Could testimony about the hyoid bone, which floats about an inch long in the neck, determine whether or not former Stoughton Police Officer Matthew Farwell killed Sandra Birchmore?
Federal prosecutors accusing Farwell of murder say that fact that Birchmore’s hyoid was broken is a sign that she died by strangulation rather than by suicide.
But during Farwell’s murder trial Monday, the defense tried to pick apart that argument and the testimony of one of the prosecution’s key witnesses, Dr. William Smock.
An emergency room doctor who specializes in asphyxia, Smock told jurors last week that the bone fracture pointed to his finding that Birchmore’s death was a homicide.
But Heather Garvin, a forensic anthropologist and professor of anatomy, said on the stand that the fracture alone wasn’t enough information to draw a conclusion.
“There is nothing to indicate one mechanism or another, we can not say,” she testified. “There are too many variables to predict if and how a hyoid would fracture.”
The bone in question lies underneath the jaw, Garvin explained. It’s a “floating” bone because it is not joined to another bone and is only connected to other parts of the body through muscles and ligaments.
She described the hyoid as a “pulley” that helps with speech, swallowing, and breathing.
During her testimony, the defense witness took jurors through numerous studies that showed hyoid bones could be broken in self hangings, including partially-suspended hangings, and after the bones have fused, usually around the age of 30.
“It’s highly variable, it’s inconsistent… hyoid bone fractures, isolated, shouldn’t be given weight in medical/legal interpretations,” she said.
Through Garvin’s expertise, the defense sought to contradict testimony from Smock and others that an unfused hyoid bone — 23-year-old Birchmore’s wasn’t fused at the time of her death — would be less likely to break in a partially-suspended hanging which exerts less force on the neck.
On cross examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Riley pushed back on the literature Garvin referenced, asking her to point out in the dozens of articles that cited thousands of suicides, where a hyoid bone of a person under 30 who died in a partially-suspended hanging fractured.
“Most studies don’t break it down to that detail,” Garvin said.
“No studies break it down to that detail?” Riley asked, emphasizing the “no.”
“I couldn’t identify any,” the witness replied.
The defense also called Dr. William Ralson, Kentucky’s chief medical examiner, to try to undermine some of Smock’s credentials
Ralson said that he had worked with Smock but that the prosecution’s witness hadn’t performed autopsies, but Ralson testified on cross that he had done some consulting work.
The opposition to Smock’s testimony shows its centrality to the government’s case, which hinges on whether or not Birchmore committed suicide.
The doctor’s opinion helped prosecutors form a case against Farwell on the federal level after the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, which had the original jurisdiction over Birchmore’s death, declined to prosecute. The DA cited a Mass State Police investigation and state medical examiner’s original ruling that the death was a suicide.
Earlier this year, Dr. Maria Capó Martínez, from the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, changed Birchmore’s manner of death to “undetermined.” She testified during the trial that she’d never seen a person under 30 break their hyoid bone in a partially suspended hanging. Birchmore was found seated and reclined, hanging from a door knob in her Canton apartment.
Capó Martínez also testified that when she made her initial report on Birchmore, she wasn’t aware that the death was being investigated as suspicious.
“I was not asked to consider whether this was a homicide,” Capó Martínez said. “I would have asked why… I would have asked if there was anything in particular they wanted me to focus on.”
She said after she received more information from federal investigators about the case, she revised her initial ruling.
Prosecutors allege that Farwell, who was captured on surveillance at Birchmore’s apartment on Feb. 1, 2021, the last night she was seen alive, killed a the pregnant woman then staged her body to make it look like suicide.
They say that he killed the 23-year-old, who he allegedly started to have a sexual relationship with when she was 15, after she told him he was the father of her child, something DNA testing later disproved.
Farwell’s defense says that he went to her apartment that night to tell her he was not the father and to break up with her, and that after he left, Birchmore hung herself.
Farwell is charged with killing a witness and causing the death of Birchmore’s unborn child. Prosecutors have accused Farwell of enticement, deprivation of rights under color of the law, and wire fraud (because he allegedly had sex with Birchmore while on the job at Stoughton Police) as his underlying crimes.
The prosecution wrapped up its case last week and Farwell’s defense is only expected to call a few more witnesses.
Closing arguments could happen as early as Friday.
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