Ex-officer convicted of killing Sandra Birchmore to keep Massachusetts woman quiet about sex abuse

BOSTON (AP) — A former police detective was convicted Tuesday of murdering a pregnant Massachusetts woman, Sandra Birchmore, to keep her from revealing that he had sexually abused her when she was 15.

Matthew Farwell, 40, was found guilty of strangling Birchmore on Feb. 1, 2021 — 12 days after a tipster called the suburban Boston police department where he worked and reported that they’d had an improper relationship. Birchmore, who was 23 when she died, had been in a tumultuous relationship with the detective, whom she first met while participating in a Stoughton Police Department youth program as a child.

Prosecutors said Farwell staged the crime scene to make her death look like a suicide — and that it nearly worked. Massachusetts State Police investigators quickly concluded that Birchmore killed herself. But the FBI began looking into the case two years later and concluded it was a homicide.

Federal prosecutors harshly criticized the initial police investigation at Farwell’s trial, saying officers didn’t follow leads and closed the case too quickly.

Farwell’s lawyers acknowledged that the married detective had an affair with Birchmore, but say it began when she was 16, making her old enough to consent under Massachusetts law. They also maintained that he did not kill her. They argued that Birchmore had threatened suicide before and that she killed herself after he went to her apartment to break up with her.

Farwell’s conviction carries a mandatory life sentence.