A former Massachusetts police detective has been convicted of murdering a pregnant woman whom prosecutors said he had groomed since she was 15.
Matthew Farwell, once a detective with the Stoughton Police Department, was found guilty of killing Sandra Birchmore in her Canton apartment in February 2021. Investigators said he arranged the scene to make her death appear to be a suicide.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts said Tuesday that Farwell was convicted of murdering Birchmore and causing the death of her unborn child. The jury began deliberations Friday after more than three weeks of testimony in the federal trial.
On Monday, jurors told the judge they were deadlocked. The judge dismissed them for the day and instructed them to return Tuesday to continue deliberating.
Prosecutors say Sandra Birchmore was strangled on Feb. 1, 2021, in a scene staged to resemble a suicide. Former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell is on trial in connection with her death. (Sandra Birchmore/Facebook, Stoughton PD, Getty)
Farwell was charged with killing a witness or victim and causing the death of an unborn child.
Prosecutors argued that Farwell killed Birchmore after she became pregnant and threatened to reveal their relationship. They said the relationship began after Farwell groomed Birchmore when she was 15 and he was 27.
Sandra Birchmore appears in a selfie she posted on Facebook in January 2021, roughly three weeks before her death in what prosecutors say was a staged suicide scene. Former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell was accused of killing Birchmore and her unborn child. (Sandra Birchmore/Facebook)
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Birchmore was discovered dead inside her apartment with a strap around her neck. Her death was initially classified as a suicide, but a medical examiner later changed the official manner of death to undetermined.
Federal investigators later reopened the case and found about 40,000 text messages exchanged between Birchmore and Farwell, along with evidence prosecutors said indicated a sexual relationship that lasted for years.
Matthew Farwell, a former Stoughton, Massachusetts, police officer, pleaded not guilty Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, to charges alleging that he killed a woman he sexually exploited while she was underage. (Stoughton Police Department via AP)
In closing arguments, prosecutors depicted Farwell as a former police officer who feared Birchmore would reveal his alleged misconduct.
Farwell’s defense, however, maintained that Birchmore died by suicide, citing her mental health history and earlier suicidal statements. His attorneys acknowledged the extramarital relationship but denied that he killed her.
A medical expert for the defense also challenged the prosecution’s conclusion that Birchmore had been strangled.
Farwell faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.