Farwell Jury Deliberates About 3 Hours Without a Verdict After Dueling Closings in Birchmore Case

Jurors in the Matthew Farwell trial deliberated for about three hours on Friday, Nov. 6, and went home for the weekend without reaching a verdict, after prosecutors and defense lawyers gave sharply different accounts of how Sandra Birchmore died in her Canton apartment in 2021. The Matthew Farwell trial jury, eight men and four women, will resume deliberations at 9 a.m. Monday in federal court in Boston, WBUR reported.

Farwell, 41, a former Stoughton police detective, is charged with killing a witness or victim and causing the death of an unborn child. He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole, according to CBS Boston. The government decided last year not to seek the death penalty, CBS Boston reported. Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper is presiding.

The prosecution’s closing argument

Prosecutors allege that Farwell strangled Birchmore, 23, on Feb. 1, 2021, and staged the scene to look like a suicide to keep her from exposing a sexual relationship that, they say, began when she was 15. The two met through the Stoughton Police Department’s youth explorers program, where Farwell volunteered as an instructor, according to WBUR.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Fogerty told jurors that Farwell went to Birchmore’s apartment that day “to clean up the mess that he created for himself years earlier,” WBUR reported. Fogerty pointed to a Jan. 20, 2021, call to the Stoughton Police Department in which, prosecutors say, someone disclosed the relationship to a dispatcher. Prosecutors allege that call set the killing in motion.

Fogerty also described the scene. According to CBS Boston’s live coverage, he told jurors there were “signs of a struggle,” noting that her phone lay just out of reach and that there was no activity on it for about 20 minutes while Farwell was there. “There was no note, no letter to friends, no calls, no texts to friends, not even a message to Matthew Farwell,” he said.

In rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney Liz Riley told jurors there “is nothing undetermined about this case” and that “the medical evidence overwhelmingly supports homicide,” CBS Boston reported.

The defense: ‘Matt did not kill Sandra’

Defense attorney Kimberly Stevens argued that Birchmore took her own life after Farwell told her he was not the father of her baby and ended their relationship. “They cannot reach the burden of proof,” Stevens told jurors, according to WBUR. “Why? Because Matthew didn’t kill her.”

Stevens pointed to Birchmore’s text messages, journal entries and web searches, which the defense says show mental health struggles and a history of self-harm, WBUR reported. She also challenged a key federal element of the charge: that the killing was meant to stop Birchmore from talking to federal law enforcement. Stevens told jurors that Birchmore had refused to report the relationship, quoting her as saying, “I don’t want my sex life put on trial,” according to CBS Boston.

Stevens also attacked the government’s forensic expert and told jurors that seated hangings “are not nearly as rare as the government would have you believe,” CBS Boston reported. She defended the medical examiner’s original ruling, which took three months, as “a thorough investigation.”

The medical evidence at the center of the case

Much of the five-week trial turned on competing expert testimony about Birchmore’s injuries, including a fracture of the hyoid, a small U-shaped bone in the neck. Dr. William Smock, a forensic medical expert called by the government, testified that she died by “homicidal strangulation” and that the bone had fractured inward, which he said happens during strangulation, WBUR reported. Defense witnesses disputed that reading, as covered in our earlier report on the defense experts.

The state medical examiner first ruled Birchmore’s death a suicide. After Farwell was arrested more than three years later, the manner of death was changed to “undetermined,” according to CBS Boston. Prosecutors also relied on about 40,000 text messages, mostly between Farwell and Birchmore, WBUR reported. DNA testing done years after her death found that another man was the biological father of the fetus.

Inside the courtroom

Before closings, Casper reminded jurors that Farwell is presumed innocent and that the verdict must be unanimous, CBS Boston reported. Jurors heard from 50 witnesses before testimony ended Wednesday, when Farwell told the judge he would not testify in his own defense. The original panel of 16 was narrowed to 12 deliberating jurors and four alternates. Among those in the gallery Friday, CBS Boston reported, were U.S. Attorney Leah Foley and a cousin of Birchmore’s.

The case has drawn national attention and follows other closely watched Massachusetts trials, including those of Karen Read and Lindsay Clancy, NBC Boston noted. Jurors asked to keep working past 5 p.m. Friday before being sent home for the weekend, according to NBC Boston and CBS Boston.

What happens next

Deliberations resume Monday morning at the Moakley courthouse. A verdict on either count must be unanimous. For more court and public safety coverage from around Greater Boston, follow our hub page, and see the latest Boston news for updates.

Sources

• WBUR: Prosecutor, Farwell attorney tell very different stories about Birchmore’s death
• CBS Boston: Farwell trial jury begins deliberations after closing arguments
• NBC Boston: Farwell trial jury hears closing statements, no verdict
• U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts: Chief Judge Denise J. Casper