BOSTON (AP) — Jurors began deliberations Friday in the trial of a former Massachusetts police officer accused of killing a pregnant woman to keep her from revealing he had begun sexually abusing her when she was 15.
Federal prosecutors say Matthew Farwell killed Sandra Birchmore, 23, and tried to stage her death as a suicide on Feb. 1, 2021, after learning she was pregnant with what he thought was his child. At the time, Farwell was a married detective with the Stoughton Police Department, where Birchmore had participated in a youth program as a child.
“You know on Feb. 1 Matthew Farwell didn’t go to Sandra Birchmore’s apartment for a clean break,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Fogarty told the jury in closing arguments. “He went to clean up the mess he created for himself years earlier, a mess that could bring serious charges and destroy his life. He cleaned up the mess by taking Sandra's life.”
Lawyers for Farwell, who is now 40, acknowledge he had an extramarital relationship with Birchmore. But they say he didn't kill her and didn't have sex with her until she was old enough to consent under Massachusetts law. They said Birchmore had threatened suicide before and that she was devastated when Farwell came to her apartment to break up with her that February.
“When all is lost and all hope is gone and you’re alone in the world, are you going to pick your phone up? Or did she sit down and take that strap and make the pain stop?” Farwell’s attorney, Kimberly Stevens, told the jury.
Jurors deliberated for a little more than three hours Friday before going home for the weekend.
The nearly monthlong trial — with about 50 witnesses and 500 exhibits — unfolded in federal court in Boston, partly because local prosecutors never brought criminal charges.
Massachusetts State Police officers and investigators, some with personal connections to Farwell, quickly concluded Birchmore’s death was a suicide after she was found slumped on her apartment floor with a strap around her neck. One investigator, Fogarty said, saw nothing suspicious in Birchmore’s apartment and concluded this was a “troubled girl who killed herself.”
The state’s medical examiner, relying partly on information from police, initially ruled Birchmore died by suicide. The office has since changed the official manner of death to “undetermined.”
Birchmore's friends and family never believed the teacher's aide had killed herself.
She had told dozens of friends about her pregnancy and, according to prosecutors, was thrilled to start her next chapter as a single mom. A stroller, still in the box, was found in her apartment along with an ultrasound photo pinned to her refrigerator.
The FBI began looking into Birchmore’s death in 2023, partly at the urging of a former deputy chief at the Stoughton Police Department who had led an internal affairs investigation into Farwell.
Federal investigators concluded the local probe was rushed and compromised. Farwell was interviewed for just 15 minutes in a parking lot, they said. Investigators didn’t take notes, examine him for injuries or sample his DNA. Police looked at Farwell’s phone only after he had deleted texts with Birchmore.
The FBI investigation uncovered about 40,000 texts between Farwell and Birchmore, including some in which they reminisced about having sex when he was 27 and she was 15 — too young to consent under Massachusetts law.
The texts also showed how their relationship grew contentious as Birchmore pressed Farwell to get her pregnant and threatened to tell his wife about their relationship.
Prosecutors argued that Farwell also feared Birchmore would contact law enforcement about his crimes. He became more controlling, prosecutors said, tracking her phone and ordering her to delete compromising communications.
Texts in late 2020, after she was pregnant, showed they argued over what role, if any, Farwell would play in the child's life. A paternity test after Birchmore's death revealed a different man was the father.
Twelve days before she died, a friend of Birchmore had called the Stoughton Police Department to report their affair.
A digital forensics expert testified that on the night of Birchmore’s death, her phone stopped moving three minutes before the lobby security camera recorded Farwell leaving her building.
An expert hired by prosecutors, Dr. William Smock, testified that Birchmore’s injuries indicated she was strangled with a duffel bag strap and that she struggled before dying. He noted that her glasses were not near her body and a pair of flip-flops were overturned.
A defense expert, Dr. Thomas Andrew, the former chief medical examiner in New Hampshire, dismissed Smock's determination that it was a homicide.
