Baby Doe Parents Kept Quiet After Murder

Neither Bella Bond’s mother nor her father went to police once they found out their 2-year-old daughter was dead. Bella Bond’s mom only fessed up when dad knocked on her door. Neither of them called the cops.

Prosecutors alleged Monday in an arraignment that Michael McCarthy, the ex-boyfriend of Bella’s mother Rachelle Bond, murdered the toddler in June. This not on the basis of any forensic evidence but only on statements Bond made. After that, Bond said she and McCarthy kept Bella’s body in a refrigerator for several weeks before dumping it in a South Boston Harbor.

According to Bond’s attorney Janice Bassil, McCarthy held Bond “captive.”

Bond told Joseph Amoroso, Bella’s father, that McCarthy threatened to kill her if she said anything and that he injected her with a gram of heroin in her neck every day for five months to keep her compliant.

After arriving in Boston from Florida several weeks ago, Amoroso knocked on Bond’s door. Amoroso said he was there to see Bella for the first time in person. Bond told him that the girl was on Cape Cod.

Then last week, McCarthy went to the hospital for abscesses on his arm from shooting heroin. Then Bond “was finally freed,” according to Bassil.

“The first thing she did was tell somebody,” Bassill added, referring to a conversation she had with Michael Sprinsky, a friend of McCarthy.

Previously, Bond told Sprinsky that Bella was with the Department of Children and Families. When he asked again, she gave in.

“I’ll never see my daughter ever again,” she told Sprinsky. “Michael McCarthy killed her.”

Sprinsky asked McCarthy, who replied via text: “She’s in DCF that’s where she is. Who are you going to believe me or [expletive deleted].”

Bond did not call police but Sprinsky did.

Amoroso returned and asked about Bella again, which is when she confessed to him, too.

“Our daughter is dead,” Amoroso said Bond told him. “The guy that’s been living in my house murdered our daughter.”

This, according to McCarthy’s attorney, Jonathan Shapiro, was the “product of her delusional and sick mind.” McCarthy, he says, honestly thought the child had been taken by DCF as two of Bond’s other children had been.

Amoroso said he and Bond both debated calling the FBI or police but never did so.

Amoroso sat in the front row of the courtroom when Bond and McCarthy were escorted in handcuffs to a protective glass cage. When Bond turned and looked to the courtroom, Amoroso placed a clenched hand over his chest in a show of support.

It was a strange solidarity to have with a woman who allegedly tormented his daughter.

Sprinsky told law enforcement the couple would lock Bella up in a closet for up to an hour while she screamed, according to Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney David Deakin. Sprinsky said both Bond and McCarthy believed the toddler was possessed by demons.

Bond told authorities that her daughter died one evening in late May. Bella was crying and McCarthy took her to another room to try to calm her down. Bond’s account of what happened next is vague: she says she went to check on them and saw McCarthy’s arms moving rapidly, making contact with Bella, “either striking or applying pressure,” Deakin said.

When Bond saw that Bella was swollen and her face was gray, she knew her child was dead. The medical examiner still has not determined an exact cause of death.

“She was a demon anyway, it was her time to die,” McCarthy allegedly told her.

That made Amoroso scream: “McCarthy, you’re done! You won’t last a day!”

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