The day before Sandra Birchmore, a 23-year-old pregnant teacher’s aide, died, around the same time Stoughton Police Detective Matthew Farwell was captured on surveillance video leaving her home, she met with her therapist.
Dr. Diala Alkhalil, who was Birchmore’s mental health counselor, testified that her client seemed happy, very excited about her pregnancy, when she met with her on Jan. 31, 2021. Hours later, Birchmore was dead, federal prosecutors say. Her remains would not be discovered until Feb. 4, 2021 when Canton, Mass. police officials recovered her with a duffle strap around her neck, one end tied to a doorknob in what is called a seated hanging.
That same day, before an autopsy had been performed, investigators from the Massachusetts State Police CPAC unit, homicide investigators who work in the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office, declared her unattended death a suicide.
Her apartment was not treated as a crime scene until years later when the FBI began investigating Birchmore’s death, and their colleague Farwell, who worked with the cops who made the suicide determination, was not considered a suspect despite multiple calls from people in the young pregnant woman’s life who insisted she would not take her own life, or that of her unborn baby’s. They also reported that Farwell had been violent with her after she became pregnant, according to testimony in the disgraced former detective’s ongoing murder trial in Boston’s federal court.
Those callers included her therapist, Alkhalil, she testified on Friday.
“After Sandra died did you speak to the state police about Sandra’s death?”
“Yes.”
“Did they reach out to you?”
“No.
“Did you call them?”
“Yes.”
It was a common story for jurors in the case, which is in its tenth day.
Multiple witnesses, including Farwell’s former colleagues in the Stoughton Police Department, have taken the stand and repeatedly stated that Birchmore was anything but suicidal. U.S. Army Sergeant Jason Pickard, who testified on Thursday, told jurors that he had no idea that he, not Farwell, was the father of Birchmore’s baby, until the FBI tested his DNA in 2025. He also reported that he was “concerned” about Farwell, who Birchmore said took her virginity when she was 15, which is the crime off statutory rape in Massachusetts.
That DNA testing came nearly a year after Farwell’s arrest by federal officials who charged him with strangling Birchmore and staging her death to look like a suicide. He is now charged with killing both Birchmore and her unborn child. He has pleaded not guilty, and his federal public defenders continue to argue in open court that Birchmore was a troubled woman with a history of mental illness and suicidal thoughts.
Birchmore’s therapist said in their last session, her client had told her about a “visit” she had gotten from her late mom, who died, along with her grandmother, in succession when Birchmore was 18. Birchmore said her mother appeared at the foot of her bed, holding her unborn baby.
Farwell’s defense attorney asked the therapist about the “paranormal” story, asking if she thought Birchmore was hallucinating.
Sandra’s therapist also testified that she believed her client’s relationship with Matthew Farwell was “very transactional.” Farwell, and his twin brother William – who is scheduled to take the stand next week – and Robert Devine, all Stoughton cops who have since been forced out of policing professions by a state board – are accused of having inappropriate relationships with Birchmore, who they met when she was a 13-year-old participant in the Police Explorer’s Program run by the town. Birchmore’s aunt has filed a civil suit against the town of Stoughton and its police department, which will resume after jurors reach a verdict in Farwell’s federal trial.
“From my impressions, she called him her boyfriend, but it seemed very transactional. He would come and see her in the middle of the night for a hookup and that was pretty much it. It was quick. transaction,” she testified.
On Thursday, jurors heard that Farwell’s DNA was found on the ligature that was knotted around a doorknob in her bedroom, and in her underwear.
Farwell’s colleagues have told jurors in testimony that he was frazzled, erratic, in late 2020 – which is when Birchmore told him she was pregnant and he was the father, into early 2021 when she threatened to tell his wife about their relationship. By then, she had told others, including Pickard, that Farwell had taken her virginity when she was a minor.
Stoughton Police Detective Daniel Barber, who called Farwell a one-time “close friend,” testified to an exchange in early 2021. Farwell, he testified, “was incessantly texting,” which led Barber to ask if he was okay. “I gotta put crazy back in the bag,” Farwell responded, according to Barber’s testimony, adding then “things would be all right.” Another police colleague testified that Farwell told her he was having problems with a woman other than his wife, but that it would be “taken care of.”
Last week another former friend, Stoughton Police Sgt. Robert Kuhn, admitted to murmuring to a government official last week before his testimony, “I can’t wait to crush this motherfucker.” Stoughton Police Chief Donna McNamara and her former Deputy Chief Brian Holmes testified that they immediately commissioned an internal affairs report, one “exclusive and independent” to the one that went nowhere, run by Norfolk County prosecutors and CPAC investigators, into Birchmore’s death.
All five of those former Farwell colleagues testified they did not believe Birchmore was suicidal, and one detective testified that rumors were swirling about Matthew Farwell and his brother Billy, along with Devine, after her death. The Stoughton IAD report would come to confirm those rumors and led the FBI to undertake a federal investigation in 2023. By then, the Farwell brothers and Devine were removed from the force.
The government could wrap up its case as early as Wednesday. Closing arguments could come as early as November 5.
The post Therapist Testifies She Saw Sandra Birchmore A Day Before She Died appeared first on LAmag.
