Officer Accused: Pregnant Witness’s Death STAGED?

Close-up of police lights flashing in blue and red at night

The Justice Department just told America that a cop accused of strangling his pregnant teen victim will never face a needle—only a prison cell.

Story Snapshot

DOJ rejected the death penalty for ex‑Stoughton officer Matthew Farwell in the killing of Sandra Birchmore and her unborn child.
Federal investigators say a “suicide” ruling hid a staged homicide and years of sexual exploitation that began when Sandra was a minor.
The case pits federal homicide findings against local authorities who saw no foul play.
The decision exposes a deep clash over justice, policing, and how much value we place on the vulnerable and the unborn.

How a Police Youth Program Became a Predator’s Open Door

Sandra Birchmore grew up in Stoughton, Massachusetts, a sick mother at home and a badge-filled world promising structure and purpose. She joined the Stoughton Police Explorers at 12, a program sold to parents as a pipeline to public service, not a hunting ground. Prosecutors say that is where officer Matthew Farwell, then in his mid‑20s, began grooming her, blurring mentorship into private meetings and attention that no adult in authority should ever give a child.[1][3]

The relationship, according to federal filings, turned sexual when Sandra was 15 and Farwell was 27, a textbook power imbalance between an impressionable girl and a sworn officer.[1][3] He married someone else about a month after their first sexual contact yet allegedly kept Sandra on a parallel track for years—messages, encounters, even sex while on duty.[1] Conservative instincts about family, fidelity, and duty align poorly with this pattern; nothing about it reflects the restraint, responsibility, or respect the badge is supposed to represent.

From “Suicide” on Paper to Alleged Strangulation in Federal Court

On February 4, 2021, officers found 23‑year‑old Sandra dead in her Canton apartment, days after coworkers reported she had not come to work.[1][4] Surveillance video showed her entering the building on February 1 and Farwell arriving that evening, staying about half an hour before leaving.[1] Norfolk County investigators later announced they saw no evidence of foul play, and the medical examiner called it suicide by asphyxia, a ruling that neatly removed any uncomfortable scrutiny of a local officer.[1]

Sandra’s family never accepted that story. They pointed to her new nursing courses, her job as a teacher’s assistant, and her pregnancy—she believed Farwell was the father—as evidence she was planning a future, not an exit.[1][3] Federal investigators eventually backed the family’s instincts, concluding Sandra had been strangled and the death scene staged to look like suicide.[1][4] That finding does not just contradict the original suicide ruling; it calls into question the basic reliability and independence of a local system asked to investigate one of its own.

Witness, Unborn Child, and the Federal Stakes

By January 2021, the secret Sandra and Farwell shared was no longer safe. A friend contacted Stoughton police, reporting that Farwell had been having sex with Sandra, exposing him to potential criminal charges for exploiting a former minor.[3] Not long afterward, Sandra was dead, and federal prosecutors now allege Farwell killed her to stop her from communicating with law enforcement—a classic witness-killing theory that elevates the case into federal territory.[1][3]

When Sandra died, she was eight to ten weeks pregnant with a baby boy, according to a superseding federal indictment.[3] DOJ charged not only the killing of Sandra as a witness/victim but also a separate count for the death of her unborn child under a federal statute protecting unborn children.[3] That charging decision recognizes, in black-and-white legal terms, that there were two alleged victims. For Americans who believe the unborn deserve legal consideration, this aspect of the case aligns strongly with common-sense morality.

Why DOJ Walked Away from the Death Penalty

On paper, this is the kind of case that could qualify for capital punishment: a sworn officer, an alleged decade of sexual exploitation beginning when the victim was a minor, a pregnant witness killed to silence her, and an unborn child whose death counts as a separate offense.[1][3] A federal judge set an October 2026 trial date and gave the Justice Department until January 20, 2026, to decide whether to pursue the death penalty, an unusually long runway in a police-defendant case.[3][4]

On December 9, 2025, U.S. Attorney Leah Foley filed a short but decisive notice: the Attorney General had directed the government not to seek the death penalty.[3][5] DOJ offered no public explanation, consistent with its habit of handling capital decisions behind closed doors. That silence leaves regular citizens to weigh the facts against their own sense of justice and ask whether a mandatory life sentence feels proportionate to the alleged crimes.

Accountability, Power, and What This Signals About Justice

Farwell has pleaded not guilty and remains entitled to the presumption of innocence.[2][3] Still, the public record already exposes a disturbing pattern: a police-run youth program allegedly used to access vulnerable teens, a relationship that began when Sandra was 15, and a local investigation that delivered a suicide finding now contradicted by federal evidence of strangulation and staging.[1][3][4] The family’s wrongful-death lawsuit against Farwell, his twin brother, a supervisor, and the Town of Stoughton targets not just individuals but a system that, they argue, failed to protect her.[1]

For many conservatives, the core questions are stark: What does it say about equal justice if a cop accused of killing a pregnant witness to cover his own behavior will never face the same maximum punishment available to a street criminal? How much trust should communities place in local investigations of officers when a “suicide” can become “staged homicide” only after federal intervention? And how do we ensure police youth programs serve kids’ dreams instead of predators’ desires?[1][3][5]