Coroner finds Sandra Birchmore of Massachusetts, who claimed she was sexually assaulted by three police officers, did not commit suicide

• Sandra Birchmore, 23, was found dead in her apartment in 2021
• The Massachusetts Chief Medical Examiner found that she had committed suicide by hanging

A prominent medical examiner has determined that a pregnant Massachusetts woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted by three police officers was murdered – and did not commit suicide, the state medical examiner reported.

Sandra Birchmore, 23, was found dead in her apartment on February 4, 2021. Massachusetts State Police Trooper Matthew Dunne said he found no signs of physical abuse or evidence of a struggle.

In May 2021, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled that Birchmore – a former participant in the Stoughton Police Department’s youth program – had committed suicide by hanging.

But according to the Boston Globe, former New York City medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden has since concluded that Birchmore was actually murdered.

“Mrs. Birchmore did not die by suicide by hanging,” he wrote in a June 18 letter to an attorney for Birchmore’s estate.

“The cause of death of Ms. Birchmore is ‘strangulation’ and the manner of death is ‘homicide.'”

Baden, who previously led a U.S. House committee investigation into the murders of John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and performed autopsies on George Floyd, cited the extent of Birchmore’s injuries and the fact that he had been ligatured as factors in his determination.

He found that Birchmore had sustained a fracture of the right hyoid bone – a small U-shaped bone in the neck – which “rarely or never” breaks in attempted suicide by hanging, but occurs in “half the cases of homicide by strangulation of women”.

The doctor also pointed to autopsy photos that showed a piece of strangulation caught in Birchmore’s hair. This, Baden said, “happens when there is resistance to homicide strangulation.”

He concluded that Birchmore must have lost consciousness “within seconds” of the ligature being placed around her neck and died “within minutes.”

Baden also wrote that the strangulation was found attached to a doorknob, adding that he believed this was done to “create the appearance of a suicidal hanging,” even though she had been happy about her pregnancy and had not left a suicide note.

The former medical examiner was asked to review the records related to Birchwood’s death by attorney Steven J. Marullo, who is representing Birchwood’s estate in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Marullo said he examined the autopsy himself and “saw certain things in the autopsy report that were inconsistent with the conclusion that it was a suicide.”

“I decided then that we needed to hire our own pathologist,” he said.

This explosive report comes at a time when Birchmore’s family is suing Matthew G. Farwell (38), his twin brother William and Robert C. Devine (52), accusing them of sexually abusing Birchmore and sexually assaulting her since she began participating in the Explorer program for young people at age 13.

It alleges that they “engaged inappropriately with (Birchmore), who was a minor at the time the sexual relations were initiated, and abused her trust and admiration for law enforcement, ultimately causing her to take her own life through their inappropriate and improper influence,” the Globe said.

Before her death, Birchmore reportedly told friends that Matthew Farwell was the father of her unborn child – a claim he has repeatedly denied.

But he was also the last person to see Birchmore alive.

Farwell was caught on surveillance video entering Birchmore’s apartment on February 1, 2021. His wife gave birth to a boy the next day.

During a subsequent investigation by state police, Farwell said, according to the Globe, that he told Birchmore that evening that he was not the child’s father, that “everything was over” and that he was “blocking her from any communication with her.”

“Matt said Sandra was distraught, but she did not express any suicidal thoughts,” Police Lt. John Fanning wrote in his report at the time.

“Matt said he left and Sandra was in the kitchen.”

As the investigation continued, police found hundreds of explicit messages exchanged between Birchmore and Matthew Farwell over the course of several years, NBC Boston reports.

His twin brother is also accused of sending offensive text messages while on duty.

In 2023, Fanning even wrote in an affidavit that investigators were looking into whether Matthew Farwell could be charged with aggravated rape because evidence showed he began a relationship with Birchmore when she was 15 and he was 27.

And in a ruling in the wrongful death trial earlier this year, Superior Court Judge Brian A. Davis, citing an unredacted copy of a Stoughton police internal investigation report, wrote that Devine and William Farwell had sex with Birchmore in their patrol cars when she was an adult.

But Baden noted in his letter this month that the state medical examiner “apparently did not submit any fetal tissue for DNA analysis to determine paternity.”

State police records show that investigators asked Farwell to provide DNA samples in 2021, but he refused.

Swabs from Birchmore’s body, hair and fingernails, as well as the clothes she was wearing, were taken for a sex crimes examination kit, but Baden said it “appears” the evidence was not examined.

He now assumes that the test kit and the fetal tissue could still be examined.

But in a statement to the Globe, David Traub, a spokesman for Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrisey, said: “DNA testing has been conducted on items that may provide evidence of the possible crimes under investigation, and additional items have been seized.”

He declined to provide further details “while multiple agencies continue to investigate.”

The officers were never accused of wrongdoing, but Stoughton Police announced that their internal investigation found the officers had violated their oath and were therefore “unfit for duty.”

All three officers subsequently retired from the police force in 2022.

In March, the Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission also approved an agreement with Matthew Farwell that prohibits him from working as a police officer in Massachusetts and adds him to a national database of sanctioned officers.

As part of the agreement, Farwell admitted no wrongdoing.

The commission also wants to revoke William Farwell’s license and suspend or revoke Devine’s license.

This procedure is still pending.

Meanwhile, Stoughton Police Chief Donna McNamara called for a reinvestigation into Birchmore’s cause of death.

“I was deeply disturbed and alarmed by what I read,” she said in a statement about Baden’s letter posted on the police department’s website on Monday.

“Although I am not a trained forensic pathologist and am not qualified to draw direct conclusions, the findings certainly warrant further investigation at the highest level.”

She vowed to continue to cooperate with investigators – pointing out that she had previously released information about “the horrific injustices, including the incitement of sexual harassment and abuse of Sandra Birchmore by a renegade and corrupt former police officer, as well as other inappropriate sexual relationships by other former police officers.”

“Sandra did not receive the slightest bit of justice during her lifetime and we will not slacken in our efforts to fulfill our duty to do justice and she will not be forgotten after her death.”

McNamara said every “good and decent police officer” should be aware of and angry about the injustice done to Birchmore.

She added: “Sandra idolized police officers and what policing in America stood for, and because of that she was the victim of assault.”

“The only mantra of good police officers must be: Never again and never, as long as I do this.”