The Murder Of Sandra Birchmore

Sandra Birchmore was already dead when Matthew Farwell texted his desk mate from his wife's hospital room, asking if anything was going on and saying he was bored. Detective Daniel Barber testified that in eight years, Farwell had never once reached out off duty like that.

Rebecca Chandler read Sandra's texts to the jury. She read the night Sandra wrote that Farwell looked around her closet, and the morning Sandra wrote that he asked for a key and said he'd always be around if she stayed quiet. The last thing Chandler ever got from Sandra was baby...

Matthew Farwell allegedly drove to his wife’s hospital room from Sandra Birchmore’s apartment building — still wearing the same clothes. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines what that transit reveals about the mind of a man who allegedly maintained two separate worlds and watched them collide. Farwell had never worn a mask before the night Sandra died, according to prosecutors. That night, he allegedly covered his face for the first time. Scott, author of Nightbird, explains what triggers that kind of behavioral shift and what it means when someone who has operated without concealment suddenly needs to hide. The interview covers...

A psychotherapist who specializes in the kind of damage allegedly done to Sandra Birchmore examines what the legal case alone cannot show — how completely Sandra’s mind was reshaped by officers she trusted. Shavaun Scott, author of Nightbird, looks at the unsent text to Farwell’s wife, the friend who saw what Sandra couldn’t, and the DNA revelation that Farwell was not the biological father. Sandra entered the Stoughton police Explorers program as a grieving child with no father figure. The officers who ran that program allegedly became substitutes for every form of protection and love Sandra had lost. Sc...

This is the full Bob Motta episode on the four officers who had Sandra Birchmore's death in their hands before the FBI took it. Part one: Trooper Matthew Dunne, the unrecorded parking lot interview, the skipped autopsy, and his testimony that Farwell lied to him. Part two: examiner Nicholas Guarino, the mfarwell1 password, the phone that came back with zero messages and went home with Farwell. Part three: Sgt. John Fanning, the supervisor who prosecutors say told William Farwell they needed the case like a bullet in the head, who never sought a warrant, and who later ran the...

January 20th, 2021. A friend of Sandra Birchmore's calls Stoughton police to report her relationship with Matthew Farwell. Three minutes. On hold twice. The recording later auto-deletes. The indictment alleges a department employee tells Farwell. February 1st, Sandra is dead. Working in that building the whole time was Matthew's twin, Officer William Farwell. He admitted to state police that he'd been with Sandra himself. He gave them false information. He ran dozens of unauthorized searches on her in the law enforcement database. He agreed to permanent decertification in September 2024. Stoughton's internal affairs report concluded all three officers who'd been involved...

On February 11th, 2021, Sgt. John Fanning and Trooper Matthew Dunne interviewed William Farwell about his twin brother and Sandra Birchmore. William admitted his own relationship with Sandra. According to the prosecution's opening statement, Fanning told him Sandra's death was a suicide, nothing was criminal, they weren't investigating, and they needed an investigation like they needed a bullet in the head. Fanning was the supervisor. Dunne testified Fanning made the tactical decisions, including the parking lot interview with Matthew Farwell that was never recorded. No search warrant was ever obtained. The same Norfolk CPAC unit under Fanning handled the Karen...

A dispatcher testified that when he delivered a message about Sandra’s friend calling, Farwell “got visibly and audibly upset with me. His facial expression changed to anger.” That night Farwell texted: “Let’s never discuss that again. That girl is f***ing insane.” The dispatcher told the desk officer. The desk officer told him to forget about the call. The scrap of paper went in the trash.

Sandra’s doctor scored her a zero on suicidal ideation — not one thought of hurting herself. Her pregnancy was viable at seven weeks. She was “doing everything an adult person is expected...

Sandra Birchmore's DoorDash password was mfarwell1. State police examiner Nicholas Guarino found it on her iPhone and used it to get into her MacBook. Then he examined Matthew Farwell's phone for messages between them and testified he found nothing. The phone was returned to Farwell and state police no longer have it. Federal investigators later pulled tens of thousands of messages between the two, and prosecutors say Farwell deleted his after state police first questioned him. Guarino also testified he deleted a partial laptop extraction, couldn't access Sandra's Apple Watch, and couldn't confirm when an external drive failed or...

Matthew Farwell sat in a school parking lot with two state troopers days after Sandra Birchmore's body was found and told them the relationship started in 2020. Trooper Matthew Dunne now testifies that was a lie. Farwell said they'd been together two or three times. Dunne says that was a lie too. Nothing from that conversation was recorded or written down, and Dunne told the jury the informal setting was deliberate so Farwell wouldn't lawyer up. Dunne skipped the autopsy, never interviewed a neighbor, never questioned Farwell's coworkers, and closed the case as a suicide. Bob Motta takes the investigation...

Matthew Farwell gave State Police his personal phone. Then he reached for his department-issued device. Eight days after Sandra Birchmore's death, he searched it for Massachusetts consent revocation law and Cellebrite's ability to recover deleted iMessages. In court, the FBI's digital examiner mapped the last movements on Sandra's phone: six steps at 9:10 PM on February 1st, a screen lock at 9:13, eight more steps at 9:40, and permanent silence after that. Camera footage placed Farwell in her building. Sandra had kept a baby names list — updated two days before she died — with Matthew as the final entry. She had been sending peop...

An FBI agent and a federal prosecutor divided the texts between them and read Matthew Farwell's exchanges with Sandra Birchmore to the jury. Farwell told Sandra he figured she would have said no because she was young. He described getting addicted. He presented himself as a tutor at the library while prosecutors allege the relationship was physical there during her high school years. Asked by the FBI about 2012, Farwell confirmed it — Sandra was fourteen, turning fifteen. He pressed Sandra on multiple occasions to delete their conversations. The FBI agent who testified characterized his actions as meeting the definition of ag...

In 2019, Sandra Birchmore told Matthew Farwell her period was late. His answer: "Why wouldn't you just take care of it?" Sandra Birchmore trial update: FBI Special Agent Heidi Kelsch spent a day reading the former Stoughton officer's texts to the jury, from April 2013 to the night Sandra died.

He ordered her to clear out a text about that 2013 night, when she was fifteen, and wrote "Good girl" when she obeyed. On December 28, 2020, three and a half weeks pregnant, Sandra was told she was the worst person on the face of the earth. On January 23, 2021, he asked for...

The FBI built the Sandra Birchmore murder case on evidence that already existed in state hands. Not a single sample had been tested. In Ken Urker's case, the first person inside the house was a civilian connected to Gypsy Rose Blanchard, and the coroner says there is still no definitive cause of death. Tony and Bob Motta go through both investigations and ask what it means when the evidence chain fails before law enforcement ever protects it — and what both families deserve to know.

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The prosecution has Farwell's DNA on the strap, phone data that puts him in her building, and a motive prosecutors say started when Sandra Birchmore was fifteen. The defense has a woman's mental health history going back to age six, a medical examiner who changed her own ruling, and an investigation so broken that it took the FBI to reopen it three years later. Tony and Bob Motta go through each pillar of the defense — the fingernail exclusion, the pressured examiner, the broken investigation — and ask whether any of them creates enough doubt to keep Farwell out of prison.

Sandra Birchmore kept a list of baby names in her phone. The last name was Matthew — after the man prosecutors allege killed her. She was sending him ultrasound images days before she died.

On Day 6 of Farwell's federal murder trial, FBI Special Agent Heidi Kelsch identified Birchmore as "the witness" — the witness the federal charge says Farwell killed to prevent from reporting crimes allegedly committed against her since she was fifteen.

Birchmore's phone was last unlocked at 9:13 PM on February 1, 2021. Video showed Farwell arriving at her building. Activity data recorded steps while her phone was lock...

The Stoughton police department, the Norfolk DA's office, and the medical examiner all reached the same conclusion about Sandra Birchmore's death. Prosecutors in Matthew Farwell's federal trial say none of them tested the DNA, recorded the interview, or followed up with witnesses who reported threats. The FBI built its murder case on evidence that already existed in state hands. Tony and Bob Motta walk through the legal exposure for every person and office that allegedly failed Sandra, and ask whether a conviction opens the door to more charges or lets the institution walk.

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The samples were in evidence. Prosecutors in Matthew Farwell's federal murder trial say State Police collected DNA from the duffel bag strap used to stage Sandra Birchmore's death and from the underwear she was wearing when she was found. Neither went to a lab. The interview with the primary person of interest happened in a school parking lot with nothing recorded. Witnesses who reported Farwell's statements about Sandra were never contacted again. It took a family hiring their own pathologist and a fractured hyoid bone to reach the FBI. Tony and Bob Motta go through the legal implications of...

Sandra Birchmore’s phone recorded eight steps shortly before Matthew Farwell exited her building, according to federal prosecutors. Years before that night, Massachusetts police investigators say another Stoughton officer had been contacting her under a name borrowed from a movie character. 

The officer was former deputy chief Robert Devine. Police regulators found that he used the Facebook name “Marty Riggs” in communications with Sandra, who had entered the Stoughton Police Explorers youth program as a child. Devine disputes wrongdoing. The state revoked his police certification in December 2025 following an investigation of his conduct and truthfulness. 

The depa...

Sandra Birchmore told friends Matthew Farwell had made a complete 180, prosecutors say. After a friend alerted Stoughton police to their long-standing relationship, the former detective allegedly went from anger to unexpected kindness. Sandra was dead within days. 

She had met Farwell through a police youth program as a child. Federal prosecutors allege he began an inappropriate relationship with her while she was underage. At 23, Sandra was pregnant and making plans for her child. She was found dead in her Canton apartment in February 2021. Farwell, who has pleaded not guilty, maintains through his attorneys that Sandra died by s...

Sandra Birchmore sent six hundred texts the day she died. She told eighty people about her baby and searched baby shower venues. Matthew Farwell's DNA is on the weapon. He walked in wearing a mask, left twenty-nine minutes later, and deleted every message. The defense says she ended her own life. Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty to four murders and wants the plea thrown out. His judge wiped the hearing calendar. His alibi has no witness and his DNA is on the knife sheath. He accused his own attorney of lying, opening every conversation they had for three years. Eric...

Sandra Birchmore's phone went silent three minutes before Farwell left her building. Cameras put him there for twenty-nine minutes, arriving masked and hooded at 9:14 PM. Forensic results identified him as the major DNA contributor on the strap that bound her neck to a closet door handle. Every message between them was erased from his phone before he reached home. His wife was in labor the next morning. Sandra had been telling everyone she knew about the baby  —  eighty people, baby shower plans, nursing school tuition paid. Six hundred texts went out that day. No note was found. Trooper Dunne rule...

Sandra Birchmore’s best friend Lesley Davis told a federal jury she had the last conversation with Sandra anyone can account for — twenty-five minutes on the phone, the evening of February 1, 2021. Sandra never mentioned taking her own life.

After Sandra’s death, Davis went to the Canton Police Department, sat down with two officers, and told them to investigate Matthew Farwell. Neither man took notes. On the stand, Davis started to say what she believed had happened — the defense objected before she could finish.

Day 5 also revealed that Farwell attended a 2019 police training conference where th...

The man inside Sandra Birchmore’s apartment the night she died told investigators the child she was carrying wasn’t his. He said the relationship began in 2020 and that they’d been together only a few times in the past year. Phone records and later interviews proved he lied about all of it.

Prosecutors say Sandra and Matthew Farwell exchanged at least 40,000 texts. By the time investigators examined his phone, every message had been deleted.

Sandra’s coworkers told investigators her boyfriend was a Stoughton police officer. A school principal gave them Farwell’s name early on...

Sandra Birchmore's suicide ruling stood from May 2021 until April 2026, when the state medical examiner withdrew it after a pathologist hired by her family concluded she was strangled. Prosecutors say the troopers who closed her case never recorded Matthew Farwell's interview or asked for a warrant for his phone; Farwell is on trial in federal court in Boston. This combined episode puts Sandra's case beside two others where the answer came before the process. Ken Urker was found dead on October 1, 2026, and Gypsy Rose Blanchard called it an overdose before toxicology; a year-old prison call has her describing a knife...

After Sandra Birchmore was found dead on February 4, 2021, prosecutors say state troopers never asked a judge for a warrant to search Matthew Farwell's home or his phone, and never recorded their interview with him. The medical examiner ruled suicide in May 2021. Sandra's family paid for their own answer: Dr. Michael Baden reviewed the autopsy and concluded she was strangled. In April 2026 the medical examiner withdrew the suicide finding; the manner of death is now undetermined. Farwell, the former Stoughton detective prosecutors say met Sandra through the Explorers program and was with her by 15, is on trial in Boston federal...

Sandra Birchmore sent roughly six hundred texts the day she died and never said goodbye. Prosecutors put that fact before the jury on the first day of Matthew Farwell's federal trial. Three women testified about the Sandra they knew — each one told the story of someone building toward motherhood, not away from it. Sandra's boss said she'd been planning for the baby, told her coworkers and her students that the father was her police officer boyfriend. The property manager of Sandra's building had already pulled security footage and handed it over before the department came looking. Near Sandra's front do...

Your questions about the defense of Matthew Farwell go straight to Robin Dreeke. Kimberly Stevens opened with one word: affair. She told the jury Farwell made regrettable mistakes and did not kill Sandra Birchmore. She used the same phone the prosecution had just built its case on and showed a different woman: Sandra searching the suicide ribbon, pulling up an image asking who would cry, the same day she planned a celebration for the baby. The original medical examiner ruled suicide. She has since changed to undetermined, and the defense says the government pressured her. Stevens told the jury...

The questions your letters asked about the prosecution's case against Matthew Farwell go straight to retired FBI behavioral expert Robin Dreeke. Prosecutors allege Farwell met Sandra through the Stoughton Police Explorers program when she was 12, was with her by 15, and killed her when she was 23 and pregnant. The prosecution says Farwell did a complete 180 in the twelve days after a friend called police and disclosed the relationship. Sandra told friends he had changed. He asked for a key to her apartment. He allegedly walked into her building hooded and masked during a pandemic he openly resisted. A state police...

Sandra Birchmore's trial opened on October 9, 2026, with a prosecutor and a defense lawyer each holding up a different piece of her phone. Torey Cummings showed the jury the last text Sandra ever sent, to Matthew Farwell at 9:10 p.m. on February 1, 2021. She told them the lobby camera caught him coming through the door four minutes later. Kimberly Stevens showed them a search Sandra ran that same afternoon about a suicide ribbon, and texts about not sleeping and taking her medicine.

Cummings gave the jury Sandra's life in order. Her mother had a chronic illness and put her...

Stoughton's own investigators put it in writing: Matthew Farwell, William Farwell and Deputy Chief Robert Devine engaged in lies, deceit and treachery in their dealings with Sandra Birchmore. She joined the department's Explorers program at 13 because she wanted to be a cop. Twelve days before she died, a friend called the station over $248 for nail strips and told the call taker Sandra was involved with Farwell. The only place that information went was to Farwell. Prosecutors say he ordered the employee never to speak of it and decided that day to kill her; he denies it and has pleaded...

Matthew Farwell's lawyers want the doctor who ruled Sandra Birchmore's death a suicide on the witness stand, and so do the prosecutors. That doctor wrote suicide in 2021 and withdrew it in April 2026. The government's trial brief says she'll explain why she wrote the first word. The defense says the first word was right.

Farwell, a former Stoughton police detective, is charged in federal court in Boston with killing Sandra to keep her from reporting his alleged federal crimes, and with causing the death of her unborn son. He has pleaded not guilty.

Tony lays both...

Matthew Farwell told state troopers that Sandra Birchmore was standing in her kitchen when he left her Canton apartment on February 1, 2021. Prosecutors say her phone tells it differently: eight steps at 9:40 p.m., with him still inside, and nothing after. He walked out at 9:43. She was found three days later in the same clothes, eight to ten weeks pregnant. Farwell, a former Stoughton detective, is on trial in federal court in Boston as of October 6, 2026. The charge: killing her to keep her from reporting what prosecutors say he did to her starting at 15, and causing the death of her...

Sandra Birchmore’s federal murder case now places two disputed questions directly in front of a jury: what Matthew Farwell believed about her pregnancy, and whether her death was suicide or strangulation. Neither question is as simple as the early public narrative made it sound.

DNA testing excludes Farwell as the biological father of Birchmore’s unborn son. Prosecutors nevertheless allege Birchmore told Farwell the baby was his and say messages from the period show he believed that. Their theory is that the perceived pregnancy consequences — paternity, support and exposure of the relationship — supplied motive even if the biol...

Matthew Farwell's lawyers have collected Sandra Birchmore's journals and her school records, and Judge Denise Casper has ruled they can use them. Their stated basis is that Farwell's entire defense is that Sandra took her own life on February 1, 2021, which makes anything she ever wrote about wanting to die relevant to whether she did. Prosecutors fought the ruling and lost.

Farwell, the former Stoughton police detective charged with killing Sandra and causing the death of her unborn child, has pleaded not guilty. His account is that he told her he was not the father, ended the relationship...

Sandra Birchmore was making plans. She learned she was pregnant in December 2020, told Matthew Farwell the baby was his, and started contacting attorneys about paternity, custody and support for a child she expected to raise. She was eight to ten weeks along when she died on February 1, 2021, at 23 years old, in her Canton apartment.

Prosecutors say Farwell, a Stoughton police detective who had known Sandra since she was a child in the department's Explorers program, strangled her and arranged the scene to look like a suicide. He has pleaded not guilty and maintains she took her own...

Before Matthew Farwell's federal trial begins on October 5, 2026, this is Sandra Birchmore's whole story in one place, both parts of the Hidden Killers series combined. It opens on the handmade sign her family found when they cleaned out her apartment, the one she'd made for the man she said was the father, and on what she'd put on it. Who she was. What the Stoughton Police Department's own investigators found was done to her. What the state did with the evidence of her death. And who finally forced the case into a federal courtroom.

Sandra was raised...

Prosecutors say it took about an hour for local officers to tell the medical examiner's office that Sandra Birchmore's death involved no foul play. It took five years, her family, a newspaper, a famous pathologist, and the FBI to undo that. Part 2 of Sandra's story is the investigation, the declination, and everyone the record shows walked away.

By February 6, 2021, the state had watched a hooded, masked man go into Sandra's building at 9:14 p.m. and come out at 9:43. It had a complex employee's account of a caller who said Sandra's boyfriend, a cop, had threatened to handle...

Sandra Birchmore made a sign to tell a man he was going to be a father, sprinkled it with glitter, and put her ultrasound picture on it. Her family found it when they cleaned out her Canton apartment after she was found dead on February 4, 2021, along with a stroller still in the box and a load of laundry left in the washer. Part 1 of this two-part series tells her story from the beginning, because February 1 doesn't make sense without 2010.

That's the year Sandra, 12, applied to the Stoughton Police Explorers. She had no father. Her mother was sick...

Sandra Birchmore’s death certificate no longer lists the same conclusion that shaped the first investigation. The Massachusetts medical examiner initially ruled her death a suicide. On April 30, 2026, the office changed the manner of death to undetermined and revised the cause from asphyxia by hanging to asphyxia. 

That change comes as Matthew Farwell prepares to stand trial in federal court. His defense says Sandra killed herself, and Judge Denise Casper has ruled that jurors may hear evidence about Sandra’s mental-health struggles and suicidal thoughts. The prosecution says those records cannot be separated from the relationship and polic...

Before Sandra Birchmore died — before the duffel bag strap, before the staged apartment federal prosecutors allege — there was Stoughton. And Stoughton had been eating itself for decades.Sandra joined the Explorers program at twelve looking for mentorship. Federal prosecutors allege the officers who ran it took something else entirely. The union president allegedly began a physical relationship with her at fifteen. His twin and the deputy chief who oversaw the program also crossed boundaries, according to POST findings.The department's record stretches back through on-duty extortion, a chief convicted for covering it, FBI corruption probes that sent officers to fede...