’d had a bag on his head, secured with duct tape, during their encounter in an Escondido home.

She recorded the interactions to use as content for her OnlyFans site, police allege in a court document. Video showed Michael Dale, 55, in the secured bag for at least eight minutes, investigators said.

She also allegedly glued boots to his feet, which a court document indicates was done at his request.

Michaela Brashaye Rylaarsdam now sits in jail without bail after being arrested and charged with murder last month — nearly two years after the death. The San Bernardino County woman pleaded not guilty in Vista Superior Court.

Details of the encounter are scant — laid out in a narrative that runs less than two pages in an affidavit for an arrest warrant that Escondido police submitted last month.

The incident allegedly occurred between two consenting adults during what appears to be bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism — more commonly referred to as BDSM. While legal experts say a victim’s consent to take part in dangerous acts is not a defense to homicide, some said it might be a mitigating factor.

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Instead, the legal question may hinge on the intent of the dominant partner to continue engaging in especially risky acts and her awareness of the potential danger.

Deputy District Attorney David Jarman, who is prosecuting the case, said the facts support a second-degree murder charge. Rylaarsdam’s defense attorney, David Cohen, said it’s “clear there was no intent to kill.”

‘Troubling videos’

Rylaarsdam told investigators this was the first time she had ever engaged in fetish behavior, according to the affidavit.

In the document, police said Dale first reached out to Rylaarsdam after spotting her ad on a website police said was commonly used for escort or stripper services.

In texts and phone calls in March and April of 2023, the affidavit states, Dale made some unusual requests, including that she wrap him like a mummy in Saran wrap and glue a pair of women’s boots onto his feet.

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Police allege she arrived at his Escondido home about 6 p.m. on April 17, 2023, and Dale “appeared intoxicated.”

“Despite that fact, Rylaarsdam decided to spend the next several hours with Dale and engaged in fetish behavior at Dale’s request,” the affidavit reads.

The 911 call came in about four hours later. Officers arrived to find Rylaarsdam performing CPR on Dale.

Dale was hospitalized and declared brain dead the following day. Several days later, he was taken off life-support. Authorities allege he suffocated. His cause of death was linked to deprivation of oxygen to the brain.

According to the affidavit, Rylaarsdam handed over her phone, and detectives found “several troubling videos” of Dale.

Videos of him struggling to breathe show he had duct tape over his mouth, a plastic bag over his head and more cling wrap, then duct tape, around his face and head, the affidavit states.

His wrists were bound, his fingers were covered in duct tape and his legs were plastic-wrapped, the affidavit says. It alleges he was unable to remove the bag or wrappings over his head.

As he lay unresponsive, she was performing a sex act nearby, apparently creating “content” for her OnlyFans page, the document alleges, referring to the adults-only platform where content creators frequently interact online with subscribers. The footage was shot moments before the call to 911.

Police said she denied putting a bag over his head.

The evidence indicates that overall, Dale paid Rylaarsdam more than $11,000 to “have conversations with him, and to come to his house, tie him up and perform other acts of bondage,” the affidavit alleges.

A man who lives in the home said Dale had recently rented a room there and had lived there no more than five days before the incident occurred. The resident declined to be identified because he said he did not want to be associated with what happened.

The resident said he was in his own room when a different roommate was alerted to the emergency and raced into his room, seeking his help.

The man said after he was summoned for help, he saw Dale on the floor, wearing sweatpants and wrapped in clingy plastic from about the hips down. The resident said he advised to call 911, and that he saw Rylaarsdam on the line with a dispatcher coaching her through CPR.

He said Rylaarsdam was “super freaked out.” He also said the roommate who had summoned him for help was so traumatized that she later moved out.

‘No intent to kill’

Rylaarsdam is charged with second-degree murder, under a theory of conscious disregard for human life, rather than first-degree murder, which must show an express intent to kill.

To prove a second-degree murder charge, prosecutors have the burden to prove that the defendant had implied malice — that she intentionally committed an act, and the natural and probable consequences of that act were dangerous to life. The person had to have known it was dangerous, and that even if she didn’t intend to kill, she deliberately acted with conscious disregard for life.

“The evidence showed that he hired her to perform bondage acts and fetish acts,” said Jarman, the prosecutor. “There is no indication that he asked her to obstruct his breathing, asked her to put tape over his mouth, asked her to put a plastic bag over his head.”

He also noted that the bag — which he said had additional tape around it — was there for at least eight minutes.

“I can say the case was investigated thoroughly, and the investigators left no stone unturned,” he said.

Rylaarsdam’s La Mesa-based attorney, Cohen, said the evidence will show that Rylaarsdam “caused 911 to be called, gave CPR and cooperated with police.”

“I think there was no intent to kill and no attempt to cover this up,” he said. “And she acted appropriately when she realized this was a problem.”

He said consent is not necessarily a defense to homicide, but it is “certainly a mitigating factor.”

“There is definitely a consensual element — not only something he consented to, something he was actively seeking,” Cohen said.

Cohen also questions Dale’s cause of death, noting what the attorney said was a combination of alcohol and a prescription drug in Dale’s system.

Defense attorney Danni Iredale, who is not a part of the case, said the defense might opt to argue the lesser crime of involuntary manslaughter. In the standard instructions given to a jury, it is “an unlawful killing resulting from a willful act committed without intent to kill and without conscious disregard of the risk to human life.”

“What’s so fascinating about involuntary manslaughter is when you read the (jury) instructions, it’s close to implied malice, second-degree (murder),” Iredale said.

As for the question of consent, Iredale said people are allowed to agree to some level of physicality during consensual encounters, but there is a limit.

She also said video in this case “will be crucial, specifically whether signs of distress were obvious to anyone looking on.”

Limits to what is permissible

For those who engage in BDSM, there are limits to what is permissible, said a longtime member of the BDSM community known professionally as Imperatrix Nox.

Nox, a dominatrix and board member at the Los Angeles BDSM venue Threshold and who is not associated with the Escondido case, said the BDSM community is “extremely safety conscious” and emphasizes education and hands-on training techniques.

Nox noted that putting a bag over a person’s head is considered “edgy.” Sometimes people post photos of such acts, she said, but there is a second person present — the one taking the pictures — and likely there are scissors nearby to quickly remove the bag.

“A lot of what we do, it’s not so much about doing the activity,” she said. “A lot of us, what you’re going for is that illusion of danger, because we all agree that these are inherently risky behaviors.”

Nox said some requests are too dangerous to honor.

“Some fantasies are better left in the fantasy realm. Some people cross that line, and that’s when things tend to go sideways.”