BOSTON, Feb. 10, 2017—A Dorchester woman today admitted helping to cover up the murder of her daughter, 2-year-old Bella Bond, in 2015 and will be sentenced after the child’s alleged killer goes to trial, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

RACHELLE DEE BOND (D.O.B. 7/25/75) pleaded guilty to the indicted charges of being an accessory after the fact to murder and larceny over $250 by false pretense. She was not accused of any involvement in Bella’s death: rather, she had been charged with aiding the man who allegedly killed her in the aftermath and continuing to receive state benefits intended to support the girl’s care.

Bond will be sentenced after the trial of MICHAEL PATRICK McCARTHY (D.O.B. 5/29/80), her former boyfriend, on a first-degree murder charge stemming from Bella Bond’s homicide in late May or early June 2015. The trial is currently scheduled for April 11 and McCarthy is due back in court on Feb. 23.

Assistant District Attorney David Deakin, chief of the DA’s Family Protection and Sexual Assault Bureau, told Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders that Bond concealed from friends, relatives, and the Department of Transitional Assistance that her daughter had been murdered and her body discarded in Boston Harbor. Although she knew the child had been killed in her Maxwell Street home, she did not tell anyone what had happened to Bella, gave untrue and conflicting answers when asked where the girl was, and received more than $1,300 from the state Department of Transitional Assistance.

Bella Bond’s body washed ashore on Deer Island in Winthrop in a trash bag on June 24, 2016. She was known only as “Baby Doe” until September, when Rachelle Bond confided in a friend that her daughter had been murdered and investigators determined her identity.

When confronted by State Police assigned to the Suffolk DA’s office, Deakin said, Bond gave a full and detailed statement to detectives that was later substantially corroborated by independent evidence. Since shortly after her arrest, Deakin told the court, she expressed her desire to cooperate with McCarthy’s prosecution, and her waiver today of her right against self-incrimination clears the way for her to testify against him.

Kara Hayes is the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. Bond is represented by attorney Janice Bassil and McCarthy by attorney Jonathan Shapiro.

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.