BOSTON, Feb. 10, 2017—A Dorchester woman was formally sentenced for her role in helping to cover up the murder of her daughter, 2-year-old Bella Bond, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

RACHELLE DEE BOND (D.O.B. 7/25/75) pleaded guilty on Feb. 10 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.

At the request of Assistant District Attorney David Deakin, chief of the DA’s Family Protection and Sexual Assault Bureau, Judge Janet Sanders sentenced her to the nearly two years she has spent behind bars following her Sept. 18, 2015, arrest. That request was made following her testimony at the murder trial of her former boyfriend, MICHAEL PATRICK McCARTHY (D.O.B. 5/29/80), who was convicted of second-degree murder last month.

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 waived her right against self-incrimination clears the way for her to testify against him.

Evidence and testimony introduced during McCarthy’s three-week trial established that he caused the child’s death inside Rachelle Bond’s home on a night in early June 2015 and later placed her body in a trash bag, which he then placed in a duffle bag he weighted down and dumped into Boston Harbor. There was no evidence introduced through any witness to indicate that Rachelle Bond had played a part in her daughter’s homicide.

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.