A former Massachusetts police officer who allegedly groomed a girl from the time she was a child in a police youth program goes on trial Friday for strangling her when she got pregnant — a killing local authorities originally ruled a suicide.
Sandra Birchmore's story is what institutional failure looks like. A police department's own program gave her predator access to her at age 12. State investigators and a medical examiner called her death a suicide. It took the FBI and federal prosecutors to bring charges more than three years after she was found dead in her Canton apartment.
Matthew Farwell, 40, a former Stoughton police officer, faces federal charges of killing a witness or victim and causing the death of an unborn baby. He has pleaded not guilty. His defense team argues Birchmore died by suicide, citing the original conclusions of state investigators and the medical examiner who autopsied her body, according to MassLive.
Prosecutors paint a grimmer picture. Birchmore joined the Stoughton Police Explorers program in 2010 at age 12 because she dreamed of becoming a cop. Farwell, who had participated in the same program as a teen, signed on as an instructor after joining the department in 2012, the New York Post reported. By the time Birchmore turned 15, Farwell — then 27 and married — was allegedly sexually abusing her. The abuse continued for years, including while he was on duty.
When Birchmore told Farwell she was pregnant and keeping the baby, prosecutors say he panicked, telling her she was "the worst person on the face of the earth," according to Fox News. On February 1, 2021 — hours before his own wife gave birth — Farwell allegedly strangled her and staged the scene to look like a suicide. Both believed he was the father, though DNA testing later excluded him.
Birchmore was eight to ten weeks pregnant. She had been texting Farwell updates about her due date, ultrasounds, and a gender reveal, and planned to announce the pregnancy publicly on Valentine's Day.
Farwell wasn't the only officer accused. His twin brother, fellow officer William Farwell, and the Explorers program director, Robert Devine, were both accused by Birchmore's family of sexually abusing her over the years, the Post reported. All three resigned in 2022 as investigations opened. Only Matthew Farwell was criminally charged. The trio face a wrongful death lawsuit from Birchmore's aunt, on hold until the criminal trial concludes.
William Farwell is among 68 prosecution witnesses. The trial is expected to last five to six weeks.
The question hanging over this courtroom isn't just whether one man killed Sandra Birchmore. It's how an entire system — a police department, its youth program, local investigators, a medical examiner — looked at a dead 23-year-old and saw a suicide. And how long it took anyone in power to ask whether that made sense.
