Bashara Murder a 'Law & Order' Ep Come to Life

Detroit viewers, and the Detroit stations, remain riveted to the murder case involving Jane and Bob Bashara.

WDIV reported last night on Bob’s “secret past”, which the report said includes S&M and a “secret dungeon.”

Bob’s wife Jane was murdered January 25. The Basharas reside just east of Detroit in Grosse Pointe, which has emerged as a symbol of a safe and sheltered suburb through films and books such as Grosse Pointe Blank and The Virgin Suicides.

Bob remains a person of interest, though no arrests have been made at presstime. DMA No. 11 viewers can’t seem to get enough of the story.

“It’s really captured a lot of attention here,” says Marla Drutz, GM at WDIV, the NBC affiliate. “It’s just got everybody talking.”

With sweeps underway, the story, and its increasingly peculiar offshoots, is driving local news ratings big-time. Drutz says Law & Order did a 6 HH rating/10 share last night, while late news inflated to a 10 rating/19 share, ahead of WXYZ’s 4.9/9 and WJBK’s 4.6/9 at 11. Drutz says WDIV’s ratings actually grew in the second quarter hour of its late news–a testament to the level of interest in the story, and, she notes, WDIV speaking with a mystery woman who mentioned “Master Bob” and his taste for kinky extramarital action.

NBC’s long-running legal drama was a rather fitting lead-in to late news for WDIV last night.

“If you told someone this story,” says Drutz, “they’d say, ‘I saw that on Law & Order.’”