She exchanged 40,000 texts with her alleged killer. At his trial, they’re being used to tell two different stories

Matthew Farwell wanted to stop by Sandra Birchmore’s apartment. Just for a little while.

“Are you still up?” he texted her. “Okay to come by for a second?”

It was the night of Feb. 1, 2021, as a snowstorm swept through eastern Massachusetts. Birchmore was about 10 weeks pregnant and had spent much of the day in her apartment in the Boston suburb of Canton, planning for life as a new mom. She’d ordered a stroller, searched for nursery furniture and texted a friend about newborn onesies.

When Farwell’s message arrived at 9:07 p.m., she didn’t hesitate.

“Yeah. You can come say hi. You okay?” she wrote back. “Door’s open when you get here.”

It was the last text she ever sent.

Seven minutes later, surveillance cameras captured Farwell entering her apartment building, where he stayed for about half an hour, prosecutors say. Birchmore was found dead three days later, slumped on her bedroom floor with a duffel bag strap looped around her neck and tied to a closet door handle. Local and state authorities ruled the 23-year-old’s death a suicide, but to her family, nothing about it made sense.

From Sandra Birchmore

Federal prosecutors later reached a different conclusion. They charged Farwell, a former police officer in nearby Stoughton, with killing Birchmore and her unborn child. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is in its third week at the federal John J. Moakley Courthouse in Boston.

Birchmore and Farwell exchanged some 40,000 text messages in the years before her death, according to investigators who recovered them from her phone and laptop. The texts document their most intimate conversations and the growing tensions between them, and attorneys on both sides are using the messages to bolster their theories of the case to jurors.

Prosecutors say the messages reveal years of grooming and a sexual relationship that began when Birchmore was 15 and Farwell was 27. They argue that Farwell, then a married police officer, killed the young woman to keep her from exposing it. But the defense says the messages suggest a different story: that Birchmore was unstable and died by suicide after Farwell ended their relationship.

Birchmore was rarely without her phone and was a frequent texter, her cousin, Angelique Pirozzi, told CNN earlier this year.

“She was outgoing and very passionate about her friendships,” Pirozzi said. “She overshared — she texted people constantly.”

Birchmore died more than five years ago. But the messages she left behind — including 600 texts prosecutors say she sent or received in her final hours — may help the jury decide what happened on that winter night in 2021.

“It’ll come across like she’s speaking to them (jurors) from the grave,” says Chris Dearborn , a law professor at Boston’s Suffolk University. Even in the digital age it’s “highly unusual” for authorities to have years of private messages detailing the history of a relationship, he tells CNN.

“That could be powerful evidence as long as it’s not overdone,” adds Dearborn, who has been following the trial. “They (prosecutors) want to create as strong a motive as possible, because the forensic evidence isn’t airtight.”

Before jurors heard from witnesses or saw any exhibits, both sides were already pointing to the text messages as key evidence.

In their opening statements earlier this month, prosecution and defense attorneys mentioned the texts 33 times while describing sharply different accounts of Birchmore’s relationship with Farwell. The next week, a male and female FBI agent took turns reading the texts aloud in court. Birchmore started a majority of the conversations, and Farwell sometimes blocked her on his cellphone, FBI Special Agent Heidi Kelsch said, according to CNN affiliate WCVB.

Farwell, 40, is charged with killing a witness or victim to stop Birchmore from potentially exposing his alleged grooming and sexual abuse of a minor. He also faces a second charge – related to Birchmore’s pregnancy – of violating a federal law protecting unborn children.

Stoughton Police Department/AP

Farwell was decertified as a police officer and has been barred from working in law enforcement in Massachusetts.

Tensions between Farwell and Birchmore escalated in December 2020, after she told him he was pregnant and he was the father. Prosecutors say Farwell believed he was the father in the weeks before Birchmore’s death, and that she had previously threatened to expose their relationship if he did not impregnate her.

But a DNA test after her death found that a US Army recruiter — not Farwell — was the father of the unborn child, investigators say. The recruiter, Jason Pickard, testified last week that Birchmore told him she believed Farwell was the father and that he only learned last year that the child was his, according to WCVB .

The paternity finding has become a key part of Farwell’s defense. His attorney pointed to a text message Birchmore sent Pickard in late January, saying they needed to talk. The defense suggests Birchmore intended to tell Pickard he was likely the father and that Farwell knew the child wasn’t his, undermining prosecutors’ claim that he had a motive to kill her.

Text messages between Birchmore and Farwell capture how differently they viewed her pregnancy, prosecutors say. Birchmore sent him an image of a handmade poster decorated with cartoon jungle animals. “Congrats we are goin’ to be parents!” it says.

United States Attorney's Office

Farwell did not sound thrilled. “You are truly the worst person on the face of the earth,” he texted back.

It’s not clear whether Birchmore ever learned who the father of her child was. But prosecutors say she’d told more than 80 people she was expecting, and that the pregnancy marked a turning point in her relationship with Farwell.

Birchmore later texted Farwell a list of expectations: She wanted the child to have his last name, and she wanted him present for the birth and for a few days around Christmas and Easter, according to federal documents. In text messages, Farwell repeatedly told her he’d prefer to have conversations about the child in person.

Birchmore also began texting Farwell about some of their earlier sexual encounters, when she was a minor, to create a digital record of his behavior, her cousin, Barbara Wright, told CNN earlier this year.

“She was starting to wake up to the fact that what was going on was completely and totally wrong and that maybe she could do something about it,” Wright said.

Authorities say the changing tone of Birchmore’s text messages showed she was becoming more assertive and less willing to do as Farwell wanted.

John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

“She kept changing the terms of the deal. She kept asking for more,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Torey B. Cummings told jurors in her opening statement. “The defendant was not happy about it, but he was trying to appease her in order to keep her quiet.”

But the defense says the texts portray a young woman who was struggling financially and emotionally, and was desperate to have a baby with Farwell.

“This is going to be a difficult journey that we all take together,” defense attorney Kimberly Stevens told jurors in her opening statement. “It’s hard to hear evidence of mental health struggles and challenges and sadness and obsession, despondency and suicide.”

Stevens said Birchmore sent Farwell a flurry of messages in the days leading up to her death. On January 31, she texted:

“I’m needy today. And I don’t feel good.”

“It’s okay. I’m hoping I feel better after dinner. I just need to eat.”

“Can we talk tonight for a little bit before I go to sleep? Can I text you tomorrow before the snow comes?”

“I wish you were here with me tonight.”

The texts continued on February 1 and until shortly before Farwell asked to come over, Stevens said.

“That’s a window into her mental state as this is all happening,” Stevens told jurors, suggesting that Birchmore was in a vulnerable state after spending the holidays alone and pregnant. “She’d expressed fears that her pregnancy was at risk.”

Farwell’s defense has not challenged the authenticity of the text messages but has accused prosecutors of presenting “hand-selected” excerpts to jurors.

The defense also has argued that forensic evidence found at Birchmore’s apartment does not support the prosecution’s account of her death. When she was found, Birchmore’s clothes did not show tears or other signs of a struggle, Stevens said. Farwell’s DNA was not found under her fingernails, and the ligature around her neck contained DNA from several people – not just Farwell — Stevens added.

But prosecutors say messages between Farwell and Birchmore often referenced violent sexual activities, including strangulation, and suggested she wouldn’t have suspected Farwell was trying to kill her if he put his hands or a duffel strap around her throat that night.

“The messages are really the best motive evidence they (prosecutors) have. You don’t need motive in a murder case, but it’s really hard to convince a jury when you have a circumstantial case that somebody did something unless you establish clear motive,” says Dearborn, the Suffolk law professor. “So if they’re believed and handled properly, the text messages … connect the circumstantially forensic evidence to his motive.”

Farwell had repeatedly told Birchmore to delete their text conversations from her phone, Cummings told jurors. They included messages referring to her losing her virginity to him when she was 15, prosecutors say.

After Birchmore’s death, Matthew Farwell said he wiped his phone to delete evidence of his communications with her, his twin brother, William Farwell, testified Tuesday .

But investigators eventually retrieved years of messages from Birchmore’s digital devices, Cummings says.

They included angry messages from Farwell sent about two weeks before Birchmore was found dead. In January of 2021, a friend of Birchmore’s contacted the Stoughton Police Department and reported the sexual relationship with Farwell, according to federal documents. Farwell was outraged when he learned about the call and knew it was only a matter of time before their relationship was exposed, prosecutors said.

He sent her a flurry of messages. “ Dude, your f***ing friend called my job Sandra wtf,” one of them said. Another said, “You also told me that no one knew about us.”

“The defendant knew he had a problem,” Cummings told jurors. “The defendant had to solve this problem. He had to get rid of it.”

The prosecutor also pointed to text messages Birchmore sent a friend days before she died, suggesting they were incriminating evidence of Farwell’s intent. During one of his last visits to her apartment, Birchmore texted the friend that she noticed him inspecting her bedroom closet and bathroom and she thought it was “really weird.”

Her body was found near the same closet.

The thousands of text messages may help the jury see a fuller picture in Birchmore’s case. But there’s also the risk of overwhelming jurors, experts say.

“A large collection of messages can reveal patterns and provide important context,” says Xinwen Fu , professor of computer science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. “However … attorneys must select which conversations to present, creating a risk of selective interpretation and conflicting narratives.”

Context and corroboration with other evidence is key, he says.

Text messages can capture honest emotions, but they can also contain exaggerations that can be misunderstood without context, experts told CNN. During a trial, it comes down to how jurors interpret the texts and how they fit with the rest of the evidence, Fu and other experts said.

“The significance of 40,000 messages lies less in their sheer volume than in whether their content and timing connect reliably with the physical evidence,” says Kyung-shick Choi , director of cybercrime and cybersecurity at Boston University Metropolitan College. “Digital records can help reconstruct a timeline, but establishing what happened ultimately depends on how well the various forms of evidence corroborate one another.”

David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

In Birchmore’s case, Choi adds, the messages could be especially revealing because they offer a glimpse into what she was thinking and experiencing at the time. “Digital communications can be particularly influential when they preserve exact language and timing,” he says.

But the messages have their limits. A text expressing despair doesn’t prove someone died by suicide, just as one expressing hope doesn’t rule it out, Choi says. The thousands of messages reveal much about Birchmore’s life and her relationship with Farwell, but they cannot prove to jurors what happened to her, he says.

Prosecutors also pointed to Birchmore’s internet search history to refute the defense’s suggestions that she was suicidal.

Investigators found hundreds of baby-related searches on her phone and computer in the weeks before her death, but none on ways to commit suicide, “or for how someone might kill themselves by hanging from a doorknob while seated on the floor,” Cummings told jurors.

And despite how much of her life Birchmore shared through her texts, there’s one thing prosecutors say she didn’t leave behind.

“There was no suicide note,” Cummings told jurors. “The girl who told everyone everything about her life left no note.”

马修·法威尔想去桑德拉·伯奇莫尔的公寓坐坐。就一会儿。

他发短信问她：“你还没睡吗？过来一下可以吗？”

那是2021年2月1日晚，一场暴风雪席卷了马萨诸塞州东部。伯奇莫尔当时怀孕大约10周，当天大部分时间都待在位于波士顿郊区坎顿的公寓里，为即将成为新手妈妈的生活做准备。她订购了一辆婴儿车，搜索了婴儿房家具，还给朋友发短信询问新生儿连体衣的相关信息。

当法威尔的信息在晚上 9 点 07 分到达时，她毫不犹豫地回复了。

“嗯，你可以过来打个招呼。你还好吗？”她回复道。“你到的时候门是开着的。”

这是她发的最后一条短信。

七分钟后，监控录像拍到法威尔进入了她的公寓楼，检察官称，他在那里待了大约半个小时。三天后，伯奇莫尔被发现死在卧室地板上，脖子上缠着一个帆布包的带子，带子系在衣柜门把手上。当地和州政府认定这位23岁女子的死因是自杀，但她的家人却百思不得其解。

来自桑德拉·伯奇莫尔

联邦检察官后来得出了不同的结论。他们指控法威尔（Farwell）——一位曾在附近斯托顿镇担任警官的男子——杀害了伯奇莫尔（Birchmore）及其未出生的孩子。法威尔拒不不认罪，他的审判已在波士顿的约翰·J·莫克利联邦法院进行到第三周。

据调查人员从伯奇莫尔的手机和笔记本电脑中恢复的短信显示，在她去世前的几年里，她和法威尔互发了约4万条短信。这些短信记录了他们最私密的对话以及两人之间日益紧张的关系，控辩双方律师都利用这些短信来向陪审团佐证各自的案件理论。

检方称，这些信息揭露了法威尔多年来对伯奇莫尔的诱骗和性关系，这段关系始于伯奇莫尔15岁、法威尔27岁时。检方认为，当时已婚的警察法威尔为了阻止伯奇莫尔揭露此事而杀害了她。但辩方则表示，这些信息指向了另一个版本：伯奇莫尔精神不稳定，在法威尔结束这段关系后自杀身亡。

今年早些时候，伯奇莫尔的表妹安吉莉克·皮罗齐告诉 CNN，伯奇莫尔几乎总是手机不离身，而且经常发短信。

“她性格外向，非常重视友谊，”皮罗齐说。“她喜欢分享很多事情——她经常给别人发短信。”

伯奇莫尔去世已超过五年。但她留下的信息——包括检方称她在最后几个小时内发送或接收的 600 条短信——或许能帮助陪审团决定 2021 年那个冬夜究竟发生了什么。

“这听起来就像她从坟墓里跟陪审员们说话一样，”波士顿萨福克大学法学教授克里斯·迪尔伯恩说道。他告诉CNN，即使在数字时代，当局也“极其罕见”地掌握了长达数年的私人信息，详细记录了一段感情的历史。

“只要不过分，这可能成为强有力的证据，”一直关注此案的迪尔伯恩补充道。“他们（检方）想尽可能地制造出强烈的作案动机，因为法医证据并非完美无缺。”

在陪审团听取证人证词或查看任何物证之前，双方都已将短信视为关键证据。

在本月初的开庭陈述中，控辩双方律师共提及这些短信33次，对伯奇莫尔与法威尔的关系各执一词。一周后，一名男性和一名女性联邦调查局探员在法庭上轮流朗读了这些短信。据CNN附属电视台WCVB报道，联邦调查局特工海蒂·凯尔施表示，伯奇莫尔是大部分对话的发起者，而法威尔有时会在手机上屏蔽她。

40岁的法威尔被控杀害证人或受害者，以阻止伯奇莫尔揭露他涉嫌诱骗和性侵未成年人的行为。他还面临第二项指控——与伯奇莫尔怀孕有关——即违反保护未出生儿童的联邦法律。

斯托顿警察局/美联社

法威尔被取消了警察资格，并被禁止在马萨诸塞州从事执法工作。

2020年12月，法威尔和伯奇莫尔之间的紧张关系升级，此前伯奇莫尔告诉法威尔他怀孕了，孩子是他的。检方称，在伯奇莫尔去世前的几周，法威尔一直认为自己是孩子的父亲，而且伯奇莫尔此前曾威胁法威尔，如果他不让她怀孕，她就会公开他们的关系。

但调查人员称，在她去世后进行的DNA检测发现，未出生孩子的父亲并非法威尔，而是一名美国陆军征兵官。据WCVB报道，这名征兵官杰森·皮卡德上周作证称，伯奇莫尔曾告诉他，她认为法威尔是孩子的父亲，而他直到去年才知道孩子是自己的。

亲子鉴定结果已成为法威尔辩护的关键。他的律师指出，伯奇莫尔在一月底曾发短信给皮卡德，说他们需要谈谈。辩方认为，伯奇莫尔的本意是想告诉皮卡德，他很可能是孩子的父亲，而法威尔知道孩子不是他的，这削弱了检方关于他有杀害皮卡德动机的指控。

检察官称，伯奇莫尔和法威尔之间的短信记录了他们对她怀孕截然不同的看法。伯奇莫尔给他发了一张手工海报的照片，海报上装饰着卡通丛林动物，上面写着：“恭喜，我们要当父母了！”

美国检察官办公室

法威尔听起来很不高兴。“你真是这世上最糟糕的人，”他回复短信说。

目前尚不清楚伯奇莫尔是否知道孩子的父亲是谁。但检方表示，她曾告诉过80多人自己怀孕的消息，而且这次怀孕标志着她与法威尔关系的一个转折点。

根据联邦文件显示，伯奇莫尔后来给法威尔发短信列出了她的一些期望：她希望孩子随他的姓，并且希望他能在孩子出生时以及圣诞节和复活节前后几天陪伴在孩子身边。在短信中，法威尔反复告诉她，他更希望当面讨论孩子的事。

据伯奇莫尔的表妹芭芭拉·赖特今年早些时候告诉 CNN，伯奇莫尔在未成年时就开始给法威尔发短信，讲述他们早期的性接触，以此来记录他的行为。

赖特说：“她开始意识到，正在发生的事情完全是错误的，也许她可以为此做些什么。”

当局表示，伯奇莫尔短信语气的变化表明她变得越来越强势，越来越不愿意按照法威尔的意愿行事。

John Tlumacki/《波士顿环球报》/Getty Images

“她不断更改交易条款，不断索要更多，”助理联邦检察官托里·B·卡明斯在开庭陈述中告诉陪审团。“被告对此很不高兴，但他试图安抚她，让她保持沉默。”

但辩方表示，这些短信描绘的是一位在经济和情感上都处于困境的年轻女子，她迫切希望与法威尔生个孩子。

“这将是一段我们共同经历的艰难旅程，”辩护律师金伯利·史蒂文斯在开庭陈述中告诉陪审团。“听到有关精神健康问题、挑战、悲伤、执念、沮丧和自杀的证据，令人难以接受。”

史蒂文斯说，伯奇莫尔在去世前的几天里给法威尔发了一系列信息。1月31日，她发短信说：

“我今天很需要人照顾，而且感觉不太舒服。”

“没关系。我希望晚饭后感觉好些。我只需要吃点东西。”

“今晚我睡觉前能跟你聊一会儿吗？明天下雪前我能给你发个短信吗？”

“我真希望你今晚能陪在我身边。”

史蒂文斯说，短信往来一直持续到 2 月 1 日，直到法威尔提出过来之前不久。

“这让我们得以窥见她当时的精神状态，”史蒂文斯告诉陪审团，暗示伯奇莫尔在独自度过假期且怀有身孕后，处于一种脆弱的状态。“她曾表达过对妊娠风险的担忧。”

法威尔的辩护律师没有质疑短信的真实性，而是指责检方向陪审团展示了“精心挑选”的摘录。

辩方还辩称，在伯奇莫尔公寓发现的法医证据并不支持检方对她死因的描述。史蒂文斯说，伯奇莫尔被发现时，她的衣服上没有撕裂或其他挣扎的痕迹。此外，在她的指甲下也没有发现法威尔的DNA，而且她脖子上的绳索上含有多人的DNA，而不仅仅是法威尔的。

但检方表示，法威尔和伯奇莫尔之间的信息经常提及暴力性行为，包括勒颈，并暗示如果法威尔当晚用手或帆布带勒住她的脖子，她不会怀疑法威尔是想杀了她。

“这些短信确实是他们（检方）掌握的最好的作案动机证据。谋杀案中并不一定需要作案动机，但如果你只有间接证据，除非能确立明确的作案动机，否则很难说服陪审团相信某人做了某事，”萨福克大学法学教授迪尔伯恩说道。“所以，如果这些短信被采信并得到妥善处理，它们就能将间接的法医证据与他的作案动机联系起来。”

卡明斯告诉陪审团，法威尔曾多次要求伯奇莫尔删除手机上的短信记录。检方称，这些短信中包括她15岁时将自己的初夜献给法威尔的内容。

伯奇莫尔去世后，马修·法威尔称他清空了手机，以删除与她通信的证据。他的双胞胎兄弟威廉·法威尔周二作证说。

但卡明斯说，调查人员最终从伯奇莫尔的电子设备中恢复了多年的信息。

其中包括法威尔在伯奇莫尔被发现死亡前大约两周发出的愤怒信息。根据联邦文件，2021年1月，伯奇莫尔的一位朋友联系了斯托顿警察局，举报了他与法威尔的性关系。检察官称，法威尔得知此事后勃然大怒，他知道他们的关系曝光只是时间问题。

他给她发了一连串信息。“哥们儿，你那该死的朋友居然打电话给我工作单位，叫我桑德拉，搞什么鬼？”其中一条说。另一条说：“你还跟我说过没人知道我们的事呢。”

“被告知道自己有问题，”卡明斯告诉陪审团。“被告必须解决这个问题。他必须摆脱它。”

检察官还指出，伯奇莫尔在去世前几天曾给一位朋友发短信，暗示这些短信可以作为法威尔意图的罪证。在法威尔最后一次去她公寓探望期间，伯奇莫尔曾发短信告诉这位朋友，她注意到法威尔在检查她卧室的衣橱和浴室，她觉得“非常奇怪”。

她的尸体在同一个壁橱附近被发现。

专家表示，数千条短信或许能帮助陪审团更全面地了解伯奇莫尔的案件，但也存在让陪审员感到信息过载的风险。

“大量的信息可以揭示模式并提供重要的背景信息，”马萨诸塞大学洛厄尔分校计算机科学教授傅欣文（音译）说。“然而……律师必须选择要展示哪些对话，这会造成选择性解读和叙述相互矛盾的风险。”

他表示，背景信息以及与其他证据的佐证至关重要。

专家告诉CNN，短信可以反映真实的情感，但也可能包含夸张的表达，脱离语境容易被误解。傅和其他专家表示，在审判过程中，关键在于陪审员如何解读短信内容，以及这些内容如何与其他证据相吻合。

“4万条信息的意义不在于其数量之多，而在于其内容和时间是否与物证可靠地吻合，”波士顿大学都市学院网络犯罪与网络安全主任崔京植（Kyung-shick Choi）表示。“数字记录可以帮助重建时间线，但最终确定事件真相取决于各种证据相互印证的程度。”

David L. Ryan/《波士顿环球报》/Getty Images

崔补充说，就伯奇莫尔的案例而言，这些信息可能尤其具有启发意义，因为它们让我们得以窥见她当时的所思所想和所感所受。“如果数字通信能够保留确切的语言和时间，其影响力就会特别大，”他说道。

但这些信息也有其局限性。崔医生说，一条表达绝望的短信并不能证明某人死于自杀，正如一条表达希望的短信也不能排除自杀的可能性一样。他说，成千上万条短信揭示了伯奇莫尔的生活以及她与法威尔的关系，但它们无法向陪审团证明她究竟发生了什么。

检方还指出伯奇莫尔的互联网搜索记录，以反驳辩方关于她有自杀倾向的说法。

调查人员在她去世前的几周里，在她的手机和电脑上发现了数百条与婴儿相关的搜索记录，但没有发现任何关于自杀方法的搜索记录，“也没有发现任何关于如何坐在地板上用门把手上吊自杀的搜索记录，”卡明斯告诉陪审团。

尽管伯奇莫尔通过短信分享了她生活中的许多事情，但检察官表示，有一件事她并没有留下。

“没有遗书，”卡明斯告诉陪审团。“那个把自己的生活经历告诉所有人的女孩，没有留下任何遗书。”