I keep thinking about that photograph. Eight gangly kids in a parking lot, all wearing their Stoughton Police Explorers T-shirts. Then, at the far end of the line, Sandra Birchmore. Way smaller than the others. Impish grin. Looking far younger than her years. This was 2014, the year she turned 17.
That poor kid.
The teenager in that photo was already being preyed upon by Matthew Farwell, a Stoughton police officer who was supposed to be mentoring her, a girl who worshiped police officers and hoped to be one someday. By then, Farwell had already succeeded in grooming her and sexually assaulting her before she reached the age of consent. She was 15 at the time, and he was 27. When that picture was taken, he was some two years into exploiting and controlling her, and would continue to do so for six more years.
Until Birchmore finally tried to take back some control of her own, threatening to reveal her abuser’s secrets, some of which were crimes. Farwell couldn’t have that. And so, in February 2021, he killed her to save himself.
On Tuesday, a federal jury found Farwell guilty of killing Birchmore, 23, and pregnant with a child she said was his. He strangled her to death in her Canton apartment, then staged the scene to make it look like she had taken her own life.
It took so very long to get from there to here. By now you know how many people had to work, how hard they had to persist, for authorities to finally take seriously their certainty that Birchmore would not have taken her own life.
The misfortunes and vulnerabilities that made her such a perfect target in life made her an imperfect victim, easy to dismiss in death.
Birchmore had had a difficult childhood, her mother, who was in poor health, struggling to raise her alone. She was needy, an over-sharer. She had had mental health issues and had talked of suicide, particularly after her mother and her beloved grandmother died in 2019.
Over and over, state and local police investigating Birchmore’s death gave the benefit of the doubt to Farwell, their fellow police officer. It looked like suicide, and none of the many calls suggesting otherwise from her friends and family, convinced them something far more horrific had happened. Despite damning video footage of a masked Farwell going to her apartment minutes before her phone stopped moving, they were strangely deferential to him, and to his twin brother, William, when conducting interviews following her death.
“I need this like I need a [expletive] bullet in the head,” John Fanning, the lead State Police investigator, told William Farwell back then, according to his testimony.
Was Fanning pretending that investigating this woman’s death was a drag for him personally, or did he actually feel that way? The answer to that question has implications for every other case Fanning has handled.
And crucially, as we learned during the trial, State Police failed to provide crucial information to the medical examiner — including the fact that Farwell had visited Birchmore on the night she is believed to have died. As a result, the medical examiner ruled Birchmore’s death a suicide, a finding that put an enormous hurdle in the way of anyone who would try to prove otherwise in a courtroom. Eventually, the manner of Birchmore’s death was changed to “undetermined,” but the damage was done.
On Tuesday, outgoing Norfolk DA Michael Morrissey blamed the medical examiner’s suicide finding — based on the incomplete information provided by his own investigators — for his decision not to bring murder charges against Farwell. Those investigators must face serious scrutiny now.
It was the Stoughton Police Department, led by Chief Donna McNamara, that pulled on the first crucial threads in this case, uncovering the degree to which Birchmore was exploited, not just by Matthew Farwell, but by others, too.
Former deputy police chief Brian Holmes, now chief of the Kingston Police Department, did heroic work, untangling a sickening web of officers and others who had sex with Birchmore, some of it while they were on the clock and supposed to be protecting the public. Not just Matthew Farwell, but his brother William, too. And an animal control officer and a military recruiter, who, it turned out, was the father of the fetus both Birchmore and Matthew Farwell apparently believed was his.
“They passed her around like a toy,” her family’s attorney said.
The men all said the sex was consensual. Holmes’s report also suggested Robert Devine, a former deputy police chief in the department, had an inappropriate relationship with Birchmore, which he denied.
Those findings provided details of what was a textbook case of grooming and exploitation. Abusers look for kids like Birchmore — kids who are vulnerable, kids with parents who can’t be as vigilant because of health or money problems.
“People are always going to believe the person with the good reputation in the community, versus the struggling and vulnerable young person,” said Elizabeth Jeglic, professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. I interviewed Jeglic back when my colleague Laura Crimaldi and I wrote about Birchmore’s life and death shortly after federal prosecutors charged Farwell with killing her in 2024, building their case almost entirely on evidence already available to State Police.
At the time, I worried that the vulnerabilities that had made it so easy for state prosecutors to dismiss Birchmore as a victim would make a jury reluctant to convict Matthew Farwell.
Like so many abuse victims who are groomed and exploited, Birchmore made decisions as an adult that I was afraid would make jurors judge her. She had multiple sexual partners up until her death. A defense expert testified that she engaged in “edgy” sexual acts with partners, that included choking. Such risky behavior is a common consequence of abuse.
“We know that once a child has been sexually abused they are at increased likelihood for future instances of sexual victimization,” said Jeglic, an expert on sexual grooming. “If they are being reinforced for sexual behaviors, and they are seeking attention, that might be a behavior that is repeated.”
Before Tuesday, I was afraid Farwell’s lawyers would succeed in using Birchmore’s sexual history to discredit her. The difference between sexual agency and exploitation can be hard for some people to recognize — as the public debates over any number of high-profile rape cases demonstrate.
But, to their immense credit, these jurors saw that distinction. After 15 hours of deliberations, they saw Birchmore for who she was: A victim of sexual assault and murder, a woman who had plenty to live for, whose friends and family loved her, and who would never have left this world without a fight.
Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yvonne.abraham@globe.com.