Transcription
New information in the Sandra Birchmont case. A previously sealed audio recording proves high-ranking officers knew about yet another cop's inappropriate relationship with Birchmore when she was underage. It's a complicated case, but here's the main thing you need to know: when Birchmore died in 2021, she was pregnant, and her death was ruled a suicide. But now, a former cop accused of grooming her as a child is also accused of her murder. I'm Sierra Gillespie, and this is Lawn Crime News.
The case of Sandra Birchmore continues to make headlines. In the months after, ex-police officer Matthew Farwell was charged with her murder, and there's a pretty strong case against him. Federal prosecutors say they have evidence that puts Farwell at the scene the day Birchmore died. Other evidence shows motive to commit murder, and even more evidence proves that he allegedly had sex with her when she was just a kid, multiple times.
To understand the case fully, we have to begin in 2011, when Birchmore was only 13 years old. That's when she joined the Explorers program with the Stoten Police Department in Massachusetts. The program gives kids a better understanding of the criminal justice system and provides them with mentoring and hands-on experience with officers. Through this program, Birchmore met several Stoten Police Officers: Matthew Farwell, his twin brother William Farwell, and other officers, Robert Divine, and Joshua Heel.
It was around this time, when Birchmore was only 13, that some of the officers allegedly began grooming her. But it was Matthew Farwell that apparently took the first step. According to an affidavit, "This grooming culminated in Farwell raping Birchmore in April 2013 when she was only 15 years old." At the time of this assault, Farwell was 27 years old. Some of Birchmore's journal entries discuss this, as do texts between her and Farwell on multiple occasions.
This exchange from June 19th, 2020, is particularly disturbing: Birchmore writes, "I'm glad you agreed to take my virginity though." And Farwell agrees, writing, "Me too. Farwell LOL. If I pushed, I absolutely could have effed you without condoms from day one." Birchmore: "Probably. If you really pushed it." Birchmore: "I was kind of scared to say no in the beginning, not knowing how you take it. So yeah, you would have got no condoms LOL."
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Messages from the pair also show that Birchmore wanted to get pregnant and even sent Farwell pictures of her ovulation schedule. She'd given Farwell an ultimatum: that he had to have unprotected sex with the intention of conceiving a child, or she'd tell Farwell's wife about their relationship. This is a good time to tell you that as of the time of Sandra Birchmore's death, Farwell's wife was pregnant with their third child, and just hours after Farwell last saw Birchmore and allegedly murdered her, his wife gave birth.
Birchmore first told Farwell she was pregnant on December 28th, 2020, with a picture of a poster she'd made. After news of her pregnancy, Farwell became aggressive, and Birchmore told at least three people that Farwell became physically violent when they discussed her pregnancy. He briefly seemed to have a change of heart, touring Birchmore's apartment, showing interest in her closet and bathroom. According to court documents, officials believe that Farwell's shift in demeanor on or about this date was his attempt to appease Birchmore until he could kill her. Part of that plan included asking Birchmore to give him a key and keep it secret. Another part of that plan was inspecting various rooms of Birchmore's apartment, including the closet, to determine whether they contained items or presented options for how and when to kill Birchmore, which allegedly happened on February 1st, 2021, according to court documents.
Security camera video from Birchmore's apartment shows her picking up a DoorDash order at 5:01 p.m. on February 1st. Four hours later, Matthew Farwell arrives at 9:14 p.m. the same day. He's seen entering through the main door and then going up the elevator. Less than an hour later, Farwell is caught on security camera video leaving the apartment. Days later, a wellness check was called, and that's when first responders found Birchmore's body in her apartment. She was found unresponsive, seated, with a duffel bag strap around her neck. Initially, Birchmore's death was ruled a suicide, but now federal investigators say it was murder at the hands of Matthew Farwell. He's denied these allegations, but just last month was indicted in Birchmore's death. And while he's accused of sexual assault of a minor, tampering with evidence, and wire fraud, there's one major count that the feds are after: killing a witness or victim.
And that leads to the most recent revelation in the case: that another police officer allegedly had sex with Birchmore when she was underage, and his superiors apparently knew about it. This officer is Joshua Heel, who met Birchmore when he was an animal control officer with the Stoten Police Department. He later became a school resource officer with the nearby Abington Police Department. And here's where things get a bit more complicated: after Birchmore's death, the Stoten Police Department, where Matthew Farwell had worked, conducted an internal affairs investigation. And for that, they reached out to the then-Abington Police Chief, David Del Papa, to talk about Joshua Heel.
At this point, Del Papa, the Abington Police Chief, became aware that Joshua Heel allegedly received oral sex from Sandra Birchmore when she was a young adult. About this, the Abington Police Chief said, "Extramarital affairs aren't any of my business. I can't really get involved in that." Del Papa apparently also knew about "filthy texts" between Joshua Heel and Birchmore, and that Heel apparently wanted to have sex with Birchmore's friend because she was a virgin. On top of all this, Birchmore allegedly told Joshua Heel about her relationships with other officers in explicit detail.
There's so much happening in this case. So, to break it all down, I spoke with Massachusetts Attorney Jennifer Roman. "What's fascinating to me about this case is the involvement of the feds. Because the crime, the allegations themselves, are really disturbing, and we certainly never expect police officers to be involved with the alleged grooming of young people, to involve them in sexual exploitation. That's just very disturbing. But that's a state crime, you know, in and of itself. So the fact that the federal government picked this up and did the investigation and are pursuing the charges, that's sort of what, to me, makes this a little bit more, this makes it a more unique case, a little bit different than what you might expect to see with these allegations."
So, why is it that this is a federal case with federal charges rather than a state case? "So, right now, everybody's being still quite tight-lipped, but we do know that the federal government is involved. We do know that the FBI executed search warrants and have arrested Farewell. What we can surmise from this is that there is some ongoing criminal enterprise that involved more than just Farewell, the defendant. The feds would get involved if there were concerns about an organized crime, racketeering is the word that would describe that, where there is more, there's sort of a criminal enterprise of people, a community of people who are actively engaging together in concert with each other to perpetuate these crimes. And so, what it seems to be is that there's some concern that there were multiple police officers involved with this scheme of taking children out of this Explorers program and grooming them to have them engage in sexual acts with these officers when the children were underage, and they were specifically being groomed for that purpose."
Okay, so we do have several officers whose names are kind of circulating as the accused, the ones that allegedly did sexually assault and groom Sandra Birchmore when she was under the age of 18. But right now, there are only charges against Matthew Farwell. So, is it possible that those other officers could face charges too? "It seems like it's highly possible that those other charges will be charged in the coming days, if not weeks. Farwell was hooked because of the murder, because he was the last person to be placed at her apartment, and is accused of trying to cover up this crime as well, making it look like she committed suicide when, in fact, he was the one who had killed her. So he was the easiest and most obvious target of this arrest in this investigation. But we have been hearing names about other officers, and if this, again, the feds are involved, if the feds are involved, that suggests that there is a larger practice of, or at least a concern of a larger practice of, grooming of children and engaging them, having them engage in sexual exploitation, and that would be why the federal government has stepped in to investigate this, taken it out of the hands of the state."
So, I do want to talk about Matthew Farwell and his allegations and charges, which we'll get to in a second. But first, the real reason we're talking about this case today is because there's new audio, and it shows that this police officer, Joshua Heel, who once worked for Stoten Police and then eventually worked for Abington Police, it shows that his Abington Police Chief knew that he allegedly sexually assaulted Sandra Birchmore before we, the public, ever heard Joshua Heel's name. So, before any of this was made public or out there, this police chief knew that there were these sexual assault allegations against a minor under age 18.
So, does that kind of put Joshua Heel in the hot seat? "Absolutely in the hot seat. When the second that he received that phone call, you know, saying, 'This is what we think is going on, and these are the text messages that we found, and this is the knowledge that we have,' he was his obligation kicked in to start to initiate an investigation. You know, these police officers are charged with protecting the public and protecting people, and children deserve even more protection than, you know, anybody, right? Because the nature of children, but they're more vulnerable. So the fact that he just let it drop because he was concerned it was going to be a nightmare, a PR nightmare, that's incredibly concerning and just disturbing because it really could have stopped much earlier than it did, and we may not have been in this situation where somebody died."
Ethically, I agree with you 100%. This should have been brought to light way before it ever was. But is it possible that criminal charges could also be involved now because someone knew about this but was covering it up? "Yeah, there is a potential for criminal charges against him because of the knowledge he had. Obstructing justice could be one of them. You know, could be one of the charges. He could potentially be implicated in a conspiracy theory if, if there's additional information, which we don't have right now. But just the mere act of knowing would not necessarily, would not rise to the level of a conspiracy. But the mere act of knowing and somehow enabling, by not putting a stop to it, not having a conversation with the higher-ups or the police officers involved in these allegations, that starts to look a little bit more like criminal conduct on his part for failing to take action, because you can be prosecuted for both actions and inaction."
So, it remains to be seen what's going to happen on that front. It's possible that he could be charged, but still TBD for now. But as for Joshua Heel, there are allegations that he had sexual relations with Birchmore before she was age 18. So, there's no way she would have been able to give consent because she was a child. The only issue I'm seeing with this is, how are we going to prove it? Obviously, DNA has long gone. We don't have that. Is there any other way that this could be proven in a court of law? "We don't have a victim anymore, and sadly, tragically, she was killed, murdered. And so, we don't have any physical evidence, we don't have a reporting victim. We really have nothing for to bring charges against Officer Heel. You know, it would be very tenuous. I mean, if somebody else implicated him and said, 'The three of us were in the room, for example, and this is what happened,' then that could possibly support criminal charges, but I don't think it would support a conviction. You really need a complaining witness, you need the victim. And with sexual assault crimes, they're so difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt because they happen behind closed doors, because of the very nature of the privacy of a sexual assault situation, they don't happen in public, and people don't talk about it. And so here, where you have your alleged victim who's now deceased, there's not going to be any evidence there to prosecute him. Again, he may still be caught up in the federal government's sweep of know potential racketeering, this organized crime concept. He could be implicated in that, but not necessarily in statutory rape, because we don't have the complaining victim anymore."
Talking about Joshua Heel's involvement, there are allegations that when he and Birchmore were together, she gave him explicit details about her relations with some of the other officers, potentially even Matthew Farwell. So, she told him what was going on there. I'm wondering if that could be used as testimony against Farwell. Would that be hearsay because Sandra Birchmore told Joshua Heel this information, or would it be admissible? "So, it is possible that the statements of a deceased person, there are some hearsay exceptions which may allow for that testimony to come in. However, we've got some second component of hearsay issue here, which is that it's a double hearsay. It's what the alleged victim allegedly said to a third party who's now going to testify at trial about what she allegedly said about a third about Farwell. So, it would take some finagling, but it is possible because she is no longer alive, if we can prove on some levels the veracity of it, that she was, that she didn't have motivations to lie. It would really turn on the context of the conversations and when they're alleged to have happened. It's going to turn on her basic credibility, which is really hard when the person is deceased to try to either. It's much easier to tear it down than it is to build it up when the person is deceased. So I think if it does come in, it's going to come in more along the lines of this was part of a modus operandi. These actions were not unique to Sandra Birchmore, they were happening with other people. You know, with if they were happening with other children, and that's the allegation, then it's going to become, 'This was a pattern. These other children are testifying that that's the similar way that they were approached, the way that they were groomed, the way that they were instructed to engage in activities with the defendants.' That would probably be the strongest way for that any statements that Sandra Birchmore allegedly said before her death about this ongoing sexual relationship happening, that they would come in. They would come in more of a, 'This is what was happening. This happened, so therefore, this also is likely to have happened.' But in terms of coming in a straight, quote-unquote, testimony through a hearsay exception, that's really unlikely."
We've talked about the sexual assault allegations, which are so severe, especially that she was under age 18. It just adds a whole other layer to it. But also, there's the pretty serious allegation of murder here, too. But what's interesting in her case is, back when she died in 2021, it was initially ruled a suicide. And it took until this year, in 2024, for someone to be charged with murder. So, that kind of gets the wheels going in my head: why initially would it have been suicide if now we're saying, "Oh, it's actually murder"?
"Yeah, the way that this case started and the initial ruling of the suicide is concerning and disturbing because from what we're hearing now, there were many other pieces of evidence that suggested it wasn't a suicide. And so, you know, it's not medical examiner offices on initial investigations sometimes get things wrong. I mean, they have a, they only have the information of the physical body and then whatever information the police or investigating bodies are bringing to them. The investigating bodies do not always talk with the medical examiner. Part of that is that the medical examiner can make an independent review and determination as to cause of death. So, on the one hand, it's very protective of the system and of allowing the medical examiner to do their job independent of any bias or influence. On the other hand, it can be extremely detrimental to investigations, as what we saw here, where the initial ruling came back as a suicide because it was staged to look like a suicide. Right. There was sufficient evidence to suggest that it was a suicide, and only when investigating bodies went deeper did they see there was other physical evidence on scene that meant that it wasn't a suicide, pointed to something very, very different, including the murder, which is where we ended up with the murder charges in this case."
Sandra Birch's family was very, I think, integral in keeping this investigation alive and in bringing the truth forward because they hired an independent medical examiner. They were the ones who pushed this notion that it wasn't a suicide. And now that we see this other evidence, for example, she had booked a prenatal photography session an hour before she's believed to have died. She was in the middle of running laundry in the middle of when this happened. There's security footage from her building that places the defendant at her building, coming and going around the time of her death. All of these things, the medical examiner wouldn't have had knowledge of unless the investigating body shared that information with them. And again, we go back to the medical examiner wanting to make an independent review. We also have the complicating factor here, though, is why didn't the investigating bodies take those factors into consideration? And when the medical examiner originally came back with suicide, go, "Wait a minute, the evidence we have isn't suggesting that. Could it be something else? Can you take another look?" Why didn't that happen until Sandra Birchmore's family came forward and said, "We have somebody who said that that's not what happened, it wasn't suicide"? And that's a, that's a bigger weak spot in vulnerability on a bigger scale for the DA's office.
You talked about some pretty stark evidence to the fact that Sandra Birchmore had booked that photography session, she was in the midst of doing laundry. It seemed by all accounts she was excited that she was about to give birth and become a mother. So that kind of shows she probably wasn't suicidal, didn't die by suicide. But also, on top of that, we have these texts over years between her, Sandra Birchmore, and Matthew Farwell that are pretty incriminating, talking about them having sex before she's age 18, talking about them having sex while he's on the clock. These are going to be hard for me to kind of get over. What do you think? Is this something that will be difficult for Farwell's defense?
"Yes. If Sandra Birchmore was over the age of consent, it would be a very different defense. It would be consent. They would argue consent. The fact that she was, when this relationship started, was very much a young teenager, not of the age of consent, really makes the defense difficult here. There are so many communications between them, and it's not just what Sandra is saying to him, it's what he's saying to her as well, which is incriminating. So, I think the defense in this case is going to be difficult. There seems, there seems like at this point, there's a lot of physical evidence that links him to her on multiple levels, multiple criminal levels, and it's going to be very difficult for the defense to mount a successful defense against him. Which is why I think, particularly with the federal government being involved, we're probably going to see some settlement discussions taking place earlier on in the case than we might in other cases. You know, the feds don't, the one thing about the feds, they don't bring cases unless they are very, very confident in their case. They take their time in their investigations, they do a lot of the legwork to make sure that when they do bring a case, it's as strong as it can be. And so, the mere fact that they did bring these charges and did arrest Farwell suggests that their case is much, much stronger than what we're even seeing now, which is already a strong case."
It's important to note that Joshua Heel has not been charged with anything. And as for Matthew Farwell, he's pleaded not guilty to his federal charge. Reporting for Lawn Crime, I'm Sierra Gillespie.