Prosecutors unveiled years of text messages between Sandra Birchmore and Matthew Farwell that detailed their rough sex life and the burden her steadfast efforts to conceive his child placed on the ex-cop before he allegedly killed her.
FBI Special Agent Heidi Kelsch, who led the probe into the former Stoughton police officer, returned to the stand Monday. She remained there all day, reading out explicit text after text encompassing a roughly decade-long sexual relationship that allegedly began when Birchmore was just 15 and Farwell was 27.
Farwell, 40, is accused of killing 23-year-old Birchmore and causing the death of her unborn child on Feb. 1, 2021. Prosecutors allege that Farwell killed Birchmore after she told him he was the father of her baby, something that DNA evidence later disproved.
Farwell’s defense contends that she died by suicide.
Testimony revealed Monday that the father of Birchmore’s unborn child was Jason Pickard, a U.S. Army recruiter.
But up until that came out during the defense’s cross-examination of Kelsch, the majority of the day’s trial session had been devoted to reading many of the roughly 40,000 texts exchanged between Farwell and Birchmore, as chosen by prosecutors.
Prosecutors tried to tie the way Birchmore was found dead, by what they contend was staged by Farwell to look like a suicide by hanging, to his rough sexual preferences, such as frequent role play that had him playing the aggressor by choking Birchmore, whom he is accused of grooming from a young age.
The texts revealed Farwell’s alleged unhappiness with Birchmore when he found out she was involved at one point with his twin brother, William Farwell.
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, 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.
The texts also showed Birchmore’s determination to get pregnant with Matthew Farwell’s child, which, according to the messages and Kelsch’s testimony, was a source of strain for the then-married cop, particularly when Birchmore threatened to tell his wife of their years-long affair if he didn’t agree to impregnate her.
Birchmore used ovulation tracking apps to track her best times to get pregnant, which Kelsch testified synced up with planned visits from Farwell, who appeared to agree to Birchmore’s conditions, but often complained through texts that she gave him no choice and would frequently try to change the terms of their deal.
While Birchmore tried to convince Farwell to get her pregnant, she would complain to friends through texts highlighted by prosecutors that the cop would rebuff her requests of that nature — and seemingly have her end possible pregnancies — while continuing to have children during that time with his wife.
The disagreement became a source of frequent tension between the two, though they continued to have sex, according to the texts.
After seemingly coming to an agreement that he would get her pregnant, Birchmore and Farwell often argued about how he would be involved in the unborn child’s life, including whether he would sign the birth certificate and be present for the birth.
At other times, Birchmore would say she had no expectations that he would be involved. However, she explored the potential for seeking involvement from probate and family court, according to texts she exchanged with a friend.
“I do know that he doesn’t want to go to court with me, because he knows I have the upper hand due to certain things I’m not going to get into,” Birchmore wrote in one text.
A particularly heated exchange centered around Farwell’s anger when he learned Birchmore was telling people about what he thought was their secret relationship — and that the details of their sex affair had made it to his job.
Farwell is shown to have confronted Birchmore via text after a Jan. 20, 2021, call was made to the Stoughton Police Department, ahead of her death on Feb. 1, and about a month after medical records showed she was pregnant.
“Your friend … called my (expletive) work,” Farwell wrote, adding that Birchmore had told him that no one knew about their sexual relationship, but “she told my work we were (expletive).”
Birchmore responded, “It’s literally nothing,” to which Farwell is shown to have replied, “It’s not nothing. She called my work,” while going on to tell Birchmore that she has no idea how bad that was.
Further texts show the two continued to exchange messages, and that Birchmore had made plans for a maternity shoot, begun planning for a baby shower, and purchased baby clothes and toys ahead of her death, along with deciding on Matthew as the name for her potential baby boy.
About a week before her death, Birchmore made a key for Farwell to access her apartment. Kelsch, the FBI agent, testified that Farwell was seen on surveillance footage entering and later exiting Birchmore’s apartment building on the night of her death, after they had been exchanging texts to set up a visit.
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Birchmore’s iPhone is shown to have locked at 9:13 p.m. on Feb. 1, 2021, and not to have unlocked again until March 12, 2021, when it was in State Police custody, Kelsch testified.
During cross-examination, the defense tried to establish that Birchmore had been suicidal, and that her suicidal ideation in texts exchanged with Farwell ahead of her death matched her mindset when she allegedly wrote a suicide note in 2017.
Kelsch also tesified that Birchmore searched for the color of suicide ribbons — purple — ahead of her death.
The defense further tried to establish that her financial struggles could have been a contributing factor to what they contend was her decision to commit suicide on Feb. 1.
Kelsch returns to the stand on Tuesday morning for further cross-examination.
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