A Massachusetts police officer has been charged with murdering a pregnant 23-year-old woman whom he began sexually abusing when she was 15 and a volunteer with the police department.
Former Stoughton Police Officer Matthew Farwell is accused of strangling Sandra Burchmore to death in February 2021 in her Canton apartment and making it look like a suicide, court documents state. Obtained by NBC Boston show.
Burchmore was three months pregnant at the time of her death and had recently told Farwell she thought he was the father.
She was just 13 when she met Farwell in 2010 while working for the Stoughton Police Department's Explorers youth program.
After her death, an internal police investigation found that Farwell began abusing her when he was 27 and she was 15.
He denied the allegations but admitted to having sex with her, who was over the age of 16 for consent in Massachusetts. According to the Boston Globe.
Farwell is one of three police officers accused of sexually abusing her.
Birchmore's brother, William Farwell, was charged along with Robert Devine in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Birchmore's family.
The three officers resigned from the police department in 2022, but no criminal charges have been filed against them so far.
Farwell was the last known person to see Birchmore alive.
Just three days before her body was discovered, surveillance camera in the Birchmore School lobby showed him arriving on campus wearing a hoodie, then leaving alone a short time later.
The indictment charges that Farwell “maliciously, knowingly, premeditated, maliciously and premeditatedly” killed Burchmore.
