Damning messages a disgraced police officer sent to a teenage girl before strangling her have shed light on his disturbing behaviour.
Text messages showed Matthew Farwell of Massachusetts sending Sandra Birchmore a message about losing her virginity and having a “big day.”
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According to court documents, Farwell had a years-long sexual relationship with Birchmore that began when she was 15 and he was 27.
The disgraced police officer strangled 23-year-old Birchmore in 2021 after the woman revealed she was pregnant with his child, prosecutors said.
Farwell and Birchmore met when the teenager enrolled in a now-defunct program at the Stoughton Police Department, where the officer worked.
This program was created to teach children about police work.
According to court documents, Farwell and Birchmore began a sexual relationship when they became friends on Facebook.
A text message conversation between the two in February 2019 revealed that Birchmore had written that Farwell had taken her virginity.
She told Farwell she was glad he “took it on,” and he later acknowledged it was “a big deal to do it the first time,” according to court documents.
According to the documents, Birchmore lost her virginity to Farwell at the age of 15 between 2012 and 2013.
Additional text messages from February 2020 also revealed information about the day Birchmore lost her virginity to Farwell.
“I had butterflies in my stomach the day you took my virginity,” Birchmore wrote.
“It was a great day for me too,” Farwell replied.
According to court documents, he agreed with Birchmore when she called that day “the best day of my life.”
Birchmore recalled the exact date she lost her virginity to Farwell, April 10, 2013, saying, “That's a date I'll never forget.”
Text messages show that the couple discussed the incident again in June 2020, with Farewell reminiscing about his past sexual abuse.
“Lol, if I had pushed, I definitely could have f**ked you without condoms from day one,” he told Birchmore.
“Probably, if you really push it,” Birchmore replied.
“I was a little scared to say no at the beginning because I didn’t know how you would take it, so yes, you wouldn’t have [condoms] “Lol.”
According to court documents, these text messages confirm that Farwell sexually abused Birchmore as a child.
BIRCHMORE'S DEATH
Birchmore was found dead by police in her Canton, Massachusetts apartment on February 4, 2021.
Earlier this week, prosecutors alleged that Farwell strangled Birchmore while she was doing laundry and then staged the incident to make it look like a suicide.
He was arrested Wednesday morning at a mall in Revere, Massachusetts, and appeared in federal court for arraignment later that afternoon.
After a three-and-a-half-year investigation, Farwell was charged with her murder.
Birchmore was ten weeks pregnant at the time of her death and had recently told Farwell that he was the child's father, federal authorities allege.
Farwell pleaded not guilty to charges related to Birchmore's killing during a preliminary hearing this week.
Tiara Martin, a close friend of Birchmore, had previously reported the allegations against Farwell to the US Sun.
Disturbing relationship chronicle
Sandra Birchmore was associated with the Stoughton Police Department for ten years before her death in February 2021.
2010: Birchmore, then 13, participated in the Stoughton Police Department's youth program known as Police Explorers.
Through the program, she eventually meets twin brothers Matthew and William Farwell, who both worked as police investigators as teenagers.
March 27, 2012: Matthew Farwell becomes a police officer in Stoughton after working for several years with the Wellesley Police Department.
10 April 2013: Farwell, then 27, allegedly began a sexual relationship with Birchmore, who had just turned 15.
The age of consent in Massachusetts is 16 years.
Farwell and Birchmore will continue their relationship until at least 2020.
2015: Birchmore graduates from Stoughton High School, spends two months in the U.S. Army Reserve, and enrolls at Massasoit Community College in Brockton.
2016: Birchmore's mother and grandmother both died a little over a month apart.
Stoughton Police Department ends its Explorers program.
Robert C. Devine, the program's director, was demoted from deputy police chief to patrol officer after he was investigated for harassing a woman with whom he was having an affair, according to an investigative report.
March 21, 2017: William Farwell, Matthew's twin brother, becomes a police officer in Stoughton.
1 September 2019: Birchmore takes the statewide civil service exam in hopes of becoming a police officer in Stoughton.
January 2021: Birchmore tells Falwell that she is pregnant and expecting her first child.
She tells her friends that the baby's father will not interfere in her life, but is still looking forward to becoming a mother, prosecutors claim.
In a call to police, Farwell is reported as the boy's father and he allegedly becomes angry with Birchmore.
He then became physically violent towards her and planned to murder her, the prosecution claims.
1 February 2021: Matthew Farwell visits Birchmore's apartment in Canton.
Surveillance footage allegedly shows him entering her building and leaving again 28 minutes later.
February 4, 2021: Birchmore, who was ten weeks pregnant at the time, was found dead in her apartment by police in Canton.
February 6, 2021: Farwell is interrogated by police officers.
He tells them that he told Birchmore that he was not the father of her unborn child, that their relationship was “over,” and that he had “kept her from any form of communication.”
24 February 2021: Farwell is placed on paid administrative leave.
May 21, 2021: A state medical examiner concludes that Birchmore committed suicide.
April 1, 2022: Farwell resigns from his position with the Stoughton Police Department.
He obtained a professional driver's license and started his own trucking company, DMJ Transportation LLC, while on vacation.
15 August 2022: Devine is retiring from the Stoughton Police Department.
He denies having had a relationship with Birchmore outside of the program.
23 September 2022: Stoughton police completed a 19-month investigation and found wrongdoing by Devine and the Farwell brothers.
December 29, 2022: Birchmore's estate is filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the Farwell brothers, Devine and the city of Stoughton, including its police department.
28 November 2023: A search warrant affidavit states that Birchmore and Matthew Farwell exchanged 32,709 text messages between December 2019 and February 2021.
March 21, 2024: Matthew Farwell agrees to no longer serve in the Massachusetts police force.
June 18, 2024: A former New York City chief medical examiner ruled Birchmore's death a homicide.
28 August 2024: Federal authorities are charging Matthew Farwell with killing Birchmore, then 23, in February 2021.
“When it was announced that it was suicide, I knew that was fucking bullshit, and I knew the real blame lay with this person that she had been obsessed with and had manipulated, abused and manipulated for years,” Martin said.
“Everyone knows what it was. She was taken advantage of, she was manipulated, she was sexually harassed, she was raped – and she was a damn minor when it all started.”
Birchmore reportedly told Martin about their relationship when she was about 15 years old and shared some details with her friend.
“Sometimes she told me he was not Pretty to her, and sometimes that they were in love and that he had promised to help her get a job with the police once she graduated,” Martin said.
Martin said Birchmore always lied about Farwell's age and believed it was because she was “afraid of getting in trouble.”
Birchmore apparently told Martin in 2017 or 2018 that she was pregnant with Farwell's baby – she must have been 19 or 20 at the time.
Martin was unsure whether Birchmore had been forced to give the baby away, whether she had terminated the pregnancy voluntarily, or whether she had suffered a miscarriage.
Birchmore's girlfriend told the US Sun that she will not stop fighting for justice on Birchmore's behalf.
“She was such an amazing person and that this was the outcome is still so hard to accept.
“This is not okay and it never will be.”
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