Sandra Birchmore case timeline

Last week, former Stoughton police detective Matthew Farwell was federally indicted on charges that he killed 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore.

Authorities allege the two had a sexual relationship for years, beginning when Birchmore was underage. It culminated in her pregnancy in late 2020, and Farwell allegedly responded by killing her and staging her death to appear as if it were a suicide in February 2021. State investigators ruled that her death was a suicide, only for federal authorities to publicly make a different determination this year. The contradiction opens up a range of new questions about what led to Birchmore’s death and how law enforcement officials responded. 

What follows is a timeline of the alleged relationship between Farwell and Birchmore, as well as pertinent information relating to other former Stoughton police officers who interacted with her. The timeline was compiled using allegations contained in a recently released FBI affidavit, an internal affairs investigation conducted by Stoughton police, other court documents, and public statements from law enforcement officials. 

March 2010: Birchmore, then a 12-year-old, applies to be a participant in the Stoughton Police Explorers Academy.

March 27, 2012: Matthew Farwell is hired by the Stoughton Police Department. He begins serving as an instructor for the Police Explorers. 

Sept. 2011 – June 2012: Farwell begins meeting with Birchmore during her freshman year in high school. Birchmore tells others that Farwell is helping her with homework. 

Oct. 28, 2012: Farwell sends Birchmore a “friend request” on Facebook. 

May 2013: Farwell gets married.

April 10, 2013: Farwell, then a 27-year-old, has sex with the 15-year-old Birchmore, allegedly committing statutory rape. 

Evidence suggests that they then begin meeting up to have sex in Farwell’s police vehicles and other places regularly. Farwell introduces the idea of choking during sexual encounters, and the two continue a sexual relationship that features rape fantasies, where Birchmore would pretend to be the victim of Farwell’s simulated assaults. Farwell uses sex acts to “punish” her for getting bad grades, having intercourse with other people, or lying. 

March 2017: William Farwell, the twin brother of Matthew Farwell, becomes a Stoughton police officer. 

April 10, 2020: Matthew Farwell texts Birchmore, “I’m going to sneak away from work quick.” It is part of an alleged pattern where Farwell would shirk his police duties while on the clock to meet up with Birchmore.

Oct. 5, 2020: Birchmore texts a friend, telling them that Farwell had taken her virginity before she was 16 and that they had been having sexual relations for almost 10 years. 

Another person tells Birchmore that Farwell’s wife is pregnant with the couple’s third child. Birchmore is told that that child is due in February 2021. 

Birchmore prepares a draft text message to send to Farwell’s wife, telling her that Farwell has been cheating on her since before they were married. Records indicate that the message was never sent to Farwell’s wife. 

October 2020: Birchmore presents Farwell with an ultimatum: that he agree to have unprotected sex with her with the goal of conceiving a child and, in return, she would not disclose the nature of their relationship. 

Birchmore sends Farwell the details of her ovulation schedule, and the two start planning their sexual encounters around specific times in her cycle. 

Oct. 12 -13, 2020: Farwell and Birchmore have an argument about the nature of their agreement. Farwell states that their compromise was to try to conceive a child once. Birchmore disagrees. 

Nov. 5, 2020: Birchmore texts Farwell.

Birchmore: “How would you feel about us having a baby, you being there AND signing the birth certificate (theres never gonna be a need for your information anyway so youll be safe there) and I wont talk s—t about her or your kids. That way we both get what we want. 

“You asked me the other day what I wanted and I didn’t want to give it to you in the form of an ultimatum so I am trying to do it with you as a compromise type of thing Can you tell me what you thought of?

“I’m down for discussing it in person but the more I thought about it you signing it really isn’t going to have an impact on you cause of the way things are going to fall in the future.”

Farwell: “ok that’s an in person discussion”

Nov. 24, 2020: Birchmore asks Farwell if he would be on duty when the two are scheduled to meet. Farwell responds by texting her, “Yes I will be on the clock.”

Dec. 28, 2020: Birchmore sends Farwell a text informing him that she is pregnant. She includes a photo of a poster she made to celebrate the pregnancy. Birchmore says she is three-and-a-half weeks pregnant and vows to keep the child. The two argue about the pregnancy in a text conversation. 

Birchmore: “No I’m mad your acting how you are over a CHOICE WE BOTH MADE”

Farwell: “I’m mad you act like you gave anyone a choice”

At the time, Farwell’s wife is eight months pregnant with their third child. Birchmore accuses Farwell of being angry because his wife and Birchmore are both pregnant and he does not know how he would support both children. She tells him that he needs to be there when she goes into labor. 

Farwell: “You are truly the worst person on the face of the earth…”

Birchmore threatens to expose the truth about their relationship. 

Farwell: “For the past week and half the doctor wasn’t right but now she was and you just throw it at me cause now you’ve got me. You honestly have absolutely no idea how to treat people. I have f—king bent over backwards for you. Now you want to act like this was some free will decision. You have threatened me from the word go if I didn’t do and give you what you wanted you would ruin me. I made a deal with you and you changed the terms at every turn. We will deal with this tomorrow.”

Dec. 29, 2020: Farwell and Birchmore meet to talk in person. Afterwards, Birchmore sends Farwell a text indicating that there was an altercation. 

Birchmore: “it made me really uncomfortable and stressed out and scared when you were next to me because I thought you were gonna hit me after you said what you said and took things out of my hand. That’s why I was crying. I know you wouldn’t but it still scared me.”

Jan. 2021: Birchmore calls another person, telling them that after Farwell learned about the baby, he told her that he “wished [she] just would die and he wants nothing to do with the baby.” Birchmore also tells this person that Farwell put her in a headlock and grabbed her cell phone from her hand. The person tells Birchmore to distance herself from Farwell. 

Birchmore discloses to another person that Farwell had been physically violent with her. The two go shopping at Walmart to buy a baby stroller, and Birchmore asks the person to be the child’s godmother. She tells them that, the day before, Farwell got angry after she showed him a fetal sonogram. Birchmore tells the person that Farwell claimed the child was not his and that he wanted nothing to do with Birchmore before pushing her to the ground. The person tells Birchmore to end the relationship with Farwell. Birchmore seems scared but not ready to leave Farwell. 

Jan. 20, 2021: A person Birchmore confided in calls Stoughton police and references the sexual relationship between Birchmore and Farwell. The Stoughton police employee who received the call takes down the caller’s name and gives it to Farwell. Farwell immediately gets angry and instructs the colleague “not to speak about this to anyone and to never talk about it again.”

After learning about the call, Farwell sends Birchmore a series of angry texts. 

Farwell: “Dude your f—king friend called my job Sandra wtf”

Later in the conversation, Farwell says that he is worried about other information becoming public knowledge. 

Farwell: “I literally can’t believe this is even real life like what else do I have to worry about now? Which other friend will do something tomorrow?”

Jan. 24, 2021: Birchmore tells another person that Farwell came over the night before and exhibited a change in demeanor. Farwell brought her a ginger ale, asked for a secret key, and looked around the closet and bathroom in Birchmore’s apartment. 

Birchmore: “Good, but unexpected. So it kinda threw me off and made me a little uncomfortable but that’s cause of how things were going. He asked me if I’d give him a key and said that if I keep it a secret he’ll be around and see them and all that. So its somewhere. Then he looked in my closet and then the bathroom but idk why haven’t figured that out.”

Later that day, Birchmore goes to Walmart and pays to have a key copied. She tells Farwell that she has his key and gives him the passcode to her building’s front door. 

Jan. 29, 2021: Birchmore again gives Farwell the passcode, and Farwell verifies that the code is the general one given to the entire building, not specifically one assigned to her. 

Jan. 30, 2021: Birchmore asks Farwell if she can tell him some of the baby names that she is considering. Farwell says that he would rather discuss that in person. 

During the final days of January, Birchmore plans for the future. She considers who would care for her cats when she goes into labor, orders baby items online, searches Google for information on raising a child, plans to have newborn baby photos taken, decides to make an official pregnancy announcement along with a gender reveal on Valentine’s Day, and books an OBGYN appointment for Feb. 10. 

Feb. 1, 2021: Birchmore tells Farwell that she is going to be released early from her job at a public school in Sharon. Farwell tells her that he won’t be around that area. 

Later in the afternoon, Birchmore tells Farwell that she received an early gift in the mail and was not planning on having a baby shower until late March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She tells Farwell that she wants him to buy clothes for the child. 

At about 5 p.m., surveillance video from outside Birchmore’s Canton apartment shows her accepting a DoorDash order. She is seen again going outside briefly and returning with a snow brush just after 5:30 p.m. 

Just after 9 p.m., Farwell sends Birchmore a text asking if he can “come by for a second.” She responds, saying that the door would be open for him. Surveillance video shows Farwell entering the apartment at about 9:15 p.m. wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up and a medical facemask. The video shows Farwell leaving the building just before 9:45 p.m. 

Feb. 2, 2021: Farwell’s wife gives birth at Newton Wellesley Hospital. 

Feb. 4, 2021: Birchmore fails to show up for work, and a colleague calls the police. Canton police officers go to Birchmore’s apartment to conduct a well-being check. They find her body seated on the floor in a reclined position with a duffle bag strap tied around her neck. The strap is found connected to a closet doorknob, the same closet Farwell inspected about a week earlier. First responders quickly conclude that Birchmore had been dead for days. She is found wearing the same clothes she was wearing on Feb. 1. Her body is transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. 

Feb. 2021: In the days following Birchmore’s death, family members help clean out her apartment. They discover that she was in the middle of doing laundry at the time of her death. They find a homemade sign with the words, “Congratulations you’re going to be a father.” The sign has an ultrasound photo on it and is sprinkled with glitter. They find a new baby stroller still in its package and other baby items that were recently delivered. 

Feb. 6, 2021: Massachusetts State Police detectives interview Farwell in the parking lot of a Stoughton elementary school. Farwell allegedly makes multiple false statements about his relationship with Birchmore. He claims their sexual relationship began in 2020 and that he only had sex with her two or three times in the previous year. Farwell also claims that he could not be the father of Birchmore’s unborn child because the last time that they had sex was in October 2020.

Farwell admits to being at Birchmore’s apartment the night of her death but denies having anything to do with it. He tells detectives that he was there from about 9:10 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. 

Farwell tells detectives that Birchmore was “sectioned,” or involuntarily hospitalized for mental health issues, many times. In fact, Birchmore was “sectioned” only once, in May 2020 after a fight with a family member. She was deemed not at risk for self-harm. 

Feb. 9, 2021: Farwell gives his personal cell phone to State Police detectives. He uses his Stoughton police-issued cell phone to search the internet for information about whether deleted messages can be recovered. Evidence shows that Farwell told Birchmore to delete text messages multiple times over the course of their relationship. 

Feb. 11, 2021: In an interview with State Police investigating Birchmore’s death, William Farwell admits to having been in a sexual relationship with her, as recently as 2020. He says that Birchmore told him about her pregnancy and said Matthew Farwell was the father, according to a State Police report obtained by The Boston Globe.

Spring 2021: Matthew Farwell is placed on administrative leave. He meets a coworker at a local bar and admits to having a sexual relationship with Birchmore. He does not express any sadness, grief, or remorse about Birchmore’s death. He expresses anger at State Police detectives for investigating him. 

Early May 2021: The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner rules Birchmore’s manner of death to be a suicide and the cause of death to be asphyxia by hanging. 

April 1, 2022: Farwell resigns from the Stoughton Police Department. 

April 4, 2022: William Farwell is placed on administrative leave. 

Aug. 1, 2022: William Farwell resigns from the Stoughton Police Department. In a resignation letter, he denies all allegations of misconduct.

Sept. 22, 2022: Stoughton Police Chief Donna McNamara details the results of an internal affairs investigation. It finds that the Farwell brothers and their former supervisor, Robert Devine, violated department rules and regulations through their conduct with Birchmore. William Farwell is accused of having “multiple inappropriate physical encounters” with Birchmore, and evidence apparently showed he exchanged explicit messages and photographs with her while he was on duty. Evidence also showed that William Farwell attempted to introduce Birchmore to other men, McNamara says. 

Dec. 29, 2022: Birchmore’s estate files a wrongful death lawsuit in Norfolk Superior Court alleging that both Farwell brothers and Devine pushed Birchmore to suicide by engaging in a decade-long pattern of “grooming and repeated sexual assaults from a young age.” All three deny the accusations. It accuses the town of Stoughton and its police department of negligence in hiring the three officers. 

March 21, 2023: The POST Commission, the state’s police oversight agency, votes to decertify Matthew Farwell. He agrees to no longer work in law enforcement in Massachusetts and to be added to a national database of sanctioned officers. He does not admit “the truth of any allegations against him.”

June 18, 2024: A notable forensic pathologist hired by Birchmore’s family, Michael Baden, determines that Birchmore was the victim of a homicide and did not die by suicide. 

Aug. 28, 2024: Matthew Farwell is indicted by federal authorities on one count of killing a witness or victim. He is arrested in Revere and pleads not guilty.