A forensic scientist at the Mass State Police Crime Lab linked Matthew Farwell’s DNA to the ligature found on Sandra Birchmore’s body, according to testimony at Farwell’s federal murder trial.
The ex-Stoughton cop is accused of killing Birchmore, 23, and causing the death of her unborn child in February 2021, then staging the scene to make it look like Birchmore hung herself with a duffle bag strap in her Canton apartment.
The defendant maintains that it was a suicide and that Birchmore killed herself after Farwell told her he wasn’t the father of her baby and broke up with her.
Elizabeth Duval, the forensic scientist who analyzed the ligature samples, testified Thursday that she also analyzed Birchmore’s fingernail clippings and underwear.
Only Birchmore’s DNA was on the clippings, she testified, but Farwell’s DNA and sperm were detected in stains in her underwear. The scientist also detected DNA and sperm from Jason Pickard in the underwear, who was later determined to be Birchmore’s child’s father using separate DNA testing.
During cross-examination, Duval noted that she couldn’t say when the DNA got on the ligature or the underwear.
“My role is to say what’s there, not how it got there,” she said.
When asked about whether Duval was ever given a sample of Farwell’s brother William Farwell’s DNA to compare, Duval said she was unaware that Farwell had a fraternal twin.
William Farwell, who was also a Stoughton Police officer, likewise had an inappropriate sexual relationship with Birchmore, according to a department report.
Birchmore’s baby’s father testifies
Pickard also took the stand Thursday and told the jury he first began a relationship with Birchmore in December of 2019.
She originally messaged the then-Army recruiter on Facebook asking for help with medical waivers, but Pickard said because Birchmore was already working with someone else in his office, he never officially became her recruiter.
By the next day, the relationship had already turned personal. “Upfront I’m not looking for anything serious… and recruit is a no go,” Pickard, who was married, wrote.
Pickard explained that he was given immunity to testify during Farwell’s trial to prevent him from being court-martialed for adultery and having a relationship with a recruit, both prohibited in the Army’s code.
Soon after the messages, Pickard and Birchmore began to meet up and started an on-again-off-again sexual relationship.
“It developed into a very close friendship,” Pickard testified. He described Birchmore as outgoing, sweet, and direct, saying, “she always knew what she wanted and she didn’t beat around the bush.”
Birchmore confided in him about her past and present mental health struggles, including a suicide attempt a few years prior and cutting. She also told Pickard about her relationship with Farwell, including that the officer had met Birchmore while she was a minor in the Stoughton Police Explorer’s program, he testified.
Pickard encouraged Birchmore to report that she and Farwell had allegedly begun their sexual relationship when she was 15, but he said Birchmore didn’t want to.
“I think there was still a part of her that saw it as a genuine romantic relationship,” he said.
When Birchmore found out she was pregnant in December 2020, she immediately told Pickard.
“Congratulations?” he’d replied to a message from Birchmore on Dec. 20, telling him that a blood test had confirmed that she was three and a half weeks pregnant.
“I don’t know yet, I’m trying to get the father to sit down,” she wrote back.
“Me?” Pickard wrote.
“Nope, you weren’t in my fertile period,” she wrote. Pickard said she told him Farwell was the father.
On cross-examination, Daley asked about messages between them regarding Birchmore’s shifting date of conception and whether she thought at any point he was the father, but Pickard denied that Birchmore ever claimed he’d impregnated her.
Pickard said Birchmore was ecstatic about the news: “I had never seen her so upbeat, so full of joy and happiness… she wouldn’t stop talking about it.”
They continued to see each other after she revealed her pregnancy, and she reported to him her anxiety, the Zoloft prescription she received from her OB/GYN, and the issues she was reporting with Farwell.
Pickard described the defendant’s behavior during that period, as described through Birchmore, as “erratic and inconsistent.”
Farwell was angry about the pregnancy at some moments, then excited at others, Birchmore reported to him.
Pickard and Farwell saw each other for the last time on Jan. 28, 2021, when Pickard went to Birchmore’s Canton apartment. He couldn’t recall if they’d had sex, Birchmore was on pelvic rest, but he said he did help her with some baby proofing.
She seemed “appropriately anxious” for someone about to be a mom, he reported. “She felt like she was going to have to do this without the father.”
Farwell’s affairs
The prosecution also called three women to the stand who all reported having sexual affairs with Farwell when he was living with or married to his wife.
Samantha McCue, Sarah Sproul, and Stoughton Police Officer Sheanna Isabelle Zbinski said that they had sexual relationships with Farwell; McCue in 2012 and Sproul and Zbinski in 2016.
While the women spoke, Farwell didn’t look at them. His attorneys objected to their testimony and to many of the questions they were asked on direct examination.
The three women said that Farwell didn’t want people to know about the relationships, but he never encouraged them to delete their text messages.
Prosecutors sought to admit their testimony to draw differences between Farwell’s concealment attempts in those relationships compared to how he acted with Birchmore, who he repeatedly asked to delete messages.
During cross-examination, Stevens pointed out that the affairs were relationships between consenting adults.
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