BOND: EX HAD ‘OFF-THE-WALL’ OCCULT BELIEFS
Rachelle Bond testified yesterday that her ex-boyfriend, accused of her toddler daughter’s heinous murder, believed in wild conspiracies, including that government officials are shape-shifters and reptilians — while the defense tried to paint those as her ideas.
Bond, on the witness stand in Michael McCarthy’s trial for the murder of 2-year-old Bella Bond, told defense attorney Jonathan Shapiro that her former boyfriend believed government officials are supernatural creatures.
“They were shape-shifters and reptilians. ... Off-the-wall occult things,” Bond said about notes she jotted in her journal about McCarthy’s beliefs.
But Shapiro didn’t buy it, pressing hard for Bond to acknowledge she believed the fantasies penned in her journal.
“You’re saying it wasn’t you saying this? It was Michael saying this?” Shapiro asked. “I’m reading what you wrote: ... evil entities, a hybrid entity that came down from made machines, they’re reptilian-made human beings.”
Bond responded, “These are like his conspiracy theories about government. ... He was trying to make me believe this.”
She also testified that McCarthy, 37, followed radio shock jock Alex Jones, who was pushing the idea that the Jade Helm military training exercise was actually the government preparing to enact martial law.
Prosecutors contend McCarthy killed Bella in June 2015 by punching her so hard she bounced off the mattress she was lying on. Bond told authorities McCarthy told her little Bella “was a demon.”
Bella became known as “Baby Doe” when authorities publicly released a composite sketch of the toddler whose then-unidentified body washed up on Deer Island in September 2015.
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Rachelle Bond will be released from lockup after McCarthy’s trial, in exchange for the testimony and a guilty plea to accessory after the fact to murder. Lawyers yesterday explained if her testimony is deemed untruthful, she could face significant prison time for perjury.
Shapiro grilled her about the plea.
“The only punishment for what you did to your child will be over — won’t it?” he asked her.
“Michael McCarthy killed my daughter,” Bond said.
Both McCarthy and Bond were heroin addicts. Bond told prosecutor David Deakin her memory of her daughter’s death was clearer yesterday, now that she is “clean and sober,” than when she spoke to state police in the fall of 2015.