Ex-officer accused of killing pregnant woman he allegedly abused as a teenager in police program

A former Massachusetts police detective accused of strangling a woman who recently told him she was pregnant with his child and then staging the scene to appear like a suicide has been charged in her 2021 death, prosecutors said Wednesday federal.

They allege Matthew Farwell killed Sandra Birchmore years after he began grooming and sexually abusing her as a youth at the Stoughton Police Explorers Academy. Farwell was an instructor in the program designed to foster interest in police work and worked for the Stoughton Police Department from 2012 to 2022.

Farwell, 38, began having sex, including on the job, with Birchmore when she was 15, U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said at a news conference Wednesday.

She “survived years of grooming, statutory rape and then sexual violence, all at the hands of Matthew Farwell,” Levy said.

Farwell befriended her, contacted her online and went to the library with her before he began committing statutory rape, Levy said.

Prosecutors said Farwell killed Birchmore, 23, on February 1, 2021, in her apartment in Canton, Mass., when he lost control of her and as word began to spread that he had been having sex with her for years.

“It’s supposed to have kept it quiet permanently,” Levy said.

Authorities initially ruled Birchmore’s death a suicide.

Farwell was charged with one count of murdering a witness or victim. The FBI arrested him Wednesday in Revere, Massachusetts.

An attorney for Farwell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In October 2020, Birchmore told Farwell she wanted to have a child, and he agreed to try to impregnate her if she kept quiet about his past behavior and their relationship, according to a motion filed by prosecutors in support of preventive detention.

Birchmore wanted to have a child and was excited about her pregnancy, but Farwell was not, and his behavior became more erratic and dangerous, Levy said.

Birchmore told Farwell the baby was his and began asking him about doctor appointments, ultrasounds and what information would be on the birth certificate.

“Losing Control”

A month before Birchmore was killed, one of her friends told Stoughton police that Farwell had had sex with Birchmore, the indictment states.

“Mr Farwell was losing control in late 2020, early 2021, and the information Sandra Birchmore had about his illegal behavior was at risk of leaking. In fact, word of their relationship began to emerge less than two weeks before she be found dead,” Levy said.

After the friend advanced, the 6-foot-4 Farwell became violent with the 4-foot-10 Birchmore. He pushed her and put her in a chokehold, Levy said.

Prosecutors said Farwell killed Birchmore hours before his wife was due to give birth to their third child. Birchmore was strangled as a blizzard approached the Boston area, which prosecutors said would ensure Farwell would have Birchmore off duty for days.

According to prosecutors, Farwell hid evidence of Birchmore’s death by telling her to delete evidence from her phone that they had sex before she was 16, repositioning her lifeless body and staging her apartment to look like the scene of a suicides, the motion states.

He also lied to detectives from the Massachusetts State Police, the agency that initially investigated Birchmore’s death, telling investigators that their sexual relationship began in 2020, not seven years earlier, and saying that he only had sex several times, prosecutors said. He also gave only “limited consent” to search his cell phone, the detention motion said.

Disturbing allegations

Birchmore’s alleged sexual abuse as part of the Explorers police club was included in a Marshall Project investigation published in partnership with NBC News in May about abuse allegations at Explorer posts in law enforcement across the country. The program, created by the Boy Scouts of America, aims to teach teenagers and young adults about the police.

News of Farwell’s arrest comes two years after Stoughton’s police chief announced that Farwell and two other former agency officers, including Farwell’s twin brother William, had inappropriate relationships with Birchmore.

William Farwell has denied the allegations.

That conclusion came from a lengthy internal affairs investigation prompted by Birchmore’s death, said Chief Donna McNamara, who called the former officers’ behavior “deeply disturbing.”

“Through a sustained and deliberate combination of lies, deception and betrayal, they violated the core policies and values ​​of the Stoughton Police Department,” McNamara said at the time. “Not to mention human decency.”

McNamara said the Farwell brothers started out as young members of the Explorers club under Robert Devine, the third former officer accused of having an inappropriate relationship with Birchmore. Devine has denied the allegations.

Devine, a former deputy chief with the Stoughton Police Department, transformed the Explorers program from a scouting club to a paramilitary group that taught young people aspects of policing, McNamara said.

Like Matthew Farwell, William Farwell was also an instructor in the program in the town about 25 miles south of Boston, McNamara said.

Before Birchmore joined the Explorers club as a teenager, she had a difficult childhood, but developed a deep admiration for the police, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit her family filed against the Farwell brothers and Devine in 2022 .

“People with oaths and duties to protect and serve led her to form relationships with men who were willing to take advantage of her,” McNamara said.

McNamara said Matthew Farwell was 27 when he allegedly began his sexual relationship with Birchmore when she was 15.

The internal affairs investigation uncovered hundreds of messages and explicit exchanges between them that spanned years, McNamara said. The probe also showed that William Farwell had introduced Birchmore to other men, she said.

McNamara said all three men resigned before they could be interviewed.

Asked about the other former officers Wednesday, Levy would not comment.

The department recommended that their certifications as police officers be permanently revoked so they cannot serve in law enforcement anywhere in the country, McNamara said.

Attorneys for William Farwell and Devine did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the status of their decertifications.

In a statement Wednesday, McNamara said it has been her priority for the past three years to ensure justice in the case.

“Sandra Birchmore did not get justice in her lifetime,” she said. “It is imperative that justice be served in her death, and today’s actions seem to bring our society one step closer to justice.