Sandra Birchmore’s ex-boyfriend testified he dated a “lovely” young woman who carried profound grief and childhood trauma, telling jurors that even when she mentioned self-harm, she would always “pull through.”
He also shared a chilling story of her father reportedly offering to “sell” his daughter to pay off a drug debt.
Will Kilroy, who dated Birchmore for a couple of months in 2016 after meeting her at Massasoit Community College, took the stand in federal court wearing a black T-shirt, dark pants, and a large chain.
The 30-year-old recalled starting his relationship with Birchmore shortly after her mother died at age 52 in May 2016. Late that June, Birchmore began grieving the loss of her grandmother — a woman Kilroy described as being “two peas in a pod” with his girlfriend.
Kilroy testified that the deaths hit Birchmore hard.
“Yes, she was depressed and upset and confused,” he told Matthew Farwell’s defense attorney, Kimberly Stevens. “I mean, her mom and grandmother had passed.”
Kilroy said Birchmore lacked familial support. While she rarely discussed her father, what she did share was troubling.
“She talked about how, I guess, there was an incident where her dad tried to sell her as a child for drug debts,” Kilroy said, “or something like that.”
Though their romantic relationship ended quickly, the two continued seeing each other physically, Kilroy testified. In December 2016, he began dating a new girlfriend, Sydney, who was friends with Birchmore.
That friendship “soured quickly” into frequent arguments, including what Kilroy described as a “big public blowout.”
Jurors were shown a “pros-and-cons list” regarding self-harm that Kilroy said Birchmore wrote in 2017. He admitted to adding “I’m wonderful and amazing” to the list as a reason for her to stay alive.
“Did she talk about wanting to hurt herself?” Stevens asked.
“Not really directly, more just ideation,” Kilroy replied. “She wanted to join her grandmother, which is understandable under the circumstances.”
Kilroy testified that he tried to cut ties completely in January 2018 after learning through a friend that Birchmore was pregnant. Birchmore later told him she had miscarried and claimed the baby was his.
“Did she say she was going to take her life?” Stevens asked. “Yes,” Kilroy responded. “She told me she would, and she would write a note and put me as one of the reasons.”
Under cross-examination, Kilroy told prosecutor Torrey B. Cummings that despite her statements, he was never truly concerned she would take her life.
Kilroy answered “yes” when Cummings asked if he cared about Birchmore and whether he had told her he’d be dead without her. He agreed with the prosecutor that Birchmore was “strong, a fighter, resilient, and someone who always pulled through.”
“Did you love her?” Cummings asked.
“Yes, she was lovely,” Kilroy said. “Even after losing her mom and grandmother, she still made people laugh. She still made jokes.”
Kilroy said he never saw Birchmore again after 2018.
Defense attorneys for Matthew Farwell contend that Birchmore died by suicide in her Canton apartment shortly after the former Stoughton police officer ended their relationship on the night of Feb. 1, 2021, telling the 23-year-old he was not the father of her unborn child.
Federal prosecutors allege Farwell strangled Birchmore that night and staged her body as a suicide to conceal years of sexual exploitation — including initiating a sexual relationship when she was 15, years after they met through the Stoughton Police Explorer program.
Earlier in the week, Dr. Maria Capó Martínez, the medical examiner who performed Birchmore’s initial autopsy, testified she was never informed of any suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.
Had she been alerted to a potential homicide, Capó Martínez told jurors, she likely would have conducted the examination differently.
Earlier this year, Capó Martínez officially revised Birchmore’s manner of death from suicide to “undetermined.”
On Thursday, State Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Mindy Hull testified that her office classifies a death as “undetermined” when other rulings, such as homicide or suicide, “are not appropriate.”
Jurors also heard from Caitlin Bulger, a medical examiner assistant who responded to Birchmore’s apartment on Feb. 4, 2021, when Canton police discovered her body slumped on her bedroom floor with a duffel bag strap looped around her neck and tied to a closet doorknob.
Reading from the report she and a colleague prepared at the scene, Bulger noted the death was initially labeled a “suicide by hanging” with no suicide note and no visible trauma other than ligature marks.
Bulger testified she did not see a flamingo pendant or a broken chain on Birchmore’s body. Had she seen them, she said, they would have been collected as evidence.
Birchmore’s family later discovered the pendant and broken chain inside the apartment. The items served as key evidence for independent forensic physician Dr. William Smock, signaling a physical struggle occurred before her death.
Smock, who consulted for the FBI during the federal investigation, previously testified earlier in the week that Birchmore died from “asphyxiation related to strangulation.”
“This was a homicide,” Smock told the court.
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