A former Massachusetts police operative is indicted of killing a pregnant woman to help her from revealing that he allegedly prepped her as a teenager and also presenting her death as a self-murder.
Former officer Matthew Farwell, 38, was charged Tuesday with strangling 23- time-old Sandra Birchmore in her Canton, Mass., apartment in 2021.An original necropsy inaptly ruled that Birchmore had killed herself after Farwell used her police information to expose him. His alleged crime, prosecutors wrote in court documents.
Farwell was arrested Wednesday and arraigned in Boston court after civil investigators reviewed the case. He contended not shamefaced, the Associated Press reported. An attorney representing Farwell did n't incontinently respond to a communication from The Washington Post on Thursday.
Prosecutors purport Farwell killed Birchmore a month after she told him she was pregnant with his child to help him from telling their relationship, which began when she was 15. Thi, from his associates in law enforcement.
Stephen Kelleher, Boston- grounded adjunct special agent in charge of the FBI, said at a news conference Wednesday that Farwell's conduct were" counterculturist and a grave treason of his pledge of public trust." " Matthew Farwell's gun and emblem did n't authorize him to violate the Constitution," Kelleher said."
And it clearly did not give him the right to sexually abuse, abuse and rape a child before killing her and her future child in an attempt to cover up his contended crimes."
At the time of Birchmore's death, Farwell was an officer with the Stoughton Police Department. He reportedly met 12- time-old Birchmore when she attended the agency's Police Explorers education program for youth interested in law enforcement careers.
Amusement U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said at a news conference that Farwell, an educator in the program, befriended Birchmore and ultimately began nurturing her. Levy said Farwell committed statutory rape by having coitus with Birchmore when he was 27 and she was 15.
" We purport that Sandra Birchmore survived times of fixing, statutory rape and also sexual assault, all at the hands of Matthew Farwell," Levy said.
According to prosecutors, Farwell maintained a coercive and occasionally violent relationship with Birchmore. Court documents purport that he tracked her position from his cell phone.
According to textbook exchanges described in court documents, the couple made an agreement around October 2020 Farwell would help Birchmore in her thing of having a child, and in return, Birchmore would not expose their relationship.
In December 2020, Birchmore told Farwell that she was pregnant with his child. She later told several friends that he reacted violently, pushing her and choking her, according to court documents.
On January 20, 2021, a friend of Birchmore disclosed information about his relationship with the Stoughton police. When a department employee told Farwell about the call, he angrily demanded that the man not be told anything, according to court documents.
Around this time, prosecutors believe Farwell stressed that he was losing control over Birchmore, motivating him to allegedly compass her murder.
“ When it came clear that he could no longer control Sandra Birchmore, he allegedly silenced her permanently, ” Levy said.
On Feb. 1, 2021, prosecutors purport that Farwell strangled her to death in her apartment and also tied her body to a door handle to make it look like she had killed herself.
The date was profitable to Farwell because an approaching blizzard meant Birchmore’s absence from work would be unnoticed for days, court documents say. Farwell’s woman was also hours down from delivering her third child.
"He used his knowledge and experience as a law enforcement officer to treat her death as a suicide," Levy said. "He allegedly tried to cover his tracks to avoid murder."
As part of the civil disquisition, forensic pathologist William Smoakre-examined substantiation from the scene and the necropsy report. Smock set up other substantiation of blunt force trauma and violent struggle from the attack on Birchmore's body, which contradicted the original order to kill himself.
At the news conference, tax declined to note on the findings of the original disquisition by the Massachusetts medical monitor.
Farwell continued to serve as a Stoughton police officer for 14 months after Birchmore's death, until he abnegated on April 1, 2022, according to court documents. Months latterly, original media- citing Police Chief Donna McNamara- reported that two other officers also had unhappy connections with Birchmore.
On Wednesday, McNamara said he had ordered a "lengthy and aggressive" internal investigation the day after Birchmore was found dead.
McNamara said in a statement that Sandra's alleged payoff was a" terrible injustice." “ The charges against the suspect, a former Stoughton police officer, represent not only professional misconduct but indeed the single worst act of mortal indelicateness I've ever witnessed.
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