Overview
- Chief Judge Denise J. Casper scheduled the Boston federal trial and told both sides to be ready by that date regardless of a capital decision.
- Matthew Farwell has pleaded not guilty to a federal charge of killing a witness and remains detained without bail in a Rhode Island facility.
- Prosecutors allege Farwell strangled 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore in February 2021 and staged the scene as a suicide after years of exploitation that began when she was a teen in the Stoughton Police Explorers program, while DNA testing has excluded him as the father of her unborn baby.
- Court records say lobby surveillance captured Farwell entering and leaving Birchmore’s building on Feb. 1, 2021 and that her cellphone stopped moving minutes before his departure.
- A federal grand jury indicted Farwell in August 2024 after investigators reexamined evidence that had supported an initial suicide finding, and internal reviews led to discipline of Stoughton officers including the POST Commission’s revocation of his twin brother’s certification.