In the weeks leading up to Sandra Birchmore’s death, Matthew Farwell seemed stressed out, according to fellow Stoughton Police officers.
“He appeared flustered on occasion,” Detective Daniel Barber testified during Farwell’s federal murder trial Wednesday. “There appeared to be a lot on his mind.”
In December 2020 and January 2021, Farwell was texting “incessantly” and taking frequent phone calls out of earshot of his colleagues, something he’d never done before, Barber said.
When Barber asked Farwell what was going on, he said his friend and former coworker replied, “I’ve got to put the crazy back in the bag and it’ll be alright … everything will be alright.”
On Feb. 4, 2021, a pregnant Birchmore was found dead, hanging, partially suspended from a closet doorknob in her Canton apartment. Police determined that she’d last been seen alive on Feb. 1, that Farwell had visited her that night, and that he and Birchmore had been having an affair.
Prosecutors allege Farwell, then 35, killed Birchmore, 23, after she told him he was the father of her baby, something DNA testing later disproved, and threatened to tell people about their sexual relationship, which allegedly began when she was 15.
But Farwell’s defense contends that the ex-cop only met up with her to dispute the baby’s paternity and break up with her, then Birchmore killed herself after he left.
On Feb. 2, the day after Birchmore died, Farwell’s wife gave birth to the couple’s third child and from the hospital later that day, he texted Barber and asked what was going on at the station.
“You working,” Farwell texted Barber around 9:40 p.m., according to messages shown to the jury. “Anything going on? I’m bored as hell sitting in the hospital.”
Barber replied that it was a pretty slow day.
“This place blows,” Farwell texted back, explaining that because of COVID protocol, he could not come and go from the hospital.
Barber said that during the eight years that they’d worked together, Farwell had never before checked in with him about work while off duty.
Several days later, on Feb. 7, Barber testified that he’d heard a rumor that Farwell had a sexual relationship with Birchmore, so he called his friend to ask him about it.
“He denied it,” Barber said. “He appeared frantic… angry… surprised.”
Later that night, Farwell texted Barber, asking him to let him know if he heard any more rumors.
“I legit thought this was some crazy [expletive],” Farwell texted.
Another officer, Stoughton Police Detective Sandra Barrett, who Barber said told him about the rumor, testified that she also noticed that Farwell seemed “agitated” in the weeks before Birchmore’s death and was frequently going outside to take phone calls.
Barrett said she and Farwell were “very good friends,” and she too asked Farwell what was going on.
Farwell told Barrett that he was having problems with a woman other than his wife, who he didn’t name.
“He believed the problem was going to take care of itself,” Barrett told jurors.
Both officers said that they knew of Birchmore and described her as socially awkward.
“She was often where police were,” Barrett said. “She was nice, I felt that she was a little immature.”
Barrett and Barber denied knowing that Farwell had a sexual relationship with Birchmore before Feb. 7.
Stoughton Police didn’t investigate Birchmore’s death because it happened in Canton, but the department did open up an internal affairs investigation into Farwell and the Explorer’s Program where Birchmore and Farwell met when she was a child and he was an officer.
A department report found that Farwell, his twin brother and fellow officer William, and former Deputy Chief Robert Devine had all engaged in “inappropriate relationships” with Birchmore, and the defendant resigned from Stoughton PD about three months after her death.
The Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, which had jurisdiction over the case, declined to charge Farwell for the death following a Mass State Police investigation and a state medical examiner’s ruling that it was a suicide. Last year, the ME’s office changed the manner of Birchmore’s death to “undetermined” after Farwell had already been indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2024.
Farwell is charged with killing a witness, meaning that prosecutors must prove he killed Birchmore because he wanted to prevent information about a crime from reaching federal officers. The prosecution alleges those crimes were deprivation of rights under the color of the law, enticement, and wire fraud.
The trial will continue Thursday with Barber’s cross-examination. Jurors are also expected to hear from Army recruiter Jason Pickard, who DNA testing determined is the father of Birchmore’s baby.
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