Jury selection in United States v. Matthew Farwell begins October 5 in federal court in Boston, before Judge Denise J. Casper, and the trial is expected to run about three weeks. Farwell, a Stoughton police officer for a decade, is charged with strangling Sandra Birchmore in her Canton apartment on February 1, 2021, and staging the scene to look like a suicide. She was 23 and eight to ten weeks pregnant. He has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent.
Almost everything written about this case describes it as a murder trial. It is not, quite. Farwell is not charged with murder, because the federal government generally cannot charge murder for a killing in Massachusetts. He is charged with killing a witness. That distinction is not a technicality. It determines what the jury must find, it explains why the government’s theory reaches back to a phone call twelve days before her death, and it is the reason a DNA result that would have gutted an ordinary murder case may not damage this one at all.
This piece works through the superseding indictment, the elements the government has to prove, the defense’s strongest ground, and the rulings that have already shaped the trial.
What he is actually charged with
Two counts, from the superseding indictment returned October 28, 2025 in case 1:24-cr-10259-DJC.
Count One is killing a witness or victim, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(C). The grand jury alleges that Farwell killed Birchmore “with malice aforethought, willfully, deliberately, maliciously, and with premeditation, and with the intent to prevent the communication by any person to a law enforcement officer of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a federal offense.”
The federal offenses he allegedly killed to conceal are named: deprivation of rights under color of law, 18 U.S.C. § 242; coercion and enticement, 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b); and wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1343.
Count Two, added in the superseding indictment, is under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1841. It alleges that in violating § 1512 he “caused the death of a child in utero at the time the conduct took place.”
The wire fraud count is not a typo
Readers stop at that one, and it is worth explaining because it is the hinge of federal jurisdiction.
The indictment alleges that the Stoughton Police Department required officers to accurately report time and attendance in order to receive wages and overtime, that during some shifts when Farwell was supposed to be working he was instead engaged in sex acts with Birchmore, that he did not disclose this, and that he took steps to conceal it from other department employees.
Claiming pay for hours not worked, through a system that touches interstate wires, is wire fraud. It is an unglamorous charge and it does real work here: it is one of the federal offenses that Birchmore could have reported, which is what makes her a potential federal witness, which is what brings her killing within § 1512.
The same structure applies to the other two predicates. A police officer having sex with a minor in a youth program he instructed is an alleged deprivation of rights under color of law, and enticing a minor is a federal offense in its own right.
The twelve days
The indictment’s chronology is tight enough to quote nearly in full, and it is the government’s case in miniature.
Birchmore was born in May 1997. She applied to the Stoughton Police Explorers Academy in March 2010, when she was 12, and participated through about 2016. Farwell was a volunteer with the program before 2012 and became an instructor when he joined the department that year. “Before Birchmore attained the age of 16 years old,” the indictment states, “FARWELL engaged in sexual intercourse and other sex acts with Birchmore.” That contact continued until early 2021.
In December 2020, Birchmore learned she was pregnant. She told Farwell he was the father.
On January 20, 2021, a friend of Birchmore’s called the Stoughton Police Department and told a department employee that Farwell had been having sex with her. Shortly afterward, a department employee told Farwell about the call.
On February 1, 2021, the indictment alleges, Farwell strangled her and staged the apartment.
That sequence is the § 1512 case. The government does not merely have to prove a killing. It has to prove the killing was intended to stop information from reaching law enforcement, and its answer to why is that Farwell learned he had been reported and acted twelve days later.
Why the DNA result may not matter as much as it appears
DNA testing established that Farwell did not father Birchmore’s unborn child. Reporting has identified an Army recruiter, Jason Pickard, who had a relationship with Birchmore after she briefly enlisted, as the suspected father and as a government witness. One independent journalist reported on September 17 that paternity was confirmed at the pretrial hearing; we have not seen that confirmation in a mainstream account and state it here only as a claim.
In an ordinary murder prosecution built on a motive of concealing a pregnancy, an exclusion like that would be devastating. Here the indictment was drafted to survive it. Paragraph 6 does not allege that Farwell was the father. It alleges that “Birchmore told FARWELL that he was the father of the child.”
What matters under § 1512 is Farwell’s state of mind, not the biology. A man who believed he had fathered a child with a woman he began having sex with when she was under 16, and who then learned she had been reported to his own department, has the motive the statute describes whether or not the belief was accurate. The grand jury language appears chosen with exactly that in mind.
Count Two is different. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act count does not depend on paternity either, since it attaches to causing the death of a child in utero during a § 1512 violation. But it is the count where the jury will hear the most about the pregnancy, and the defense will use the exclusion for everything it is worth on the question of whether Farwell had any reason to act at all.
The defense
The central defense is that Birchmore took her own life. Her death was initially investigated as a suicide, and that initial conclusion is the defense’s strongest asset, because it means trained investigators looked at the same scene and reached the conclusion Farwell now asks the jury to reach.
Judge Casper has allowed discussion of Birchmore’s mental health history, which is essential to that theory. She has also allowed testimony from three contested expert witnesses, and expert testimony about manner of death is where a staged-suicide case is usually won or lost.
Against that, the government has physical evidence. Reporting indicates Farwell’s DNA was recovered from her underwear, at the scene, and on the ligature, described as the strap of a duffel bag issued to Birchmore by the Army. A defendant whose DNA is on the item used to strangle someone has a difficult explanation to give, though an intimate partner has more available answers than a stranger would.
The ruling that already shaped the trial
On September 17 Judge Casper ruled that Birchmore’s journals, text messages, communications from her phone and laptop, and social media posts are admissible. We explained the hearsay doctrines in our report on that ruling.
One point deserves emphasis now that the charge is on the table. The forfeiture by wrongdoing doctrine admits a declarant’s statements against a party who made her unavailable intending to prevent her testimony. Under Giles v. California, 554 U.S. 353 (2008), that intent is required. In most homicide cases the government has to prove the silencing purpose separately from the killing.
Here it does not. The silencing purpose is the charged offense. Count One alleges Farwell killed Birchmore to prevent communication to law enforcement, which is the Giles element stated as an element of the crime. The evidentiary ruling and the merits question are the same question asked twice, once by the judge on a preponderance and once by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
What is around the case
The FBI has confirmed an investigation into the Stoughton Police Department connected to the Birchmore matter, and the department’s own internal review found that more than one officer had sexual contact with her. None of that is charged here, and Farwell’s lawyers have sought records of the corruption investigation.
The witness lists filed in the case ran to 68 names for the government and 97 for the defense, with 31 appearing on both. Parties presented hundreds of exhibits at the final pretrial hearing. Three weeks is an optimistic estimate.
What to watch
How the government proves what Farwell was told on or about January 20, 2021, since a department employee passing along a complaint is the fact the whole theory rests on, and that person will testify. How the defense handles the DNA exclusion without opening the door to everything else about the relationship. Whether the pregnancy count is tried as vigorously as the killing count or functions mainly as a vehicle for sympathy. And the limiting instructions on Birchmore’s own words, which the jury will be asked to consider for her state of mind but not for the truth of what she described.
Common questions
What is Matthew Farwell charged with?
Two federal counts: killing a witness or victim under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(C), and causing the death of a child in utero under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1841. He is not charged with murder as such. He has pleaded not guilty.
Why is this a federal case?
Because the government alleges he killed Birchmore to prevent her from reporting federal crimes: deprivation of rights under color of law, coercion and enticement of a minor, and wire fraud for claiming pay for shifts he spent with her.
Was Farwell the father of her unborn child?
DNA testing excluded him. The indictment does not allege he was the father. It alleges Birchmore told him he was, which is what matters to the government’s theory of motive.
What is the defense?
That Birchmore died by suicide. Her death was initially investigated as one, and the judge has allowed evidence of her mental health history and testimony from contested experts.
When does the trial start?
Jury selection begins the first week of October 2026 before Judge Denise J. Casper in the District of Massachusetts. The trial is expected to last about three weeks.
Charges, allegations and quoted language are taken from the superseding indictment in United States v. Farwell, No. 1:24-cr-10259-DJC (D. Mass., filed October 28, 2025), obtained from the Department of Justice. The September 17, 2026 rulings as reported by WHDH, MassLive, WCVB and NBC10 Boston. DNA evidence and the paternity exclusion as reported by Court TV, NewsNation and NBC10 Boston. The claim that paternity was confirmed at the September 17 hearing comes from independent journalist Grant Smith Ellis and has not been confirmed by a mainstream outlet. Giles v. California, 554 U.S. 353 (2008), verified against CourtListener. Matthew Farwell has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent, and the indictment is an allegation rather than evidence. General information, not legal advice.