Farwell’s lawyers backtrack, write that unnamed man fathered Sandra Birchmore’s unborn son
Editor's Note: The story was updated at 10:45 p.m. March 26, 2026, to add information from the amended motion filed by Matthew Farwell's attorneys in federal court late Thursday night.
Lawyers for Matthew Farwell , a former Stoughton police officer who is charged in the killing of Sandra Birchmore , amended a filing late Thursday night to say that an unnamed man fathered her unborn son.
Farwell's defense attorneys originally identified the former detective's twin brother as the unborn child's biological father in a motion filed Thursday asking that their client be released on $50,000 bail with restrictions. Matthew Farwell was previously ruled out as the father of Birchmore's unborn child through DNA testing.
As of 10:30 p.m. Thursday, a footnote in the motion reads "according to the government's own evidence, Mr. Farwell's brother, who is a named defendant in the civil lawsuit, as well as another individual who is the confirmed biological father of Ms. Birchmore's fetus, who has thus far not been publicly named."
Birchmore, 23, was pregnant when she was killed in her Canton apartment in 2021. Prosecutors say Matthew Farwell, 40, began sexually exploiting her when she was 15 and strangled her to death to keep her from reporting him for federal crimes.
The former Stoughton police officer then staged the apartment to appear as if Birchmore had killed herself, prosecutors allege. The state Chief Medical Examiner's Office ruled her death a suicide.
Farwell is facing federal charges of killing a witness or victim and violating the protection of unborn children statute.
This photo provided by the Stoughton, Mass., Police Department shows Matthew Farwell, a former police officer who pleaded not guilty Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, to charges of killing a woman he is accused of sexually exploiting when she was underage and then trying to stage the death as a suicide after she told him she was pregnant. (Stoughton Police Department via AP)AP
Matthew Farwell has been held at a detention center in Rhode Island since the FBI arrested and charged him in August 2024. In the new motion filed by his attorneys, they say that if released, he would live with his mother to prevent his wife and children from enduring further scrutiny.
Farwell has demonstrated that he is not a danger to the community and will not flee in an attempt to escape prosecution, his lawyers argue.
The defense attorneys have repeatedly sought to have Farwell's case dismissed or transferred to Rhode Island, but the judge has denied these motions.
Birchmore met the former detective through a Stoughton Police Department youth program when she was a teen. Prosecutors say he began planning her killing in January 2021 after a department employee informed him that a friend of hers had reported his sexual relationship with Birchmore.
Farwell was the last person known to have seen Birchmore alive on the night she died, according to an internal Stoughton police report. Security footage from that night shows him entering and exiting her apartment building, prosecutors say.
More news about the Sandra Birchmore case
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