Sandra Birchmore Death: From Suicide Ruling to Farwell Indictment

The death of Sandra Birchmore, a 23-year-old woman found hanging in her Canton, Massachusetts, apartment on February 4, 2021, was ruled a suicide at the time and is now the subject of a federal murder prosecution. Matthew Farwell, a former Stoughton police officer who prosecutors say sexually exploited Birchmore from the time she was 15, is charged with strangling her and staging the scene to keep her from exposing him. He has pleaded not guilty. Trial is set for October 2026.

Who Sandra Birchmore Was

Birchmore was an only child raised largely by her mother, Denise Birchmore, who had heart disease, emphysema, and asthma. Her father was absent. She took on caregiving young. Her mother died of a stroke in May 2016, and her grandmother died roughly a month later, leaving her without close family in her late teens. She struggled with depression and anxiety.¹

In the spring of 2010, when she was 12, her mother enrolled her in the Stoughton Police Department’s Explorer program, a youth mentorship initiative affiliated with Scouting America that introduces young people to law enforcement careers. A family lawsuit later said she admired police officers and joined hoping to find positive male role models.² She reached the rank of sergeant in the program in June 2013.

A Decade of Grooming and Abuse

Matthew Farwell joined the Stoughton Police Department in March 2012 and became an instructor in the Explorer program. He sent Birchmore a Facebook friend request in October 2012, when she was about 13.¹ Federal prosecutors allege he used his position to gain her family’s trust, offered to help her with homework, and steered their conversations toward sex.

By the time she was 15, prosecutors say, Farwell had begun a sexual relationship with her. Court records describe encounters in his patrol car or pickup truck, sometimes on duty. Prosecutors allege he left his shifts more than two dozen times to meet her² and falsified his time records to conceal the absences.³ According to prosecutors, he exercised coercive control over Birchmore for roughly a decade, tracked her phone location, and used violent sex as punishment for perceived misbehavior like poor grades or contact with other people.

Birchmore’s family later said she never had a chance once the officers “got their hooks in her,” and that grooming “doesn’t allow for those voices” when relatives tried to warn her.¹

The Pregnancy and the Ultimatum

In October 2020, according to prosecutors, Birchmore gave Farwell an ultimatum: agree to conceive a child with her and she would not publicly disclose the relationship. Prosecutors say he agreed, and the two began timing sex around her ovulation cycle.¹

In December 2020, Birchmore texted him that she was pregnant. He allegedly responded with hostility, told her “That’s not my child,” shoved her, and on one occasion put her in a headlock. Court filings say he told her he “wished [she] just would die.”² She was approximately eight to ten weeks pregnant when she died.⁴ DNA testing after her death determined that Farwell was not the biological father, though prosecutors say he believed the child was his.

On January 20, 2021, a friend of Birchmore called the Stoughton Police Department to report the sexual relationship. A department employee passed the report to Farwell, who allegedly demanded the employee suppress it and then sent Birchmore expletive-filled text messages.⁵ Chief Donna McNamara later called that report a possible “catalyst” for what followed.

The Night of February 1, 2021

About a week before her death, Farwell visited Birchmore’s apartment and behaved in a way that unsettled her, including looking through her closets and bathroom. Prosecutors say he was scouting the scene to plan a staged suicide.³

Surveillance cameras last captured Birchmore alive at 5:33 p.m. on February 1, 2021, retrieving a windshield snow brush outside her building. At 9:08 p.m., she texted Farwell that her door was unlocked. Video shows a hooded, masked figure entering the building at 9:12 p.m. and leaving 29 minutes later, at 9:43 p.m. Birchmore’s iPhone locked at 9:13 p.m. and never recorded movement again.¹ Three days later, on February 4, police found her body hanging from her bedroom closet door.

Why the Death Was Ruled a Suicide

Canton police, Massachusetts State Police, and the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office handled the scene. The Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the death a suicide by hanging, relying on a single paragraph submitted by Canton police that federal prosecutors later called “conclusory.”⁶

The medical examiner’s office did not send state pathologists to the scene. Canton police misidentified the item around Birchmore’s neck as a “scarf” when it was in fact a duffel bag strap. They did not note that a necklace had been broken from its chain and had fallen down the front of her body. Federal prosecutors would later point to the broken flamingo charm necklace and to scattered hairpins from her updo as signs of a physical struggle inconsistent with the suicide finding.

Birchmore’s family pushed back from the start. Her cousin Angelique Pirozzi said relatives tried to alert officials to the long-term sexual relationship with Farwell and to the fact that Birchmore had been excited about her pregnancy, but that investigators seemed “disinterested in entertaining the idea that this might not be a suicide.”¹ A law enforcement source told CNN the delay in charges reflected “shoddy police work” rather than a formal cover-up.

The Federal Case Against Matthew Farwell

More than three years after Birchmore’s death, and after sustained public pressure from her family, the case became a federal matter. The FBI’s Boston Division investigated and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, through its Human Trafficking and Civil Rights Unit, took the prosecution.⁴ Federal agents pulled data from Birchmore’s iPhone and laptop, reconstructed her final hours, and re-examined the surveillance footage and physical evidence local investigators had missed.

In August 2024, a federal grand jury indicted Farwell on one count of killing a witness or victim under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(C), alleging he strangled Birchmore “with malice aforethought, willfully, deliberately, maliciously, and with premeditation” to keep her from telling law enforcement about federal offenses including deprivation of rights under color of law, coercion and enticement of a minor, and wire fraud.⁷ A SWAT team arrested him in Revere, Massachusetts, on August 27, 2024.

A superseding indictment in October 2025 added a second count: causing the death of an unborn child in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1841, which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Farwell pleaded not guilty to both counts. In December 2025, federal prosecutors announced they would not seek the death penalty.⁸

The DNA on the Ligature

The forensic core of the case is DNA. In May 2021, the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory identified unknown male DNA on the duffel bag strap around Birchmore’s neck. It went unmatched for years. After the FBI arrested Farwell in August 2024 and obtained a warrant for his DNA, prosecutors say the sample matched the strap.⁹ State investigators had known about the unidentified male DNA but never tested Farwell until federal authorities took over.¹⁰ Farwell’s DNA was also identified in Birchmore’s underwear. Prosecutors have called the DNA evidence “highly inculpatory.”¹¹

The Digital Trail

Prosecutors also point to Birchmore’s text telling Farwell her door was unlocked at 9:08 p.m., the hooded figure entering four minutes later, and her phone locking permanently at 9:13 p.m. From Farwell’s own iPhone, seized in August 2024, they cite searches for information about Birchmore and the investigation using the privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo, and a note in the phone’s Notes app written in June 2024, after authorities officially classified the death as a homicide, which prosecutors say reflects his shifting state of mind. They have also cited pornographic material on his phone from 2021 and 2022 featuring teenage themes, arguing it shows a “continued sexual interest in teenage girls.”¹²

Farwell’s Defense

The defense argues that Birchmore’s own web searches about suicide and journal entries referencing hanging suggest she took her own life.¹ On the DNA, the defense stresses that Farwell’s DNA was not found under her fingernails, which they argue is inconsistent with a struggle, and describes the DNA in the apartment as a “complex mixture.”

In January 2026, the defense moved to move the trial to Rhode Island, arguing that Massachusetts media coverage had tainted the jury pool. That motion was denied. On January 30, 2026, the defense moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing it failed to specify whose communication Farwell was allegedly trying to prevent and did not establish a required connection to a federal officer or judge. Chief Judge Denise J. Casper denied the motion on March 9, 2026 in an 11-page decision, holding that the indictment sufficiently alleged Farwell killed Birchmore to silence her about three federal offenses.¹³

Farwell also sought release on bail. On May 26, 2026, Magistrate Judge M. Page Kelly held an evidentiary hearing and ordered him held, citing risk of flight, danger to the community, and potential obstruction. She stated that “the evidence against Farwell is very strong, if not overwhelming.”⁸

The Death Certificate Is Amended

On April 30, 2026, the Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner amended Birchmore’s death certificate. The cause of death was changed from “asphyxia by hanging” to “asphyxia,” and the manner of death was changed from “suicide” to “undetermined.”¹⁴ The office said its original finding had been based on limited information, and that relevant details had not been provided by the Canton Police Department.⁶ The word “undetermined,” rather than “homicide,” reflects that the medical examiner stopped short of the conclusion prosecutors are asking a jury to reach.

The Other Officers and the Explorer Program

A Stoughton internal affairs investigation, opened by Chief McNamara and lasting about 19 months, reviewed tens of thousands of messages and identified inappropriate sexual relationships between Birchmore and three officers: Matthew Farwell, his twin brother William Farwell, and former deputy chief Robert Devine, who ran the Explorer program for more than a decade. Devine allegedly used a fake Facebook persona under the name “Marty Riggs” to contact Birchmore.¹⁵ The investigation also identified a potential pattern of misconduct involving other female teenagers in the town.¹⁶ McNamara described the officers’ conduct as a “sustained and deliberate combination of lies, deceit and treachery.”⁵

All three officers resigned during the investigation. Matthew and William Farwell entered voluntary decertification agreements with the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission in 2024. Devine contested decertification, but the POST Commission voted to revoke his certification in December 2025 after a hearing officer recommended it. All three names were added to the National Decertification Index, effectively barring them from policing in Massachusetts.¹⁷ Only Matthew Farwell faces criminal charges.

The Stoughton Explorer program itself operated with what investigators described as “little oversight.” The department produced only one single-year agreement with Learning for Life, the Scouting America affiliate that administered it, despite running the program for roughly 15 years, and could not locate records of youth safety training for Farwell or the other instructors.² The Stoughton program ended in 2016.

What Happens Next

Farwell remains in federal custody. His trial is scheduled to begin in October 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. If a jury convicts him on both counts, he faces a mandatory life sentence.

1
CNN. Sandra Birchmore Death: Matthew Farwell
2
The Marshall Project. Police Explorer Sexual Abuse Massachusetts Birchmore
3
U.S. Department of Justice. Former Massachusetts Police Officer Arrested in Connection With Murder of Young Woman
4
U.S. Department of Justice. Former Stoughton Police Officer Indicted for Allegedly Causing Death of His Victim’s Unborn Baby
5
NBC News. Sandra Birchmore Police Matthew Farwell Massachusetts Alleged Murder
6
WCVB. Sandra Birchmore’s Manner of Death Changed From Suicide to Undetermined
7
U.S. Department of Justice. United States v. Farwell Indictment
8
Boston Herald. Evidence Against Farwell Is Very Strong, Judge Orders Former Stoughton Officer Stay Behind Bars
9
Enterprise News. Sandra Birchmore Matthew Farwell Prosecutor DNA Found Strap
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WCVB. Farwell Birchmore DNA Ligature Evidence
11
NBC Boston. New Sandra Birchmore Farwell Evidence
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Boston 25 News. Sandra Birchmore Case: Feds Cite New Phone Evidence in Bid to Keep Matthew Farwell Jailed
13
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Federal Judge Denies Dismissal in Birchmore Farwell Case
14
Boston Globe. Sandra Birchmore Stoughton Death Undetermined
15
NBC Boston. Sandra Birchmore Robert Devine POST Commission Stoughton
16
WGBH. Former Stoughton Police Officers Accused of Inappropriate Relations With Woman Before Her Death
17
Enterprise News. Former Stoughton Deputy Chief Robert Devine Decertified