Delia Day
Delia Day was the online pseudonym of Susan, a photographer, artist, and the weblogger of "My illustrated life as a sex slave," which gave an intimate look into her full-time master/slave lifestyle — with her cast as the slave to a sadistic master. Her writing was well respected and contained many intelligent essays on the subject. She was bright and witty and likeable, and BME was happy to have her and her husband Travis- an equally likeable programmer for an image processing software company- as BME/HARD contributors, and was looking forward to adding her to the BME/News staff.
She and her husband appeared stable and suited together; with children and an apparently "happy family" existence, they were seen by many as an ideal example of the S&M lifestyle as something normal and healthy (not that there weren't plenty of people who thought they were a bit nuts). They celebrated their 10th anniversary by tattooing a large slave-collar around her neck.
Murder or Self-Defense?
Then, not long after the photo on the bottom was taken, their seemingly happy life together took a dark turn. Foreshadowing an act that would have some argue that things may have been less consensual than what was being stated, she described her husband getting a used shotgun and teaching her how to use it (for "home defense"). Then, at 2 am in the morning of December 2, 2003, that shotgun took his life, and Susan called emergency services to report it. She was accused of having murdered him and was taken into custody. Her websites were taken offline not long afterwards, as were his.
Ultimately, a grand jury failed to indict her due to their S&M lifestyle, calling the event self-defense. Susan has since moved to be near her family and try and find a new life, and would prefer it if people left her alone and allowed her to take back her privacy and anonymity.
Whether it really was self-defense, or whether Susan used the S&M lifestyle to cover up a murder, is something the public will never really know for sure. However, because of the popularity of her website and her large following, the debate is sure to rage on in online forums for some time to come.
Her original BME/HARD gallery (from before she became Delia Day) can be found here: [1] (sorry, members only link).
