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Prosecutors won’t seek death penalty for former Stoughton officer accused of killing pregnant Sandra Birchmore
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed prosecutors to "not seek the death penalty," while simultaneously calling for more capital punishment nationwide.
Federal prosecutors will not seek the death penalty for Matthew Farwell, the former Stoughton police detective accused of killing 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore while she was pregnant.
Farwell was indicted last year on charges that he allegedly strangled Birchmore to death in her Canton apartment Feb. 1, 2021 and staged the scene to appear as though she took her own life, according to documents released after the federal investigation last year.
Birchmore was between eight and 10 weeks pregnant with a male fetus, prosecutors have said. Farwell pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of causing the death of a child in utero in October.
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U.S. Attorney Leah Foley filed a single-sentence notice in court Tuesday that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed prosecutors “not to seek the death penalty in this case.” No reason was given in court documents.
Farwell, then 27, allegedly began having sex with Birchmore in 2013 when she was 15, which would constitute statutory rape. Farwell allegedly began a years-long relationship with Birchmore where they would meet up regularly to have sex in police vehicles. He “essentially groomed her,” former Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said.
In October of 2020, Birchmore asked Farwell to conceive a child with her as an ultimatum and said, in return, she would not disclose their relationship to Farwell’s wife, prosecutors have said. He allegedly killed her in February of the next year.
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Farwell was arrested in August of 2024. In June, DNA testing showed that Farwell was not the father of the child Birchmore was carrying, The Boston Globe reported.
The decision to not seek the death penalty for Farwell appears to be a deviation for the Trump administration as President Donald Trump has repeatedly voiced his support for capital punishment. Massachusetts has abolished the death penalty, while federal defendants, like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers, can be sentenced to death.
When taking office, Trump signed an executive order “restoring the death penalty and protecting public safety.” He also signed a presidential memorandum seeking to reinstate the death penalty in Washington D.C. in September, and Bondi said she wants to take it national.
“Not only are we seeking it in Washington, DC, but all over the country, again,” she said in the Oval Office at the time, per CNN.
Notably, Bondi directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, who is accused of fatally shooting United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson. She pointed to Trump’s “agenda to stop violence crime and Make America Safe Again,” according to the Department of Justice.
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Farwell’s lawyer did not return a request for comment.
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