An image of Sandra Birchmore from the day police found her dead in her Canton apartment accidentally appeared on a large court monitor during Matthew Farwell’s federal murder trial.
The photo wasn’t up for long, but it stunned the courtroom in the moment it appeared. The graphic image of the 23-year-old didn’t look anything like she had in life — or in the pictures shown earlier that morning.
The grim image was accidentally published Tuesday, during the first day of testimony in Farwell’s case. The former Stoughton Police officer is on trial for allegedly killing Birchmore in February 2021 after prosecutors say she told a married Farwell he was the father of her baby, something DNA testing later disproved.
Defense attorneys for Farwell, 40, counter that he went to Birchmore’s apartment that night to break up with her, and she killed herself after he left.
After the picture flashed onto the court’s screens, Birchmore’s property manager, who was on the stand for cross-examination, seemed to have trouble regaining her bearings.
“Can we just make sure we’re displaying the right exhibits?” Judge Denise Casper said and the questioning continued.
The close up photo of Birchmore’s face from the alleged crime scene hadn’t yet been admitted into evidence.
In the audience, two of Birchmore’s family members were crying.
The image of Birchmore hanging from her closet door knob stood in stark contrast to pictures the court had seen earlier.
There were pictures of Birchmore in the Stoughton Police Department explorers program, where she met Farwell as a teen and his alleged grooming of the victim began. A selfie featured her freckles and a bright red flannel. Jurors even saw video of Birchmore from the night she was allegedly killed, Feb. 1, 2021, in bright teal leggings coming into her building’s lobby after brushing snow off her car.
The photos of Birchmore alive and looking happy went along with testimony from people who knew her and described her as an upbeat person despite many personal challenges.
Birchmore was working as a teachers aide at a Sharon Elementary school when she died, and it was when she didn’t show up to work two days in a row that the wellness check was called in, Cheryl Carlson, Birchmore’s boss at the school, said on the stand.
Carlson described Birchmore as sweet, chatty, and forthcoming – Birchmore told Carlson about her pregnancy soon after she found out.
“I noticed that she was looking really excited, and she kinda came rushing into my office that day and told me she was pregnant,” Carlson said, telling jurors that Birchmore told her that the baby’s father was married with kids but would leave that situation after her baby was born.
When Carlson expressed doubt about that, she said Birchmore replied, “‘I’m going to have that baby, I’ve been trying to have that baby.’ She expressed that she wanted a baby and someone to love.”
On cross-examination, Farwell’s attorney Joanne Daley asked about Birchmore’s repeated absences, phone use in the classroom, and over sharing about her pregnancy with staff and students.
When asked whether Birchmore was a good colleague, Carlson said, “She was not as effective as I would have liked, however, she was very caring with the children.”
Canton Police School Resource Officer Ensley Cotard ended up responding to Birchmore’s apartment for the wellness check because it was the Sharon School Resource Officer that had called in concerned.
While the officer testified – with warning from Judge Casper – photos from the crime scene were published to the jury and court’s screens. These photos, taken from farther away, didn’t show Birchmore’s face.
Instead, Birchmore could be seen in a sitting position and leaning back. A duffle bag strap was around her neck, tied in a complicated-looking knot to the closet doorknob.
Cotard said she was clearly dead when he walked in and he told his supervisors while he was still at the scene that he believed it was a suicide.
On cross-examination, Cotard said he’s responded to about six suicides and has seen what Farwell’s attorney Kimberly Stevens called a “partially suspended hanging.”
But people who knew Birchmore expressed shock at that news.
“It didn’t make sense to me because she was so excited to have that baby,” Carlson said. When Birchmore was at school Feb. 1, her mood seemed normal, she said, “it didn’t fit with her character or even that last day I saw her.”
Stoughton Police Detective Heather Cheever, who’d been a mentor to Birchmore starting when she was a teen and through the death of Birchmore’s mother and grandmother, told jurors she found out about the apparent suicide from a group chat of female police officers.
“I was upset, beside myself because I didn’t believe it,” Cheever said. “She never expressed to me that she was suicidal.”
Cheever had seen Birchmore in November and remembered how happy she seemed.
“She was really upbeat and easy going, she was so excited to talk about the things she had going on,” Cheever said. “I just remember feeling so proud of her.”
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