A string of text messages detailing the sexual relationship between an underage Sandra Birchmore and her accused killer Matthew Farwell were the highlight of Friday’s testimony in the ex-cop’s trial.
FBI Special Agent Heidi Kelsch, who led the probe into the former Stoughton police officer, testified Friday that the bureau quickly pivoted from investigating Farwell for color of law offenses to killing a potential witness to a federal crime.
Kelsch said Birchmore was the witness, a 23-year-old whom prosecutors argue Farwell groomed from the time she was a child and then killed, along with her unborn son, and staged her Canton apartment to make the death appear a suicide.
Probing Birchmore’s devices, Kelsch said she found 40,000 messages between the young woman and Farwell, many containing details about their sexual encounters.
Kelsch and Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Riley walked the jury through some of the text conversations.
“I loved it from the first day I touched you,” Farwell texted Birchmore, “… then I had you on my (anatomical part), and it was so wet and sweet.”
Birchmore responded, “I don’t know what I would have done…”
Birchmore then called the day that Farwell took her virginity, April 10, 2013, the “best day of my life.” Farwell agreed. “Me too,” he responded.
Kelsch said the texts highlighted how Farwell exploited Birchmore. She said Farwell was 27 at the time and Birchmore 15, making for aggravated rape.
As Birchmore and Farwell’s sexual encounters increased, Kelsch said the student’s unexcused absences from Stoughton High School skyrocketed.
As Birchmore’s sophomore year wound down, she recorded nine unexcused absences — a tally that jumped to 19 her junior year. The number specifically went up after May 2013, Kelsch said, when Birchmore’s medical records revealed she was telling her doctors that she’d like to take birth control.
A text exchange on March 23, 2020 confirmed that Birchmore and Farwell would have sex when Birchmore was supposed to be in school.
“I skipped school so much to (explicit) you, it was amazing,” Birchmore texted Farwell.
Kelsch also testified to some suspicious searches Farwell allegedly made on his department-issued phone eight days after Birchmore’s death and before handing it over to investigators.
Those searches, Kelsch said, included “Can you revoke consent in Massachusetts?” and “Can deleted iMessage be recovered by Cellebrite?”
Farwell’s devices did not contain any messages with Birchmore, Kelsch said. But the same was not true of Birchmore’s phone, which the special agent said also included “multiple messages where Mr. Farwell told Ms. Birchmore to delete messages.”
The FBI started investigating Farwell in October 2023, Kelsch said, after it received referrals for a probe from Brian Holmes, Stoughton’s deputy chief of police at the time, and a local law enforcement officer being interviewed in an unrelated matter.
The Stoughton Police Department did not investigate Birchmore’s death because it happened in Canton, outside of the local jurisdiction, Chief Donna McNamara testified earlier in the trial. But it did open an internal investigation into Farwell.
The report concluded that Farwell, his twin brother William Farwell and former Deputy Chief Robert Devine engaged in “inappropriate relationships” with Birchmore. Matthew Farwell resigned from Stoughton PD in April 2021. The department’s Police Explorer program, where Farwell met Birchmore when she was 12, disbanded in September 2022.
Holmes, who had led the internal affairs investigation, said he reached out to the FBI in Lakeville for the first time in June 2022.
Holmes echoed McNamara in testifying that the department does not permit officers to have sex on duty – a part of the government’s argument in how Farwell exploited Birchmore and defrauded Stoughton taxpayers.
Farwell’s defense counters that Birchmore killed herself in her Canton apartment the night of Feb. 1, 2021, shortly after Farwell broke up with and told the 23-year-old Birchmore that he was not the father of her unborn son.
Responding to questions in cross-examination from defense attorney Joanne Daley, Christopher Beckstrom, an FBI digital forensic examiner, said he reviewed “some searches related to suicide in her device.”
Beckstrom testified he found that Birchmore conducted Google searches about suicide ribbons around 7:50 p.m. the night she died. One search included “What color is the suicide ribbon?” which prompted an image of a purple ribbon, he said.
The ominous searches came just days after Jan. 27, 2021, when Beckstrom said Birchmore compiled a list of baby names on Apple Notes. One of those names was Matthew.
Later the night of Feb. 1, 2021, the last user action occurred on Birchmore’s laptop, with a message between Birchmore and Farwell at 9:10 p.m.
Birchmore’s phone then locked at 9:13 p.m., with the device recording eight steps at 9:40 p.m.
Farwell left the Canton apartment building at about 9:43 p.m., according to testimony.
Testimony is set to resume on Monday.
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