The Whole Sandra Birchmore Case, Start to Finish, Before the Jury Gets It Tomorrow, Plus Day Two of the Russell Brand Deliberations

0:09 Good morning, this is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Thursday, November 5th, 2026. Tomorrow morning, in a federal courtroom in Boston, lawyers will get 90 minutes each to tell a jury what happened in a small apartment in Canton, Massachusetts, on the night of February 1st, 2021. Then that jury will have to answer a question that two medical examiners, a dozen experts, and five years of investigation still haven't settled. Did Sandra Birchmore take her own life? Or did the police officer who'd been in her life since she was 15 kill her? Before the jury goes out, we're going to walk you through the whole case. Let's get into it. A note before we start. This story involves suicide and the sexual exploitation of a teenager. I'll handle both with care, and there's a number at the end if you need support.

1:04 Let's start with who Sandra Birchmore was. She grew up in the Stoughton area, south of Boston. As a young teenager, she joined the Stoughton Police Department's Explorers Program, a youth program for kids interested in police work. One of the officers running it was Matthew Farwell. According to federal prosecutors, Farwell began a sexual relationship with Sandra when she was 15 and he was 27. That's the root of everything in this case. Prosecutors say it continued for years, sometimes while Farwell was on duty. A later internal investigation found that Farwell, his twin brother William, also a Stoughton officer, and a former deputy chief all had inappropriate relationships with her. Sandra's mother believed Farwell was tutoring her daughter at the town library. Prosecutors say he was grooming her. By late 2020, Sandra was 23, and she was pregnant. She believed Farwell was the father. Text messages read to the jury show that when she'd asked if he'd be okay with her getting pregnant, he answered, Not really, but you made it clear I don't have an option. When she found out, she texted him. Congrats, we are going to be parents in 2021. She told friends. One bought her a stroller.

2:13 On her phone, she kept a list of baby names. The last one was Matthew. Then, in late January of 2021, a friend of Sandra's called the Stoughton Police Department and told a dispatcher about her relationship with Farwell. The dispatcher testified Farwell was angry. A former colleague testified Farwell told him around that time that he had to, quote, put crazy back in the bag. Less than two weeks later, she was dead. On the night of February 1st, building video shows Farwell entering Sandra's building, wearing a mask. A colleague testified he never wore a mask, even during the pandemic. Sandra's phone stopped moving at 9.40 that night. The video shows Farwell leaving the building a few minutes later, though there were no cameras on her floor. Three days later, an officer doing a well-being check found her dead. Farwell's youngest child with his wife was born the morning after that night. The state medical examiner ruled it a suicide.

3:09 She told the jury she was given almost nothing by investigators, including an email from a state trooper saying there was nothing new to report. A state police investigator admitted under questioning that Sandra's apartment was never processed as a crime scene. Sandra's friends refused to accept the ruling, and eventually the FBI took over. In April of this year, the medical examiner changed the manner of death to undetermined. I was not pressured, she told the jury. Farwell was arrested in 2024. He's charged in federal court with killing a witness, meaning prosecutors say he killed her to stop her from reporting his federal crimes, and with killing her unborn child. If he's convicted, he faces life in prison. DNA testing later showed he wasn't the father of her baby, but prosecutors say what matters is what they both believed. The prosecution's case turned on its medical expert, Dr. William Smock, who told the jury Ms. Birchmore was the victim of a homicidal act. He pointed to a fracture in her hyoid, a small bone in the neck that's flexible in young people, and said it broke inward in a way he associated with strangling, not a seated hanging. He pointed to a mark on her chest that he said matched the clasp of the strap. which was tied around a door when she was found, meaning, he said, the injury happened before the strap was hung there. He called it an altered crime scene. Prosecutors also said Farwell's DNA was on the strap.

4:38 And Farwell's twin brother, testifying under immunity, told the jury Farwell admitted wiping his phone before handing it over to state police. The defense answered with a wall of experts. A forensic psychiatrist testified Sandra had multiple risk factors for suicide, a history of mental illness and a prior attempt, an antidepressant prescription, isolation from family, money trouble, and worry about her pregnancy. A breakup with Farwell, she said, would have been very overwhelming. The defense says that's exactly what happened that night. Farwell went to end the relationship and tell her he wasn't the father. On the medical evidence, Kentucky's chief medical examiner pushed back on Smock, Though Patch reports he acknowledged he hadn't reviewed the evidence in Sandra's case himself.

5:24 A forensic anthropologist testified the hyoid fracture alone couldn't tell you whether she was strangled or hanged. A forensic scientist said she couldn't determine whether the clasp caused the chest mark. A second anthropologist called it a single fracture in a common location. A DNA expert testified that the strap was packaged so badly, basically crumpled into a big ball, that its DNA evidence wasn't reliable. And the defense says the strap carried DNA from several people, not just Farwell. The final defense witnesses were scheduled for Wednesday. Dr. Thomas Andrew, the former chief medical examiner of New Hampshire, who has said he couldn't classify the death as homicide or suicide, and a digital forensics expert critical of how police handled Sandra's laptop. The defense has also asked the judge to let the jury consider the original police failures and has argued that Sandra was never a witness in the legal sense the federal charge requires. The judge during a charge conference didn't appear persuaded, but those questions are preserved for appeal.

6:25 So here's what the jury must decide. First, did Matthew Farwell kill Sandra Birchmore? If they're not sure he did, it's over. If they are, did he do it to keep her from going to federal authorities? Prosecutors say the motive is obvious. A married police officer, a relationship that began as a crime when she was 15, and a pregnancy that could expose it all. The defense says the evidence of a killing was never there, and that a vulnerable young woman, abandoned by the man who'd been at the center of her life since childhood, took her own life. Whatever the jury decides, one thing isn't in dispute. A 15-year-old girl joined a police youth program, and the adults who ran it failed her. A jury in Boston gets the case tomorrow. Sandra Birchmore was 23 years old. Someone has to say her name. When we come back, the Russell Brand jury's second day and a mother who prosecutors say was following the Lindsay Clancy trial. In London, the jury in Russell Brand's trial spent its first full day deliberating yesterday. The Essentials, as always, Brand 51, faces seven charges, including three counts of rape, involving six women between 1999 and 2009. He has pleaded not guilty to all of them and denies all of the allegations. On Tuesday, after the judges summing up, the jury deliberated for just over

7:56 an hour before being sent home at four o'clock. Yesterday, they came back to Southern Crown Court, were addressed briefly by the judge, and were sent straight back out to the deliberation room, still under the oath they took when the trial began. Sky News reports Brand arrived in a gray suit and sunglasses, hands in his pockets, and joined the back of a long line into the court with his security detail, his wife Laura holding onto his arm. So what are we waiting for? A few things to listen for. If the jury sends the judge a note, it'll be read in open court, and notes can tell you a lot. A question about a specific count, or a request to see a piece of evidence again. If the jury reaches verdicts on some charges but not others, it can return those first. And if deliberations stretch on, the judge may eventually tell them he'll accept a verdict of 10 to 2 or 11 to 1. For now, he's only accepting unanimous verdicts. When there's a verdict, you'll hear it here first. Russell Brand denies all charges. Yesterday, we told you about the fight over the juror who deadlocked Lindsay Clancy's trial. Today, a case that prosecutors say grew out of that trial in a much darker way.

9:07 On September 1st in Frankfort, Illinois, southwest of Chicago, a 17-year-old neighbor called 911 and found a two-year-old boy named Barrett Walsh in the family's basement. She tried CPR. He was already gone. Upstairs, police say, they found his mother, Corey Walsh, then 40, bleeding from cuts she'd apparently made to herself. According to court documents, she told officers she did it because her son was the devil and the antichrist. The coroner found he died of ligature strangulation. Here's the detail that made national news. According to prosecutors, witnesses told police Walsh had become very invested in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial in Massachusetts, the case of a mother accused of strangling her three children, whose defense was postpartum psychosis.

9:55 Prosecutors say Walsh was discussing the Clancy case in a group text with friends just hours before Barrett was found, while that jury, a thousand miles away, was still deliberating. Walsh is charged with three counts of first-degree murder, under three different legal theories, in her son's death. She's pleaded not guilty, and she's being held in jail. Her lawyers say she was in the grip of a psychotic episode. One of them, Andrea Lyon, is well known. She was part of Casey Anthony's defense. Another, Robert Kerr, called the prosecution's focus on the Clancy case careless and insensitive. He described it as sickening. He acknowledged her interest in the Clancy trial, but said it coincided with her psychosis, not that it caused anything. Her husband and her mother have publicly asked for support for her. On the day of her first court appearance, they were at Barrett's funeral. And at a hearing on Monday, Court TV reports she had supporters in the courtroom. Her lawyers have also raised concerns about the psychiatric care she's getting in jail. You may notice this sounds like more than one case we've covered.

11:02 Angie Mock, the former TV anchor in Kansas, allegedly believed her mother was the devil. Lindsay Clancy's lawyers say she heard voices. In every one of these cases, the hardest question isn't what happened. It's what was happening in the mind of the person who did it and what the law should do about that. Illinois, like Massachusetts, allows an insanity defense. Whether Walsh's lawyers will use one is still to be seen. Barrett Walsh was two years old. His family called him Bear. Someone has to say his name. When we come back, the week ahead. That's the show for this Thursday. Here's my question for the Spotify crowd.

11:53 In the Birchmore case, if the jury decides it can't be sure whether this was a murder or a suicide, what should happen next? If you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment. If you've been following the Birchmore case with us, send this episode to someone who hasn't. It's the whole story in one place. That's how we grow. And on Apple Podcasts, tap listen uninterrupted at the top of your screen. $ 5 a month, no ads, this show plus thousands of other Calaroga media shows, and the first 30 days are free. To everyone already subscribed, thank you. Coming up, closing arguments and deliberations in the Birchmore trial tomorrow. The brand jury continues. And tonight in Florida, the state is scheduled to execute Jesse Guardetto for the 2004 murder of Jackie Malone, which would tie the state's record for executions in a year.

12:43 We'll have what happens. I'm Garrett Fisher. Do better. This episode of Daily Crime and Justice is produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and is intended for news and commentary purposes only. It is not legal advice. Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. Matthew Farwell, Russell Brand and Corey Walsh have each pleaded not guilty. On Sandra Birchmore, testimony and evidence are as reported by the Boston Globe, NBC Boston, CBS Boston, Boston.com, Boston 25 News, WJR, WBUR, Patch, and LA Magazine. Testimony expected on Wednesday, November 4th is described as scheduled. It may have differed. On Russell Brand, proceedings are as reported by Sky News. Under the Sexual Offenses Amendment Act 1992, Complainants in sexual offense cases in the United Kingdom are entitled to lifelong anonymity. On Corey Walsh, details are from court documents as reported by CNN, CBS Chicago, Fox 32, ABC News, and Court TV. Statements attributed to her are allegations by prosecutors. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text 988- If you're a new parent and struggling, you can call or text the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 833-852-6262.

14:06 If you are a survivor of sexual abuse, you can call RAINN at 800-656-4673.