What Sandra Birchmore Was Doing at 8:25 PM the Night She Died

At 8:25 p.m. on February 1, 2021, Sandra Birchmore was shopping online for baby furniture. At 9:08 the Stoughton police officer she'd told was the father texted "come by for a second." By 9:43 he was walking back out of her building. This full episode combines both parts of the Sandra Birchmore story to explain how a case the Commonwealth of Massachusetts closed as a suicide became a federal murder trial, with jury selection set for October 5, 2026.

Sandra was 12 when she joined the Stoughton Police Explorers. Stoughton's investigators concluded that Matthew Farwell, who taught there, started an inappropriate relationship with her at 15, and that the program's director and Farwell's twin brother crossed the same line with her as an adult. The Commonwealth charged no one. Prosecutors say Farwell tracked her location, made her delete their messages, and visited during shifts the town paid for. When she told him she was expecting, they say, he told her he had nothing to say and later called her the worst person on the face of the earth.

On January 20, 2021, a friend reported Farwell to his own department, and the FBI says the call was passed to him. Prosecutors allege that on February 1 he strangled Sandra inside her apartment and posed her with a duffel-bag strap tied to a closet doorknob.

A trooper checked the suicide box the day she was found. Farwell was questioned in a parking lot with no recorder running, and prosecutors say he lied about how it started, how often he saw her, and when he left. He refused DNA through his lawyer and the state never went to a judge for it. The FBI says that five days in, he was asking his town phone whether deleted iMessages come back. The Norfolk DA passed on charges in 2022. Farwell has pleaded not guilty and maintains Sandra died by suicide.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

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