Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Groomed to Death, The Staged Suicide Murder of Sandra Birchmore

Episode Date: May 3, 2026

Sandra Birchmore, a 23-year-old teacher's aide and instructional assistant,  was found dead in her Canton, Massachusetts, home in February 2021. Sandra was known to many officers of the Stoughton Police department due to her involvement with an Explorer program as a teen. Her death, initially ruled a suicide, became the focus of a federal homicide investigation, leading to the 2024 arrest of former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell, who was charged with her murder. Turns out Sandra had been groomed since age 10. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack update the case with additional forensic evidence that is just now coming to light.  Transcribe Highlights 00:06.64 Introduction - Basic Training 02:29.94 Murder of Sandra Birchmore 05:05.01 Explorer Post is extension of scouting 10:08.64 Sandra was a Teachers-Aide 15:09.02 Suicide investigations 20:16.88 Discovery of body 25:24.73 Sandra excited - 10 weeks pregnant 30:02.03 Death ruling changed after 3 plus years 35:25.69 Investigation revealed others involved  40:05.90 FBI investigation 41:53.69 ConclusionSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. When I was 18 years old, I went to basic training at Fort Leonardwood, Missouri, in the Army. And one of the things that they are just sticklers about is secure. of your property. And the first day I was there, literally. Came from the reception station, went to our company area. I was in third platoon, believe it or not, Delta 5.3, by the way.

I still even remember, remember that. They went around and had a stow our duffel bags where we had been issued everything. And to my great chagrin, as I found out later, I had failed to. to secure my wall locker. And I still had yet to unpack my duffel back. And as I stood at parade rest on that hot, concrete slab out back of the company area, a Cochran jump boot kicked out the screen covering the window.

And a drill sergeant unceremoniously took my duffel bag and threw it out of the third. third-story window. The problem was, was that I had a small box of detergent in the top, and when it hit the ground, there was a large white, poof cloud that went everywhere. Guess what I had to do? I had to wear that duffel bag containing all of my worldly belongings on my back for four straight days. That includes doing PT. I think I lost 25 pounds in the first week I was there and my back really, really hurt. But you guess what I never did again? I never left my wall locker unsecured. Well, the reason I'm telling you that is that the case that we are going

to discuss is in fact a case that we've discussed previously, but now we have more information. And it does involve a duffel bag. It involves what the police are referring to as a strap from a duffel bag, something that I'm kind of familiar with. And it also involves what appeared initially to be a suicide and is now a homicide. I'm talking about the murder of Sandra Birchmore. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body bags. Dave, I've got to tell you a duffel bag, Even though it's got shoulder straps on it is not meant to be a backpack.

It is not designed for that purpose. It is arguably one of the most uncomfortable things. You never can't get the weight right. It's always shifting back. It's meant to get from point A to point B and load your stuff onto a bus or get it onto the plane or whatever it is. I guess if you're in the Navy, they have sea bags. Of course, Marine Corps has duffel bags.

I guess they call them sea bags. And to on load onto a ship if you're going somewhere. Other than that, you're not going up the Appalachian Trail, one of these things on your back. If you do, you're probably a masochist because it is painful. The thing about it, though, when I began to hear about the nature of the strap, which the strap is going to play into what we know now, I got to thinking about this thing digging into my shoulder and into my shoulder blades all those years ago. And Dave, those bags have not changed much. And, you know, as I always say, you know, I went through basic training when dinosaurs are on the earth.

But it's amazing. Some things in the Army just kind of stayed the same. And I was thinking, wow, if they're saying that a strap was used for her to initially, at least as they thought, take her own life, this thing is going to leave some serious indication on the surface of her neck. And brother, how many times have we talked about ligature strangulations? You know, over the low these many years, we've been together. It's going to play a major part in this. Now, the story of Sandra Birchmore is the story of a 23-year-old young lady who had been manipulated by men from a very early age, as early as nine or 10 years old. And these police officers and other people with badges in the area using an explorer post.

Now, I looked this up, Joe, because when we were talking before the show started and we were like, when did she? actually get involved in this explorer post explorers it's an it's in addition to or um beyond scouting it's it's part of scouting america it's part of the boy scout thing but it's an explorer post and explorer posts are work driven uh it's a very specific thing a profession uh and in this case it was law enforcement as a career and it gives young people a chance to learn things about this particular field that you don't learn unless you're there and you're being trained by real working police officers. And that's why I had to look it up, Joe. And I found out that Sandra Birchmore, she was around the Explorer Post.

And this is all up in the Boston area. And the reason this has really caught a lot of our attention is because of the case of Karen Reed. Some of the same people in this case were involved in the Karen Reed case. and when you look at Sandra Birchmore and at 9 and 10 years old somehow wheeling her way into this Explorer post, well, here's how it works, Joe. Explorer is 14 and up. But if it's an Explorer Club, it's 10 to 14. Oh, Lord.

So, yeah. And that's how she got in at an early age. That's why she was legitimately in the Explorer Club at 10 years old. Now, the reason that's important is because we believe that she was targeted that early by men who traded this girl from one to another. From the time she was looking up to them as law enforcement professionals, men with a badge and a gun, upholding justice. These are superheroes to kids that are 10 and 11 years old. And Sandra Birchmore looked at him that way, Joe. and they took advantage.

Can I say one more thing here that you're alluding to? Now, I don't know, I don't know if this plays into it. But, you know, I'm reading over, you know, we've got these Canton Police Department reports, you know, in front of us and whatnot. And I was reading over it when she initially kind of dropped in to this environment, Dave, and this is really chilling to me. When she initially dropped into this environment, you had alluded to the fact that she was very young. Well, she actually began to participate in something when she's nine years old. Right.

It was a 14-week program called a strengthening program. And Dave, that was for what were noted to be high-risk families. Now, just let me throw this out there to you. And you know better than I do because you've counseled a lot of people. Probably some of the most vulnerable people that are out there, particularly among the population of kids, are those individuals that are looking. They are desperately searching for a father figure, for somebody that can give them security. And, dude, they're willing. unbeknownst to them, they're victims here.

They're willing to trade just about anything for that, just that connectivity. And I think that predators, they're like sharks in the water when blood is, you know, when the water's chummed, if you will, it just automatically, you know, they begin circling at that point. I'm really wondering if that's part of the progression here. I believe it is on this one. Sandra Birchmore, when she was found dead in her apartment at 23, it was originally ruled a suicide. She was 12 weeks pregnant? 10 weeks pregnant. I think 10 weeks pregnant.

Yeah, yeah. She was 10 weeks pregnant at the time. She knew she was pregnant. She had told her friends. And she told the person she thought was the father that she was pregnant. And when I, Joe had sent some stuff earlier today that I was kind of unaware of the scene. Can you set the scene for us, Joe, as to when Sandra Birchmore at 23 years old and 10 weeks pregnant, how she was found and why they believed it was a suicide at first or how they could not necessarily believe, but how they could write it up as a suicide? Well, first off, understand that when the police rolled in to the scene, this thing started out as a welfare check.

And we also have to keep in mind that Sandra was working as a teacher's aide at this point in time. So that's, you know, one of the first alarm bells many times it goes off when you're, when one of these investigations initiates is, you know, they haven't shown up for work. Okay. And buddy, let me tell you something. This comes from the husband of a retired public school teacher. If Kimmy wasn't at work, they're going to start making phone calls. They're going to reach out. You know, they want to know where the teacher is.

because they have to have somebody to manage classrooms. And God bless teachers aides, I tell you what, parapros, they do a job that you couldn't chase me fast enough to give me that job. It is very, very hard for very little money. If you think teachers get paid very little, oh, my Lord, paraproes get paid even less. But that's the job that she had. And she hasn't shown up for work, Dave. Hasn't shown up in a while.

And so they contact in-house, if I'm not mistaken, they've contacted the SRO, which is the school resource officer. What a shame. You know, nowadays we have to have SROs in every school, it seems like, because of the danger, you know, that exists there. And, you know, it starts, that starts kind of the dominoes, you know, kind of falling at this point in time. So when they go out on this welfare check at this apartment complex, you know, the first police officer that has eyes on, you know, when they roll through the door, they note that the apartment is not well kept. It appears kind of messy, if you will. And they're going through and they're checking when they walk in, Dave, to her bedroom. into Sandra's bedroom, they find her essentially seated on the floor.

She has got a literature, which to them initially in the initial report, it's referred to as a scarf, but it's later found out that this is referred to as a strap, huge difference between the two. And Dave, I'll put to you this way based upon what the officer is saying. from this initial report, she's got evidence of decompositional features here. Already. Yeah, already. Yeah, she's got significant discoloration. And I would imagine probably with a ligature around her neck.

And this ligature is actually secured to the actual handle of the door. It's a closet door. And she's seated there. famously might remember one of the most high-profile suicides in our country involved same situation. And that's Robin Williams. You know, he's found, you know, and secure to a door. Guess who else? I think it was one of the Kerrardine brothers as well.

I think that may have been an autoerotic case. But still, it's not like this is something new under the sun. And one of the things, and interestingly enough, I was just teaching about this at Jack State. We were, I even mentioned in a very recent episode that we laid down about asphyxial deaths. Many people are under the impression that in order to hang oneself, you have to be totally suspended. And people are shocked when I tell them that a significant number of people that take their own life through a literature, suspension, Dave, they're not totally suspended. They will sit down with a secured ligature around their neck and people will say, well, how in the world do they do this?

Because how easy would it be just to push? It's not like you're suspended in the air and your feet are dangling. Okay. Well, I always say that it's taking one's life is almost like getting the courage to jump off of a jump off of a cliff into a lake sometimes people just do it and when they get to that point no one really knows when they get to the point and they have a way to manifest this they'll do it

and gradually you become absent an oxygen supply to your brain and you will in fact go to sleep and not in a good way The oxygen supply is shut down. The brain is starving.

And many times you'll see it's followed by a brief seizure. You'll see the thumbs turn in many times. I've seen some of these suspension hangings where people videotaped themselves. You'll see that. But they'll never reach up. They'll never reach up to grasp it, to grasp the ligature. But yeah. Videotaping themselves?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've had a number over the course. my career, I've had several people that videotaped themselves. Is it to show? Yeah. I don't get it. Oh, the reason they do it is it's a, it has shock value to it. There's, we ought to do.

Yeah, I'm shocked. But yeah, I know, we ought to do an entire, yeah, we ought to do an entire, I teach an an entire section on suicide investigation, which in and of itself is a very specific discipline. Because we work in my world, we work more suicides than we do homicides. Even though we work all the homicides, suicides generally outnumber homicide. You just never hear about it unless, of course, it's a caridine or it's Robin Williams or something like that. So people are shocked. And in Sandra's case, I think that many people are shocked that, you know, well, they should have known something from the beginning.

You know, she's not suspended in the air. Not everybody suspends himself in the air. You don't always get that. And so, you know, when people hear that, they can't really make sense of it. They don't understand how that actually happens, but it does. You know, the thing about it is with this case, Dave, I think we're initially, and this happens a lot, we're actually being asked, do we believe what our lying eyes are telling us? So, holy smokes, Dave.

I'm not going to say that this is necessarily revelatory because in the Sandra Birchmore case, there has been somebody that has been charged. As a matter of fact, I think that charges were set forth back in 2024. An arrest was affected. But there's more to this. But I think that it would be really good reflectively for our friends to kind of understand, you know, how all this kind of started. when we were talking about it, I was remembering when I was prepping it before and the information that we had, you know? And what we have now is even more.

I'll give you just to give you guys an idea of why. In the 19 months since this case was first brought to light and first charged with Matthew Farwell being charged, the DA says, we've got so much more evidence now. And a lot of it goes back to that strap that you began the show talking about, that duffel bag strap. At first, the officer on the scene that saw, he actually thought it was like a scarf. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I asked you about that. And you said, well, yeah, he wouldn't have touched her. I mean, he would have known she's dead.

Don't touch anything, right? Yeah, let me interject real quick. And then I'll let you hop back on. I just want everybody to know she was not taken down by that police officer. her because this is why I think this guy's been trained well because he can see obvious signs of decomposition, but they did roll the ambulance out there. I'd say early signs of decomposition from my perspective. He didn't touch her, but they had to have many places dependent upon the jurisdiction. You have to have confirmation from a medical professional to come out to the scene

and say specifically that this person is in fact no more. And then they would have backed off. And you would be surprised, Dave, at even I've had cases with advanced decomposition, with hanging cases. For whatever reason, I've had firefighters, police officers, and EMTs break out their spotter cone knife, flip it out, the one they carry in their pocket and cut them down. And that just makes our job doubly hard because there's these very specific measurements we have to take. So in this case, that did not, in fact, happen, which is. And that's a good thing.

It is a good thing because you get a relational perspective from a forensic perspective because the one thing you always check is a distance from the securing knot to, on the, well, Rex Heerman reference here, the hard point, which in this case would be the door handle, to where it is secured with the noose. You need that. And so if you can get that in real time and take that measurement and photograph it, that's worth gold. And if you have a total suspension hand, hanging we do from the knot where it's secured to the heels okay and then we do from the knot where it's the noose is secured on the back of the neck or on the front I've had them on the front too to the heels and you get that measurement relationship okay so I'm sorry I didn't mean to

step on you but I just wanted everybody to understand that that was my whole point I wanted you to be able to explain that because this is something that a lot of us don't understand Joe what you have done for your adult life a lot of us have either followed or reported on. But I've never walked into that situation. And in this particular case, I went back and pulled exactly what the officer said. And this is what the description, the police report, this is the Canton Police Report on Sandra Birchmore.

And when they got to the house about the call originating as a welfare check, or well-being check. But Officer Kotard and I entered the dwelling and observed two cats in the apartment and noticed the conditions were cluttered and unkept and noticed the bedroom door was closed. Officer Kotard opened the door and we observed a young female in a seated position on the floor with a scarf around her neck and tightly affixed to the closet door handle due to the discolourization in skin, blue, and lividity, and appeared that the female had been there for a long period of time. Sergeant Mike Lank, ship supervisor, radioed to secure the,

the scene immediately? While en route to the residence, Sergeant Lang directed us to secure the scene in Norfolk County DA's office and notified and advised that they would be responding to the residents. Next, Sergeant Lank and Detective Jonathan McCourt arrived a short time later, and Officer Brady, Officer Cotard and I stayed outside the apartment, and Sergeant Lank and Detective McCourt entered the apartment in an attempt to gather information and proper identification of the victim. Now, they rolled EMS, as you said they would. Yeah. And Sergeant Lank requested Canton Fire EMS to respond to our location.

A firefighter paramedic Daniel Whitley arrived and pronounced Sandra Birchmore deceased at 1146 a.m. No life-saving measures were taken at that time. The reason this is so important to me is you have tried to tell us what happens at a scene. But oftentimes it's from the standpoint of what was done wrong. You know, because we got a problem with a case and here's where it began. In this case, even though it looked and was reported at as a suicide, Joe, because of the way it was handled at the very beginning, these officers were able, the investigation was able to determine, hey, man, this is not what it appeared to be because of the way they dealt with it. Yeah, let me put this little hook in your brain as well. Oh, no.

When you're working a so-called suicide from my just this is my perspective. This is what I tell my students. I do not work a suicide as a suicide. I literally try to disprove the suicide in my mind. And I'm doing two things at once, trying to disprove the suicide and trying to prove homicide. Because, again, I know I'm beating this dead horse. I talk about it a lot. Every death is a homicide until proven otherwise.

So it is a process of elimination. Is there anything here that is not ticking the box from me relative to a suicide? Is there anything suspicious here? Are there any other possibilities or probabilities? Or what is the probability, rather, I misspoke there. So that it could be something else. Dave, I got to tell you, brother, when I hear about this case and you had mentioned the O'Keefe case, I refuse to call it by that other person's name, it is the old.

Keith case because he's the one that's dead. Right. When you think about, no, no, it's not on you. It's just that's the way it works. It's just like Rex Heuerman. We won't hear about the victims. We'll always hear about Heurman. All right.

Yeah. So when in this particular case, in this particular case, I'm just, I'm thinking, were these associations known prior to them stepping onto the scene? because it's that kind of information that can influence your investigation relative to how you're going to handle the scene, who you're going to contact. Because brother, I've got to tell you something.

In all of the cases I've ever worked, and you're calling it a suicide, I don't ever recall a single suicide I ever worked where the own call district attorney's office was contacted. That's a big thing. reveal for me because when you reach out to a prosecutor's office if you're in it feels like something is trying to be sold here all right and the prospective buyers ain't buying so they're like okay well i think i think this requires a bit more of a of a a bit of a a bit of depth here we need to

explore this a little bit more and kind of lay out all the possibilities you know as to I don't know, what may have happened, what could explain some of this stuff, what's the histrionics here? Because, you know, in the medical legal world, even, you know, we're going to go, if we have someone that's taken their own life, I'm going to go interview the family as painful as it is and it is very, very painful. I'm going to talk to the family extensively. I want to get medical history. I want to get psychological history. And granted, we've got a young woman who's working as a teacher's aide, living in an apartment. she doesn't have another person in her life that is helping her get by,

and she's 10 weeks pregnant. Okay, I can see how that would be burdensome. But Dave, all indications were she had signed up for birth registries. She was really excited about buying baby stuff. Do you remember that? I remember finding out when we were pregnant and how excited I was to do stuff. I don't know if I've ever been more motivated in my life. And that's a very exciting time.

And yet you're going to say that she's going to take her life. I don't think the police were buying it, brother, what say you? Well, they were all talking, too. You kind of remember, Joe. The going back to Sandra Birchmore, she had been involved around the police department for 10 years from even before, you know, she could be in the Explorer post. The same post where all of these police were involved. you know, we've got a number of law enforcement professionals, supposedly, from the Canton, Boston area, okay, who participated in that Explorer program that she was a part of. And as you mentioned, from nine and 10 years old, she was involved in a club and other things that got her right in the niche with these same people who are now wildly being talked about internally.

What happened is the law enforcement was hearing a lot of stuff. People talk, okay? nothing hidden won't be revealed, but when you're dealing with cops, they all talk. Oh, yeah. They're worse than a knitting circle. Yes, they are. And because, you know what, they're not all dirty.

They're not all bad. And they don't like the dirty and bad ones. And I was going to roll over on them. But when they saw this happen, I'm talking about the police, men, women, those associated with the police department, Joe, you're not going to convince me that somebody in there's, I knew that was going on. I knew they were doing this.

because there was just too much talk. As a matter of fact, two weeks before this happened, a guy called up and said, hey, this pregnant girl is pregnant by this married guy, this married cop who has kids, and, you know, he's ditching her. He's not talking. He's ghosting her or whatever. You know, that call came in to the police department. Everybody knew right then two weeks before she's dead.

So you mentioned the registries. You know, she's registering for children's stuff. She's excited about it. She's telling all of her friends. She's excited about this. She was happy to be pregnant, Joe. And I think that's the part that really started that the investigation began internally because the O'Keefe case was being bandied about. Oh, yeah.

And they knew they had problems there. There were way too many of the police officers involved in negative incidents so that they, I'm talking about the upper levels of law enforcement said, okay, guys, we're going to have to shut ourselves down and have an investigation done. And you know what? If you got a dirty guy in here, he's going down because we can't handle this on our own. We can't investigate ourselves on this. This is already too far gone.

Yeah, well, good on them for doing that and for seeing that. You know, these individuals, you've got several jurisdictions that are involved here. Obviously, the Canton Police. you've got the Stoughton police that are involved I forgot that was the name I was trying to think of the Stoughton police Yeah and then of course

You got the state police Okay they're all involved in this And so yeah it's a You know when you think about it and Ringing up the DA You know you want that That voice whispering In your ear

And if you think cops are bad to talk Get a bunch of lawyers together As well And And because even more than cops, lawyers and prosecutors, now here's a big revelatory moment that none of you might not see coming. I'm being facetious. Yes. Prosecutors in particular are political animals.

And it's because of that that I think that you would be overly attune to this, to this particular case. It's very unfortunate, though, that it seems as though. People were not overly attuned to this prior to Sandra's death. You know, Brother Dave, I've got to tell you one of the most striking things about Sandra's case is the fact that you've got this huge amount of time that elapsed. We're talking 2021 to 2024. February 2021 to June 2024. That's how long it took from the investigation phase calling it a suicide. And we already went through description of what they walked into.

And you pointed out from the very beginning they were calling the DA before anything. I mean, they're calling paramedics and the DA at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I can't imagine in what universe, unless they have some kind of weird SOP that I'm not aware of, why are you going to call the DA from Jump Street? You know, that gives me an indication because I've been, for folks that don't know, just so you understand this bit,

the DA generally has a junior ADA. If you ever hear the term ADA, it's an acronym for assistant district attorney, and yes, there are levels to these people. So if you got somebody that's right out of law school, and they've come to work for the ADA, they're going to be on call. All right.

So when you get into the higher echelon, it's just like anything else, you're not going to be on call. So they would have somebody on call that if the police were out of the scene, they would contact the DA or the prosecutor's office, and one of these junior ADAs would roll out. And they would stand by.

And they could literally be on the scene talking to the cops, to say advising them legally, okay, this is what you need to do, this is what you don't need to do. Why do you need an ADA to advise on a suicide? Suicide is not a ruling that cops make, okay? Contrary to what you hear, some reporter say, well, the police ruled this as a suicide. No, they didn't. The medical examiner, the coroner is the person that makes that ruling. So the medical examiner made the ruling of suicide, okay?

and most of the time police will go with that ruling, or they'll go with a homicide ruling. You know, there's one month. I wonder if there's more, I wonder if there's something here we're not seeing. I think it was the fact that everybody in the department knew who this young woman was. They all knew Sandra Birchmore. She had been involved in their Explorer post and had been around the police department and around all of these badges for over 10 years.

From all of her teen years were spent around these. police officers. And by the way, Matthew Farwell, 38-year-old police officer that was arrested, well, you know, his twin brother was also a police officer and was also involved with Sandra Birchmore. So it wasn't just people in the community. It wasn't just her certain friends or what have you. It was everybody in the department knew that Sandra Birchmore was involved inappropriately. Yeah. Hey, just one more person that needs to be mentioned here as a former soldier. I'm going to go ahead and say this, an army recruiter. Because she was trying to get at one point in time to the point where she, she wanted to be a cop, right? She was trying to get to the

point where she would do better on the civil service exam. If you have veteran points, okay, like if you can say you're a veteran or that you've served, when you go in to take the test, that elevates you above the rest of the crowd, right? It makes you stand out. And so you had an army recruiter that had knowledge of all these behaviors allegedly that were going on. And this individual's connected to all of this. And you talk about getting yourself between a rock and a hard place with Uncle Sam. You know, this is kicked up to with an Army recruiter. This is kicked up to a federal level. I really wonder if Army CID didn't get involved in this. Obviously, the feds are involved with it. That's what I was going to tell you. It was a federal investigation. As soon as this

started the, as soon as the independent investigation, when they realized when they being the law enforcement, the department, the Stoughton Police Department realized this goes beyond us, we've got an internal problem here. So they immediately went out. They already knew with the O'Keefe situation that we've got a problem in our department, and they went outside pretty quick. But that's why it took time. And we've talked about this before on why some investigations take more time than others. And in this particular case, you had something that seemed very obvious to everybody involved as to what had transpired with Sandra Bermar. But that's not the case. And when they opened the door to the investigation, Birchmore, I said Bermore, I apologize.

But when they got into the investigation, Joe, it became a federal investigation. And that's who found the evidence that she was not a suicide. She was a homicide. And that's why former Stouten police officers. Sir Matthew Farwell was arrested. But again, friends, she was initially found in February 2021. The investigation goes on over three years. They investigated this in such a way that it's not just Farwell.

Right now he's the only one charged, you know, right now. But there will be more because anybody with a gun and a badge up there seems to be in trouble. Yeah, I mean, yeah, and that's the way. And I think that the people are trying to, I don't know, I think that folks are beginning to understand that the region up there has got some issues and they're trying to pull herself out of the proverbial ditch here. Here's one more thing about this strap. I want to go back to real quick.

Farwell, the one that is charged, not his twin, this guy, and they refer to him as a decorated Army vet, which means I think he was in the reserves. He's been spun up. He has been deployed. Now, I don't know what decorations he has. I don't think he's Audie Murphy. But they refer to him in reports as being decorated, all right?

Well, I know that when you go through basic training, your issued a duffel bag. But here's the thing. Most duffel bag straps, the ones that I'm aware of that you get issued are not detachable. One end is sewn in. Now there are aftermarket things that you can buy that make it a single strap

where you can hook it onto one hook and hook it somewhere else. I'm just wondering, I'm very curious. I'll be very, very curious to see this if it ever makes it into the light of day what this strap actually looked like. I also want to know when they removed her from the scene, and that would have been the M.E.'s personnel. By the way, little known fact, did you know that the state of Massachusetts is where the actual term medical examiner was first used?

And that was in the 1870s. They still had coroners, but they brought in a medical examiner to confer with the elected corner. So just a little, and now they have a state medical examiner up there. That's what they use. So the state medical examiner's office would have come in, removed her and taken her. I wonder if they took the strap off of her before they left the scene or if they left it in place.

I'm hoping they left it in place and just untied the securing knot up at, you know, on the door handle, left it in place and that way they could bring it in. But they secured it enough, Dave. I think they were able to collect trace evidence from it, correct? They got DNA from Farwell on the strap. They got DNA from Farwell, the arrested Farwell. Matthew. And Joe, there's another side of this that, you know, we've got DNA putting him there at the scene.

There's even more DNA in her panties. But Joe, Matthew Farwell was actually captured on security camera. Yeah. As he's leaving Birchmore, leaving her apartment. And his clothing is crystal clear what he's wearing and everything else. And then see, his wife was giving birth to their third child, I believe. And Matthew Farwell, in the same clothes he has seen leaving. Sandra Burchmore's house arrives at the hospital to hold his new baby in the same clothing.

I know. And there is that chill. Same day. Chilling photograph. To me, it's quite chilling. I urge anybody, if you haven't seen this image, I threw up in my mouth when you made me look at it. It'll make your blood run cold because he's standing there with a surgical mask on

and you can see his eyes and he is holding this precious little newborn baby and he's staring right into the camera. And Dave, what the authorities are saying at this point in time, it had been just within hours according to what they are saying that he had taken. Sandra's life. But yet here he owes. Yeah. She's pregnant.

And the thing about it is it turns out the baby who he's also being held responsible for, according to authorities, he's been charged with that death. It's not his. This is somebody else's. He thought it was. Yeah. He thought it was at the time. And he's sitting there and he's holding this newborn and he's staring right over his mask. and looking into the lens of the camera.

I got to tell you, the FBI has done Yeoman's work in this case because, first off, as the FBI does many times, they have kept their mouth shut. Now, I guess FBI agents talk amongst themselves. I'm sure they do. They're all human. However, we haven't heard anything from them to this point. It's being reported now that, you know,

you had mentioned earlier, Dave. What was it? What was the quote you said? It was like, there's so much more. Well, we know what so much more is now because now you have at a molecular level, you have connectivity between the accused and actually this strap that has been weaponized to rob the world of Sandra Birchmore's presence, never to be seen again. And oh, by the by, her child that was a murder victim as well. Look, this is the second episode we have done on Sandra. And I can tell you, there will be more because I got to tell you, I'm truly vested in this case, more so than before. I want to see how all of this plays out.

I want to know about the evidence. Let me add the tip on what our next thing is going to be on this. Please. Matthew Farwell is the only one arrested right now and the only one charged, but the investigation determined. Other men were also involved in abusing Birchmore, including the town dog catcher, Farwell's twin brother William, their friend and mentor, Robert Devine, also a police officer, Birchmore's army recruiter and the Animal Control Officer from Stoughton, forced to give up his badge after details about his inappropriate actions with Birchmore.

We're made public. There you go. That's our next show when those charges come down. And the beat goes on. I don't know. You know, as we always say here on Bodybacks, you know, you think that the house of depravity truly has a basement. It really doesn't.

It just keeps going deeper and deeper. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Bodybacks. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.