A mother has been arrested after Facebook users identified her two-year-old daughter as the girl whose body was found in a garbage bag on a beach earlier this year.
The body – known as Baby Doe – left detectives baffled when it was found on a Boston Harbour island on June 25. After studying the remains, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children created an image of what the girl might have looked like when she was alive.
Police published this image on Facebook, where it was viewed more than 47 million times and eventually led to the girl being identified as Bella Bond.
Bella’s mother Rachelle Bond, 40, has now been arrested for accessory to murder after the fact, while her boyfriend Michael McCarthy, 35, has been charged with murder.
“At just shy of three years old, Bella Bond was a true innocent,” Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said at a news conference announcing the charges. “This child, whose very name means beauty, was murdered,” he said.
Conley would not comment on how the girl died.
