Testimony Begins in Boston in the Farwell Trial Over Sandra Birchmore's Death; the Ex-Officer Has Pleaded Not Guilty

The short version: Witness testimony began Tuesday in the federal murder trial of Matthew Farwell, the former Stoughton police officer accused of killing 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore and her unborn child in 2021. Farwell has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The first day in the Boston courtroom centered on how the scene at Birchmore's Canton apartment was first handled, when state investigators initially treated her death as a suicide — a conclusion federal prosecutors now say was the result of staging.

BOSTON — The trial that took more than five years to arrive opened its evidence phase on Tuesday, Oct. 13, at the John J. Moakley U.S. Courthouse in Boston's Seaport District, in a courtroom the public cannot watch from home. Cameras are not permitted in federal court, which means the only window into the proceedings is the reporting of journalists inside the room — including live coverage from The Enterprise of Brockton, the newspaper closest to the case.

Farwell, a former Stoughton police officer, is accused by federal prosecutors of killing Birchmore to prevent her from disclosing what the Department of Justice has described as his years-long sexual exploitation of her, which prosecutors allege began when she was a minor participating in the Stoughton Police Department's Explorers program, where he served as an instructor. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and the burden of proof rests entirely on the government. Those twin facts — the gravity of the allegations and the presumption of innocence — will frame every day of a trial expected to run for weeks.

What the jury heard on day one

Massachusetts State Police Trooper Matthew Dunne was among the first witnesses, describing the initial response to Birchmore's Canton apartment on Feb. 4, 2021, after she was found dead during a well-being check. Dunne testified that he had been handling a separate unattended-death call in Randolph when he was directed to Canton, and described walking through the apartment — kitchen, living room, hallway — while narrating his observations as part of training a newer trooper assigned with him, according to The Enterprise's live courtroom report. Prosecutors showed Dunne photographs of the apartment documented by State Police Crime Scene Services.

The jury also heard from the Canton officer who first entered the apartment, Ensley Cotard. As reported by the New York Post from the courtroom, Cotard told jurors his assignment that day was a well-being check after Birchmore's employer reported she had not shown up for work — not a criminal investigation — and that he was inside for roughly eight minutes. He said he observed no signs of a struggle and no suicide note. Jurors were shown crime-scene photographs during the testimony; the Post reported that some jurors appeared visibly uncomfortable. Previously is not publishing those images.

Prosecutors are expected to continue with Dunne when court resumes Wednesday, The Enterprise reported, with a witness list for the day that also includes a friend of Birchmore's, Leslie Davis; Stoughton police Sgt. Robert Kuhn; and toxicologist Alicia Zimmerman. Stoughton Police Chief Donna McNamara may also testify Wednesday, prosecutors said, though they cautioned they might not reach her.

How a closed case became a federal trial

Birchmore was about eight weeks pregnant when she was found dead in her Canton apartment in February 2021. At the time, investigators with the Norfolk County District Attorney's Office and the Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner concluded she had died by suicide, and the case effectively closed. It stayed closed for more than three years.

The federal government reopened it. A federal grand jury indicted Farwell on a charge of killing a witness or victim, and FBI agents arrested him in August 2024. A superseding indictment returned in October 2025 added a second count alleging he also caused the death of Birchmore's unborn child. Jury selection began on Oct. 6, and the prosecution and defense delivered opening statements on Friday, Oct. 9, before the seated jury.

Prosecutors, as PEOPLE reported from court filings and the affidavit in the case, allege the exploitation began after Birchmore joined the Explorers program as a teenager with ambitions of becoming a police officer herself, and that the relationship continued into her adulthood. They allege Farwell ended the relationship on Feb. 1, 2021 — three days before her body was found — and that he killed her and arranged the scene to resemble a suicide, a staging prosecutors say fooled the first investigation. Farwell's defense disputes the government's account; he maintains his not-guilty plea to every count.

Why Massachusetts is watching

Few cases in recent Massachusetts memory sit at the intersection of this many institutional failures alleged at once: a police youth program, an initial death investigation that reached the opposite conclusion from the one federal prosecutors now present, and a small department — Stoughton — whose former officer is on trial for murder in federal court. The testimony about the first hours at the apartment matters precisely because the defense of the original ruling and the prosecution's staging theory cannot both be right, and the witnesses who walked that apartment in 2021 are the ones the jury will measure both against.

The trial is expected to continue into the coming weeks, with Wednesday's session set to finish Dunne's testimony and move into witnesses who knew Birchmore and worked the case. Previously will continue to follow the proceedings from the courtroom reporting of The Enterprise and other outlets present in Boston, and will report the defense's evidence with the same attention as the prosecution's as the case unfolds.