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KEVIN CULLEN

Some unexpected justice for Bella

A Suffolk Superior Court jury Monday convicted Michael McCarthy of second-degree murder for killing 2-year-old Bella Bond, then dumping her body in Boston Harbor during the summer of 2015.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury Monday convicted Michael McCarthy of second-degree murder for killing 2-year-old Bella Bond, then dumping her body in Boston Harbor during the summer of 2015.

Not long after a jury decided that Michael McCarthy is a murderer, the prosecution team huddled outside the courtroom on the ninth floor of the Suffolk County Courthouse.

Michael Sprinsky approached the group and Dan Herman, a State Police detective, embraced him.

“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Herman told Sprinsky, who was a key prosecution witness.

The sight of a state cop hugging a man who for most of his life was lost in a fog of drugs was unusual, but then this whole case was unusual.

Two years and one day after 2-year-old Bella Bond’s body washed up in a trash bag on Deer Island, someone was held accountable for her death.

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Herman, the lead investigator, finished this journey the way he began it: sleepless.

“Not a wink,” he said when I asked him if he had slept the night before.

Herman and the other detectives from Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley’s office and Winthrop police worked 85 days straight to identify Bella before Bella’s mother, Rachelle, told Sprinsky that McCarthy had killed Bella in the Dorchester apartment they shared then dumped her weighted body into Boston Harbor.

Sprinsky told his sister, who called police, unraveling a mystery that had perplexed investigators for three months.

Conley raised eyebrows when he cut a deal with Rachelle Bond, who was complicit in the coverup of her daughter’s murder. Rachelle Bond was hardly a great witness, and there were huge holes and inconsistencies in her story.

But the jury believed at least enough of her testimony. They believed her when she testified that McCarthy punched Bella so hard that the little girl’s body bounced up from the mattress where she normally slept. They believed her when she testified that McCarthy told her he killed Bella because she was a demon.

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They may not have believed her when she claimed she went along with the coverup of her daughter’s murder because she was deathly afraid of McCarthy. With some brilliant tactics, prosecutors allowed the jury to be selective in what they believed.

This was a huge, unexpected win for the prosecution. Conley was beaming as he shook hands with the prosecution team, a jury’s verdict vindicating his decision to offer a plea deal to Rachelle Bond that will see her walk free on Tuesday.

The prosecution made tactical decisions on the fly, none more important than giving jurors options less than the first-degree murder conviction originally sought. By implicitly acknowledging holes in their case, prosecutors saved their case.

Just as crucially, prosecutor David Deakin persuaded Judge Janet Sanders to instruct jurors they could find McCarthy guilty even if they couldn’t rule out someone else was involved, despite the defense’s argument to the contrary. So even if jurors believe Rachelle Bond was more complicit in her daughter’s death than she let on, the jury was able to convict McCarthy of second-degree murder.

When McCarthy entered the courtroom for the verdict, he was smiling. He seemed confident, as he had throughout the trial. The only one who looked more shocked by the verdict than him was his lawyer, Jonathan Shapiro. Shapiro pounded away at Rachelle Bond’s credibility. He couldn’t believe a jury didn’t see her as he did: a liar trying to pin her own culpability on her ex-boyfriend.

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As McCarthy slumped into his chair, Mike Sprinsky, sober since the day he learned Bella was dead, hugged his sister. Dan Herman was stoic.

In the hallway, I couldn’t get Conley to admit he was surprised.

“I felt we had a good, smart jury,” Conley said. “I would have felt that way even if it was a different result.”

Conley pointed toward Herman and Deakin. “I’m so proud of the work they did,” Conley said. “They never gave up on Bella. Never.”

Herman was subdued.

“I’m thinking of Bella,” he said.

So were the jurors. A little girl was murdered and discarded like trash. If the case wasn’t rock solid, the insistence that someone had to pay for Bella’s death was.


Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeCullen.