A 32-year-old woman from San Bernardino County who was arrested in February 2025 and charged with murder in a filmed OnlyFans fetish encounter gone tragically wrong has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.
Michaela Rylaarsdam opted for the plea deal last week, the Los Angeles Times reported. The plea acknowledges that she acted with disregard for human life, though without intent to kill.
According to investigators, Rylaarsdam began communicating with 56-year-old Michael Dale, an Escondido resident, between March and April 2023 after he spotted her on a website typically used for escort and stripper services.
In the weeks that followed, Dale paid more than $11,000 to engage in conversations with Rylaarsdam and, ultimately, to have her come to his home and perform fetish sex acts, according to court documents.
In text messages reviewed by investigators, Dale requested that Rylaarsdam wrap him in Saran wrap “like a mummy” and glue women’s boots to his feet.
The OnlyFans logo is displayed on a mobile phone with the company branding icon visible in the background in this photo illustration. (Photo by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Rylaarsdam told investigators that the eventual meet-up, on April 17, 2023, was the first time she had ever engaged in fetish behavior.
The encounter was reportedly between two adults consenting to what appeared to be bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism, also known as BDSM.
According to an affidavit for an arrest warrant prepared by police, when Rylaarsdam arrived at the Escondido home where Dale rented a room around 6 p.m., the 56-year-old appeared intoxicated. Despite that observation, authorities said, she decided to move forward with the encounter.
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At around 10 p.m. that night, police received a 911 call. Responding officers found Rylaarsdam performing CPR on Dale. According to one of the victim’s roommates, Rylaarsdam was on the line with a 911 dispatcher, who was coaching her through CPR.
That roommate, who did not want to be identified, described Rylaarsdam as “super freaked out” during the ordeal.
Dale was rushed to the hospital and declared brain dead the next day. He was taken off life support several days later, the Orange County Register reported. Authorities said his cause of death was suffocation and a lack of oxygen to the brain.
According to the affidavit, Rylaarsdam turned her phone over to investigators, who found videos showing Dale struggling to breathe with duct tape over his mouth, his legs secured in plastic wrap, his wrists bound and fingers covered with duct tape. A bag or wrappings were also over his head, which investigators said he was unable to remove.
Police further alleged that while Dale was unresponsive, Rylaarsdam was engaged in a sex act nearby, allegedly creating content for her OnlyFans page, a site where creators sometimes interact with subscribers.
According to police, Rylaarsdam denied placing the bag over Dale’s head.
Rylaarsdam has remained in custody at the Las Colinas Detention Facility in San Diego County and is expected to be sentenced to four years in state prison, the maximum penalty for the charge, at a hearing scheduled for June.
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