Jury deliberates in ex-cop murder trial
Federal prosecutors say Matthew Farwell killed Sandra Birchmore to hide an affair that began when she was 15.
By Nathaniel Hayes ·
The jury in the federal murder trial of former Massachusetts police detective Matthew Farwell began deliberations on Friday. For the family and friends of Sandra Birchmore, the start of the verdict process marks the end of a legal battle that has lasted nearly six years since her death in 2021. The jurors will decide whether the 40-year-old ex-official killed the 23-year-old teaching assistant to prevent her from revealing the details of their relationship.
U.S. District Attorney Brian Fogarty told the jury that Farwell did not visit Birchmore's apartment on Feb. 1, 2021, to start fresh. "He was there to solve the disaster that he himself had created years ago," Fogarty said. "He solved the problem by taking Sandra's life." The prosecution argues that Farwell, who was married and working as a detective in Stoughton at the time, killed Birchmore after learning she was pregnant. They claim he feared she would tell her husband or contact authorities about their past.
Defense attorney Kimberly Stevens presented a different narrative. She argued that Farwell did not kill Birchmore and that he had not had sexual relations with her until she reached the legal age of consent in Massachusetts. Stevens suggested that Birchmore, who had a history of threatening suicide, took her own life after Farwell visited to end the relationship. "When everything is lost, all hope has faded and you are alone in the world, will you pick up the phone?" Stevens asked the jury. "Or did she sit down, take that strap, and make the pain stop?"
The initial local investigation concluded that Birchmore died by suicide after officers found her in her apartment with a strap around her neck. The state medical examiner initially ruled the death a suicide before changing the cause to undetermined. The FBI began investigating the case in 2023, partly at the urging of a former Stoughton police subdirector who had previously led an internal affairs probe of Farwell. Federal investigators described the local police work as rushed and deficient, noting that Farwell was questioned for only 15 minutes in a parking lot without being examined for injuries or provided a DNA sample.
The FBI recovered approximately 40,000 text messages between the two. These exchanges included memories of sexual encounters when Farwell was 27 and Birchmore was 15, an age difference that prosecutors say falls below the legal consent threshold in Massachusetts. The messages also show the relationship became contentious as Birchmore pressured Farwell to father a child and threatened to reveal the affair to his wife. Prosecutors contend Farwell became controlling, tracking her phone and ordering her to delete compromising communications.
Forensic evidence played a central role in the trial, which lasted nearly a month and involved 50 witnesses and 500 pieces of evidence. Dr. William Smock, a forensic expert for the prosecution, testified that Birchmore's injuries indicated she was strangled with a canvas bag strap and struggled before dying. He noted her glasses were not near her body and a pair of flip-flops were overturned. Dr. Thomas Andrew, the defense expert and a former chief medical examiner in New Hampshire, disputed the homicide conclusion.
A computer forensics expert testified that Birchmore's phone stopped working three minutes before Farwell was seen leaving the building on security footage. A paternity test conducted after her death confirmed that another man was the father of the child. Twelve days before her death, a friend of Birchmore called the Stoughton police department to report the romance. The jury deliberated for just over three hours on Friday before returning home for the weekend.
