BOSTON — Former Massachusetts police officer Matthew Farwell was convicted Tuesday of murdering Sandra Birchmore and causing the death of her unborn child in 2021.
Farwell was found guilty on both counts he faced during the second full day of deliberations.
Birchmore was pregnant when she died, on Feb. 1, 2021, and she and Farwell were in an extramarital relationship — Stoughton police said it began when Birchmore was 15 and enrolled in the department’s Police Explorer program.
Farwell faced federal charges for killing a witness or victim and violating a federal law protecting unborn children. He pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers argued that Birchmore did in fact kill himself.
The jury began deliberating Friday, the 19th day of the trial, which was held in federal court. It featured testimony from Farwell’s twin brother, who admitted to having extramarital sex with Birchmore when she was an adult and acknowledged that he was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony. Farwell refused to come to his defense.
Birchmore’s death in her Canton apartment was initially ruled a suicide, but renewed scrutiny was placed on the case in 2022, when the Stoughton police chief revealed at a news conference that three former officers had had inappropriate sexual relationships with the young woman, including one when she was a girl, and that the officers, including the Farwell brothers, had resigned during the investigation.
The revelation came as Karen Read’s defense attorneys filed their own initial allegations of police misconduct in her now well-known case, which also involved the city of Canton and the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office. Some of his supporters later advocated for Birchmore’s death to be reinvestigated.
In 2024, Farwell was arrested and federal prosecutors announced he had been charged after an FBI investigation. They alleged that he killed Birchmore to prevent her from revealing their relationship and crimes allegedly linked 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 a detective for the Stoughton Police Department,” Joshua Leavy, then the acting U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, said at a news conference at the time.
Farwell was not charged with murder at his trial because murder is, with few exceptions, prosecuted by the state where the death occurred. He has not been charged in state court; The Norfolk District Attorney’s Office has called the case an “ongoing and pending criminal matter,” which limits what it can say about it.
The Birchmore estate sued the town of Stoughton, Farwell and others; The suit is scheduled to be heard after the federal trial concludes.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” said Barbara Wright, Birchmore’s cousin. » declared in front of the courthouse. “We’re not done.”
“There are still other people who need to be held accountable, who enabled him, people who looked the other way,” she said.
The case continues to rock Stoughton: Its police chief and city manager are both on leave amid an external investigation into Chief Donna McNamara’s claim that City Manager Thomas Calter tried to force her out of her position. Her lawsuit alleges that Calter told her to destroy a second internal investigation into the matter, which she denied doing.
Farwell will be sentenced Feb. 3, six years and two days after Birchmore’s death.
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