Authorities have identified a young girl months after she was found dead in a trash bag on Boston harbor's Deer Island. Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo said at a press conference on Friday that the name of the girl who had come to be know as "Baby Doe" is in fact Bella Bond.
Michael Patrick McCarthy, 35, the boyfriend of the girl's mother, Rachelle Bond, has been arrested and charged with murder. Bond, 40, was charged as an accessory after the fact, officials said.
The June discovery of the body of Baby Doe, as she was dubbed by police, received widespread social media attention, with her composite image being shared by tens of thousands of people online in a bid to identify the child. On Friday authorities said she was two-and-a-half years old when she died.
"Her name was Bella," Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said at the beginning of a press conference.
"This child, whose very name means beauty, was murdered," Conley. "We allege McCarthy caused Bella's death, that he do so intentionally, that he and Bond took specific steps to keep Bella's death a secret and to avoid prosecution."
Conley declined to comment on the cause of death, but said more details would be made public on Monday when McCarthy, 35, and Bond, 40, are arraigned.
"We have very powerful evidence which has provided us a manner of death we will be able to prove in court," Conley said.
Friday's arrest and identification of Bella came 24 hours after Boston homicide detectives received a tip. Massachusetts State Police Col. Richard McKeon, who commended investigators, said work on the case will continue in the coming months.
"Today, 83 days after we found this little girl on the shore line, we're at last able to speak for Baby Bella," McKeon said at a press conference. "The men and women who investigated this case have given her name back. Now we will give her justice."
The state's Department of Children and Families briefly had involvement with "Baby Bella" as an infant on two occasions: between August and December 2012, and between June and September 2013.
In both instances, the family was investigated for neglect, services were provided, and the case was closed. Conley declined to elaborate on DCF's contact with Bella.
"When Baby Doe's body was found this past June, [the department] immediately did a sweep of all open cases involving a child in this age range," DCF spokesperson Rhonda Mann said. "Within a few weeks, our social workers physically visited every child, ensuring their wellbeing. Because the case regarding Baby Bella had been closed, it was not among those involved in the sweep."
The department terminated Bella's mother's parental rights for two of her other children between 2001 and 2006. One of the children was placed with the maternal grandmother, while another was adopted by a non-related family.
Left: Rachelle Bond. Right: Michael McCarthy.
Acting on information they received, Boston police searched a home in the city's Mattapan section Thursday, officials told the Associated Press.
This appeared to be the first break in the case for police in their months-long attempt to identify the girl and to determine how she died.
Baby Doe's body was discovered in a trash bag by a woman walking her dog along the western shore of Deer Island on June 25. She had brown eyes and brown hair and was wearing a pair of white leggings with black-and-white polka dots. Her body was found with a zebra-print fleece blanket that investigators believed may have been special to her.
An autopsy by the state's medical examiner could not immediately determine the cause of death. Forensic tests showed the girl may have been from the New England area. The testing of pollen samples from her blanket indicated she may have spent time in the Greater Boston area prior to her death. Investigators believed she died somewhere in the area and not in a distant location.
Authorities had appealed to her family to come forward and identify the child. "Based on what we believe her age to be, this little girl should be enjoying the innocent childhood pursuits of summer, and, in a few weeks, perhaps, preparing to start school – perhaps the first day of school ever in her life," Colonel McKeon of Massachusetts State Police said in July. "Instead, she lies unnamed in the Medical Examiner's office. Someone knows her. To that person, we know that for whatever reason, you have not come forward yet."
Police had ruled out more than 200 missing girls in their search for Baby Doe's identity.