Case Timeline & Updates
Convicted. Awaiting federal sentencing.Latest development Nov 10, 2026 · Last checked Nov 11, 2026
The federal jury convicted Farwell on both counts. Sentencing is scheduled for February 3, 2027.
Entries distinguish event dates, report dates and routine source checks. Earlier milestones remain available as the case develops. Scheduled hearings are not reported as completed events.
Shortly after nine on the evening of February 1, 2021, Matthew Farwell texted Sandra Birchmore to ask if he could stop by. She wrote back that her door would be open. It was the last message she sent. A camera in the lobby of her apartment building recorded Farwell arriving at about 9:14 and leaving at about 9:43. When state authorities ruled her death a suicide, those twenty-nine minutes had passed without a full accounting.
Birchmore had known Farwell for years. At twelve she joined the Stoughton Police Department’s Explorers program, where young people could learn about police work. Farwell became an instructor there. Federal prosecutors later established at trial that he had begun sexually exploiting her when she was fifteen. By the time she died she was twenty-three, hoping to become a nurse and expecting a child. She and Farwell both believed he was the father.
Friends heard from Birchmore about the arguments over her pregnancy. Jurors would later hear from those friends themselves. They would also see what happened when, on January 20, someone telephoned the police department about the officer’s conduct. According to trial testimony, Farwell told the dispatcher to keep quiet about the call. Then he texted Birchmore, demanding to know which of her friends might speak up next. Twelve days later he asked if her door was open.
The three minutes before he left
The first official account of Birchmore’s death relied in part on information supplied to the medical examiner by police. Federal investigators later described Farwell’s initial police interview as a conversation lasting about fifteen minutes in a parking lot. In October 2023 witnesses took information to federal authorities. Ten months later Farwell was arrested. By the time he stood trial, his recollection of the visit could be measured against two records made that night.
A forensic examination put the last recorded movement of Birchmore’s phone at 9:40. Three minutes later the lobby camera showed Farwell leaving. The phone could establish when it last moved. It took medical evidence, the messages and testimony from people Birchmore had confided in for prosecutors to explain what had happened inside her apartment and why Farwell would want her silenced.
On November 10, 2026, a Boston federal jury convicted Farwell of killing a witness or victim and causing the death of an unborn child. It accepted the prosecution’s account that he strangled Birchmore and staged her death to look like suicide. Sentencing was set for February 3, 2027. For years it was the official account of Birchmore’s death that people had to take on trust. What she had told her friends while she was alive helped a jury put a different account on the record.
Research Sources
The following resources were consulted to verify and update this article.