Sandra Birchmore's ex-boyfriend, chief medical examiner expected to testify in Matthew Farwell trial
The defense is now presenting its case in Matthew Farwell's murder trial, with one of Sandra Birchmore's ex-boyfriends and the Massachusetts chief medical examiner expected to testify on Thursday.
The prosecution rested Wednesday after calling 38 witnesses to try and prove that Farwell, a former Stoughton police officer, is guilty of killing the 23-year-old and her unborn baby in her Canton apartment on Feb. 1, 2021. The two met when Birchmore was a 13-year-old cadet in the Stoughton Police Department's youth explorers program.
Farwell has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of killing a witness or victim and causing the death of an unborn child. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors used their final witness, a digital forensics expert named Jessica Hyde who also testified in the Karen Read trials, to present their theory that Farwell strangled Birchmore and staged it as a suicide to conceal their years-long sexual relationship that allegedly began when she just 15 years old.
Hyde testified that on Feb. 1, Birchmore's phone locked for the final time at 9:13 p.m. One minute later, a masked Farwell was seen on surveillance video entering her apartment building.
At 9:18 p.m., her camera app was opened. At 9:40 p.m. the phone records eight steps, and 20 seconds later, a button is touched. That's the last user activity ever documented on her phone, and Farwell isn't seen leaving her apartment until nearly three minutes later.
WBZ-TV legal analyst Jennifer Roman says the prosecution put on a strong case with a tight timeline, and the defense will have to show that Birchmore was suicidal, despite being excited about the pregnancy.
"They're going to try to get around that to say this was an impulse reaction by Sandra Birchmore," Roman said. "She was so upset and distraught that in that moment she became suicidal, and she was a young woman who had struggled with mental health, and so therefore it wasn't unusual or unexpected that this might happen for her."
The defense started presenting that argument Wednesday with their first witness who testified that Birchmore told him in 2017 that she had tried to kill herself.
