On Tuesday, a former Massachusetts police officer was charged with murdering a pregnant woman and staging her death to look like a suicide to prevent her from revealing that he had groomed her starting when she was just 15.
Matthew Farwell, now 38, allegedly strangled 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore in 2021. According to prosecutors, Farwell killed Birchmore weeks after she told him she was pregnant with his child. Farwell was allegedly worried that Birchmore would tell other Stoughton, Massachusetts, police officers about their relationship.
"Birchmore was a vulnerable person," Stoughton Police Chief Donna McNamara said in 2022, after an investigation revealed Farwell's relationship with Birchmore. "One constant in her life since childhood: her unwavering admiration of police officers….The admiration led her to form relationships with men who were willing to take advantage of her."
According to court documents, Birchmore applied to the Stoughton Police Explorers Academy, a police department program aimed at youth interested in working in law enforcement, when she was 12. There, she met Farwell, who allegedly groomed her and eventually had sex with her when she was 15 and he was 27. Their relationship continued for years, with the pair eventually agreeing in 2020 that Farwell would help Birchmore become pregnant, in exchange for her keeping their relationship a secret.
According to a Wednesday press conference, after Birchmore informed Farwell she had conceived his child in December 2020, he became increasingly violent and controlling, pushing her, shoving her, and putting her in a chokehold.
"Mr. Farwell was losing control in late 2020, early 2021, and the information that Sandra Birchmore possessed about his illegal conduct was in danger of slipping out," acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said on Wednesday. "In fact, word started to get out about their relationship. Less than two weeks before she was found dead, someone called the Stoughton Police Department and disclosed that Matthew Farwell had had a relationship with Sandra Birchmore. When Mr. Farwell learned about that, that call, he became visibly angry."
Prosecutors claim that, after killing Birchmore, Farwell staged her death to look like a suicide—a tactic that originally fooled investigators, who ruled her death a suicide after a 2021 autopsy.
In 2022, 10 Boston, a local news station, reported that four former Stoughton Police Department employees—including Farwell and his twin brother William—had also had "inappropriate" relationships with Birchmore. All four officers resigned before the 2022 investigation.
"Giving voice to the voiceless, ensuring that no one is above the law, protecting the vulnerable people of Massachusetts, that's the highest calling of people in law enforcement," Levy said on Wednesday. "Mr. Farwell violated those principles, and now he faces very grave consequences."
Farwell has pled not guilty to the charges. If convicted, he faces a minimum sentence of life in prison.
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