New Chilling Photos ROCK Ex-Cop's Murder Trial

Bombshell trial exhibits revealed in the case of X-Cop Matthew Farwell, the man now on trial for the murder of his pregnant lover, Sandra Birchmore. A suicide note, alleged evidence of childhood grooming and what prosecutors say is proof of a staged scene. We're taking a look at the most compelling evidence presented so far and looking ahead to this week's testimony. This is Scandal, presented by Lawncrime. I'm Sierra the Last Me. Never before seen photos of Sandra Birchmore unveiled in court as her ex-lover stands trial for her murder. Prosecutors are now ramping up their case in federal court unveiling evidence they say, so she didn't end her own life. She was planning ahead for future doctor's appointments. She was taking her prenatal vitamins. She even hung her baby's sonogram on the refrigerator in her apartment. And it's not just circumstantial evidence the government is presenting either. They've also brought forth expert medical witnesses who testified the injuries on Sandra's body just don't line up with suicide. In the past few days of trial, jurors have been exposed to some really gruesome imagery straight from 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore's autopsy. The pictures are so graphic that we're not even going to show you. But prosecutors say that these images are essential to prove that Sandra didn't kill herself. Instead, they say it was Matthew Farwell who did. Now for a quick refresher before we get into all of this, Matthew Farwell is an ex-stoten Massachusetts police officer. He met Sandra Birchmore when she was only a kid as part of the explorers program. Now this was a group that teaches kids about law enforcement and gives them something to do after school. Federal prosecutors say that Matthew Farwell began grooming Sandra when she was just a child, even allegedly taking her virginity when she was 15 years old, by the way he was 27 at the time. Now the government says they've got nearly 40,000 texts between Matthew Farwell and Sandra Birchmore, some that seem to corroborate these sexual relations. In one exchange, Sandra reportedly writes had butterflies so bad the day you took my virginity. Farwell replies, "Me too, it was such a big day." She says, "Still no the date to this day." "Really?" he asks. "Yes," she says. He replies with a smiley face. "That's a date I'll never forget," she says. It was April 10, 2013. "Best day of my life," she says, faced with heart emoji. "Me too," he replies. Now this relationship reportedly continued into Sandra's adulthood. By late 2020, Sandra had become pregnant and at the time she believed Matthew Farwell was the father. Prosecutors showed jurors this image in court, a poster that Sandra made for Matthew announcing, "Congrats, we are going to be parents 2021." Here's the thing, Matthew Farwell already was a parent. In fact, he already shared two kids with his wife who was pregnant at this time once again. She, by the way, gave birth on February 2, 2021. One day, after prosecutors say Matthew Farwell murdered Sandra. Now, Matthew Farwell stands federal trial for that. He's pleaded not guilty to all charges. He faces killing a witness or victim. That's for the death of Sandra Birchmore and protection of unborn child for the death of her unborn child. And I also have to note, officials have determined that Matthew Farwell was not the father of Sandra's baby. In their opening statements, Matthew's defense pointed to that, saying Matthew broke up with Sandra on February 1, telling her he was not the father. Now the defense says, "In a fit, Sandra then died by suicide." And for a while, that's what Massachusetts officials ruled too. But it wasn't until a major uproar from Sandra's family and friends of civil lawsuits. And an examination by renowned Dr. Michael Bodden that the feds took a closer look. On the state level, Massachusetts officials didn't file charges, but the feds believed it was murder. Now, Matthew Farwell is being tried in federal court. And the cause of death for Sandra Birchmore has been changed to undetermined. So that's a bit of background as to what brought us here. And now we've got to talk about the evidence. So let's start with Sandra herself. Now, I've been reporting on this story for years at this point and have continuously seen the same couple of photos of Sandra over and over. But now, several new photos, at least to me, and probably a lot of you were added to evidence. In my opinion, these photos help remind us that there is a true tragedy here. So often, we remember the names of the defendants, but not the victims. And while there are some arguments as to whether Sandra really was a victim or whether she ended her own life, bottom line either way, it's a tragedy. She was a real person. She was about to bring a new life into this world and instead, neither of them are here with us now. So in my opinion, it's just nice to see photos of Sandra when she looked really happy. And according to prosecutors, she was really happy that she was having a baby. Some evidence they showed to jurors seems to back all this up to, for example. Sandra had the baby's sonogram front and center on the fridge in her apartment. Right there for her to see every single day. She also had a doctor's appointment on her calendar showing she was taking her pregnancy care seriously and doing regular checkups. The calendar shows she had an appointment at 11.30 on February 17th, which sadly she never made it to. On the counter of Sandra's apartment, investigators found prenatal vitamins, showing she was taking her pregnancy very seriously and making sure her baby was healthy. All of these pieces of evidence point to Sandra wanting to stay alive and being excited to be a mom. Next to the prenatal vitamins, investigators also reportedly found several prescriptions. There was prednisone, which can be used for pregnancy-related issues, and zophran, which is an anti-nauja medicine. She also had sumitriptan succinate, which is used for migraine headaches. But the one medication that the defense points to is zooloft. An SSRI used to treat PTSD, OCD, and anxiety. Because remember, the defense's argument is that officials got it right the first time that Sandra birch more struggled with mental health issues and ended her own life. Now the medication alone proves Sandra had some sort of diagnosis, but a letter shown by prosecutors shows she definitely had some mental health struggles. And to be fair, this letter was dated July 1st, 2017, so four years before Sandra died, but the contents of this letter are very upsetting. It seems to be a suicide note. It reads as follows. It's a whom it may concern. I'm sorry to those of you that may be hurt by this. I'm sorry to put you through this. I do not feel as though I have a place here any longer. My time here has been well spent. I know this won't be easy for you. I was treated like explicit, and didn't have the support system I needed. You all have memories with me that we shared, and I hope that you cherish and keep them forever. Although I'm no longer here, I will always be in your heart. I love you, and I'm sorry. Please don't grieve me, but celebrate my life. On another sheet of paper, this one dated June 30th, 2017, Sandra wrote out a list of ways to do it, and a list of reasons why, including not wanted, no one cares, no purpose, failure, and told to before, and not acknowledged or recognized for doing anything done well. It's a really sad and upsetting list to have to read, report on, but to Sandra's credit, she wrote another list to this time reasons to live, titled Why Not To. This included career ahead, almost done with school, someone somewhere may care, friends and family, kitty friends, and goals. At the very bottom, in what seems like a bit different handwriting, she wrote, "I'm wonderful. I'm amazing." It's sad, then, to know what ultimately happened to Sandra. Officials believe she died on February 1st, 2021, inside of her apartment. But her body wasn't recovered until February 4th. That's when a wellness check was called in after she failed to show up to work. Federal prosecutors shared a lot of images from the crime scene, and it's chilling to see. I promise we're not going to show you anything graphic, but look at this, for example. This was Sandra's bedroom. It's clearly lived in, you can see a purple pattern comforter up by her pillow, her glasses are there laying on her bed, her slides are there on the floor. And here, this is Sandra's living room. She's still to Christmas tree on the coffee table from celebrating during the holiday season. These photos show that someone lives here, and the sad part is that someone died here, too. Now, jurors were also shown the duffelback strap that was found around Sandra's neck. This was used to kill her, but the question of how is what both sides disagree on? To prove Sandra didn't die by her own hands, prosecutors entered some really graphic pictures into evidence. One of the exhibits displays tiny broken blood vessels in Sandra's eye. Experts testified this can occur due to increased pressure during exphyxiation or strangulation. Now, these images also appear to show blunt force or compressive trauma applied to the neck prior to death. Prosecutors also focused heavily on the deep tissue hemorrhages in Sandra's neck. They say this is inconsistent with the hanging, the way that Sandra's body was found. Instead, they say this is a result of ligature strangulation. And according to their case, these hemorrhages were found in the deep neck tissues of the airway and thyroid area on Sandra's body. According to the feds, deep bleeding here indicates force was applied to the neck when Sandra was still alive. Experts say that in a common hanging death, the person's neck usually has a brownish bruising on the surface level, not the deep bleeding and injuries to the internal neck muscles. But in a strangulation, there are those internal injuries. consistent with what Sandra had and was displayed during autopsy. So throughout all this, prosecutors keep pointing to evidence they say is inconsistent with a hanging death. Another example, talking simply about gravity. So when someone dies from hanging, gravity pulls their body straight down toward the ground because the rope or strap is anchored above them. The market leaves around their neck tilts upward in a diagonal V shape toward wherever the knot is attached. Conversely, if an attacker pulls the rope, cord strap, whatever it is, around a victim's neck from behind or to the side, the force goes straight around the neck. This leaves a mark that goes straight across rather than tilting upward. All of this is really a lot for me personally to understand. I'm a layperson. I don't have a big background here. And I'm wondering if this was tricky for jurors too. I mean, it's hard because we don't have video in a federal case, so no one can see the testimony unless they were inside the courtroom, but I've got the next best thing. What that testimony could have looked like. We're going to bring on a forensic death investigator, Joseph Scott Morgan, to help us understand these intense exhibits. So let's go to that now. All right, Joseph Scott Morgan, a friend of the show forensic death investigator, an expert. Thank you so much for coming on scandal with us today. And you bet, Sierra. Glad to be here with you. Been too long. It has been too long. And honestly, when I was going through the exhibits in this case, there's one name that kept popping up and it was yours because to me, a layperson, I can see what's happening in the trial exhibits, the photos, but I don't necessarily know. So I wanted to dig a little bit deeper with you because the jurors are like me lay people. They probably don't have. Maybe one of them has a medical degree, but for the most part, just everyday people. So when they're seeing these photos could be kind of a question mark. And I guess just from the jump, when you're looking through the exhibits, what do you think happen? The jurors say that this was murder, is that what the photos show? Well, yeah, and you know, not just murder that it's a staged hanging, and that takes it to another level, which means yeah, they can use terms like homicide and murder and that sort of thing, but that really doesn't tell the tale because when you talk about staged, you talk about a staged hanging, which means that you're talking about someone that has died and you are trying to deceive investigators at the scene and giving it the appearance that someone has taken their own life as opposed to them having died at the hands of another. That gets really complex really quickly. So one of the things that's very intriguing about this is that this will have to be explained. It will have to be explained and it will be riveting information, you know, for those that will have privy to it at that point in time. The explanations are going to be offered up for it in probably the scientific rationale. You know, how did you arrive at this conclusion? That's not just the investigators that's seen, that's also the forensic pathologist. And, you know, from my understanding, there was an Emmy investigator or representative of the medical examiner at the scene as well. So this is going to be one of those events where people will be, well, I can't say glued to their television with it, but they will be quite interested because the forensics are going to play a big part in this. You made a good point because this case is different than others in that it has all the facts that make us want to follow along, but we can't in the same way because it's not live streamed. So that's why it's more complicated for a case like this because usually I can just turn on long crime, watch the Emmy explanation or what the prosecutors have to say, whatever it is. I can't hear. It's a little bit different, which is where you come in. So let's talk about the staging of a scene. I mean, a police officer is the defendant here. So he obviously has a bit more, I guess, background in knowing what a crime scene would look like versus, you know, if he could stay just seen. I don't know. So what are your thoughts about all of that in relation to what you saw in these events? Yeah. So this is what we refer to Sierra as a non-suspended hanging. So with a suspension hanging, just, you know, think about it. If you've ever seen an old West movie with gallows and they pull the track door and you've got someone suspended in the air, that means that their feet are not touching the ground. Okay. It also means their bottom is not touching the ground. They are literally suspended between heaven and earth and they're suspended with a ligature. Okay. Well, in this case, in particular, one of the things that's very glaring is that you have this young woman seated adjacent to a door knob. So if you imagine, you know, a distance of, I don't know, I'm just spitballing here, not having the exact measurements in front of me. Maybe about a foot from the door knob, which would be the hard point here. And the hard point is that point of connectivity where you have the loose and tied here to the actual securing area on the back for neck might be, might be about two feet, okay. And she is reclined. Okay. She's not like seated, like straight up, okay. She's like reclined back and her legs are extended out in front of her. She's not listening to the left or the right. She's actually lying back. Now, this is a bit atypical in the sense that I have had cases as a death investigator where I have people leaning forward with their legs or behind them. Okay. If you can imagine that kind of like, looks like a lizard up on a rock, you know, with some like, with her head extended like this, not what we're talking about. So why do people do this? Well, one of the reasons, and this is where you really get into, into the granular nature of the assessment of forensics here. If an individual has been strangled either manually, that means with the hands or a ligature strangulation has taken place. I don't know, say for instance, with a strap off of an army duffle bag, okay. That strangulation is going to look different than a suspended hanging. Here's why. Because with a strangulation like this, first off, you're going to have what's referred to as diffuse hemorrhage in the neck, and it'll spread and it'll be very specific. Like you'll have these like points of heart contact in the neck, where you've got multiple areas of contusion when, at all times, you wouldn't reflect that top layer. You can actually see them diffuse in there. I mean, you see them focalized with, with a ligature, particularly with a strap like this, you would have what's referred to as diffuse hemorrhage that spreads because you're actually wrapping around all of that pressure. You're diffusing it, adding to the rest of the tissue, okay. When you see, and what they're doing is they're trying to mask what they've actually done. Because the thing about it is, is that when a police officer, it's unfortunate, but it just happens. It's human nature. I've seen it happen over and over again, when a police officer or a naming investigator showed up at the scene and they see someone suspended, you know, like this, they're not thinking death at the hands of another, okay, they're thinking death at one's own hand. And so, you look at that, and a law enforcement officer would know that, okay, so it's a masking that's going on. And that's the fascinating thing about this, and this is where you're going to have, I think, probably a real conflict, you know, which courts work off what we call the conflict model. That means you do battle in that arena between the defense attorney and the ME, or the defense attorney, and the prosecutor. And then there's a real chance that you're going to see a defense, a defense witness that would have an expertise in forensic pathology, and they're going to offer up an alternative explanation as to why you would see this. I kind of feel like this case is going to be a battle of the experts, kind of what you were talking about, right? The government saying one thing with their examiners and their experts, and then the defense coming back and saying, no, it actually was suicide, this wasn't staged, this wasn't murder, and something that I kept seeing throughout all of this, and you touched on it a bit, over and over the discussion of the deep tissue hemorrhages within the neck. And I mean, this goes over my head because I did not study in any of this, so I'm hoping for your explainer. You know, look, you don't have to be a forensic scientist to understand this. You really don't, you're certainly bright enough, so just let me break it down. You're your hands, your hands are not created in order to spread hemorrhage everywhere. When you squeeze, and if everybody at home will just kind of grab their hand like this and squeeze as hard as you can, you can appreciate the different areas of pressure, just think about it just for a second, and you can feel how the pressure, no matter how hard you squeeze your hand, there are going to be certain areas around that contact in your hand that you'll feel more pressure than other locations. Same principle with the neck. So if you had a strap though. that was wrapped around there. The strap is not a hand, okay? So the strap actually applies pressure uniformly. Well, if you have uniform pressure, then you're going to have probably more hemorrhage. It will not be as deep as a squeeze, though, because as I demonstrated, as you're squeezing your hand, okay? You're applying pressure to specific areas where we're not mechanically designed in order to diffuse that kind of pressure all over an entire surface. So when you look at these, one of the things they're going to talk about, and I saw the images as well, there will be these little focal areas of hemorrhage within the soft tissue. And when I say soft tissue, what I'm referring to is literally the muscles of the neck. And we have, there's a complex of muscles that kind of lie over our windpipe right here, okay? Over the trachea. And they're called strap muscles. And they're kind of interwoven like this, that kind of overlay. And it's one of the things that we'd look for, matter of fact, we will do very specific dissections where we will trim each strap muscle and pull it back independently and look for hemorrhage on the, not just the front side of the muscle structure, but also on the back side. And that gives you an idea of depth. Then when you get into the cartilaginous areas of the throat, many times you can have cartilaginous fractures in there, like if people will find where their atom's apple is right here, all of this is cartilaginous. And those areas will actually fracture. And of course, the one big question that everybody always asks and always comes down to it, we heard a lot about it with Epstein is gonna be the hyoid. And that will be a question that will be asked over and over again. Of course, the hyoid sits so high up in the neck. It's the only non-articulating bony structure in the human body. Its sole purpose is to anchor the tongue in the back of the neck. So it's way, way up. So and generally, ligatures don't get to that area. Matter of fact, they rarely get to that area, okay? So that's way way up in the neck. If it is, in fact, fractured, generally the only way this gets fractured is biomanial strangulation. Okay, so the hyoid bone, I had to ask about that because that's really, this case is the first one that I heard about the hyoid bone. And then after that, all of a sudden I was like, "Okay, wait, I'm actually hearing about it all." Yeah, you're a tune to it. Right, exactly. Now all of a sudden I'm hearing about this all the time. And it really was, in my opinion, Dr. Michael Botten, when he came forward after taking a closer look at everything. And he's like, "Okay, let's talk about the hyoid bone. Looks like we got something going on there." It seems like this was strangulation rather than her dying at her hands. What is your opinion on it? Well, yeah, I mean, you don't get that kind of hemorrhage up there. And keep in mind, Michael was also involved. He was present for the Epstein, you know, hanging. And so, and look, he's done, I can't, I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of hangings that Michael Botten has done his esteemed career. And right he is, because if there are focal areas of hemorrhage surrounding the hyoid, you're not gonna get that little extra strangulation. It would be so, it would be such an outlier, I think. And that's one of the things that pointed him back, you know, to having a single re-examined. And, you know, the authorities were obviously on board with it. Certainly the prosecution at the federal level was on board with it. Mm-hmm, yeah. You know, still fascinated that there were no, well, is it, no state homicide charges filed in this case? That this is, and it's really, even though it kind of reads like the feds have a homicide statute, they homicide is something that's a purview of the state. And so, they're, you know, they're prosecuting this case, based, they're certainly talking about homicide here, and that sort of thing, but they're, they're tacked when it gets to this point is something completely different than say, you know, those that work at a state level. This case is so much different than when I usually cover, because I have to put my toes in the world of federal, but in this case, you're right, usually it's first to remurder, second to remurder at the state level. And then here, it's not even technically murder the charge. It's something like, and I have it in my script here, so we make sure to get it correct, but it's something like killing a witness. - Yeah, it is coercion is part of it, coercion. And I think it kind of implies like the silencing of a witness because you have to look at, and again, not an attorney, I'm not our friend, Jesse, whatever. So it's not like I've, it's not, it's more all inclusive, you know, what's your purpose here? And at the end of the day, you know, the feds look at everything from the perspective of, is this a civil rights violation? So your silence in a witness, your co-hersing them, there's also a wire fraud charge in here as well. And then we can't forget about the baby, either. And that's one of the charges, too. And there's a specific statute that deals with that, that the feds have in place, and they're using that. This, you know, according to them, there is a survivability level, you know, when you think about it, of course, she was early, she was really early in her pregnancy, I think. But they're looking at it that this was going to be potentially a viable life. I guess that's how they structured a law. And so therefore, they move forward with that, you know, in their back pocket, they're laying on that charge. And let's face it, you know, I think one of the things the prosecution is looking at here, his motivation was the fact that she was pregnant. You know, we, we, it has evidentiary value to demonstrate, you know, the silencing of a witness, you know, those sort of things, stuff that cops should not be involved in, in the first place that he's been engaged in his behavior for a long, long time, with this young woman who, by the way, was a child, you know, when they first crossed paths. - Yeah, there's really so much to this case, whether it's silencing a witness in terms of the allegations that they were having sex while he was on the clock as a stoton police officer, obviously a crime. For a time, I think I had you on years ago, we talked about this case. We still thought that he was the father then, so then the motivation for him to kill her as this would not get out because he had a wife who was pregnant and gave birth a day after she was alleged to be killed. I mean, there's just so much in this case. - Yeah, and he wouldn't, you know, he would not have had knowledge of this part too, you know, that it was not his child, but still, and again, that's one of these kind of things that it's perception, you know, the prosecutors really hanging their hat on this. His perception was that this was going to be his child and she, you know, allegedly had made that known to him or that the child was here. So at any rate, what we do have at the end of the day is that we have these charges and it is absolutely horrific because, you know, I still go back to, you know, thinking about the first time that they apparently can show that they engaged in sexual Congress with one another at statutory rate. - Yeah, so it's 15, yeah. - Yeah, 15-year-old cannot consent to sex. And so that is statutory rate going back in time and it's just, it's fascinating to me that the state, the state has kind of kept their hands off of this rail. I'm sure that they've been advising along the way and all those sorts of things. But the feds are there in control now and we'll see where it goes. - Yeah, exactly. We'll see what happens. There's still a lengthy trial ahead. It's still the government's case at this time. I'm sure I'll have you back on to discuss even more because again, it's going to be the battle of experts. - It will be. - Joseph Scott Morgan. Thank you for coming on with us today. - You're quite welcome, Sierra. Y'all have a good day. - Matthew Farrell's trial is ongoing. He's pleaded not guilty to the charges, but if he is convicted, he faces a sentence of life in prison. His trial is expected to last for about 20 days. And that's where today's episode of Scandal leaves us for now. Thanks for watching. I'm your host Sierra Gillespie and I'll see you next time. (upbeat music)