Birchmore joined a Stoughton police youth program when she was 12 in March 2010 and remained in the program until 2016, according to the indictment. Farwell was an instructor, and they began having sex before Birchmore had “attained the age of 16 years old,” the indictment alleged. The age of consent in Massachusetts is 16.
Advertisem*nt
A desire to have a child
In October 2020, Birchmore told Farwell she wanted a child, according to court records. He agreed to “try to impregnate” her in exchange for her silence about his statutory rape and extramarital affair, prosecutors wrote. That December, she told Farwell she was pregnant with his child.
“Farwell responded poorly,” prosecutors wrote. “He became physically violent with Birchmore. She told multiple friends that Farwell had pushed and shoved her, grabbed objects from her hands, and put her in a chokehold.”
A call to Stoughton police
On Jan. 20, 2021, Farwell angrily told a fellow police department employee not to tell anyone else about a call the colleague had received about Farwell and Birchmore’s relationship, prosecutors wrote. Farwell then began “frantically” texting Birchmore.
“Within days of the foregoing text messages, Farwell was asking Birchmore to give him a key to her apartment but to keep it secret,” prosecutors wrote. “Within days, he was scoping out her closets and bathrooms. And within 12 days, Birchmore was dead.”
An alleged plan for murder
On Jan. 24, 2021, Farwell asked Birchmore for a key to her apartment, despite previously being reluctant to take possession of a spare since it would show proof of their relationship, prosecutors said. Two days later, he began “casing Birchmore’s apartment, the future crime scene, searching for places to carry out the murder,” prosecutors wrote. “He inspected her bathroom and closet, places where items could be hung. His behavior was strange enough that Birchmore told multiple friends that she was concerned.”
Advertisem*nt
Farwell allegedly entered Birchmore’s apartment to kill her on Feb. 1, 2021, while wearing a face mask, despite his “well-known” resistance to COVID-19 masking mandates. “Within minutes of silencing Birchmore, video surveillance footage shows him leaving her apartment,” prosecutors wrote.
A doctor’s findings indicate homicide
Prosecutors said Farwell staged the crime scene to make it appear as if Birchmore had hanged herself. But Dr. William Smock, a forensic specialist, concluded her death was a homicide, although police had found her in a seated position with a strap around her neck and door knob.
According to his online biography, Smock directs the clinical forensic medical program at the Louisville Metro Police Department in Kentucky. He also testified during the trial of George Floyd’s killer in Minnesota, according to published reports.
“Dr. Smock cited Birchmore’s hyoid bone fracture, the pattern imprint injury on her chest, abrasions on her nose, and the broken necklace, among other evidence, that led him to conclude with a reasonable degree of medical and scientific certainty that Birchmore’s death was a homicide,” prosecutors wrote. “These specific injuries and evidence are consistent with Farwell suffocating Birchmore by strangulation, and then hanging her lifeless body from her closet doorknob — which he had inspected days earlier — to make it appear as if she took her own life.”
The state medical examiner’s office in May 2021 determined her death was a suicide. But this June, Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Birchmore’s estate, wrote in a report that she was a homicide victim who died by strangulation.
Advertisem*nt
Farwell has told investigators he went to Birchmore’s apartment to end their relationship and told her that he didn’t father her unborn child, according to a State Police report. Farwell said Birchmore was standing in her kitchen when he left the apartment, the report said. He has repeatedly denied any criminal wrongdoing.
Compromising texts, Google searches
After Birchmore’s death, Farwell gave police limited consent to search his personal cellphone, but on Feb. 9, 2021, he used his work cellphone to make and delete two Google searches, one of which said, “can delete [sic] imessage be recovered hy [sic] cellebrite,” while the second one said, “can you revoke consent in massachusetts,” prosecutors said.
Cellebrite is a mobile forensics company.
Earlier text messages from Farwell provided graphic details of his relationship with Birchmore, according to prosecutors.
In February 2019, Farwell and Birchmore exchanged texts about “her virginity and he acknowledged that it was ‘a big thing to get to be the first.’ In March 2019, the defendant asked Birchmore, ‘what would you have done if we never used a condom and I never pulled out ...’ Birchmore reassured Farwell that she ‘wouldve still finished school :)’”
In another text, Farwell recounted the first time he and Birchmore were intimate, prosecutors said.
“Farwell sent a text indicating he would have liked to have sex with Birchmore when she was even younger, saying, ‘You should’ve told me we could’ve [expletive] so much sooner,’” prosecutors said. “After sending that text, Farwell quickly instructed Birchmore, ‘Clear that out part out baby,’ and when she confirmed that she did so, he texted ‘Good girl.’”
Other texts point to Farwell’s alleged physical abuse of Birchmore, prosecutors wrote.
Advertisem*nt
“On at least 20 occasions in just the year before her death, Farwell sent Birchmore text messages stating that he would grab her throat, pin her down by her throat, squeeze her throat, or choke her during sexual activity,” prosecutors wrote. “For example, less than four months before her death, Farwell told Birchmore that during their next sexual encounter, he was going to ‘grab [her] throat.’”
Troubling images on Farwell’s phone
Prosecutors said investigators found images on Farwell’s iCloud account that refer to domestic and sexual violence.
They included several memes, such as one “glorifying a person who kills and sexually abuses someone who ‘no one will miss.’”
Effort to track Birchmore
As early as 2013, Farwell framed his sexual violence as punishment, prosecutors said.
“The evidence indicates that the defendant used violent sex acts to punish Birchmore for getting bad grades, lying to him, or being sexually active with other people,” the motion said. “The evidence indicates that Farwell’s efforts to control Birchmore also included directing her to use her phone to share her location with him and admonishing her when she failed to do so.”
Birchmore’s initial disclosures of her pregnancy to Farwell
Prosecutors said Birchmore informed Farwell via text on Dec. 28, 2020, that she was pregnant.
“Farwell’s immediate response to Birchmore’s disclosure about the pregnancy was, ‘I literally have nothing to say right now how could you express that in text when I said I don’t appreciate it,’” prosecutors wrote.
Birchmore also texted him that “you need to be there during labor for me too.” He later called her “truly the worst person on the face of the earth,” prosecutors wrote.
Farwell allegedly expresses no sadness over Birchmore’s death
After Farwell was placed on leave, he met a co-worker at a bar, prosecutors said. He told the colleague “that he had a sexual relationship with Birchmore” but “at no point during that conversation” expressed “any sadness, grief, or remorse” about her death. Farwell told the colleague he was angry with the State Police “for looking into him.”
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.
