November 7, 2024 • 32 mins
It's our 100th episode!!!!!!!
23 Year Old Sandra Birchmore was excited that she was going to be a first time mom, but when she was found dead in her apartment,and the police quickly ruled it a suicide, no one believed it....especially after the secrets Sandra had been keeping came to the surface.....
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Episode Transcript
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(00:37):
Hey guys, welcome back to The Victim's Voice.
I am your host Lorelei. This week's case is another one
out of Canton, MA. In the wake of the Kieran Reed
case, this case started receiving attention and people
are starting to wonder if this isn't another case of a police
cover up, especially because it involves some of the same
(01:00):
officers and the same chain of command in both cases.
What we do know is that it's a definitely a case of corruption
and unethical officers. This is the case of Sandra
Birchmore. Even though Sandra Birchmore
didn't have the best childhood and things were hard for her,
(01:21):
she always tried to stay optimistic and always had a
smile on her face. In school, Sandra was a bit
socially awkward and got bulliedrelentlessly, which led to her
spending a great deal of time inthe guidance counselor's office.
Sandra also seemed to get along better with the teachers at
school than with her fellow peers, which also put a target
(01:44):
on her back for the constant bullying.
She was often said to exaggeratethings and embellish stories to
try to get attention from people.
One of her teachers described her as very needy.
This is because Sandra craved the acceptance of others,
especially adults, and just wanted people to love her and
(02:05):
wanted to fit in somewhere. Sandra had never had a father
figure growing up. She didn't speak to her birth
father and her stepfather died when she was just a little girl.
She and her chronically I'll mother Denise moved around a
lot. Sometimes they lived by
themselves and other times they stayed with Denise's aunt and
(02:25):
uncle, Claire and Gerald. Good day.
For most of her life, Birchmore believed they were her maternal
grandparents, but they had to work to put food on the table
and a roof over Sandra's head, so Sandra didn't get a lot of
attention at home. It wasn't that her family didn't
love her, because they absolutely did.
(02:46):
They were just busy making ends meet and trying to get by.
Birchmore had no one on her father's side.
She never even knew her dad. Her mother gave her the last
name of her late husband, who died years before Birchmore was
born. Because she had never had a male
role model to look up to as a child, Sandra looked up to
(03:07):
authority figures, especially police officers.
Sandra respected them and admired them so much that she
hoped to become one someday, andshe would do anything she could
to get herself closer to fulfilling that dream.
When Sandra was 11, she started learning self-defense, working
out and doing other activities that would help her physically
(03:30):
prepare for her goals, such as Brazilian jitsu and cardio
kickboxing at the local gym. Then in 2010, when Sandra was
12, she finally got to join the Explorers.
The Explorers was a group that was run by the local Police
Department and was offered to the kids in the area.
(03:51):
There was the Explorers Club, which was for middle schoolers
who were in 6th to 8th grade, and then there was the Explorers
Post, which was for older youth ages 14 to 20.
According to a 2019 Bloomington,Massachusetts Police press
release, the Explorer Program isa quote nationwide career
(04:14):
oriented program for young men and women ages 14 to 20.
The program provides young people an opportunity to learn
about a career in law enforcement and a chance to
network with sworn police officers in the community.
It teaches important life and career skills to young people
(04:35):
from all backgrounds through immersive career experiences and
mentorship provided by communityand business leaders.
It equips young people with character, leadership, and life
skills that can be used currently in their lives or in
their future careers. End Quote Kids in the Explorer
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program at the Police Departmentget to go on ride alongs,
participate in police activity type police Academy type
activities, and learn what the job of a police officer entails.
There used to be thousands of Explorer programs all over the
United States, although other career fields have them.
(05:19):
The most popular Explorer program was the one that is run
through the police departments. Over the last few decades,
however, these programs have dwindled in size.
Last year for the Explorer program in Stoughton was 2016,
the last year that Sandra participated.
Officer Robert Devine was the officer who was in charge of the
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Explorers when Sandra started in2010.
He had started running the Explorer program at the
Stoughton Police Department in 2001 alongside fellow officers,
25 year old Matthew Farewell andhis twin brother William
Farewell. The Farewell Brothers had been
part of the Explorers when they were kids, just like Sandra.
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They also wanted to grow up to be police officers, which is a
goal they managed to achieve. The Farewell Brothers seemed to
look up to Robert Devine when they were in the Explorers.
He showed them the ropes and helped them to become leaders in
the group. And even as they grew up and
became police officers, Robert still seemed to keep them under
(06:25):
his wing. The numbers in the program had
been weighed down until Devine took over and started running
mock police academies and by 2011, he had more than 300 kids
that came through the program. Devine was quoted as saying that
the Explorers were more than training for a career in law
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enforcement. Some kids find a home in the
Explorers. Devine considered himself to be
a father figure to a lot of the kids in the Explorers and also
in the Stoughton schools where he worked as a resource officer.
This seemed to be the right fit for Sandra as she had been
looking for a father figure her entire life.
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Being in the program made Sanders infatuation with the
police force grow. She often would wear a police
uniform. She took pictures of her and the
officers and posted them on Facebook.
She couldn't wait to join the force herself.
One day everyone in the Explorers program called Sandra
one tough cookie because even though she was tiny, she could
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do everything that the bigger kids could do.
The officers in the program became like the families Sandra
never had. After she had been there a
while, they would ask her to join them at restaurants for
dinner, take her on ride alongs,and added her on their Facebook.
She even would babysit for some of the officers at their homes.
Sandra finally felt like she found her place in the world
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somewhere that she could fit in and had male role models to look
up to. Or at least that's what she
thought at the time. Predators always prey on the
vulnerable. Denise was thrilled when Sandra
joined the program. Denise would do anything for her
daughter, but she also had to support her financially.
(08:13):
So being an Explorers was a win win situation.
While Denise was working to provide for Sandra, she knew her
daughter was in a safe, positiveenvironment where she would
learn valuable skills. I mean, what could be safer than
your child hanging around a bunch of police officers, right?
It was well known that the younggirls in the Explorers program
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tended to flirt with some of theofficers, and Sandra was no
different. I mean, they were teenage girls
and these were mostly 20 something police officers.
Of course they were going to have harmless crushes, but it
was up to the adults to make sure it stayed that way.
Harmless. But we will soon find out that
it didn't stay that way. Not at all, and not even close.
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Most of the adults on the force either turned a blind eye to
what was happening or participated in it.
In 2016, when Sandra was 19, shewas met with tragedy.
Her mom, the person who had stood by her side her whole
life, died at the age of 52. Then, just three months later,
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Sandra lost her grandmother. Sandra was broken after the loss
of these two women who made a profound impact on her life.
This led to her spending more time with the officers from the
Explorers. They were all she had.
At this point, Sandra felt like a lost soul and they were the
only constant in her life besides her aunt.
(09:42):
But tragedy struck again in 2019when at the age of 22, Sandra
lost her aunt. The three women who had raised
Sandra her entire life were gone, and Sandra felt all alone.
People said that after this, Sandra changed and seemed to
crave stability and love even more than before, which left her
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even more vulnerable. She was naive, a bit immature,
and trusted everyone. She had a childlike personality
even into young adulthood as shecontinued trying to make
connections with people and fulfill her desire to be loved.
But she was determined to continue following her dream to
become a police officer. So that same year, in 2019,
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Sandra took the Massachusetts Civil Service exam and was put
on the list of eligibility to join the Stoughton Police
Department. In the meantime, Sandra was a
teacher's assistant at East Middle School in the Sharon
Public School District in Sharon, MA.
Sandra loved kids and couldn't wait to go in every day to make
(10:47):
a difference in their lives. She would spend her own money to
pay for materials for projects she would do with the kids.
Because of Sandra's own childlike injury energy, the
kids at the school loved her andwere close to her.
This energy, however, made it hard for some of the adults to
be around her and get close to her.
(11:07):
Sandra had made a couple of close friends at her job at the
school. Most of her coworkers described
her as a nice friendly girl, butshe was very immature for her
age. Sandra seemed to have a tendency
to divulge too much information about herself to people that she
wasn't really very close to, like the fact that she was
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seeing a married man and that hewas a Stoughton police officer.
She told people that eventually he was going to leave his wife
and they were going to be together.
Then everyone received a big shock when in late December of
2020 Sandra revealed to her Co workers that she was pregnant
and the father was this married man.
(11:50):
She said he wasn't happy about the pregnancy at all and that he
wanted her to terminate it. She had even told some people
that he had become violent with her and had shoved her at one
point and even choked her. But no matter what he did or
said, Sandra was determined to be a good mother.
She said that she was going to have the baby and that if he
didn't want to be a part of his or her life then that was fine.
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Sandra would raise the baby herself.
In late January, just a few daysbefore Sandra was found dead,
she had told one of her close friends from the school that her
and the baby's father had gotteninto a bad fight about whether
he would be on the birth certificate or not.
On January 31st, 2021, a category 3 Blizzard hit Canton,
(12:37):
MA. So when Sandra didn't show up to
work on Tuesday February 2nd, her fellow Co workers thought
she might have just taken the day off because of the
snowstorm, or by this time she was three months pregnant so
maybe she just wasn't feeling good.
Either way, no one really thought much of it the first day
that Sandra missed work. The next day on February 3rd
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though, people were starting to worry when Sandra still didn't
show up. And not only that, she had been
a no call no show both days. This wasn't like Sandra at all.
She never missed work unless it was absolutely necessary, and if
she did, she always called to let them know what was going on.
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And something else was bugging one of Sandra's friends from the
school. Just the week before, Sandra had
told her that if something were to happen to her, it was her
boyfriend that did it. So by February 4th, everyone at
the school was worried. They had not heard anything from
Sandra in three days. This is when Michael Hawking,
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the Sharon School Resource Officer, called the Canton
Police and spoke to Patrolman Codart and asked them if they
would do a well-being check on Sandra.
Codart and Officer Brady arrivedat the Canton Apartments at 33 O
7 Windsor Woods Way on February 4th at around 11:00 AM.
(14:04):
They knocked on Sanders door butno one answered.
Codard contacted his Sergeant who told him to try to locate
Sandra's car. They walked out to the parking
lot and noticed a car that was more noticeable than the rest.
It had a wall of snow build up around it and feet of snow that
covered it that was undisturbed.The other cars in the parking
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lot had been cleaned off to somepoint, but this car, it had been
sitting there through the entireBlizzard.
It had not snowed since Tuesday morning, and this was now
Thursday. They clean the plates off and
run the number, and they find that it is in fact Sander's car.
At this point they have a feeling something is wrong, so
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they decide to check out Sander's apartment.
They go find the apartment manager and he lets them in.
As soon as they open the door, Sander's cats came running to
them, meowing loudly, and a horrible smell that the officers
knew all too well came rolling out of the apartment door.
As they walked in, they noticed that the combined kitchen and
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living room area was a disaster.Things were thrown around
everywhere. The kitchen counter was
completely covered with junk mail, medications, and trash.
Boxes of papers and random stufflooked like they've been poured
out on the couch and floor. They started calling Sandra's
name, but there was no answer. They walked further in and
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looked in the open bathroom door, but there was no Sandra.
However, they did notice that everything in this room was neat
and organized, unlike the rest of the apartment so far.
They walked to the next door andit was closed, but there was a
weird light coming from under the door.
They pushed the door open and find that it was the bedroom.
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The strange light was coming from the Christmas lights that
were around the window. The room was in disarray just as
the living room and kitchen were.
The bed was unmade and bags wereemptied everywhere.
On the floor straight ahead of them was Sandra and the officers
knew she was dead and had been for some time.
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There was lividity of the skin and face.
Her extremities were frozen by rigor mortis and dried blood was
around her mouth. She was found setting on her
bedroom floor, legs straight outin front of her with her cell
phone next to her knee just out of reach.
She had the snap the strap from a gym bag tied around her neck
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and the other end around the closet door knob.
This is a very unusual way for someone to take their own life,
but not completely unheard of. This way of doing it is called a
partial suspension. Unlike a regular hanging, Sandra
would have had to apply the pressure herself to her neck to
cut off her breathing. This is not only an extremely
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painful way to take your own life, but also a very
complicated way because it requires the person to
intentionally deprive themselvesof oxygen for over a minute.
It would be very hard for someone to do this because of
the fight or flight response. Most of the time a person would
do something where they wouldn'thave to the chance to change
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their mind, such as jump off a bridge or some other elevated
place. The way Sandra died is most
often only seen done by inmates in prison who have no other
means or opportunity to do it. The officers checked Sandra's
body but found no defensive wounds, bruising, swelling or
any signs of a struggle. Canton firefighter Daniel
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Whitley arrived and Sandra was pronounced dead at the scene at
11:46 AM on February 4th, 2021, at just 23 years old and three
months pregnant. Investigators wanted to get a
more accurate time of when Sandra died, so they went to the
apartment manager and asked to see the CCTV footage of the
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building. The one camera that they had
showed a view of the front doorsand the elevator that sat to the
left as you came in the front doors.
As they are looking at the footage, they notice that the
last time that Sandra has seen is on Monday, February 1st.
She is seen multiple times that day and each time she seems
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engrossed in something on her phone.
She was seen getting food delivered, picking up packages
from the apartment building mailroom, She even picked up a baby
seat that she had ordered which showed that she was planning for
the future for her baby that shewas going to have in a few
months. At around 5:44 PM, she is seen
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going outside with a snow scraper, presumably to scrape
the snow off of her car, like she was maybe planning on going
somewhere later that day or to work the next morning.
I don't think anyone who has a plan to take their own life is
going to worry about cleaning the snow off of their car first.
I mean I know sometimes the choice to take your own life
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isn't planned, sometimes it's anin the moment decision, but this
still seems weird to me. She was going about her day as
normal, So what changed? At 5:46 PM she is seen entering
the elevator and it's assumed she went back to her apartment.
That's the last time Sandra is seen on the footage or seen
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alive at all. However, something later on in
the footage caught the officer'seye.
At around 9:15, PMA strange man appeared.
He came in the front doors, but you couldn't really see his face
to make out who he was. He's looking down most of the
time as he walks over to the elevator and hits the button for
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Sandra's floor. He's wearing jeans, a black
hoodie with the hood up, black jacket, black work boots.
And one of those disposable masks that doctors or surgeons
wear, the kind people wore during COVID.
This guy is huge compared to Sandra.
Just to give you a visual for how big this guy was, there's a
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sanitizer machine on the wall above the buttons to the
elevator and the top of Sanders head barely comes to the bottom
of it. She's a normal sized girl, maybe
a little shorter than average, but this guy, as he is waiting
for the elevator to open and he's standing there, the hand
sanitizer machine comes up to his shoulders.
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His head almost touches the top of the door frame when he walks
into the building. He is humongous compared to
Sandra. The man is seen leaving the
building at 9:43 PM. He once again is walking off the
elevator and towards the door with his head down and he is
walking rather quickly. He was in the building a total
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of 28 minutes. The police checked with
management office to see if anyone knew who this man was,
but no one did. He wasn't a resident of the
building as far as anyone knew, and none of the other residents
in the building saw or heard anything.
That night, Sergeant Michael Lank arrived and an initial
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investigation was performed. I'm sure that name sounds
familiar. We mentioned him a lot in the
Karen Reed case. He and the other officers took
pictures of Sandra's apartment. There on the kitchen counter,
among all the clutter was a sonogram with Sandra's name on
it. Sandra's death was ruled out of
suicide and foul play was ruled out.
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In the police report, the officers stated there was no
scuff marks on the walls, no drag marks on the carpets or
floors. They also wrote quote despite
the clutter, all items appear tohave been in their intended
locations and no items appear tohave been knocked over or thrown
about in an unintended manner. End Quote.
(22:10):
How did they come to that? In conclusion, this seemed to be
more than a person being a little messy.
Do people normally have boxes ofstuff that they poured all over
their couch? Is that where those items were
intended to go? I would have to see this
officer's home if that's the case.
They made it sound like Sandra was just a messy person, but
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this seemed to be much more thansomeone who didn't pick up after
themselves. This seemed like it was done by
someone searching for something.And what about this unknown,
suspicious looking man who entered the building and went to
Sandra's floor for just a short 28 minutes, then left quickly?
Were they looking into who he was and what he was doing there?
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They took a look through Sandra's phone, hoping that
would shed some light on what might have made her want to take
her own life and give them some idea of when she had done it.
Usually people who take their own life leave something, a
note, a text, something to say goodbye to the people they loved
or to say they're that they're sorry for what they did.
(23:17):
But there was none of that with Sandra.
After looking through her phone,they figured that Sandra died
sometime during the evening of Monday, February 1st, since all
contact through her phone seizedafter that.
As they looked through Sandra's phone, however, they found
something else that stopped themin their tracks.
There were lots of police officers in Sandra's phone and
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there were thousands upon thousands of messages between
Sandra and police officers at the Stoughton Police Department.
These weren't all just friendly how you doing messages either.
There were very inappropriate messages and pictures and most
of the inappropriate messages and pictures were between Sandra
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and three officers. The day after Sandra's death on
February 5th, Chief of StoughtonPolice Donna McNamara was
contacted by a detective from the Massachusetts State Police.
He called to inform her that through text messages on
Sandra's phone, they had reason to believe that Matthew Farewell
(24:23):
and Sandra Birchmore had been ina sexual relationship since
Sandra was just 15 years old andMatthew was 27.
He was the married police officer.
She had told People that she wasseen.
He had started having sex with Sandra a month before he married
his wife, and the relationship had spanned for almost a decade.
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They also informed her that during their preliminary
investigation, they had found that the tall mystery man that
had been seen walking into Sandra's building on February
1st, the last day Sandra was seen alive, was in fact Matthew
Farewell. Text messages on Sandra's phone
show Matthew telling her that hehad arrived and her telling him
(25:06):
to come up to her apartment. From what they could tell,
Matthew Farewell was the last person to see Sandra alive, so
they definitely needed to talk to him.
However, they stated they didn'thave probable cause to charge
him with a crime at that time. Chief McNamara then ordered
Deputy Chief Brian Holmes to conduct an internal
(25:28):
investigation into the unintended death of Sandra
Birchmore. Friends and family of Sandra's
had contacted law enforcement after her death to inform them
of the sexual relationship between Matthew Farewell and
Sandra and said that it had beengoing on for an extended period
of time. Sandra's mom's cousin, Angelique
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reached out to investigators andsaid that Sandra was allegedly
pregnant with Farewell's child and that she had been pressuring
him to participate in the child's life.
Things had not been going well between the two and Angelique
had told Sandra that she should lay off of pressuring him.
Everyone that knew and loved Sandra had been concerned for
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her well-being prior to her death and no one believed that
Sandra would have taken her own life.
She was excited to be a mother and she knew there was a
possibility that she might have to be a single mother and she
was OK with that. She wanted this baby more than
anything. It was someone to love her
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unconditionally like she had always wanted.
She was happy and had already been buying things to prepare
prepare for the baby the next day.
On February 6th of 2021, two days after Sandra's body was
found, Matthew Farewell was brought in and was questioned by
the Massachusetts State Police. He told them he had known Sandra
(26:58):
for quote UN quote about 10 years and had met her when she
was in the Explorers program. He was confronted with all of
the hundreds of messages betweenhim and Sandra that were found
in her phone, the fact that she was telling people he was the
father of her baby, and the factthat he had been at her
apartment on the night they suspected was the night she had
(27:20):
died. He admitted to having sexual
relations with Sandra, however, he denied that it began when she
was 15. He said that it didn't start
until 2020 and that the last time they had been intimate was
at the end of October of 2020. He said she told him in December
that she was pregnant and had said the baby was his, but he
(27:43):
was confident the baby wasn't his.
He couldn't be the baby's father.
Since Sandra was due to have thebaby in September of 2021, that
means she likely got pregnant inDecember.
But he said that she told him she was pregnant in December.
His dates aren't really adding up.
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He did admit that he was the onethat was seen on the CCTV
footage going into Sandra's building on the 1st.
I mean he couldn't really deny it.
They had him on camera and they had the text where he told
Sandra he was there and she toldhim to come up.
But According to him, he said hewent there to quote UN quote in
their relationship and that was it.
(28:27):
But he had just said that they hadn't been intimate since
October, four months earlier. So what relationship was he
trying to end? He said that they had a pretty
nasty argument and that she was screaming and crying and acting
out of control. But he left anyway.
He couldn't stick around and worry about Sandra.
He had somewhere else to be see after he left her apartment that
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night, he went directly to the hospital, where, 12 hours after
he was seen leaving Sandra's apartment at around 9:00 AM that
next morning on February the second his wife gave birth to
his son, he said he'd never had any further contact with Sandra.
But of course, he didn't. She was dead and in fact had
(29:10):
blocked her from any outlet thatshe might use to reach out to
him. Phone, social media, She was
blocked from everything. According to him, the
department's internal investigations spanned a review
of nearly 100,000 pages of cell phone records obtained by
Cellbright, along with text messages and a dozen interviews.
(29:33):
And in September of 2022, at theend of the 19 month
investigation, Chief Donna McNamara released a very
redacted 60 page report and helda press conference.
The other two main police officers that were being
investigated in the Stoughton Police Department, besides
(29:53):
Matthew Farewell, were none other than his twin brother
William Farewell and the leader of the Explorers, Robert Devine.
They were the three officers whobasically ran the Explorers
program and there was a mound ofinformation found on each one
and it wasn't good. As Chief McNamara stood in front
of the room to talk, you can tell she was disgusted and
(30:16):
pissed off at the violent and gross conduct of these officers
in her department. She said, and I quote Birchmore
was failed by, manipulated by, and used by people of authority
that she admired and trusted right up until her final days.
She was a vulnerable person who had one constant in her life
(30:38):
since childhood. Her unwavering admiration of
police officers, of those serving in the military, people
in uniform with oaths and dutiesto protect and serve.
The admiration led to her formerrelationships with men who were
willing to take advantage of her.
All three men, the Farewell Brothers and Divine, violated an
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oath of office and should never have the privilege of serving
any community as a police officer.
Through a sustained and deliberate combination of lies,
deceit and treachery, they violated the policies and core
values of the Staunton Police Department, not to mention human
decency. These men violated their oaths
(31:23):
and they are unfit to serve as police officers.
End Quote. So who are these three men that
instead of leading Sandra and showing her mentorship and
encouragement, felt they had a right to manipulate her and use
her for their own self gratification?
And what did the internal investigation uncover?
(31:45):
That will have to wait until next week.
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this podcast, please click on the link in the show notes.
Until next week, peace out.
Hey guys, welcome back to The Victim's Voice.
I am your host Lorelei. This week's case is another one
out of Canton, MA. In the wake of the Kieran Reed
case, this case started receiving attention and people
are starting to wonder if this isn't another case of a police
cover up, especially because it involves some of the same
(01:00):
officers and the same chain of command in both cases.
What we do know is that it's a definitely a case of corruption
and unethical officers. This is the case of Sandra
Birchmore. Even though Sandra Birchmore
didn't have the best childhood and things were hard for her,
(01:21):
she always tried to stay optimistic and always had a
smile on her face. In school, Sandra was a bit
socially awkward and got bulliedrelentlessly, which led to her
spending a great deal of time inthe guidance counselor's office.
Sandra also seemed to get along better with the teachers at
school than with her fellow peers, which also put a target
(01:44):
on her back for the constant bullying.
She was often said to exaggeratethings and embellish stories to
try to get attention from people.
One of her teachers described her as very needy.
This is because Sandra craved the acceptance of others,
especially adults, and just wanted people to love her and
(02:05):
wanted to fit in somewhere. Sandra had never had a father
figure growing up. She didn't speak to her birth
father and her stepfather died when she was just a little girl.
She and her chronically I'll mother Denise moved around a
lot. Sometimes they lived by
themselves and other times they stayed with Denise's aunt and
(02:25):
uncle, Claire and Gerald. Good day.
For most of her life, Birchmore believed they were her maternal
grandparents, but they had to work to put food on the table
and a roof over Sandra's head, so Sandra didn't get a lot of
attention at home. It wasn't that her family didn't
love her, because they absolutely did.
(02:46):
They were just busy making ends meet and trying to get by.
Birchmore had no one on her father's side.
She never even knew her dad. Her mother gave her the last
name of her late husband, who died years before Birchmore was
born. Because she had never had a male
role model to look up to as a child, Sandra looked up to
(03:07):
authority figures, especially police officers.
Sandra respected them and admired them so much that she
hoped to become one someday, andshe would do anything she could
to get herself closer to fulfilling that dream.
When Sandra was 11, she started learning self-defense, working
out and doing other activities that would help her physically
(03:30):
prepare for her goals, such as Brazilian jitsu and cardio
kickboxing at the local gym. Then in 2010, when Sandra was
12, she finally got to join the Explorers.
The Explorers was a group that was run by the local Police
Department and was offered to the kids in the area.
(03:51):
There was the Explorers Club, which was for middle schoolers
who were in 6th to 8th grade, and then there was the Explorers
Post, which was for older youth ages 14 to 20.
According to a 2019 Bloomington,Massachusetts Police press
release, the Explorer Program isa quote nationwide career
(04:14):
oriented program for young men and women ages 14 to 20.
The program provides young people an opportunity to learn
about a career in law enforcement and a chance to
network with sworn police officers in the community.
It teaches important life and career skills to young people
(04:35):
from all backgrounds through immersive career experiences and
mentorship provided by communityand business leaders.
It equips young people with character, leadership, and life
skills that can be used currently in their lives or in
their future careers. End Quote Kids in the Explorer
(04:57):
program at the Police Departmentget to go on ride alongs,
participate in police activity type police Academy type
activities, and learn what the job of a police officer entails.
There used to be thousands of Explorer programs all over the
United States, although other career fields have them.
(05:19):
The most popular Explorer program was the one that is run
through the police departments. Over the last few decades,
however, these programs have dwindled in size.
Last year for the Explorer program in Stoughton was 2016,
the last year that Sandra participated.
Officer Robert Devine was the officer who was in charge of the
(05:41):
Explorers when Sandra started in2010.
He had started running the Explorer program at the
Stoughton Police Department in 2001 alongside fellow officers,
25 year old Matthew Farewell andhis twin brother William
Farewell. The Farewell Brothers had been
part of the Explorers when they were kids, just like Sandra.
(06:04):
They also wanted to grow up to be police officers, which is a
goal they managed to achieve. The Farewell Brothers seemed to
look up to Robert Devine when they were in the Explorers.
He showed them the ropes and helped them to become leaders in
the group. And even as they grew up and
became police officers, Robert still seemed to keep them under
(06:25):
his wing. The numbers in the program had
been weighed down until Devine took over and started running
mock police academies and by 2011, he had more than 300 kids
that came through the program. Devine was quoted as saying that
the Explorers were more than training for a career in law
(06:45):
enforcement. Some kids find a home in the
Explorers. Devine considered himself to be
a father figure to a lot of the kids in the Explorers and also
in the Stoughton schools where he worked as a resource officer.
This seemed to be the right fit for Sandra as she had been
looking for a father figure her entire life.
(07:07):
Being in the program made Sanders infatuation with the
police force grow. She often would wear a police
uniform. She took pictures of her and the
officers and posted them on Facebook.
She couldn't wait to join the force herself.
One day everyone in the Explorers program called Sandra
one tough cookie because even though she was tiny, she could
(07:29):
do everything that the bigger kids could do.
The officers in the program became like the families Sandra
never had. After she had been there a
while, they would ask her to join them at restaurants for
dinner, take her on ride alongs,and added her on their Facebook.
She even would babysit for some of the officers at their homes.
Sandra finally felt like she found her place in the world
(07:52):
somewhere that she could fit in and had male role models to look
up to. Or at least that's what she
thought at the time. Predators always prey on the
vulnerable. Denise was thrilled when Sandra
joined the program. Denise would do anything for her
daughter, but she also had to support her financially.
(08:13):
So being an Explorers was a win win situation.
While Denise was working to provide for Sandra, she knew her
daughter was in a safe, positiveenvironment where she would
learn valuable skills. I mean, what could be safer than
your child hanging around a bunch of police officers, right?
It was well known that the younggirls in the Explorers program
(08:37):
tended to flirt with some of theofficers, and Sandra was no
different. I mean, they were teenage girls
and these were mostly 20 something police officers.
Of course they were going to have harmless crushes, but it
was up to the adults to make sure it stayed that way.
Harmless. But we will soon find out that
it didn't stay that way. Not at all, and not even close.
(08:59):
Most of the adults on the force either turned a blind eye to
what was happening or participated in it.
In 2016, when Sandra was 19, shewas met with tragedy.
Her mom, the person who had stood by her side her whole
life, died at the age of 52. Then, just three months later,
(09:21):
Sandra lost her grandmother. Sandra was broken after the loss
of these two women who made a profound impact on her life.
This led to her spending more time with the officers from the
Explorers. They were all she had.
At this point, Sandra felt like a lost soul and they were the
only constant in her life besides her aunt.
(09:42):
But tragedy struck again in 2019when at the age of 22, Sandra
lost her aunt. The three women who had raised
Sandra her entire life were gone, and Sandra felt all alone.
People said that after this, Sandra changed and seemed to
crave stability and love even more than before, which left her
(10:03):
even more vulnerable. She was naive, a bit immature,
and trusted everyone. She had a childlike personality
even into young adulthood as shecontinued trying to make
connections with people and fulfill her desire to be loved.
But she was determined to continue following her dream to
become a police officer. So that same year, in 2019,
(10:26):
Sandra took the Massachusetts Civil Service exam and was put
on the list of eligibility to join the Stoughton Police
Department. In the meantime, Sandra was a
teacher's assistant at East Middle School in the Sharon
Public School District in Sharon, MA.
Sandra loved kids and couldn't wait to go in every day to make
(10:47):
a difference in their lives. She would spend her own money to
pay for materials for projects she would do with the kids.
Because of Sandra's own childlike injury energy, the
kids at the school loved her andwere close to her.
This energy, however, made it hard for some of the adults to
be around her and get close to her.
(11:07):
Sandra had made a couple of close friends at her job at the
school. Most of her coworkers described
her as a nice friendly girl, butshe was very immature for her
age. Sandra seemed to have a tendency
to divulge too much information about herself to people that she
wasn't really very close to, like the fact that she was
(11:28):
seeing a married man and that hewas a Stoughton police officer.
She told people that eventually he was going to leave his wife
and they were going to be together.
Then everyone received a big shock when in late December of
2020 Sandra revealed to her Co workers that she was pregnant
and the father was this married man.
(11:50):
She said he wasn't happy about the pregnancy at all and that he
wanted her to terminate it. She had even told some people
that he had become violent with her and had shoved her at one
point and even choked her. But no matter what he did or
said, Sandra was determined to be a good mother.
She said that she was going to have the baby and that if he
didn't want to be a part of his or her life then that was fine.
(12:14):
Sandra would raise the baby herself.
In late January, just a few daysbefore Sandra was found dead,
she had told one of her close friends from the school that her
and the baby's father had gotteninto a bad fight about whether
he would be on the birth certificate or not.
On January 31st, 2021, a category 3 Blizzard hit Canton,
(12:37):
MA. So when Sandra didn't show up to
work on Tuesday February 2nd, her fellow Co workers thought
she might have just taken the day off because of the
snowstorm, or by this time she was three months pregnant so
maybe she just wasn't feeling good.
Either way, no one really thought much of it the first day
that Sandra missed work. The next day on February 3rd
(13:00):
though, people were starting to worry when Sandra still didn't
show up. And not only that, she had been
a no call no show both days. This wasn't like Sandra at all.
She never missed work unless it was absolutely necessary, and if
she did, she always called to let them know what was going on.
(13:21):
And something else was bugging one of Sandra's friends from the
school. Just the week before, Sandra had
told her that if something were to happen to her, it was her
boyfriend that did it. So by February 4th, everyone at
the school was worried. They had not heard anything from
Sandra in three days. This is when Michael Hawking,
(13:43):
the Sharon School Resource Officer, called the Canton
Police and spoke to Patrolman Codart and asked them if they
would do a well-being check on Sandra.
Codart and Officer Brady arrivedat the Canton Apartments at 33 O
7 Windsor Woods Way on February 4th at around 11:00 AM.
(14:04):
They knocked on Sanders door butno one answered.
Codard contacted his Sergeant who told him to try to locate
Sandra's car. They walked out to the parking
lot and noticed a car that was more noticeable than the rest.
It had a wall of snow build up around it and feet of snow that
covered it that was undisturbed.The other cars in the parking
(14:28):
lot had been cleaned off to somepoint, but this car, it had been
sitting there through the entireBlizzard.
It had not snowed since Tuesday morning, and this was now
Thursday. They clean the plates off and
run the number, and they find that it is in fact Sander's car.
At this point they have a feeling something is wrong, so
(14:49):
they decide to check out Sander's apartment.
They go find the apartment manager and he lets them in.
As soon as they open the door, Sander's cats came running to
them, meowing loudly, and a horrible smell that the officers
knew all too well came rolling out of the apartment door.
As they walked in, they noticed that the combined kitchen and
(15:11):
living room area was a disaster.Things were thrown around
everywhere. The kitchen counter was
completely covered with junk mail, medications, and trash.
Boxes of papers and random stufflooked like they've been poured
out on the couch and floor. They started calling Sandra's
name, but there was no answer. They walked further in and
(15:33):
looked in the open bathroom door, but there was no Sandra.
However, they did notice that everything in this room was neat
and organized, unlike the rest of the apartment so far.
They walked to the next door andit was closed, but there was a
weird light coming from under the door.
They pushed the door open and find that it was the bedroom.
(15:56):
The strange light was coming from the Christmas lights that
were around the window. The room was in disarray just as
the living room and kitchen were.
The bed was unmade and bags wereemptied everywhere.
On the floor straight ahead of them was Sandra and the officers
knew she was dead and had been for some time.
(16:18):
There was lividity of the skin and face.
Her extremities were frozen by rigor mortis and dried blood was
around her mouth. She was found setting on her
bedroom floor, legs straight outin front of her with her cell
phone next to her knee just out of reach.
She had the snap the strap from a gym bag tied around her neck
(16:41):
and the other end around the closet door knob.
This is a very unusual way for someone to take their own life,
but not completely unheard of. This way of doing it is called a
partial suspension. Unlike a regular hanging, Sandra
would have had to apply the pressure herself to her neck to
cut off her breathing. This is not only an extremely
(17:05):
painful way to take your own life, but also a very
complicated way because it requires the person to
intentionally deprive themselvesof oxygen for over a minute.
It would be very hard for someone to do this because of
the fight or flight response. Most of the time a person would
do something where they wouldn'thave to the chance to change
(17:26):
their mind, such as jump off a bridge or some other elevated
place. The way Sandra died is most
often only seen done by inmates in prison who have no other
means or opportunity to do it. The officers checked Sandra's
body but found no defensive wounds, bruising, swelling or
any signs of a struggle. Canton firefighter Daniel
(17:49):
Whitley arrived and Sandra was pronounced dead at the scene at
11:46 AM on February 4th, 2021, at just 23 years old and three
months pregnant. Investigators wanted to get a
more accurate time of when Sandra died, so they went to the
apartment manager and asked to see the CCTV footage of the
(18:11):
building. The one camera that they had
showed a view of the front doorsand the elevator that sat to the
left as you came in the front doors.
As they are looking at the footage, they notice that the
last time that Sandra has seen is on Monday, February 1st.
She is seen multiple times that day and each time she seems
(18:31):
engrossed in something on her phone.
She was seen getting food delivered, picking up packages
from the apartment building mailroom, She even picked up a baby
seat that she had ordered which showed that she was planning for
the future for her baby that shewas going to have in a few
months. At around 5:44 PM, she is seen
(18:54):
going outside with a snow scraper, presumably to scrape
the snow off of her car, like she was maybe planning on going
somewhere later that day or to work the next morning.
I don't think anyone who has a plan to take their own life is
going to worry about cleaning the snow off of their car first.
I mean I know sometimes the choice to take your own life
(19:16):
isn't planned, sometimes it's anin the moment decision, but this
still seems weird to me. She was going about her day as
normal, So what changed? At 5:46 PM she is seen entering
the elevator and it's assumed she went back to her apartment.
That's the last time Sandra is seen on the footage or seen
(19:37):
alive at all. However, something later on in
the footage caught the officer'seye.
At around 9:15, PMA strange man appeared.
He came in the front doors, but you couldn't really see his face
to make out who he was. He's looking down most of the
time as he walks over to the elevator and hits the button for
(19:58):
Sandra's floor. He's wearing jeans, a black
hoodie with the hood up, black jacket, black work boots.
And one of those disposable masks that doctors or surgeons
wear, the kind people wore during COVID.
This guy is huge compared to Sandra.
Just to give you a visual for how big this guy was, there's a
(20:20):
sanitizer machine on the wall above the buttons to the
elevator and the top of Sanders head barely comes to the bottom
of it. She's a normal sized girl, maybe
a little shorter than average, but this guy, as he is waiting
for the elevator to open and he's standing there, the hand
sanitizer machine comes up to his shoulders.
(20:42):
His head almost touches the top of the door frame when he walks
into the building. He is humongous compared to
Sandra. The man is seen leaving the
building at 9:43 PM. He once again is walking off the
elevator and towards the door with his head down and he is
walking rather quickly. He was in the building a total
(21:03):
of 28 minutes. The police checked with
management office to see if anyone knew who this man was,
but no one did. He wasn't a resident of the
building as far as anyone knew, and none of the other residents
in the building saw or heard anything.
That night, Sergeant Michael Lank arrived and an initial
(21:23):
investigation was performed. I'm sure that name sounds
familiar. We mentioned him a lot in the
Karen Reed case. He and the other officers took
pictures of Sandra's apartment. There on the kitchen counter,
among all the clutter was a sonogram with Sandra's name on
it. Sandra's death was ruled out of
suicide and foul play was ruled out.
(21:46):
In the police report, the officers stated there was no
scuff marks on the walls, no drag marks on the carpets or
floors. They also wrote quote despite
the clutter, all items appear tohave been in their intended
locations and no items appear tohave been knocked over or thrown
about in an unintended manner. End Quote.
(22:10):
How did they come to that? In conclusion, this seemed to be
more than a person being a little messy.
Do people normally have boxes ofstuff that they poured all over
their couch? Is that where those items were
intended to go? I would have to see this
officer's home if that's the case.
They made it sound like Sandra was just a messy person, but
(22:33):
this seemed to be much more thansomeone who didn't pick up after
themselves. This seemed like it was done by
someone searching for something.And what about this unknown,
suspicious looking man who entered the building and went to
Sandra's floor for just a short 28 minutes, then left quickly?
Were they looking into who he was and what he was doing there?
(22:57):
They took a look through Sandra's phone, hoping that
would shed some light on what might have made her want to take
her own life and give them some idea of when she had done it.
Usually people who take their own life leave something, a
note, a text, something to say goodbye to the people they loved
or to say they're that they're sorry for what they did.
(23:17):
But there was none of that with Sandra.
After looking through her phone,they figured that Sandra died
sometime during the evening of Monday, February 1st, since all
contact through her phone seizedafter that.
As they looked through Sandra's phone, however, they found
something else that stopped themin their tracks.
There were lots of police officers in Sandra's phone and
(23:41):
there were thousands upon thousands of messages between
Sandra and police officers at the Stoughton Police Department.
These weren't all just friendly how you doing messages either.
There were very inappropriate messages and pictures and most
of the inappropriate messages and pictures were between Sandra
(24:02):
and three officers. The day after Sandra's death on
February 5th, Chief of StoughtonPolice Donna McNamara was
contacted by a detective from the Massachusetts State Police.
He called to inform her that through text messages on
Sandra's phone, they had reason to believe that Matthew Farewell
(24:23):
and Sandra Birchmore had been ina sexual relationship since
Sandra was just 15 years old andMatthew was 27.
He was the married police officer.
She had told People that she wasseen.
He had started having sex with Sandra a month before he married
his wife, and the relationship had spanned for almost a decade.
(24:45):
They also informed her that during their preliminary
investigation, they had found that the tall mystery man that
had been seen walking into Sandra's building on February
1st, the last day Sandra was seen alive, was in fact Matthew
Farewell. Text messages on Sandra's phone
show Matthew telling her that hehad arrived and her telling him
(25:06):
to come up to her apartment. From what they could tell,
Matthew Farewell was the last person to see Sandra alive, so
they definitely needed to talk to him.
However, they stated they didn'thave probable cause to charge
him with a crime at that time. Chief McNamara then ordered
Deputy Chief Brian Holmes to conduct an internal
(25:28):
investigation into the unintended death of Sandra
Birchmore. Friends and family of Sandra's
had contacted law enforcement after her death to inform them
of the sexual relationship between Matthew Farewell and
Sandra and said that it had beengoing on for an extended period
of time. Sandra's mom's cousin, Angelique
(25:51):
reached out to investigators andsaid that Sandra was allegedly
pregnant with Farewell's child and that she had been pressuring
him to participate in the child's life.
Things had not been going well between the two and Angelique
had told Sandra that she should lay off of pressuring him.
Everyone that knew and loved Sandra had been concerned for
(26:13):
her well-being prior to her death and no one believed that
Sandra would have taken her own life.
She was excited to be a mother and she knew there was a
possibility that she might have to be a single mother and she
was OK with that. She wanted this baby more than
anything. It was someone to love her
(26:34):
unconditionally like she had always wanted.
She was happy and had already been buying things to prepare
prepare for the baby the next day.
On February 6th of 2021, two days after Sandra's body was
found, Matthew Farewell was brought in and was questioned by
the Massachusetts State Police. He told them he had known Sandra
(26:58):
for quote UN quote about 10 years and had met her when she
was in the Explorers program. He was confronted with all of
the hundreds of messages betweenhim and Sandra that were found
in her phone, the fact that she was telling people he was the
father of her baby, and the factthat he had been at her
apartment on the night they suspected was the night she had
(27:20):
died. He admitted to having sexual
relations with Sandra, however, he denied that it began when she
was 15. He said that it didn't start
until 2020 and that the last time they had been intimate was
at the end of October of 2020. He said she told him in December
that she was pregnant and had said the baby was his, but he
(27:43):
was confident the baby wasn't his.
He couldn't be the baby's father.
Since Sandra was due to have thebaby in September of 2021, that
means she likely got pregnant inDecember.
But he said that she told him she was pregnant in December.
His dates aren't really adding up.
(28:05):
He did admit that he was the onethat was seen on the CCTV
footage going into Sandra's building on the 1st.
I mean he couldn't really deny it.
They had him on camera and they had the text where he told
Sandra he was there and she toldhim to come up.
But According to him, he said hewent there to quote UN quote in
their relationship and that was it.
(28:27):
But he had just said that they hadn't been intimate since
October, four months earlier. So what relationship was he
trying to end? He said that they had a pretty
nasty argument and that she was screaming and crying and acting
out of control. But he left anyway.
He couldn't stick around and worry about Sandra.
He had somewhere else to be see after he left her apartment that
(28:48):
night, he went directly to the hospital, where, 12 hours after
he was seen leaving Sandra's apartment at around 9:00 AM that
next morning on February the second his wife gave birth to
his son, he said he'd never had any further contact with Sandra.
But of course, he didn't. She was dead and in fact had
(29:10):
blocked her from any outlet thatshe might use to reach out to
him. Phone, social media, She was
blocked from everything. According to him, the
department's internal investigations spanned a review
of nearly 100,000 pages of cell phone records obtained by
Cellbright, along with text messages and a dozen interviews.
(29:33):
And in September of 2022, at theend of the 19 month
investigation, Chief Donna McNamara released a very
redacted 60 page report and helda press conference.
The other two main police officers that were being
investigated in the Stoughton Police Department, besides
(29:53):
Matthew Farewell, were none other than his twin brother
William Farewell and the leader of the Explorers, Robert Devine.
They were the three officers whobasically ran the Explorers
program and there was a mound ofinformation found on each one
and it wasn't good. As Chief McNamara stood in front
of the room to talk, you can tell she was disgusted and
(30:16):
pissed off at the violent and gross conduct of these officers
in her department. She said, and I quote Birchmore
was failed by, manipulated by, and used by people of authority
that she admired and trusted right up until her final days.
She was a vulnerable person who had one constant in her life
(30:38):
since childhood. Her unwavering admiration of
police officers, of those serving in the military, people
in uniform with oaths and dutiesto protect and serve.
The admiration led to her formerrelationships with men who were
willing to take advantage of her.
All three men, the Farewell Brothers and Divine, violated an
(31:01):
oath of office and should never have the privilege of serving
any community as a police officer.
Through a sustained and deliberate combination of lies,
deceit and treachery, they violated the policies and core
values of the Staunton Police Department, not to mention human
decency. These men violated their oaths
(31:23):
and they are unfit to serve as police officers.
End Quote. So who are these three men that
instead of leading Sandra and showing her mentorship and
encouragement, felt they had a right to manipulate her and use
her for their own self gratification?
And what did the internal investigation uncover?
(31:45):
That will have to wait until next week.
For photos from this episode, jump on over to the Victim's
voice on Facebook or Instagram. And if you would like to support
this podcast, please click on the link in the show notes.
Until next week, peace out.
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