Prosecution rests case against Matthew Farwell in Sandra Birchmore trial
The prosecution in the Matthew Farwell trial rested its case Wednesday in federal court in South Boston.
Farwell, a former Stoughton, Massachusetts police officer, is accused of killing 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore and her unborn baby in her Canton apartment on February 1, 2021.
Prosecutors said he staged it to look like a suicide to cover up an eight-year affair with Birchmore that started when she was just 15.
Farwell is charged with killing a witness or victim and causing the death of an unborn child. He has pleaded not guilty to both.
The prosecution's final witness Wednesday was Jessica Hyde who owns a digital forensics company.
She also testified in both of Karen Read's trials in 2024 and 2025. Prosecutors put her on the stand Wednesday to put a final pin in their theory of when Sandra Birchmore died.
Surveillance video shows Matthew Farwell entering Sandra Birchmore's apartment building at 9:14 p.m. the night she died.
According to Hyde, Birchmore's phone locked for the final time at 9:13 p.m.
At 9:40:22 p.m. the last steps are recorded on that phone.
At 9:40:44 seconds, a button is touched. That's the last action ever recorded on Birchmore's phone.
Two minutes later, Matthew Farwell is seen on video leaving her apartment building.
Prosecutors said this matters because Birchmore was such a frequent texter and caller and always in constant communication with her friends. They suggest that her phone use stopping when Farwell is with her implies that he may have killed her.
"The prosecution has put in a very strong case here," WBZ-TV legal analyst Jennifer Roman said. "If the defense has somebody who can testify credibly that Sandra Birchmore was suicidal in the days, weeks leading up to the date of her death, that would be very compelling for the defense."
The defense began its case Wednesday afternoon with Joseph Harris, the vice president of student services and enrollment at Massasoit Community College where Birchmore was once a student and a paid tutor.
Harris testified that in fall 2017, Birchmore asked for more peer tutoring hours. When Harris couldn't provide them, he said Birchmore "returned to the space and said she engaged in suicidal behavior earlier that weekend and needed the hours to leave her home."
The defense plans to call one of Birchmore's ex-boyfriends on Thursday along with Chief Medical Examiner Mindy Hull.
If convicted, Farwell faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
