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Independent forensic pathologist questions whether DNA testing was done in Sandra Birchmore case

Dr. Michael Baden questioned whether state investigators actually tested samples from the 23-year-old woman’s clothes and body after she was found dead.

Sandra Birchmore. Family photo

June 27, 2024

1 minute to read

The high-profile forensic pathologist who determined that Sandra Birchmore’s death was a homicide also questioned whether state investigators actually tested samples from the 23-year-old woman’s clothes and body, according to a new report from The Boston Globe.

Birchmore was allegedly groomed and sexually assaulted by three former Stoughton police officers for nearly a decade, according to a wrongful death suit filed in 2022. Each officer knew Birchmore since she was enrolled in a youth explorers program with the department at age 13, the complaint alleges. She was pregnant when she died.

Dr. Michael Baden, a well-known scientist, was hired by Birchmore’s estate to look into her 2021 death, which state investigators ruled a suicide.

Baden wrote that samples taken from her clothes, biological material from her body for a sexual assault kit, and preserved fetal tissue were not tested, the Globe reported. Investigators declined to tell the newspaper whether or not the samples were tested.

Baden, the former chief medical examiner of New York City, has decades of experience in autopsies, including for investigations concerning O.J. Simpson and Kobe Bryant. He also worked with the federal government to reinvestigate President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassinations, according to his online bio.

The former officers involved are Matthew Farwell, his twin brother William, and Robert Devine, according to court documents. Each had “inappropriate relationships” with Birchmore, according to an internal investigation by the Stoughton Police Department.

According to the wrongful death suit, Birchmore was pregnant with Matthew Farwell’s child. The suit alleges he began having sex with her when she was 15 and he was 27. He was also the last to see her alive at her apartment four days before her body was discovered, according to court documents.