Sandra Birchmore, a Massachusetts teenager aspiring to a career in law enforcement, joined the Stoughton Police Department’s Explorer post at age 13 around 2009. This youth mentorship program, created and overseen by Scouting America (formerly the Boy Scouts of America), aims to teach participants about policing. There, she met Matthew Farwell, a 20-something instructor in the program who later became a Stoughton police detective.
Farwell began grooming Birchmore shortly after they met, engaging in inappropriate sexual conversations and positioning himself as her first sexual partner. By 2015, when Birchmore was 15, he had sex with her—an act federal prosecutors describe as statutory rape, as she could not legally consent. The abusive relationship persisted into her adulthood, marked by Farwell’s controlling behavior: he tracked her phone location, punished her with violent sex acts, fixated on rape fantasies in messages, and even engaged in sex with her while on duty, falsifying his work hours to conceal it. Farwell’s twin brother, William (also an Explorer instructor), and another officer, Robert Devine, later admitted to sexual relationships with Birchmore as an adult, though they faced no charges.
In December 2020, Birchmore discovered she was pregnant and believed Farwell was the father. Excited about motherhood, she shared the news with loved ones, scheduled doctor’s appointments, and bought baby items. When she informed Farwell in January 2021, he reacted with rage, allegedly putting her in a headlock and saying he wished she were dead. Despite this, he briefly feigned support by bringing her ginger ale. Around the same time, a friend reported their underage relationship to the Stoughton Police Department, prompting Farwell to send angry texts and visit her apartment on January 23, where he requested a spare key and suspiciously inspected her closet and bathroom—areas prosecutors say he later used in the crime scene.
On February 4, 2021, Birchmore, 23 and about eight months pregnant, was found dead in her Canton apartment, hanging from her bedroom closet door handle. The medical examiner initially ruled it a suicide. However, a federal investigation revealed evidence of staging, including inconsistencies in the scene and Farwell’s suspicious behavior, such as visiting during a snowstorm to delay discovery.
In August 2024, Farwell, then 38, was arrested and federally indicted on one count of killing a witness or victim for allegedly strangling Birchmore around February 1, 2021, to silence her about his crimes and prevent scrutiny of their relationship. He had resigned from the department in 2021 and was decertified as an officer in March 2024 amid the probe, which highlighted inadequate oversight in the Explorer program, including no youth safety training for instructors. Birchmore’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit, and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s investigation remains active as of July 2024.
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The last known person to see Sandra Birchmore alive was a police officer.
He stopped by her apartment days before the elementary school teacher’s aide, 23 years old and newly pregnant, was found dead in February 2021. The medical examiner later ruled her death a suicide.
The officer worked for the Stoughton Police Department, near Boston, where he first met Birchmore about a decade earlier through the agency’s Explorer post — part of a youth mentorship program run by local departments across the country.
He acknowledged having sex with her when she was 15, according to a court ruling citing the officer’s text messages. That document indicates that his twin brother — also an officer and Explorer mentor — and a third Stoughton officer, a veteran who ran the program, eventually had sex with her, too.
These assertions, disclosed in an internal police investigative report and through an ongoing lawsuit filed by Birchmore’s family, have sparked demonstrations and an online petition asking for further investigation into her death. The three men, who did not respond to requests for comment, have denied any wrongdoing and have not been charged with a crime.
The youth program that introduced Birchmore to the officers is among hundreds of such chapters at police agencies around the country. Created by the Boy Scouts of America decades ago, law enforcement Explorer posts are designed to help teens and young adults learn about policing.
Birchmore’s case is among at least 194 allegations that law enforcement personnel, mostly policemen, have groomed, sexually abused or engaged in inappropriate behavior with Explorers since 1974, an ongoing investigation by The Marshall Project has found. The vast majority of those affected were teenage girls — some as young as 13.
