A former Stoughton, Massachusetts, police detective this week was charged with killing a pregnant woman whom he had allegedly sexually exploited since she was 15 and part of a youth vocational program.
The death of 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore in 2021 was initially ruled a suicide, but her family and supporters spoke out about her death for years, claiming to local media, in posts online and in a lawsuit that Matthew Farwell — allegedly the father of her unborn child — was responsible.
Then on Wednesday, federal authorities dropped the bombshell that Farwell had been indicted on a count of killing a witness or victim and alleged that he had staged Birchmore’s death as a suicide to keep her from speaking up about his potential commission of crimes.
Farwell was taken into custody; his attorneys did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.
“Matthew Farwell’s gun and badge did not grant him authority to violate the Constitution, and it certainly didn’t entitle him to sexually exploit, abuse and rape a child before killing her and her unborn baby in an attempt to cover up his alleged crimes,” Stephen Kelleher, an FBI assistant special agent in charge, told reporters.
According to a bail motion obtained by HuffPost, Birchmore first applied for a local “Police Explorers” program in March 2010 when she was 12. Farwell was a volunteer for the vocational program before joining the Stoughton Police Department in 2012, and then became a Police Explorers instructor.
Prosecutors said that Farwell began communicating with Birchmore online by 2012, when he was 26 and she was 15, and would meet her at the Stoughton Public Library “where he would sexually groom her under the guise of providing academic tutoring.” His sexual abuse began in 2013, prosecutors said, but a text message cited in the bail motion appeared to show Farwell telling Birchmore that he would have liked to have sex with her when she was even younger.
And when Birchmore became a legal adult, Farwell allegedly cultivated a “controlling and sometimes abusive relationship.”
Some sexual encounters happened while he was on duty, according to prosecutors, who said that Farwell’s acts could be violations of federal laws including coercion and enticement, deprivation of rights under color of law and wire fraud.
In October 2020, Birchmore told Farwell that she wanted to have a child. The two came to an agreement for Farwell to impregnate Birchmore in exchange for her silence about the criminal sexual encounters, prosecutors said. But when Birchmore told him that she was pregnant that December, the bail motion said that he “responded poorly.”
“He became physically violent with Birchmore,” prosecutors wrote. “She told multiple friends that Farwell had pushed and shoved her, grabbed objects from her hands, and put her in a chokehold.”
One of Birchmore’s friends called the Stoughton Police Department in January 2021 and allegedly spoke up about the sexual abuse. An employee with the department later informed Farwell of the call, with prosecutors saying that he then “angrily demanded that the employee never tell anyone about the information.”
Farwell allegedly confronted Birchmore, texting her: “what else do I have to worry about now? Which other friend will do something tomorrow.” It was at this point that prosecutors said he began plotting to kill her.
On Feb. 1, 2021, Farwell told Birchmore that he was going to her apartment and he then entered wearing a face mask, prosecutors said. He allegedly strangled Birchmore before repositioning her body. First responders later “found Birchmore in a seated position with a strap around her neck and door knob,” the bail motion said. The state medical examiner’s office ruled her death a suicide months later.
But her family members believed Farwell was responsible, and thousands of people joined a Facebook page about Birchmore’s death. Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in December 2022, accusing Farwell and two other Stoughton officers — Robert Devine and Farwell’s brother William Farwell — of pushing the 23-year-old to suicide. The family alleged in the suit that the men engaged in sex acts with Birchmore while she was a minor and part of the Police Explorers program.
In response, all three either denied or claimed to not have enough knowledge to confirm or deny their responsibility in the death. Litigation remains ongoing. The three men voluntarily left their jobs with Stoughton police in 2022, The Boston Globe reported.
Earlier this year, a forensic pathologist hired by Birchmore’s family said that her death was a homicide, according to the Globe.
A message on a “Justice for Sandra Birchmore” website described this week’s indictment of Matthew Farwell as an important move.
“This is not the end. It is just the beginning to getting Sandra and her unborn child the justice they deserve. It is also important to note that this indictment could save countless other women from the evil of Matthew Farwell,” the site said. “And what about the others? Only time will tell if William Farwell and Robert Devine will be charged, as well.”
Donna McNamara, the chief of Stoughton police, praised the federal indictment of Matthew Farwell, calling Birchmore’s death “a horrific injustice.”
“The allegations against the suspect, a former Stoughton Police Officer, represent the single worst act of not just professional misconduct but indeed human indecency that I have observed in a nearly three-decade career in law enforcement,” McNamara said.
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