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In discussing Bob Bashara’s now self-admitted secret life as “Master Bob” of the Mack Avenue sex dungeon, someone on NBC’s Dateline show Friday night mentioned “Fifty Shades of Grey,” the best-selling erotic novel that contains elements of S&M.
Watching the 60-minute investigative report on the Bashara murder case in Grosse Pointe Park, viewers easily could have recalled another kinky cultural hit, “Blue Velvet,” the 1986 film by David Lynch.
Like the Dateline producers, Lynch established his idyllic setting with shots of flowers, white picket fences and blue suburban skies and then plunged beneath the surface calm into a dark world of violence, kooky characters and alternative sex lives.
Framed by Dateline, Grosse Pointe Park became the Blue Velvety place for what host Lester Holt called “one of our most unusual stories.” That is really saying something, given that Dateline is 20 years old, and in those two decades the show has poked around in many dark corners of the American underbelly.
Led by veteran reporter Dennis Murphy, Dateline provided viewers from coast to coast with a primer on the Bashara case, in which Jane Bashara, a 56-year-old marketing executive, was found murdered January 24 inside her black Mercedes SUV on Detroit’s east side. That grungy alley was several miles from her tasteful home on Middlesex in Grosse Pointe Park, “where residents like to think their grass is a little greener,” in the words of the Dateline narrator.
The family handyman, Joe Genz, has been charged in connection with the crime. Jane’s husband, Bob Bashara, was described as a person of interest by police early in the case, but he has not been charged and has cooperated with authorities.
Bashara has been defensive toward local media outlets, but he welcomed Dateline into his home, showing off the pond, burbling water and ferns in his backyard, and allowing the camera to capture him leafing through a book in the living room, next to a glass that carried the words “You’re the Man, Bob.”
Bashara told Murphy he did not kill his wife, though WDIV-TV reporter Marc Santia quickly popped on camera to tell viewers police suspected Bashara from the start. Bashara pleaded with Murphy that he was not capable of killing someone, that he was not a violent man, did not own a gun and loved Jane.
Bashara insisted the local media did not know him. “Look at my life,” he said. “Really look at my life.”
Ok. Murphy looked at his life. And that look did not turn out so well for Bob. Dateline quickly switched to what the narrator called Bashara’s “secret, kinky side,” and things pretty much went downhill for Bob from there.
The camera showed the stairs to the sex dungeon, also in Grosse Pointe, and interviewed a woman, disguised in makeup to look like Marian the Librarian. She described her first play date with Master Bob after having contacted him on an Internet forum for fans of BDSM – bondage, domination, sadism and masochism.
She talked of whips, canes, riding crops and a giant, round “spider web.” She recalled her first flogging with Master Bob was “really exciting,” though she complained Bashara was “self-absorbed” and “very, very dominating.” She, like others, went to the cops (and reporters) when they saw Bashara on TV in January, mourning his wife and being described as a jolly Rotarian.
Dateline, demonstrating its stylistic differences with “60 Minutes,” emphasized the shadowy side of Grosse Pointe by conducting some interviews in a dark, candlelit basement. When Murphy talked in such a setting to Santia, it looked so Goth you wanted to yell, “Marc, watch out for the spider web!”
The news of the show, reported Friday morning, was that Bashara admitted he had both a mistress and an alternative lifestyle. He suggested Jane Basahra was cool with an open marriage, but said she did not know about the sex dungeon. Jane’s family issued a statement to Dateline that said Jane Bashara would have divorced Bob before seeing him involved with other women.
Dateline also produced evidence that Bashara and his mistress, a Grosse Pointer named Rachel Gillett, had planned to set up a ménage a trois with an Oregon woman who is also into S&M. They were to live in Grosse Pointe Park, near the home of Bob and Jane.
And the show, which specializes in true crime, hardly ignored supposed details of Jane’s death. They were brutally described and did not make Bashara look good.
Toward the end of Dateline, Gillett's “dreamy blogs” were cited. Her dreams included the three lovers living together amid white picket fences, and having said that, the scene switched to a view of white picket fences and lush, green landscapes.
It was supposed to be Grosse Pointe Park. But it could have been "Blue Velvet."
