MA State Police: Baby Bella’s Body Stuffed in Refrigerator for a Month
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Baby Bella - Image courtesy of MSP
The most gruesome portion of MSP's statement was details on lengths Michael McCarthy took after killing Bella in late May. According to MSP, McCarthy killed Bella in her bedroom, put her body in a bag and then put her into a refrigerator where her body stayed for nearly a month.
The arraignments of Bella's mother, Rachelle Bond, 40 and McCarthy, 35, took place on Monday morning. McCarthy was charge with murder and held without bail. Bond was charged with accessory to murder after the fact and was held on $1 million cash bail.
Both McCarthy and Bond were also charged with improper disposal of human remains.
Here is the full statement from Massachusetts State Police:
The arraignments in Dorchester District Court of the two defendants charged in Baby Bella’s death were held today. MICHAEL McCARTHY, 35, who is the boyfriend of Bella’s mother, is charged with murder and was held without bail. RACHELLE BOND, 40, Bella’s mother, is charged with accessory to murder after the fact and was ordered held on $1 million cash bail. Both are also charged with improper disposal of human remains.
Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney David Deakin told the court that State Police detectives learned that McCARTHY killed the baby in the little girl’s bedroom in late May, and that he then put her body in a bag and put her into a refrigerator, where she stayed for nearly a month. McCARTHY and BOND are then accused of putting the baby’s body in Boston Harbor from a point in South Boston in late June.
Baby Bella’s body was found on the shoreline of Deer Island on the afternoon of June 25. For nearly three months, as investigators from the State Police Detective Unit for Suffolk County followed up hundreds of leads about missing children, BOND never reported that her daughter had been killed. Leads were chased down throughout Massachusetts, in 35 other states, and several foreign countries. Advanced forensic testing was conducted, including tests on pollen in her hair and isotopes in her hair and teeth, in the hope of learning where she had lived throughout her short life. A mitochondrial DNA profile — the most sophisticated type of DNA profile — was created in the hope that if a close adult relative had a DNA sample on file, our little girl’s DNA could be matched to it.
These efforts continued, week after week after week.
State Police investigators broke the case last week when they learned that following: A man who knew BOND asked her about her daughter. BOND made admissions to that man that the child had been killed. That man then relayed that information to his sister. The man and his sister referenced online information about the ongoing efforts to identify the toddler found on Deer Island and saw the composite image of the baby that had been widely publicized. The suspicions that the young girl, popularly referred to as Baby Doe, was in fact Bella were passed along to the State Police Detective Unit last Wednesday night.
State Police investigators on Thursday went to BOND’s apartment at 115 Maxwell St. in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood. No one answered the door. They made entry to conduct a well-being check and, upon making observations, immediately realized they were in the place where Baby Doe had lived.
Troopers immediately secured the apartment and obtained a search warrant, which was executed over several hours Thursday night. Items of potential evidentiary value were seized. By Friday morning, State Police detectives had determined that McCARTHY was at Beth Israel Hospital for a medical procedure, and that BOND was at a residence in Lynn. Both were located and placed into custody.
The Suffolk County State Police Detective Unit did outstanding, tireless work on this heartbreaking case, and the fact that we are in a position to seek justice for Bella is due to this extremely talented and dedicated group of investigators. We are grateful to them and to ADA Deakin and his colleagues for their unbreakable commitment to get to the truth about who this young girl was and how she died.
We also recognize the important contributions of our Crime Scene Services Section, our K9 Section, and our dive team, who assisted at the scene the day we found Bella. We also note the fine work done by our Forensic Services Group in analyzing evidence recovered that day.
We thank the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for their invaluable assistance. NCMEC was with us, offering advice and help, every step of the way. We thank the Winthrop Police for their critical assistance, and every other police department in the United States and other countries who helped conduct well-being checks. We are also grateful for the expertise of several outside laboratories, including scientists from the Customs and Border Protection agency, the University of North Texas, and IsoForensics Inc. in Utah.
We are grateful, too, to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and ClearChannel Outdoor, for allowing us to post the composite image of the little girl we would eventually come to know as Bella on more than 90 billboards around the state.
And we thank all of you who submitted tips and expressed support to our investigators throughout these last 12 weeks. The depth of your concern and compassion for this little girl is beyond words.
The job is not done.
The Massachusetts State Police will continue to work with the Suffolk District Attorney throughout the prosecution to ensure that Bella’s voice, silenced by these two defendants, is heard again before the law. Ahead of us now is the completion of several remaining investigative tasks and assisting prosecutors in preparing the case for trial.
The arrests do not mark the end of our determination to speak for Bella. That mission continues, and we march on, and it will not end until we secure justice for this innocent child.
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