Picture this. It's 2010. A 12-year-old girl named Sandra Birchmore walks into the Stoughton, Massachusetts police station and signs up for their youth Explorers program. She wants to be a cop when she grows up. She's got that look kids get when they've found the thing they're gonna do with their life.
One of the instructors is a guy named Matthew Farwell. Twenty-seven years old. Married. A Stoughton police officer. He'd been in the Army before the badge.
Prosecutors say the sexual relationship started when she was 15 and he was 27. FBI Agent Heidi Kelsch read the texts in court. April 10th, 2013 — Farwell took her virginity. She was 15. He was 27. That's aggravated statutory rape in Massachusetts. Ten-plus year gap. No gray area.
She skipped classes to meet him. A kid ditching school to see a grown man with a badge and a wedding ring.
February 2021. Sandra is 23 years old and pregnant. Stoughton police find her dead. Within the hour, they rule it a suicide. Case closed. Move along.
Except everyone who actually knew her said the same thing: she wasn't suicidal. Detective Heather Cheever testified to it. Her friend Cheryl Carlson said Sandra was "over the moon" about the pregnancy. There was an ultrasound photo on her fridge. A stroller box sitting on her living room floor. You don't buy a stroller if you're planning to die.
The FBI says Farwell strangled her and staged it to look like a suicide.
And here's what came out at trial. Farwell called her "the worst person on the face of the earth" — this is a girl he'd been with since she was 15. Surveillance footage from the night she died shows a masked figure that prosecutors say is Farwell. There were three other affair partners. Twelve days before she died, a friend's phone call about $248 nail strips mentioned Sandra and Farwell by name — and that information went straight to Farwell, who allegedly ordered silence.
His DNA was on the ligature. Days after her death, someone Googled from his phone: "Can you revoke consent in Massachusetts?" and "Can deleted iMessages be recovered?" You don't Google that when your girlfriend kills herself.
And it wasn't just him. His TWIN BROTHER William — also a Stoughton cop — was swapping sexually graphic texts and videos with Sandra in 2020. A deputy chief was in the mix too. An internal investigation called all three officers' conduct "lies, deceit and treachery." All three got decertified. Matthew in March 2024. William in September 2024. Devine in December 2025 — and he's now a lawyer, representing himself in his appeal.
The 2021 "investigation" called the ligature a "scarf." Found male DNA on it. Never asked Farwell for a sample. The FBI had to come do it years later — and only because a neighboring police chief wouldn't let it go.
Here's the legal twist that tells you everything: Farwell isn't charged with murder. He's charged federally with killing a WITNESS. Because the state fumbled the homicide investigation so badly, the feds needed a federal hook to prosecute him at all. If convicted, he faces life.
Sixteen jurors. Five-week trial. Judge Denise J. Casper. No cameras allowed.
She put "Matthew" on her baby-name list. The day she died.
Tell me again about a few bad apples.
Brought to you by Team Murphy Media.