Keller @ Large: No Justice For Bella Bond

BOSTON (CBS) - I wanted to wait until after Monday's arraignment to say anything about the horrific case of Bella Bond, the little girl allegedly beaten to death by her mother's boyfriend, then tossed into the harbor by mom and her beau. I wanted to get a better grasp of the facts, and get a grip on my emotions.

But the facts aren't calming.

They're depressing, appalling and infuriating.

Some people already want to turn this into another indictment of the beleaguered state agency that oversees at-risk kids, because they briefly had Bella on their radar. But unless something more comes out, that seems unfair.

Agencies like DCF are handed half-a-roll of Scotch tape and told to stop a tsunami of dysfunction and social pathology from pouring over the dam. Some of those cases involve parents who had good intentions and tried their best but were overwhelmed by adversity.

Others, like the Bond case it seems, involve people who should never have conceived.

That's the depressing part.

What's appalling is the way the ready availability of cheap, potent drugs and the lack of resources to treat addiction is accelerating the nightmare for too many kids. Drugs appeared to strip Bella's mother of whatever decency and judgment she had, or hoped to have.

Once that was gone, so was any hope for the child.

And it may be that the most infuriating part of this story lies ahead. The accused killer has a top-shelf local attorney, courtesy of the taxpayers, and he's already insisting his client didn't do it. Somehow mom doesn't strike me as a persuasive eyewitness.

And even if he doesn't walk, there will never be justice for that innocent child.

Just a brief, horrible crawl through the world at its worst.

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Email Jon at keller@wbztv.com or reach him on Twitter @kelleratlarge.