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Ex-Stoughton police officer charged with killing Sandra Birchmore did not father the baby she was carrying, DNA shows

Sandra Birchmore.Family photo

DNA testing has shown that the former Stoughton police detective accused of killing a pregnant Sandra Birchmore did not father the baby she was carrying, according to two people with knowledge of the case.

Matthew Farwell.Uncredited/Associated Press

The people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Globe that the analysis excludes Matthew Farwell as the father. A federal grand jury last August indicted him on a charge of killing Birchmore, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

It’s unclear if authorities have determined the child’s paternity. The results of other DNA tests in the case — on items from the scene, which could include Birchmore’s clothing, and the ligature found around her neck — are not yet publicly known.

How the findings will ultimately impact the case against Farwell is hard to say. Some experts said the findings could pose a challenge to prosecutors, but thought the damage to the government’s case could be minimal.

Farwell has pleaded not guilty, and a trial date has not yet been set. His lawyers did not return messages seeking comment, and US Attorney Leah B. Foley declined to comment.

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Though it was known that Birchmore had had other sexual partners, it was Farwell with whom she longed to have a child. Texts obtained by prosecutors suggest she believed Farwell was in fact the father of her baby, and that he apparently believed it as well — though he denied it strenuously to investigators.

Birchmore was 23 and about three months’ pregnant when she died in February 2021, a death that state investigators ruled a suicide. In the preceding weeks, she told some friends that Farwell was the father of her baby.

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She told Farwell the same thing, texting him a picture of a handmade poster celebrating their impending parenthood, and negotiating his involvement in his child’s life. Birchmore insisted that Farwell put his name on the baby’s birth certificate, that he be there for the delivery, and be involved afterward, because, she said, “your kid should matter.”

Farwell didn’t take it well. “You are truly the worst person on the face of the earth,” he replied, according to texts gathered by investigators after Birchmore’s death.

Three people interviewed by FBI agents told them that the news of her pregnancy made Farwell so angry that he had assaulted Birchmore.

A video camera in the lobby of her apartment building captured Farwell entering, wearing a hoodie and surgical mask, on the evening of Feb. 1, 2021, the last day she was seen alive. Minutes before he left the building, Birchmore’s cellphone, usually in constant use, stopped moving, and stayed motionless until its battery drained and her body was discovered three days later.

Matthew Farwell was captured on security footage on Feb. 1, 2021. Court documents

Murder is a charge typically filed by state prosecutors, but Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s office sought no charges after State Police investigators and the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined Birchmore died by suicide.

Farwell was indicted last summer in federal court for the alleged crime of killing a witness. Prosecutors allege he strangled Birchmore and staged her apartment to make it look like she died by suicide. Federal authorities allege the former detective — then-married with two children and a third about to arrive — killed the 23-year-old to prevent her from disclosing the fact that he had been having sex with her since she was 15, below the age of consent, and that he was having sex while on the clock as a Stoughton police officer.

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Farwell is accused of killing Birchmore “with malice aforethought, willfully, deliberately, maliciously, and with premeditation” because she was a witness to possible federal crimes, including deprivation of her rights, coercion, and wire fraud.

The Massachusetts medical examiner so far stands by its finding that Birchmore died by suicide, and has declined to change the manner of death on her death certificate.

Legal experts noted that the DNA results do not change the allegations in the indictment — essentially that Farwell killed her because he feared she could expose his alleged crimes. Her pregnancy, and the paternity of the child, were not central to those allegations.

“If the charges relate to the relationship when she was under 16, the fact that she was or was not carrying his child [at the time of her death] would seem to be somewhat irrelevant, except it would indicate they had a continuing relationship,” said Daniel Medwed, a professor of law at Northeastern University.

In their statement of the case, prosecutors argued the pregnancy ratcheted up the pressure on Farwell, who in a text conversation about the pregnancy told Birchmore “now you’ve got me,” and accused her of threatening him, that “if I didn’t do and give you what you wanted you would ruin me.”

The DNA results do not alter that dynamic, experts said.

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“He doesn’t have to be the father — he just has to think he’s the father,” said former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Cohen, an associate professor at Boston College Law School. “That’s what gives him the motive to be homicidal.”

Cohen said the DNA news could strengthen Farwell’s defense, but perhaps only “a little bit.”

For example, it may allow him to more credibly assert he was truthful when he told police the baby was not his. But Cohen said that “does nothing to disprove the prior relationship. The fact that he didn’t get that minor pregnant later on in their relationship . . . is kind of a Pyrrhic victory.”

The new information may shift the story of Birchmore’s life, but that is different from how the legal system accounts for her death, said Shira Diner, a professor at Boston University School of Law.

“Sometimes everyone forgets there’s a difference between the public story and the case,” she said. “Sometimes they are working from very different sets of facts.”


Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yvonne.abraham@globe.com. Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her @lauracrimaldi. Gordon Russell can be reached at gordon.russell@globe.com.

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