BOMBSHELL testimony rocks Sandra Birchmore murder trial — Jesse Weber Live

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Joining us now is senior editor at Los Angeles Magazine, Michelle McPhee, who's been following this case from the beginning, was in that courtroom. How did that dispatcher testimony land today? [00:00:10] Speaker 2: I mean, it was, like you said, a bombshell. This was a mic drop moment because not only did he admit that he knew about this call, but he also said that he reported it up the chain to an officer who also told him, just like Matthew Parville, forget about it. His notes from the call were gone. I mean, this is a key moment in this case. As you know, Sandra Bershmo was killed just in a matter of days after this. And this is a call that was never reported, nor was it even kept as evidence. [00:00:40] Speaker 1: What happened in the notes? What happened in the notes? [00:00:44] Speaker 2: Well, he took down these notes about who this girl was. He doesn't remember her name because he threw out the notes or somebody threw out the notes. It's a female caller. And as you said, the female caller said, hey, I have some information about Detective Matthew Farwell. And that information wasn't relayed to anybody. So it just kind of fell flat. And we know that that was sort of, well, federal prosecutors described that as a pivotal moment in Matthew Farwell's alleged plot to kill Sandra Bershmoor. What about this? Farwell allegedly called Bershmoor [00:01:17] Speaker 1: the worst person when she says she was pregnant? Turned out, by the way, he wasn't the father. Defense says that kind of undercuts the motive. Do we have any information that he knew he wasn't the [00:01:27] Speaker 2: father? I don't think even Sandra, even the FBI didn't know that Matthew Farwell wasn't the father until after the fact. When they arrested Matthew Farwell, it was the first time they got his DNA. And what led them to the actual father, whose name is Jason Pickard, and you and I talked about him last week, he's expected to take the stand on Thursday. The reason they tracked down Jason Pickard is because they were what Stoughton police investigators and private investigators describe as explicit and sexually alarming videos and photos that were found and recovered on the Farwell's phone. That would be Matthew Farwell and his twin brother, also a Stoughton police officer named Billy Farwell. They found these images of Sandra with Picard on their phones, and that led them to investigate him, and he voluntarily gave a Google swab. So what do you think he's going to testify to? I mean, this is what's going to be so riveting, because there's so many mysteries. You know, if you start looking at the bigger picture of this case, we know from testimony that Matthew Farwell was tracking Sandra with a tracking device. We know that Billy Farwell was decertified as a Massachusetts police officer because he was running illegal criminal searches on the national database. And we know that Jason Pickard was a U.S. Army recruiter, and we know that the military has very strict rules about fraternizing with recruits, and Sandra was briefly a U.S. Army recruit. So there is, like, enormous questions about the powerful men that were in Sandra's life that obviously took advantage of [00:03:06] Speaker 1: her prosecutor's sake. Well, look, this is a murder case. So you talk about the defense. The defense is trying to show this wasn't a murder. They're trying to show that Birchmore had mental health issues, financial problems, that she'd attempted suicide in the past, that she took her own life. But I understand there's some conflicting potential evidence about that. I mean, talk to me about how you see that going from the defense's argument. [00:03:29] Speaker 2: Well, listen, the defense is making a very steadfast and stalwart argument that Sandra Birchmore was a troubled young girl. And, you know, this history, she was troubled. But what falls flat on their argument is the plan she was making for her future. You know, we heard some detailed messages about what she was doing on the day she died. She made a hairdressing appointment. She made an appointment for a birth reveal. She made an appointment for cat sitting. She put a load of laundry in. She was, you know, today we heard testimony about these Winnie the Pooh onesies that she was planning to use for her baby shower. And her friend showed images of these very adorable and heartbreaking Winnie the Pooh onesies. So here's a girl that got into nursing schools. She paid an advance fee. She was planning to get her hair highlighted for her upcoming baby shower. She was making plans for the future. So it's hard to say that this was a woman that decided to just spontaneously take her life because Matthew Farwell broke up with her for the upteenth time. [00:04:32] Speaker 1: In other kind of cases, we have seen that happen sometimes, right? Like, people will do that. It comes out of nowhere. It looks like they have all plans for the future. So it's complicated. [00:05:02] Speaker ?: Thank you.