Cop 'lulled' Sandra Birchmore into feeling safe before strangling her hours before his wife gave birth, jury is told

From the Newshound archive · first published 9 October 2026 · last updated 10 October 2026.

Opening statements have begun in the US federal murder trial of Matthew Farwell, a former Massachusetts police officer accused of strangling 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore in her Canton apartment on 1 February 2021 and staging her death as a suicide. Prosecutor Torey Cummings told the jury Farwell groomed Birchmore from the age of 15, then turned cold when she announced her pregnancy — before making 'a complete 180' to lull her into a false sense of security ahead of the killing.

Surveillance cameras caught Farwell, 6ft 4in, entering Birchmore's apartment building at 9:14pm wearing a mask — despite being vocally anti-mask — and leaving about an hour later.

Farwell allegedly strangled Birchmore with a duffel-bag strap, propped her body against a closet door and fixed the strap to the doorknob to fake a suicide — all hours before his own wife gave birth.

Birchmore had texted Farwell the news ecstatically; he replied 'You are truly the worst person on the face of Earth', prosecutors say.