Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog
Michael P. McCarthy, 35 and hereinafter, the “Defendant” went to court today. He is the gent who stands accused of actually killing the toddler known for months as “Baby Doe”.
The court was Suffolk Superior Court in Boston. The charge is Murder in the First Degree.
This was not the first time the Defendant was in court on this matter. He has been in jail since September 18, 2015. At the time, he was held without bail and the matter was in District Court.
Now, the case has been indicted. He is in Superior Court where a conviction on the charge is possible (the charge cannot be prosecuted in District Court) and he faces the sentence of Life without the possibility of parole.
The two-year-old Baby Doe (later identified as Bella Bond) is the identified victim in the matter. Her body washed up on the shores of Deer Island on June 25th.
Boston.com tells us that, according to the Commonwealth, the Defendant had been living with Rachelle Bond (hereinafter, the “Mother”) on Maxwell Street in Dorchester at the time of Baby Doe’s death. Prosecutors say that said death came about when the Defendant beat her to death because she would not fall asleep in late May or early June. He is then said to have placed the child’s body into a trash bag and leaving the bag inside the apartment refrigerator.
The Commonwealth further alleges that the Defendant and Mother had a multi-day drug binge which culminated with their putting the body into a duffle bag with weights, and throwing it into Boston Harbor.
Upon finding the body, detectives spent months trying to identify the girl, and a computer-generated image of her face was broadcast across the world. The girl’s identity was not discovered, though, until September when Mother allegedly told a friend of McCarthy’s that even if she got sober, she’d never see her daughter again. That friend told his sister, who called Boston police.
Mother is currently being held on One Million Dollars bail after being in Suffolk Superior Court last week on charges of accessory to murder after the fact and theft of more than $250.
Just to make matters even darker, Investigators say Mother continued to take nearly $1,400 in welfare money meant to support her dead daughter after the girl’s death. Hence the theft charge.
At the Defendant’s arraignment, his attorney argued that Mother’s explanation that the Defendant had killed the girl, and not Mother, was self serving and unbelievable.
Counsel asked for bail in the amount of $100,00…which would be even less than Mother’s bail.
The court apparently did not see it his way. The Defendant continues to be held without bail.
Attorney Sam’s Take On Who’s “Truth” The Prosecution Accepts
We have discussed this sort of issue many times before, usually in connection with less severe circumstances.
Usually, when there are two different versions of “Who Is the Bad Guy”, the role goes to whoever does not come forward first. In other words, the first person who goes to the authorities is usually the one who is believed. The person that now-government-witness points to as the “bad guy” is cast in that role as far as law enforcement is concerned.
This is how, in many assault and battery cases, people become the “victim” or the “suspect”. If two people have an altercation, whoever goes to the police first is the one who is believed. The going law enforcement interpretation of the circumstances is that if the soon-to-be defendant were the victim, then THEY would have gone to the police.
“But many people don’t want to go to the police in those situations. Some folks are even afraid of the police.”
True. And when confronted by those facts, police officers will agree. However, that belief seldom translates to how they treat these cases.
In this case, Mother clearly said that the Defendant was the actual murderer. She cast herself into a secondary role. Interestingly, law enforcement went with her version of events even though she is the one who went on to profit after the death.
Allegedly.
“But, Sam, it is not like she got away withs something by doing that. After all, she is facing criminal charges as well.”
Sure. But she is not charged with Murder in the First Degree, is she?
