A man allegedly killed a two-year-old girl because he was convinced she was a “demon”.

Michael McCarthy, who is accused of murdering Bella Bond, was obsessed with the occult and convinced the girl was demonic, prosecutors claimed at the start of his murder trial. McCarthy denies the charge.

The toddler's body was found in a rubbish bag on a beach near Boston, Massachusetts, in 2015.

McCarthy was, at the time, the boyfriend of Bella’s mother, Rachelle Bond. He is accused of killing the child by suffocating her or repeatedly punching her in the stomach.

Her body was placed in a fridge before being put in a plastic bag and dumped in the sea.

McCarthy’s lawyer insisted that Bond was the real killer, claiming it was she who was obsessed with demons.

"At the end of this trial you will realise that Rachelle was projecting her own delusions onto Michael, and that she blamed him for what she in fact did," McCarthy's lawyer, Jonathan Shapiro, told the jury.

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He claimed Bond had written in her diary around the time of the killing speculating as to why so many children who go missing are never found.

"That's because the leaders of every country get together and torture and rape and kill these innocent children every year just so they can drink their blood and eat their flesh, so that these reptilian demons can have a moment's sanity," she allegedly wrote.

Both McCarthy and Bond have struggled with heroin addiction, US authorities said.

Bella’s body was discovered by a woman walking her dog, but it took police several months to establish the child’s identity.

The breakthrough came only when Bond told a friend of McCarthy’s that her daughter was dead. The friend then informed authorities.

Bond told police that McCarthy had killed the girl by hitting her.

After the killing, prosecutors claim, he said: "She just died. It was her time. She was a demon.”

He then allegedly told Ms Bond he would kill her if she told anyone about the killing.