Show Notes
Sandra Birchmore was making plans. She learned she was pregnant in December 2020, told Matthew Farwell the baby was his, and started contacting attorneys about paternity, custody and support for a child she expected to raise. She was eight to ten weeks along when she died on February 1, 2021, at 23 years old, in her Canton apartment. Prosecutors say Farwell, a Stoughton police detective who had known Sandra since she was a child in the department's Explorers program, strangled her and arranged the scene to look like a suicide. He has pleaded not guilty and maintains she took her own life. DNA testing has since excluded him as the father of her unborn son, and the government has never said who the father was. What prosecutors want the jury to sit with is what Sandra said and wrote in her last weeks. Judge Denise Casper ruled her messages, her social media and excerpts from her handwritten journals are admissible over a defense hearsay objection, because a defendant who makes a witness unavailable gives up the right to keep her words out. Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis joins Tony Brueski as the trial opens in Boston. Listen Anywhere You Get Podcasts: https://pod.link/1655749292 Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod?sub_confirmation=1 Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #SandraBirchmore #MatthewFarwell #HiddenKillers #StoughtonPolice #FederalTrial #CantonMA #DNAEvidence #Paternity #EricFaddis #TrueCrimePodcast
More from The Murder Of Sandra Birchmore
Four women have now described what it was like to be with Matthew Farwell, and only one of them got the mask. Sarah Sproul, Samantha McCue and Stoughton officer Sheanna Zbinski testified on October 22 that he never disguised himself and never told them to delete a text. Sandra Birchmore got both. Judge Casper let the jury hear from them for one reason: the defense had claimed the mask was ordinary affair behavior. Jason Pickard, the father of Sandra's baby, testified under immunity that he urged her to report Farwell and never reported it himself. "I was afraid. I was a married man." Sandra's friend Sarah Odams testified about the fight that followed Sandra's threat to tell Farwell's wife. She also testified about her Snapchat reply to Sandra at 9:37 PM on February 1, 2021, sent inside the minutes prosecutors say Farwell was in the building. Listen Anywhere You Get Podcasts: https://pod.link/1655749292 Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod?sub_confirmation=1 Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #SandraBirchmore #MatthewFarwell #SandraBirchmoreCase #FarwellTrial #StoughtonPolice #BirchmoreTrial #FederalMurderTrial #JusticeForSandra #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers
Sandra Birchmore's friend called Stoughton police on January 20, 2021, to report Matthew Farwell. A dispatcher testified he walked that call to Farwell's office and was told to forget it. Twelve days later Sandra was dead. Eric Faddis joins me to go through the five biggest signs of a cover-up that came out under oath at Farwell's federal trial. Trooper Matthew Dunne testified he learned Farwell had lied about when the relationship started. Examiner Nicholas Guarino testified he deleted data he considered redundant. And the Stoughton brass testified the first time they saw their own detective on that lobby video was online. Eric tells me whether anyone beyond Farwell should be facing questions from a grand jury. Listen Anywhere You Get Podcasts: https://pod.link/1655749292 Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod?sub_confirmation=1 Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #SandraBirchmore #MatthewFarwell #SandraBirchmoreCase #EricFaddis #FarwellTrial #StoughtonPolice #JusticeForSandra #TrueCrime #CoverUp #TrueCrimeCommunity
Sandra Birchmore told friends about her baby, planned a baby shower, and paid her nursing school tuition in the days before she was found dead in her Canton apartment, according to prosecutors. Eric Faddis joins me to weigh what that means against Matthew Farwell's suicide defense. Prosecutors say the DNA on the strap belongs to Farwell. They say the lobby camera shows him arriving masked on February 1, 2021, and leaving after her phone stopped moving. They say someone inside Stoughton police told him about a friend's January 20 call reporting the relationship. The defense says the state's own investigators called it suicide in 2021 and the jury should too. Eric tells me which of the government's five strongest facts is the one Farwell's lawyers lose sleep over. Listen Anywhere You Get Podcasts: https://pod.link/1655749292 Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod?sub_confirmation=1 Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #SandraBirchmore #MatthewFarwell #SandraBirchmoreCase #EricFaddis #FarwellTrial #StoughtonPolice #JusticeForSandra #TrueCrime #CoverUp #TrueCrimeCommunity
What these officers did to Sandra Birchmore’s mind — and why the coverup is allegedly still happening — is the focus of a comprehensive four-part interview with psychotherapist Shavaun Scott. Scott, author of Nightbird, examines the case from every angle: how officers allegedly used a youth program and Sandra’s childhood losses to replace every source of trust in her life, how Matthew Farwell allegedly maintained a double life until the night Sandra died, how Robert Devine’s mentorship of the Farwell brothers may have created a pipeline, and how the department is allegedly retaliating against the chief who tried to expose it. The interview covers details the legal case alone cannot illuminate — what the unsent text reveals, what the mask tells a clinician, what Devine’s attack on Sandra’s credibility after her death says about the group, and what McNamara’s removal means for the women in law enforcement watching this unfold. Listen Anywhere You Get Podcasts: https://pod.link/1655749292 Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod?sub_confirmation=1 Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #SandraBirchmore #StoughtonPolice #HiddenKillers #MatthewFarwell #RobertDevine #DonnaMcNamara #ShavaunScott #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #JusticeForSandra
The chief who exposed the officers connected to Sandra Birchmore says she was told to destroy the evidence of a second investigation — and when she refused, she was the one placed on leave. Chief Donna McNamara was the first female officer and first female chief in Stoughton’s history. She allegedly opened a second probe into the department after the officers were identified. Town Manager Robin Calter allegedly demanded the report be destroyed. Someone inside the department had already tipped Matthew Farwell that he was being discussed. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, author of Nightbird, examines what this pattern of retaliation reveals about the institution Sandra was allegedly harmed inside. The second investigation reportedly identified another unnamed former employee. Scott asks what it means for the women serving in law enforcement right now who are watching one of their own get punished for doing what was right. Listen Anywhere You Get Podcasts: https://pod.link/1655749292 Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod?sub_confirmation=1 Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #SandraBirchmore #DonnaMcNamara #HiddenKillers #StoughtonPolice #PoliceCoverup #ShavaunScott #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #RobinCalter #JusticeForSandra