Mother pleads guilty to accessory after the fact
Prosecutors have raised the stakes against the man accused of murdering 2-year-old Bella Bond by approving a plea deal that is expected to set the girl’s mother free in exchange for her testimony against him.
Rachelle Bond “wants nothing more” than to see her 35-year-old former boyfriend, Michael McCarthy, convicted of her daughter’s murder, her lawyer, Janice Bassil, said yesterday.
“Her daughter meant everything to her ... She had no knowledge of his intent to do anything to her daughter,” she said. “I do see her as a victim in this case.”
Bond, 41, pleaded guilty yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court to being an accessory after the fact to her daughter’s murder and to larceny over $250 for taking more than $1,300 in welfare after the girl’s death.
Bella’s body was found in June 2015 in a garbage bag that washed ashore on Deer Island, sparking a three-month nationwide search for her identity and her killer. Billboards featuring the little girl’s face along with the name “Baby Doe” went up around the city, but her mother never came forward.
Bella was finally identified in September 2015, leading to the arrest of her mother and McCarthy, who prosecutors said killed the child and told her mother, “She was a demon, and it was her time to die.”
Yesterday, Assistant District Attorney David Deakin said he would recommend that Bond be sentenced to time served — now 1 years — followed by two years of supervised probation after a jury returns a verdict in McCarthy’s trial. The maximum she could have received for both charges was a total of 17 years.
Dressed in a black suit, Bond wept on the witness stand as Deakin described her daughter’s murder.
“Yes, your honor,” she said softly as she admitted to finding McCarthy standing over her dead child in their Dorchester apartment, watching him place the girl’s body into a garbage bag and store it in a refrigerator until he finally dumped it into Boston Harbor.
After Bella’s body washed ashore on Deer Island, she became known nationwide as “Baby Doe” as authorities searched for her true identity and her killer.
Bond later told cops McCarthy coerced her with drugs and threats of violence to keep silent about the child’s murder, Bassil said.
McCarthy’s trial is scheduled for April 11, and Bond is expected to be sentenced May 22.