Sandra Birchmore Trial Begins. Opening Statements — The Emily Show

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Welcome back to this week's episode of The Emily Show, and today we are going to be covering what happened last week, October 5th through the 9th, in court in the trial of Matthew Farwell for the murder of Sandra Birchmore. They really only got through jury selection and opening statements, but we're going to talk about opening statements. Court resumes on Tuesday with witnesses. Would this be my preference to do jury selection, then have opening statements, then have a three-day break? No, but it's federal court, and preferences of the attorneys don't matter, and I don't even know if the attorneys asked for it. There's also some additional litigation still ongoing with motions in limine, and we're going to talk about that as well. So law nerds, let's get into it. I'm legal analyst Emily D. Baker, yes, also a lawyer, and this is The Emily Show. I break down the pop culture entertainment and high-profile cases that we're all talking about. 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It is my intention to keep covering this to the podcast episodes. It's hard to cover it live. There are no cameras in the courtroom. There are plenty that are in court that are like live tweeting or X-ing or pick a short form text-based platform and posting there. There are media outlets that are covering it. But as we have seen in the past, it can be difficult to cover just from other people's observations. However, if you find someone who is giving you kind of a play-by-play without commentary or giving you a play-by-play and then telling you where they're giving you commentary, it makes it a little easier to follow along. I just tend to take multiple sources, check them against each other, and try to distill what I know is happening in court, just from all of my experience being in court. But it does become more difficult because, of course, everything is generally filtered through whomever is observing it. So keeping that in mind, we are going to do our best to parse through this. But also keeping that in mind, this case makes me mad. I've made no attempt to downplay that the facts of this case are outrageous. I do not have a lot of faith for the Massachusetts State Police after everything that we have seen. And I would never have qualified for a juror on this case. I have too many preformed opinions about MSP. That said, as I cover this, I am also going to point out things that are helpful for the government, things that are difficult for the government, things that are helpful for the defense, things that are not helpful for the defense, because I find that that's most helpful to you. It does not mean that I am doing anything other than fighting to cover both sides of this case because of my own feelings about it. However, I think if law school and a career in law is good at anything, it really is learning to put the lawyer side of your brain and your emotions and feelings in two separate categories and parse that. I will make clear when I am giving my own comment, as I think I always do, and when we are covering things we're seeing from court. What we are here to observe as best we can, because there are no cameras in federal court. It's not just because of this case. It's not because anyone's protecting MSP. I've seen questions about that. There are not cameras in federal cases. I disagree with it, but that is the rule in all federal courts all across the United States. The public can go sit in and observe, so can the media. What they don't have are cameras. All of this is coming from reporting, and then I am also looking at the docket to see what we are seeing be litigated on the docket. And the court breaks down each court day, but it's generally jurors were sworn, opening statements began, opening statements completed, court resumes on this day. It's a very neutral recitation of what's happening in the day, but I am checking in on the docket as well. And there are some docketed items that are still being fought over that are not quite live or ripe just yet. And of course, that will continue on throughout the trial. So all they've really gotten to is seating the jury of 16 and opening statements. They will begin with evidence on Tuesday. They expect that this will be about five weeks of trial, but with federal cases, sometimes they end up going a little bit faster. It's more unusual to see federal cases linger a bit the way we can in state courts. The rules tend to be enforced quite strictly in federal cases and things tend to be well vetted prior to trial. For those of you that aren't familiar with this case, I will give an overview of it. Again, I do not get into every detail of this case. The indictments in this case are public. You can go look at them. We have shared them in the Lonard lounge side of the Lonard app. This case is disturbing, but I'm not going to sensationalize the details or spend a ton of time on them. We know what this is, but I'm also not going to mince words, which is where you will see in all of our episodes are amazing sponsors because platforms hate it when I just use the words for the things that they are and don't downplay them. It is a balance to talk about what happened without also only talking about the most horrific or sometimes salacious details. I also am disappointed to see some of the headlines, not from outlets that we're going to be talking about today, calling Sandra Birchmore the victim in this case, the young lover of the defendant who groomed her. It's just horrific to me to still see that there are even headlines like that when we know the facts of this case and any newsroom can know the facts of this case. So with that said, let's get into an overview of this case and we're going to talk about opening statements and you will hear more of an overview from the media outlets we look at. But Sandra Birchmore was in the police explorers program where she met the defendant and others. She started that program when she was 12 years old. The defendant groomed her and they began having sexual interactions when she was 15 years old. At that time, I believe he was 27. I hate to call it a relationship because grooming is involved. But their connection continued up until the time of her death. Now, where this gets difficult and why we are only now in trial in 2026 is because even though this crime occurred on February 4th, 2021, Farwell was not indicted until 2024. This all happened when Sandra Birchmore was living in Canton, Massachusetts. Who investigated this case? Massachusetts State Police. You're going to hear a lot of names that we have talked about in the Karen Reed case. And as we get into discussing this case, you will see things that almost parallel the David case that we've also talked about. There are a lot of similarities between the two cases and the motives alleged behind them. Remember, in the David case, he is charged with a special circumstance murder, the special circumstance being the killing of a witness or victim. This case is charged as a murder of a witness or victim. In both cases, the women who are victims are the witnesses and victims to the things that were done to them. Both were threatening to expose those things for different reasons. So when we are looking at how this all unfolded, it will have some parallels to the David case. The reason it's charged differently is because this is a federal case. I have also seen headlines of like, why isn't Matthew Farwell charged with murder? I'm like, he's charged with the murder of a victim or witness. It's a federal death penalty eligible case. The prosecution chose not to seek that here. He's also charged in count two of the superseding indictment with the killing of Birchmore's unborn son, which also carries a mandatory life period sentence. So I can only imagine either no one is reading what they are writing, or it is just engagement rage bait because it just doesn't seem to help people understand what's going on in this case. It just seems to bait people in to be mad and be like, how outrageous that he's not charged with murder. He's charged with two murders. Two. But continuing on, this case was investigated by MSP. There has been a lot of conversations about the upwards of 40,000 communications and messages between Birchmore and Farwell that were not found by Trooper Guarino of MSP when he did his initial investigation into Farwell's phone. And I've seen a ton of criticism of Guarino for that. Here is my criticism to add on the pile. It's not that Trooper Guarino did not find those messages. It's that he knew or at least someone was told that those messages had all been deleted before Farwell even turned over his phone and no one followed up on that part. That's my criticism. It's not that the messages were on Farwell's phone and Guarino did not find them in searching the phone. It's that Farwell told everyone he had deleted any communication with Birchmore and then turned over his phone to be imaged by MSP and said you can search it for communication with Birchmore. So he deleted the thing and then he tried to limit his consent to search and it seemed that everyone was just like okay cool. No one did a search warrant beyond that it seems. He was interviewed sitting in his truck in the parking lot at the Norfolk district attorney's office and it doesn't seem that any of that information was passed along to the medical examiner when making a determination because in this case Farwell had staged the crime scene to look like a suicide. Though there were things at Birchmore's home in her calendar and in her life that don't indicate that this was someone who on that evening was planning to take their life. But that's exactly what the defense is leaning into in their opening statements. So with that overview of the case let's get into what both sides are presenting. I am not surprised in this case when initial law enforcement said that this was a suicide when that was originally determined by the medical examiner that that's what the defense is going with. However, I'm a little surprised that they're not leaning into well the government can't prove this because leaning into that this was a suicide case seems to indicate that they're anticipating that Farwell will testify and based on the opening statements I think they're indicating that he will. But then he's going to have to discuss all of the messages that were later recovered off of the victims devices all of the things that the FBI has recently found off of looking through a full image of his phone. I really have questions if there's indication of user deletions of all of those messages. But again would Garino have turned those over if Farwell is telling everyone oh I deleted all of this. Is it really riveting to be like oh well he said he deleted it and huzzah it's been deleted. They all knew that this was deleted and didn't go further to try to find why everything was deleted or how much everything even was because it seemed that early on Farwell was like yeah we were having whatever this is he probably said relationship because his story seemed to be that he broke up with her and that caused her to take her own life and nobody looked deeper into the fact that he was in charge of the police explorers program and met her when she was 12. Nobody thought that that was a little unusual. Let's talk about opening statements. This is coming to us from the Boston Globe. The headline being in Matthew Farwell trial prosecutors accuse ex-cop of abuse and murder. Defense says he made mistakes but didn't kill Sandra Birchmore. Yeah I don't think there's any way they can get around the grooming and inappropriate relationship here. The article begins saying the prosecution defense delivered opening statements Friday in the trial of Matthew Farwell. The former Stoughton police detective accused of killing Sandra Birchmore after sexually abusing her for years beginning when she was a child and staging her death to look like a suicide. Farwell 40 is accused of strangling a pregnant Birchmore 23 at her Canton apartment in February 2021. Birchmore was 8 to 10 weeks pregnant when she died and had told Farwell that he was the father. Prosecutors told jurors that Farwell agreed to have a baby with Birchmore because he thought it would keep her from exposing that he had sexually exploited her since she was a teenager and that he ultimately killed her to cover up their relationship. DNA evidence has ruled out Farwell as the father of Birchmore's unborn child. This is my interjection but i don't know how much the defense will lean into that because i wonder if the underlying text messages and digital evidence show that Farwell believed that he was the father which is more important than whether he actually was or not because i know from other motions we have read in this case there were messages back and forth where Birchmore was indicating that she wanted to have a child she wanted Farwell to be the father of that child and that they were actively having unprotected sex so that she could become pregnant so what he believes and what the text messages show will actually be more important to the jury than the DNA showing that he was not the father. They quote the prosecutor then saying the evidence will show he was not happy about having a baby with her but he was trying to appease her in order to keep her quiet. They go on to say the defense meanwhile asserted in its opening that while Farwell made quote regrettable mistakes defense can we pick a different word i guess there's probably not jurors that watched a ton of the reed case because then they might have opinions about msp but regrettable is there nothing else Farwell made quote regrettable mistakes he did not kill Birchmore rather Farwell broke up with Birchmore and denied paternity of her child and Birchmore alone and in financial dire straits killed herself defense attorney Kim Stevens said. Jurors were excused after both sides delivered their statements and will return Tuesday for testimony. The article concludes with the fact that Farwell has pled not guilty citing the state medical examiner's initial ruling that she died by suicide. The medical examiner withdrew the suicide opinion in April. The cause of death is now listed as undetermined and here's why that matters. We have seen medical examiners in Massachusetts testify that they can update their findings when they are presented new investigative resources. When the ME testifies what they were told when they opened this case and what they learned later will be critical. I think the fact that the ME changed their mind is going to be a big piece of evidence for the jury and in fact it was highlighted by prosecutors in opening statements. We're going to take a look at that now. Hey Leonard, a quick break to thank today's sponsor Gusto. I know it's pumpkin spice season but it's also getting into all of the end of the year and tax and payroll and that's where Gusto comes in super handy. Gusto is an online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all-in-one remote friendly and incredibly easy to use so you can pay, hire, onboard and support your team from anywhere. We moved our payroll over to Gusto before they became a sponsor of the Emily show and I'm so glad we did. Not only does it support employees in multiple jurisdictions but they take care of all the stuff that you just have to do like automatic payroll tax filing and making direct deposits easy for both me and for my employees. Taking care of health benefits and workers compensation and all the rest of the benefits that you might want to roll out and they have access to certified HR experts. You might not need full-time HR especially if you're a small business but when it comes up you want access to have somebody to talk to who you can trust and Gusto provides that for you. Lonard try Gusto today at Gusto.com/lonard and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at Gusto.com/lonard. Just one more time. Gusto.com/lonard. Now let's get back to today's episode. I'm grabbing this from Grant Smith Ellis' Twitter because I did not see truly anyone else just give a breakdown of what was being said in the opening statements so we are going through those a little bit because what is interesting to me is that in all the other articles they didn't talk about the way that the government highlighted the change in position of the coroner and I thought it was actually a really clever and powerful argument made by the government that's just not highlighted literally anywhere. He begins with the DOJ starting with a picture of Sandra Birchmore talking about the fact that she was finishing nursing school and that she had no idea that the defendant decided she would die that night. Her last text message was in fact her telling the defendant that the door was open. That's my interjection of what I know of the evidence not from the government's opening. They talk about the fact that the defendant knew he had a real problem because his wife was going to give birth the next day. The evidence will show that when Farwell was 27 years old working with Stoughton police he began having sex with Sandra Birchmore when she was 15 years old. That's a crime but he didn't stop there. He met Sandra over the next eight years to have sex with her while he was on duty. Also a crime. Farwell worked hard to keep Sandra quiet. He worked hard to keep her quiet to hide his crimes. They say the evidence will show that Sandra started telling people about Farwell's crimes and Farwell knew this was a problem and Sandra was killed as a result. They say the evidence will show that the defendant staged Sandra's body to make it look like she died from suicide. They then talk about the indictment. They say that Sandra met Birchmore when she was just 12 years old and the jurors were shown a picture of her at 12 years old in the explorers program which I also think is smart to show that she was a child. They said that Sandra was one of the kids who needed help. She struggled in school and she needed special education services. She was a little different than other kids. I mean everyone who's neurodivergent is like understood. She never knew her father. She had no siblings and her mother was very sick. Sandra's mother hoped she would find positive role models. Sandra loved the police explorers program. She was enamored with police officers and she met the defendant there which puts the defendant in a very easy position, this is my interjection, to abuse her. They say that in October 2012 while she was 15 Farwell was still her instructor and groomed her via facebook messenger. Later in 2013 when she was still 15 he continued grooming her and then started to sexually abuse her which they describe in more detail during opening. Emily, why are they describing the sexual abuse in opening? Well, for the jury to understand why someone would think that murder was the only option left, I think they need to highlight how many crimes that far well was engaged in per their theory of the case. And that's what they're highlighting. It's not just that he was grooming and abusing her. It's not just that it was statutory rape. It goes beyond that, that he was also meeting her well on duty and more. It is stacking up all of the things that he was trying to cover by silencing her. They talk about the fact that the defendant told Sandra to delete all of their communications from her phone. They say to hide evidence of his crimes. That his sexual activities involved dominating Sandra and hurting her and they get into that more into the type of fantasies into the fact that he talked in text messages about choking her. They talked about the fact that in 2017, Sandra lost her mother and her grandmother and expressed sadness at that time. They also talk about the fact that her life from the time that she met Farwell and then he began having sex with her that all of her life with him was impacted by that abuse. And all of her life going forward was impacted by that abuse. They talk about the fact that Sandra did have sexual encounters with others, including Farwell's brother, who is also law enforcement. They talk about the fact that Farwell messaged her regarding taking Sandra's virginity and talked to her about that being the best day of his life that she wanted to get pregnant. And then they get to the fact that Sandra told Farwell that she would expose what he had been doing to her unless he agreed to give her a baby too. And that's at the same time that Birchmore learns that Farwell's wife is pregnant with their third child. They talk about the third party, Joshua Heal, that Sandra told about what Farwell had been doing, that she told Joshua Heal that she would expose what Farwell had been doing over the past 10 years unless he gave her a baby. And Sandra, when asked what Farwell would do, said, "Not my problem. He took my virginity before I turned 16." They talk about the fact that Farwell and Sandra began engaging in unprotected sex, trying to conceive, and that on December 8th Sandra found out that she was pregnant and then sent him a picture saying, "Congrats, we are going to be parents." This is going to be critical to what the defendant's understanding was. They say that Sandra texted Birchmore congratulations or a congratulations sign and he texted her, "You are truly the worst person on the face of the earth." That Sandra texted Farwell on December 9th that he scared her. They point out the fact that Sandra Birchmore was five foot tall. Matthew Farwell is six foot four. Then they talk about the fact that on January 20th, 2021, a woman who knew Sandra Birchmore made a call to the Stoughton Police Department. And DOJ talked about how dispatch told Farwell about the call. We saw this in the indictment as well. Dispatch told Farwell that somebody had called and accused him of these interactions with Birchmore. Farwell told dispatcher never to mention it to anyone. I want to see that dispatcher testify. And I wonder if they still have a recording of that call. And I imagine the witness who made that call will also be testifying. The prosecution goes on to say, "You will see evidence that after the January 20th call, defendant texted Sandra that the girl who made the call caused all sorts of problems." Farwell had no idea Sandra told anyone about their sexual contact until that phone call. Farwell texted Birchmore, quote, "Which other friend will do something tomorrow?" And then the prosecution closes up the timeline and says 12 days after that phone call to Stoughton Police, Sandra was dead. It was no longer a question of if the defendant's crimes would be exposed. It was a matter of when. The defendant had lost control of Sandra. And then they talk about the fact that Farwell's behavior completely changed after January 20th, that he tried to make Sandra feel safe, that he brought her ginger ale for morning sickness. They go on to say that Sandra told 81 people she was pregnant. She took all sorts of steps to prepare for the baby's arrival. She had photo shoots booked. She had a venue selected for the baby shower. She worked with doctors to prepare. She restarted medication. She wanted to protect her unborn child. And he quotes them as saying the only person she could not protect her son from was the defendant. They talk about the fact that there is security video, which we saw referenced in the indictment of Farwell entering and exiting the apartment of Sandra Birchmore. They played that video. He is wearing all black and a mask. They noted that he didn't wear masks even when mask mandates were in place. So there's no question about why he was wearing a mask during that period of time. And then they said that the state police, this is MSP, CPAC officers out of Norwalk County were assigned to investigate Sandra's death. They say, despite all of the evidence, you will see evidence that the CPAC unit told the medical examiner that there was no indication of the death being suspicious. There was a defense objection during opening. It was overruled. They then go on to say that when the OCME made her initial ruling, she knew less than you just learned in the last 30 minutes. The OCME did not know that Farwell had strangled Sandra in the past. The OCME did not know that Farwell was in Sandra's apartment, nor did the OCME know about the history of sexual abuse. The CPAC unit knew all of this from Sandra's friends and family, but ignored it. The Norfolk DA CPAC team did not do even the semblance of an investigation. They met Farwell casually in a parking lot, and they let Farwell keep his phone for days before searching it. They let him delete material from his phone. The only person the CPAC unit called in the days after Sandra's death was William Farwell, the defendant's brother, who also had sex with this victim. And then they share something that we did not see in the indictments or anywhere else. When the brother was interviewed by Fanning, Fanning told him, "We, Tully's unit, need this investigation like we need a bullet in the fucking head." That is the direct quote from opening statements. They say that MSP got no search warrants and they did nothing further. After the FBI began investigating, the OCME changed her opinion. This was a premeditated homicide and the evidence will show it. And then they start talking about the different witnesses that are going to testify. The defense began their opening statement next with, quote, "Matthew Farwell is a man who had an affair. He made a regrettable mistake. He's human. Matthew Farwell did not kill Sandra Birchmore. He did not." And then they talk about Sandra Birchmore. They talk about the pending snowstorm because there was a snowstorm coming. Birchmore was not discovered for three days until after her death. They talk about text messages. They read out 12 text messages in a row about Sandra wanting to see Farwell. And he says how she felt better after eating and that she slipped on ice at one point. Sandra texted Farwell at 9:07 PM and Farwell responds, "Are you still up?" This was the first reply from Farwell all day. And then they talk about all the 15 to 20 messages. Ellis comments that this is a very strange opening and commented that he was having trouble following it. It seemed that the prosecution's opening statement was much more clear. They talk about Birchmore's dating history. At one point, the prosecution objects when the defense brought up a restraining order that was taken out by an ex-boyfriend against Birchmore. They talked about Birchmore's romantic partners, that she wanted to have a baby, and that she told 84 people within two weeks of getting pregnant. Which I don't think is a fact that helps the defense because if she was telling everyone that Farwell was the father, Farwell's wife at this time is also pregnant with their third child. And how did Farwell meet Birchmore? And how might that impact him? They talk about the fact that the government has to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. They talk about the fact that it took four days to find Sandra Birchmore because of the snowstorm, which he would have known was coming. That's my interjection. And they are arguing that the reason to some of the damage to Sandra Birchmore's throat and neck is because she had convulsions when she died. We see from those openings that the defense is going to lean into regrettable statutory rape, sexual abuse and grooming, but not into murder. They're not going to go with this was a terrible investigation. Maybe they will down the road. But the government is very much leaning into this was not a good investigation. This was barely an investigation. They went, yep. We're not asking a lot of questions here. And quote, we need this like we need a fucking bullet in the head. Oh, I'm sorry that the pregnant dead 24 year old in Canton is such an inconvenience to you, MSP. Are you kidding me? Your job is to investigate deaths. I am curious if we will see the dispatch call that they should have been able to unearth had they looked into it, where Farwell was saying, don't tell anyone about what you were just told 10 days before Sandra Birchmore was dead. Something that a curious investigator should want to know and an interview that should be happening. And I don't know an interview room recorded whatever it is that led the FBI into looking into this case. I'm glad they did because it seems that what uncorked a much deeper look into MSP and into this investigation and these officers was the death of Sandra Birchmore that when you look at the crime scene and when you look at the reports and the evidence, there are enough questions there that this was not the open and shut case that they treated it as. And I think that is going to be difficult for the jury to overcome. I think it was very smart of the government to highlight to the jury when the medical examiner made this determination, they had less information than you have now. It is a type of tangible argument that really ties together viscerally a fact that's difficult for the government. It's difficult for them that this was originally ruled one way and then changed. That fact becomes much less difficult in the simple explanation. Law enforcement didn't give them the information and that information all seems to point to one of their own. I think that is the type of thing that will carry with the jury as a theme of this case throughout the witness testimony. A lot of you ask that we keep taking a look at this case week by week. I will do my best to summarize witnesses, point out things that we are learning new that we did not see in the indictment. I will link those things down below and put together a playlist of the podcast episodes where I've covered this case. I am curious to see if we will see the defense shifting into saying well without an investigation who could know or if they are going to just shift into well yeah there's a lot that Farwell did but he's not a murderer. I think that's a difficult defense for them. I think it's also a defense that is going to require Farwell to testify which means he's going to have to address all of the digital data they were able to recover from Birchmore's devices but also everything that was deleted from his. We are anticipating about five weeks of trial. I will try to keep you in the loop on other cases. It's going to take a lot to kind of summarize this week by week but again Lawnards, I heard you. I will do my best to summarize it without being able to watch this live the way we like to. Make sure you stay tuned in the Lawnard app. We have lots of court that we're going to this week all over the U.S. We're going to be in Utah and Idaho and South Carolina so make sure that you have the Lawnard app because streaming times will shift as court times shift just depending on what time zone we're in and I will see you in the chat and in court this week. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a Lawnard and I will see you soon. And thank you for letting me know that you wanted to do continued overview coverage of this case even though we aren't able to watch along with it. I will see you soon. Thanks for joining me. If you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss updates on your favorite cases, you're going to need the Lawnard app at lawnardapp.com. That way you can stay in the loop on the cases that matter most to you and you never know when you're going to catch feelings for a new case. So make sure you get it for free on iOS and Android. Thank you for being here and thank you for being a Lawnard.