FBI Data Pins Farwell to Birchmore's Final Moments
Digital evidence places the defendant at the victim's apartment minutes before her phone locked for the last time.
By Layla Fontaine ·
Federal prosecutors closed their case in the trial of Matthew Farwell on Wednesday, presenting a detailed digital timeline of Sandra Birchmore's final hours. Farwell faces charges of murdering the 23-year-old and her unborn child while staging the death to appear as a suicide. The government alleges he killed her to prevent her from revealing federal crimes, including the sexual exploitation of a child. Prosecutors state Farwell had been grooming Birchmore since she was 15 years old, while she participated in the Stoughton Police Explorers mentoring program. The defense maintains that Birchmore took her own life.
Jessica Hyde, an FBI Digital Forensic Expert, served as the final witness for the prosecution. She used data from Birchmore's iPhone and lobby surveillance video to reconstruct the sequence of events on February 1. According to the evidence, Farwell texted Birchmore at 9:07 p.m. asking to come over. Birchmore replied that the door would be open. Her phone locked six minutes later.
Surveillance footage showed a masked Farwell arriving at the Canton apartment building at 9:14 p.m. Hyde testified that four minutes after his arrival, an attempt was made to open the camera on Birchmore's phone from the lockscreen, though no media was captured. The next recorded activity was eight steps taken at 9:40 p.m. Twenty-five seconds after that, the power button was pressed. Prosecutors identified this as the final interaction with the device.
Video captured Farwell leaving the building less than three minutes after the phone's last recorded action. The defense began its case the same day by calling a Massasoit Community College administrator to the stand. He testified that Birchmore visited him in 2017. She told him she had attempted suicide during an argument with her mother. During cross-examination, the prosecution noted that this event occurred four years before Birchmore died.
The trial continues as the defense presents its witnesses to challenge the government's narrative of premeditated murder.
