Live testimony resumes today in the murder trial of Michael P. McCarthy.
McCarthy stands accused of murdering his girlfriend’s two-year-old child, hiding the little girl’s body in a refrigerator, and then dumping her body in a channel which connects to Boston Harbor. A woman out walking a dog eventually found the badly decomposed body of the girl, who was first known to authorities as “Baby Doe” on billboards and posters.
Later, Michael Sprinsky, a lifelong friend of the defendant’s, made the connection: Baby Doe was really Bella Bond. He testified that Rachelle Bond, the girl’s mother, told him that the defendant murdered Bella. McCarthy and Rachelle Bond were living together at the time.
Rachelle Bond wrapped up her fifth day of testimony yesterday. She faced repeated attacks from defense attorney Jonathan Shaprio over inconsistencies in her story and her own prior criminal record. Prosecutors, though, attempted to rehabilitate her. Without her testimony, there is little evidence linking McCarthy to the death and disappearance of Bella Bond.
Bella’s father, Joseph Amoroso, was on the stand Thursday. He testified about going to visit Bella and being told by Rachelle Bond that Bella was with her godparents on Cape Cod. Bella had already been dead at that point and had already washed up on the beach — though no one had identified her at that point.
Amoroso went looking for Bella one more time after that.
On his third attempt to look for Bella, Rachelle told him that Bella was dead. Amoroso said he “flipped out” and “punched a concrete pillar” upon learning the news.
Amoroso testified that he, like Rachelle Bond, struggled with drugs and homelessness. He eventually took off for Florida, then Georgia, where he spent two years in a rehabilitative program operated by a local ministry.
He kept in touch with Rachelle and Bella Bond via telephone, he said. He also testified that he tried to contact social services officials in Massachusetts when he suspected Rachelle was again using drugs. He said that the state didn’t take him seriously.
Michael P. McCarthy claims he was not involved with the little girl’s disappearance or death. He claims that Bella simply wasn’t there one day, and that Rachelle Bond told him that social services workers had taken Bella away. McCarthy didn’t suspect anything suspicious. Social services workers had already taken away Rachelle Bond’s two other children.
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