BOSTON — A Massachusetts cop allegedly “lulled” Sandra Birchmore into a false sense of safety before killing her to cover up their affair, a prosecutor claimed as a jury was shown her final text messages.
When an ecstatic Birchmore, 23, texted her then-Stoughton cop beau Matthew Farwell she was pregnant with his baby, he viciously responded, “You are truly the worst person on the face of Earth,” prosecutor Torey Cummings alleged during opening statements at the start of Farwell’s federal trial Friday.
But a married Farwell — who allegedly began sexually abusing Birchmore when she was just 15 — made “a complete 180” in the days leading up to Birchmore’s Feb. 1, 2021, murder, no longer acting angry toward her, the prosecutor claimed.
“He lulled her into feeling safe so that he could kill her,” Cummings said.
Farwell, wearing a grey suit, sat in court looking straight ahead.
Farwell also asked Birchmore for a key to her apartment and even scoped out her closet and bathroom — a moment which Birchmore texted a friend on Jan. 24, 2021, was “weird” — nine days before the killing, the prosecutor told the jury.
Then the evening of the alleged murder, Farwell texted Birchmore at 9:07, “Are you still up. Ok to come by for a second.”
“Yeah you can come say hi. You ok? Doors open when you get here,” Birchmore responded at 9:10 p.m.
Farwell, moments later at 9:14 p.m., was seen on surveillance cameras entering Birchmore’s Canton apartment building wearing a blue mask — despite being outspokenly against masking during COVID. And he left about an hour later, the prosecutor said.
The hulking 6-foot-4 cop allegedly strangled the much smaller 5-foot Birchmore with the strap of a duffel bag and then staged the scene to look like a suicide, Cummings claimed.
He allegedly placed her body in a seated position by the closet door and hooked the strap around her neck and latched it onto the doorknob, the prosecutor claimed.
“Eight days later, her dead body would be hung from that closet doorknob,” she said.
Farwell allegedly killed Birchmore the day before his wife had their third child to keep her quiet, prosecutors claimed.
DNA testing conducted after the fact revealed Farwell was not the father of Birchmore’s unborn child, though both believed he was, Cummings explained.
The pair met in 2012 when Birchmore, a 14-year-old aspiring cop, started the Stoughton Police Department’s “Explorers” program, in which Farwell was a volunteer instructor.
He then sent her a Facebook friend request in 2012 and allegedly groomed her over the next year under the pretext of “tutoring” her at the library, Cummings claimed.
He allegedly first raped a then-15-year-old Birchmore on April 10, 2013, Cummings claimed. In Massachusetts, the age of consent is 16.
“She was a 15-year-old child,” the prosecutor said. “That’s statutory rape and that’s a crime.”
Jurors were shown text messages of Farwell telling her the day he allegedly first had sex with her “was the best day of my life,” and telling her he couldn’t wait to “f–k” her again.
He also told the girl about his sick sexual fantasies which included “domination, causing pain and rape,” the prosecutor claimed.
Then when Birchmore was an adult, she began to get jealous of Farwell’s wife and the fact that she was having a third child with him, so Birchmore threatened to reveal their affair unless he agreed to have a baby with her too, the prosecutor alleged.
Farwell agreed. And when Birchmore found out in December 2020 she was pregnant, she was over the moon, texting Farwell a photo of a poster that said: “Congrats we are going to be parents,” according to prosecutors.
While Farwell was unhappy about the pregnancy, Birchmore started planning for the birth by buying baby essentials like a car seat, stroller, and a baby onesie. She was also planning a gender reveal photo shoot.
And Birchmore, who had struggled with her mental health, started taking her antidepressant medications again, showing she wanted to live for herself and the baby, the prosecutor claimed.
“There was one person Sandra couldn’t protect her baby from — the defendant,” Cummings said.
Farwell’s defense attorney, Kimberly Stevens, insisted Birchmore killed herself, as she reiterated her mental health problems.
Stevens said Birchmore looked up an image online of a man being held from jumping off a bridge with the text, “can I die just for a day, I just want to see who would cry when I was gone.”
She also searched “what color is the suicide ribbon,” the defense attorney said.
“That’s a window into her mental state as this is all happening,” Stevens added.
“Matthew Farwell was a man who had an affair… Matthew Farwell did not kill Sandra Birchmore. He did not,” the lawyer said.
Farwell — who has been behind bars since his 2024 arrest — has pleaded not guilty and faces life in prison if convicted on one count of killing a witness or victim and one count of causing the death of an unborn child.
The first witness in the case is set to be called on Tuesday.
