A judge rejected a string of motions by former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell to exclude evidence or testimony from his federal murder trial, including handwritten diary entries written by his alleged victim.
Farwell is accused of the February 2021 killing Sandra Birchmore, a young woman he allegedly groomed from the time he met her as a child participating in a police department explorers program.
The Norfolk District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Farwell after a medical examiner initially ruled Birchmore’s death a suicide. Federal prosecutors indicted Farwell in 2024 for killing a witness to a federal crime after further investigation from the FBI.
He was also indicted later on a separate count for death of Birchmore’s unborn child. Prosecutor’s allege that Farwell killed Birchmore after she told him she was pregnant with his child, but the defendant will argue that her death was a suicide. DNA testing showed that Farwell was not the children’s father.
As Farwell’s trial looms, it’s set to start next month, Chief District Judge Denise J. Casper ruled against several motions by Farwell’s attorney to exclude evidence from the trial.
Casper will allow statements made by Birchmore before her death via handwritten diary entries that prosecutors said described a sexual relationship between the victim and the defendant.
“The excerpts will include Birchmore’s reflections on Farwell’s initial sexual encounters with Birchmore when she was a child, their ongoing sexual relationship while he continued to serve a Stoughton police officer, and Farwell’s relevant sexual proclivities that gave him access to Birchmore and an opportunity to strangle her without resistance,” the government wrote in legal filing arguing for their inclusion.
The judge also ruled that a doctor and a licensed mental health counselor who saw and treated Birchmore before her death could testify to their surprise that she’d killed herself.
Farwell didn’t dispute that Diana Alkhalil, the counselor, or Dr. Priyanka Venkataraman, a gynecologist, should testify.
“However, neither Ms. Alkhalil nor Dr. Venkataraman should be permitted to express their personal opinions, including feelings of surprise or disbelief, over Ms. Birchmore’s death,” his counsel wrote in opposition to the testimony.
But the judge disagreed.
“The proffered testimony is not being offered as an opinion as to Ms. Birchmore’s cause of death but as to the state of mind of these treatment providers for actions they took or did not take in treating at and around the time of her death,” Caspar wrote in her ruling.
Farwell had also made a motion to “preclude at trial any lay witness from offering a personal opinion as to the decedent’s cause of death,” like testimony from family and friends of Birchmore.
Again, Caspar said the testimony would be allowed.
“As with the treatment providers,” Caspar wrote, “testimony by these witnesses about to their surprise by Ms. Birchmore’s alleged suicide is not lay opinion but goes to their state of mind as to the actions that they took or did not take.”
Farwell’s trial is set to begin Oct. 5 at 9 a.m. at the Moakley Federal Courthouse.
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