Ex-Massachusetts Officer Matthew Farwell Guilty in Sandra Birchmore Death
A federal jury in Boston convicted former Stoughton, Massachusetts, police officer Matthew Farwell on both counts in the 2021 death of Sandra Birchmore and her unborn child. Jurors reached the verdict on the second full day of deliberations after a 19-day trial.
A federal jury in Boston has found former Massachusetts police officer Matthew Farwell guilty of killing Sandra Birchmore and causing the death of her unborn child in 2021. Jurors convicted him on both counts on the second full day of deliberations.
Birchmore was pregnant when she died on February 1, 2021. She and Farwell had been in an extramarital relationship, which Stoughton police have said began when she was 15 and enrolled in the department's police explorer program.
The charges
Farwell faced federal charges of killing a witness or victim and of violating a federal law protecting unborn children. He pleaded not guilty. His attorneys argued that Birchmore died by suicide.
He is not charged with murder in this trial. Murder is, with a few exceptions, prosecuted by the state where the death took place.
The jury began deliberating after the 19th day of the trial. Farwell declined to take the stand in his own defense.
His twin brother did testify. He admitted having extramarital sex with Birchmore when she was an adult and acknowledged that he had been given immunity in exchange for his testimony.
How the case developed
Birchmore died at her apartment in Canton, and her death was first ruled a suicide. The case drew new scrutiny in 2022, when Stoughton's chief of police held a news conference.
The chief revealed that three former officers had inappropriate sexual relationships with the young woman, one of them when she was a girl. The officers, including the Farwell brothers, resigned during the investigation.
The disclosure came as defense attorneys for Karen Read were making their own initial police misconduct claims in her case. That case also involved the town of Canton and the Norfolk County District Attorney's Office. Some of Read's supporters went on to press for a new investigation into Birchmore's death.
Farwell was arrested in 2024. Federal prosecutors announced then that he had been indicted after an FBI investigation. They alleged he killed Birchmore to keep her from revealing their relationship and the alleged crimes connected to it.
"Sandra Birchmore survived years of grooming, statutory rape and then sexual violence, all at the hands of Matthew Farwell, who was employed throughout the relationship as an officer and then detective for the Stoughton Police Department," said Joshua Leavy, then the acting U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, at a news conference at the time.
