Boston's 'Baby Doe' case: How India can handle its sensational murders
If I were to hold up my right hand and solemnly swear to tell the whole truth in the presence of a judge, I would have to be honest and plead guilty.
Because I am guilty both of presumption and the rush to judgement. As a citizen and as a mother, I was angry and outraged at the crime and the subsequent confession of a mother at the murder of her own child by her boyfriend.
I had watched this case unfold from June. It was a heartbreaking story. An American baby was found dead in a plastic bag on a beach in Deer Island, Boston by a woman who was walking her dog. The child was believed to be four years old, weighed 30 pounds and was 3 ½ feet tall. She had brown eyes and brown hair. The body was partially decomposed.
She was wearing a very distinctive pair of white leggings with black and white polka dots and she was wrapped in a zebra print fleece blanket.
Investigators who work the tough streets of Boston, hardened by years of brutal crime were touched by this child, abandoned and unclaimed by anybody.
They appealed to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to reconstruct her facial features and released the composite to the public.
Law enforcement spent 10,000 man hours in working on this case and released the computer generated picture of the "Baby Doe" everywhere. For 85 days, investigators estimate that they reached 56 million people. They used the traditional methods of media coverage, flyers and newer ones of social media and text alerts.
"The world responded and wanted to help. We got tips locally, nationally and internationally. There was an outpouring of warmth and affection for this child," said Jake Wark, a spokesperson for the Suffolk county district attorney office, which is prosecuting the case, who agreed to speak to me on the phone today.
"Using social media gave us an edge. It was like knocking on fifty million doors at once."
In the past year, law enforcement in the United States has been accused of being unfair to minorities and while some of these charges are true, I would like to say that in this case, investigators left no stone unturned. They took this case personally.
Many Boston officers, parents themselves, obsessed about the child "Bella" whose very name means "beautiful."
They bought in experts to figure out if the child was thrown on the beach or washed up from another place. They studied the water currents. They found out that her leggings and her blanket came from Target and K-mart stores, both national chains. Their first breakthrough came when they tested the pollen in her hair and determined that she came from the Boston area.
They did DNA tests on her to determine whether she was a missing child from anywhere in the country.
"It was a rare unusual case, we had the remains of a child and no one to identify her. It was a challenge and we were ready to meet it," Wark said.
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| Bella's mother, Rachel Bond. |
The shift in the case came when the biological father Joe Amoroso came looking for his daughter from the mother Rachel Bond, whom he was estranged from and then she told him the real story.
Her boyfriend Michael Patrick McCarthy convinced that Bella was possessed by demons, punched her in the stomach, killing her. Then they put her body in the refrigerator for more than a month.
Amoroso had never seen Bella and he had a lengthy criminal record with many offences just like Rachel, who has been charged with prostitution, drug possession, assault, battery and receiving stolen goods.
He did not tell police directly but he apparently told someone who told someone who did call in an anonymous tip resulting in the arrests of McCarthy and Bond. The former is charged with Bella's murder and the latter is charged as an accessory. They are in jail and the case will go to trial in the coming months.
The case is heart-breaking and gut-wrenching. As a mother, I was horrified and shocked at the brief, sad life this child lived.
But I am in awe and full of admiration for law enforcement in this case. They spoke out fervently and passionately for Bella, appealing to the public to please help in identifying the child or she will be buried in a pauper's grave with no name.
But as soon as the arrests were made in the case, police stopped talking to the media.
There are no sensational leaks and no salacious details provided to the media.
"This was the case of a child. Her age and her innocence touched our hearts. She could have been from any race, from any neighbourhood and law enforcement would have put in the same procedures. All victims are equal under our law," Wark said.
The case will be tried and prosecuted in court, where the prosecution will fight for the victim.
"Defendants are presumed innocent until they are proven guilty," Wark said.
This is how a murder investigation and its prosecution are conducted in the United States. With professionalism, with dignity, with decorum, with integrity, with ethics and with respect to the victim.
Because ultimately, the laws are put into place to ensure justice for the victim.
This is a lesson that India should learn from America, where murder cases like Sheena Bora and Aarushi Talwar are turned into circuses where guilt is decided by the bloodthirsty public and irresponsible journalists who will do anything to raise the ratings of their shows.