BOSTON, Massachusetts — A federal jury in Boston on Tuesday, November 10, convicted former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell of killing Sandra Birchmore, 23, and causing the death of her unborn child, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts said. Jurors found Farwell guilty on both counts — killing a witness or victim, and causing the death of a child in utero. He faces a mandatory life sentence, The Boston Globe reported, and federal prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.
Source: The New England Signal, Nov. 10, 2026 (U.S. Attorney's Office, Massachusetts)
This verdict is the major new development that follows the earlier stages Awaaz Punjab has already reported: the jury began deliberations on Friday, November 7, after closing arguments, and on Monday, November 9, the same jury told the judge it was deadlocked. When jurors returned on Tuesday morning, Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper encouraged them to take as much time as they needed to reach a verdict, and they returned guilty verdicts on both counts later that day. The jury of eight men and four women deliberated after more than three weeks of testimony from 50 witnesses.
Source: The New England Signal, Nov. 10, 2026
A death first ruled a suicide
Birchmore was found dead in her Canton apartment on February 4, 2021, when police conducted a welfare check after she did not show up to work; she was found hanging in a seated position from a door handle by a duffle-bag strap, according to trial reporting by The Associated Press and CBS News. Prosecutors said Farwell strangled her on February 1, 2021, and staged the scene to look like a suicide by hanging. The state medical examiner, relying partly on information from police, initially ruled her death a suicide; the manner of death was later changed to undetermined. After a federal investigation, Farwell was charged in 2024 with killing a witness or a victim, and in 2025 with causing the death of an unborn child.
Source: AP / CBS News trial reporting, updated Nov. 10, 2026
The prosecution case
Federal prosecutors alleged that Farwell began sexually abusing Birchmore when she was 15 and he was 27, after they met through the Stoughton Police Explorers programme, a youth programme designed to teach young people about law-enforcement careers, where Farwell worked as an instructor. Prosecutors argued he killed her to keep her from telling authorities about the abuse — under federal law, jurors had to find that he killed her specifically to stop her from reporting a federal crime. Among the key evidence, prosecutors pointed to surveillance video from the lobby of Birchmore's apartment building showing Farwell, wearing a mask and a hood, heading to her apartment the day she died, and to DNA evidence they said linked Farwell to the strap found around her neck. Trial evidence also covered phone records: Birchmore's phone locked for the last time at 9:13 p.m. on February 1, 2021, Farwell was seen on surveillance entering the building at 9:14 p.m., and he was seen leaving at 9:43 p.m.
Source: AP / CBS News trial reporting, updated Nov. 10, 2026
On the cause of death, prosecution strangulation expert Dr. William Smock told jurors Birchmore's death was a homicide, saying a clasp on the strap caused an injury on her chest suggesting the scene was staged, and that the fracture of her hyoid bone, in the neck, rarely happens in suicides. Prosecutors also told jurors the killing came the day before Farwell's third child was born.
Source: AP / CBS News trial reporting, updated Nov. 10, 2026
The defence case
Farwell pleaded not guilty and did not take the witness stand. His lawyers acknowledged he had an extramarital relationship with Birchmore but argued she took her own life after he ended it that night and told her he was not the father of her baby. Defence expert Heather Garvin, an anthropologist with a doctorate in anatomy, said the hyoid fracture does not definitively prove homicide, forensic scientist Alicia McCarthy testified she could not conclude with certainty that the chest injury was caused by the clasp, and Dr. Thomas Andrew, a former chief medical examiner for New Hampshire who testified for the defence, said the factors of Birchmore's death made him think it was a suicide. The defence also noted an apparent suicide note in a journal from 2017 and internet searches days before she was found dead. The jury rejected the defence account and convicted on both counts.
Source: AP / CBS News trial reporting, updated Nov. 10, 2026
DNA testing presented at trial found that Farwell did not father Birchmore's child. FBI Special Agent Heidi Kelsch testified the father was Jason Pickard, an Army Reserve sergeant and defence contractor who met Birchmore when he was recruiting and who testified at the trial. Birchmore worked for the school district in the nearby town of Sharon, Massachusetts. Cheryl Carlson, an assistant principal who worked with her, testified Birchmore was excited when she learned she was pregnant and wanted the baby 'to have someone to love', and that learning her death was initially called a suicide did not fit with her character.
Source: AP / CBS News trial reporting, updated Nov. 10, 2026
A death first ruled a suicide by local authorities was reinvestigated federally, and the trial examined how the original investigation was handled — including testimony that the state trooper who first investigated did not record or take notes in early interviews with Farwell. The verdict makes Farwell's conviction a court finding; the underlying abuse allegations formed part of the prosecution's motive case that the jury accepted in convicting him of killing a witness or victim.
What happens next
Farwell has remained in custody since his arrest, and sentencing is reported for February 3, where he faces a mandatory — automatic — life sentence on the conviction. Federal prosecutors decided last year not to pursue the death penalty, so life in prison is the sentence the law provides. Any appeal would follow sentencing. For Birchmore's family and supporters, who gathered outside the Norfolk District Attorney's office during the long wait for a federal case, the verdict closes the trial phase of a case that began with her death in February 2021, nearly six years ago.
Source: The New England Signal / AP reporting, Nov. 10, 2026
What is solid
- A Boston federal jury convicted Matthew Farwell on Tuesday, Nov. 10, on both counts — killing a witness or victim and causing the death of an unborn child — after reporting on Monday that it was deadlocked.
- Farwell faces a mandatory life sentence; prosecutors did not seek the death penalty; sentencing is reported for Feb. 3.
- Birchmore, 23, was found dead in her Canton apartment on Feb. 4, 2021; her death was first ruled a suicide, later changed to undetermined, and Farwell was federally charged in 2024 and 2025.
What is only claimed
- The cause and manner of death were disputed at trial — prosecution experts called it homicide by strangulation with a staged scene, defence experts called it suicide — and the jury's guilty verdicts resolve that dispute for the purposes of the conviction, subject to any appeal.
- Farwell did not testify and had pleaded not guilty; his lawyers acknowledged an affair but denied the killing.