Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: The Betrayal of Sandra Birchmore

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Lester Holt sits down with Andrea Canning to talk about her episode, The Betrayal of Sandra Birchmore. In 2021, a young teacher’s aide named Sandra Birchmore was found dead in her bedroom in what appeared to be a suicide. The news perplexed her family, who wondered if Sandra’s relationship with a married police officer could have something to do with her death. Lester and Andrea unpack how Sandra’s death led a local chief of police to investigate her own officers — and blow the whistle on their alleged misconduct. Plus, they answer viewers’ questions.Have a question for Talking Dateline? DM us @DatelineNBC or leave a voicemail at [phone]. Your message might be featured in an upcoming episode.Listen to the full episode of The Betrayal of Sandra Birchmore on Apple: https://apple.co/46yRGynListen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1x6by4vR31XrbR1FKpA35DTo learn more about Dateline LIVE in Nashville on Sept. 28, and to get tickets, go here: https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline-event Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, everybody. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Talking Dateline. Today we have Andrea Canning on to talk about her latest episode, The Betrayal of Sandra Birchmore. Good to have you here, Andrea. Thank you. Good to be here, Lester. If you haven't seen the episode, you can catch it on the Dateline podcast feed. Go there, give it a listen, and then come right back here. To recap the story before we get into discussion, it was early 2021, 23-year-old teacher's assistant Sandra Birchmore, didn't show up to school after a nor-eastern. a major snowstorm had come through. She was found dead in her bedroom and what appeared to be a suicide, but that didn't add up for people who knew her or loved ones. An incredible tale, Andrea,

it looks like one that took a little bit of emotional toll on you at times. Oh, absolutely, Lester. I mean, we're dealing with such a young woman here, and this all started, you know, according to law enforcement when she was a teenager. You know, she, her mother, who, suffered. Her mother had health issues. She's passed away. She was raising Sandra, by all accounts, you know, by herself. She had some help from the grandparents. But she wanted to give Sandra an only

child, you know, a good life. And she wanted to make sure that she had the support. And, you know, so not only did she do martial arts, but she also enrolled her in the Stoughton Police Explorers program. And, you know, she thought that this was going to be a great thing for her daughter. Yeah, a place where she'd be around responsible adults in theory. Exactly. And these explorer programs are all over the country. You know, so this was designed to help kids. And also it really motivated Sandra to want to be in law enforcement, you know, or the military.

So it's just, you know, according to Chief McNamara from the Stoughton Police Department, everything went so wrong, you know, because who she was exposed to in this program. I also thought it really interesting learning more about Sandra, and you talk about how young she is. At one point, the focus is on her tendency to overshare when she drops the bomb about expecting a baby. At the same time, she was rather secretive in other places. Yeah, it was kind of, there was a little irony there, right, with her privacy slash oversharing. I mean, this is a girl who, I say girl, you know, she's a woman, but she definitely had, you know, you know, childlike features. She looked very young, and I think she, at times, sort of maybe acted almost like a girl, right?

Because she was almost naive, maybe. I mean, this is a young woman who went to her boss at school and said, you know, I'm having a baby with a married man. I mean, right in that meeting. Almost inviting everyone to start figuring out who it is. Kind of. And I'm just, I was a psychology major, by the way, in college. I am not a psychologist. maybe just sort of, you know, playing some guessing games here.

But like, I don't know, maybe it was she wanted a baby so badly because, you know, maybe she was sort of missing that family element a little bit. You know, her mom had passed away and she was an only child, as I mentioned. And so I don't know, perhaps, you know, that, you know, having no siblings. I don't know. Maybe this baby was filling some kind of a void. But she was very, very excited about it. It was interesting that, I mean, I think obviously losing anyone to suicide is difficult to accept.

I think we understand that. But in this case, the family was very quick to go, no, no, this isn't her. She would not do this. Someone had to have done this. Yeah. I mean, there were a number of things happening. You know, one was like Sandra the oversharer. You know, they were like, if he broke up with her, she was upset.

She would have told somebody. She was also so excited about the baby that that that. That also didn't make sense to them. And the other thing that happened, too, was there was, after the law enforcement left and some family members were cleaning up the apartment, they found this necklace on the floor. And they said that they went to the police and they said, we found this necklace. And it's like, it's broken. And it looks like, you know, maybe there was a struggle. Like, does this mean anything?

And the police, they said, didn't do anything about it, didn't seem interested. And then when the FBI got this expert on the case, the expert saw the necklace in the crime scene photos on her body. And the flamingo from the necklace was like around her stomach. And then to think that the police would not note that in their report, you know, from all the reports that we've seen, there's no notation of that. Maybe that would be evidence. I mean, it's amazing how the family just kept pushing. and pushing and, you know, why are, why is nothing happening? And they kept getting, well, the response was it's been ruled as suicide. I want to ask you about the medical examiner.

And Dr. Bodden came into this story at the invitation of the aunt, I believe. It's a huge moment because for the first time they hear that she was killed, not a victim of suicide. Yeah. So Dr. Bodden takes a look as he has in thousands of cases. You know, he is very famous. and he is kind of known as the guy you go to if you have an issue like this. And he took one look at it and he said, you know, this is homicide. This is not a suicide. And that videotape was also very telling the surveillance tape of the officer. I mean, really, it was chilling, you know.

I mean, it was COVID time. So the mask made sense. Anyway, he was up there for 29 minutes. You know, everything was just so crucial. like all these details. And this is a man who left that apartment and then ends up at the hospital to deliver his third child. Yeah, that picture was quite chilling, holding the child. And we should point out that this case is not over.

There has not even been a trial yet. No, Matthew Farwell has pled not guilty. And also it has come out that he's apparently not even the father. of the baby. So, you know, so much is centered around, you know, the impending birth of this child that he didn't want this child. And then come to find out that, you know, according to reports, he's not the dad. All right. When we come back, we have an extra clip from Andrea's interview with the police chief, Donna McNamara. I want to get your sense of the police chief Donna McNamara. Obviously, she

figures huge in this case by, you know, going after her own officers. What were your thoughts about her? Yeah. I mean, this weighed very, very heavily on Chief McNamara. I could see it on her face. I mean, this was not something easy for her to talk about at all. And, you know, she really just said, you know, I need to take a look at my department and what's going on here. And she launched that investigation. She hired outside consultants to come in. that's when she, you know, just got all these text messages from Sandra and from Matthew Farwell. And what she found she just described as absolutely disturbing. And I'll tell you, Lester, you know, if this was one of your family members, my goodness, some of those text messages

that I read and the way that she was talked about, like every time I had, I was exposed to them, I just, it just left such a bad, just a dark feeling, you know, and I have five daughters. and, you know, their age of when she started all of this, you know, in the program. And, I mean, if someone ever treated one of my daughters that way, you know, I don't know what I would do. It's just, it's really hard to think about. Yeah, I tell people all the time, you know, we do our jobs and we're not unaffected by the things we cover. And when you look at stories like this through that lens, it leaves you shaken on some level. Everyone who goes through these stories, it's just completely crushing and heartbreaking and

we don't know what they're feeling, you know, but if you do go there and you imagine, what if that was my child? She just went down this rabbit hole and just couldn't believe what she was reading and what she was seeing. And, you know, I think a lot of people were very grateful that she did that and she jumped on it so quickly. Well, Andrew, we have some of Chief McNamara. that didn't make it into the program that I think we can share and talk about. Here it is. This is a lot to unpack. This is one of your detectives that is in a relationship with a woman who's just died, a married detective.

Yes, it's very concerning to me that he would be in a relationship with Sandra Birchmore. And not only that, she's a former member of your Explorer program with the police department. Yes, she is. And she was a young, impressionable young girl. that didn't have the easiest upbringing, and all of those things made me gravely concerned at that point in time. So you're concerned? What's your gut telling you about how this all fits together, if at all?

So I don't know where it fits. It's unusual and it's concerning. So at that point, you know, I made a phone call to my boss, you know, concerned that Matthew Fowal would be in a relationship with Sandra Birchmo is my biggest concern and that she is deceased. I was just so impressed that she came forward, you know, because so many times law enforcement, you know, in situations like this, they just, they don't want to talk, you know, because it's a tough thing and we haven't even had the trial yet.

And, you know, this was her department and, you know, she's at the top, right? and so you could see a chief shying away and saying, you know what, it's an ongoing case or I can't talk to the media right now or, you know, not Chief McNamara. She took it head on. And she, there was, I don't think there was one question I asked her that she did not answer. Yeah, she's a strong lady. And you could almost feel the indignant nature of her response there to what was happening essentially in her department. And, you know, she had known Matthew Farwell for a long time. they had worked together, and also his twin brother, who Chief McNamara said, she discovered that Sandra was with him as well, you know, again, according to the chief,

and then another officer who was also with that Explorers program. And so the chief decided that she was going to release her findings to the public. And at this point, nothing had really been happening with Sandra's death investigation because they had ruled it a suicide. And so when Chief McNamara held this press conference, which, you know, I thought was pretty brave of her to do that, it really opened up a lot of eyes. And some of those eyes that were watching that press conference were from the FBI. Yeah. And I think we were all surprised because I think you set up in the story that the FBI was very, you know, you may not hear from us for a while.

This may take a while with a sense almost like it was being put on a back burner. Clearly it wasn't. Yeah. And Lester, we hear that so many times, right? where like a new law enforcement agency comes on board or whatever and they talk to a family and then the family's like, okay, I'm not, you know, I don't, then they don't hear anything. I kind of like how the FBI in this case said, you might not hear from us for a while. Because usually the family just is kind of in the dark, right? They don't know what's going on. I mean, they were forewarned that

there could be slow, there could be slow movement on this. We, you know, we don't know. But they were thrilled that they were on it. Yeah. What got the FBI so suddenly, well, first we got them involved in the case and then subsequently, you know, making the arrest? I mean, definitely Michael Bodden's report, Dr. Bodden, Chief McNamara, her internal investigation, the family pushing the Boston Globe, you know, media outlets, the podcasters. I mean, I think it was just a culmination of all these things where they finally, you know, just got on it. They have not talked to us at all about this case right now because it's ongoing. And so we don't, you know, have exact confirmation from them. But Chief McNamara thinks that it was a combination of all those things.

I think a lot of us felt sickened by how this poor young girl, young woman was exploited in all this. And we see the sense of betrayal on certain levels. But I think it's worth noting there's also some sense of heroism here. There are those. You mentioned the family that did not let this rest. They kept it out there. And we've seen that more and more as families get involved. Oh, we do.

People get these heroes or these champions, you know, behind them. Yes, absolutely. And the family was not going to give up. You know, and this isn't, I mean, they were just, they were wonderful people. And everything about them was like just with it on the ball, fighting for Sandra. I was really impressed. You know, this is just something. that they were not going to let go. And it paid off, you know, because they got an arrest.

After the break, Andrea, we'll take some of your questions via social media. Okay, Andrea, we talked a few days ago about your episode, The Betrayal of Sandra Birchmore, and it is generated, as you might expect, a lot of questions from our viewers on social media. First one comes from at loves to golf for fun, who writes, did they ever find out who was the father of Sandra's baby? That is such a great question, Lester. And my dad, in fact, just yesterday had the same question. So if they have identified the father, it has not been released.

The other thing that's kind of interesting, too, is, you know, with Matthew Farwell heading to trial eventually, you know, is this something that the defense would try to use? you know, if they find out who the real father is, you know, would they bring that into the trial? I don't know, but you would think a defense attorney might latch on to that. So this is something that will, you know, continue to watch out for in the coming months. Okay. Andrew, you have now covered a few cases in Massachusetts. And we got a question from glam mode who asked, which state tops the list for the most stories featured on your show?

Do we keep track of that? You know, Lester, it's not, there's no official number on that. I can speak somewhat anecdotally. There have been a lot of stories out of Florida, a lot of stories out of Texas, a lot of stories out of California. But I think that's a really good question and maybe something that we should look at at some point. You know, just to, I can also say I have done a ton of stories in upstate New York. Here's one from JJ Artist 74 who writes, what is the one crime that shook you to your core, even to, today. Yeah. I mean, sadly, there's a lot that, you know, that I could list. I think one of them was a story that actually just re-aired not too long ago about a teacher in Texas and Allney, Texas. I went to the prison and I interviewed her killer who confessed, which is unusual because usually when we go into prisons, the, you know, the person who's been convicted, the killer is saying that they did not do it. And here's why.

and I loved her. I loved him. In this case, he said, I did it. And this teacher was, she was stabbed dozens of times, shot in the face as well, and hidden under a bunch of branches taken out to a lake. And him describing the killing for me was a lot. My photographer afterwards said, I need a shower. Like, it was just, it was really tough to hear. And then even a friend who I told about, I told her about it. It had even aired yet, and she said, I was scared when I went to bed last night after you telling me that story. It was a lot. We have a voicemail now question that comes from a viewer, Michaela, a big dateline fan. Here it is.

Hi, my name is Michaela. I've got really big. My question is just when are you guys or if you guys are coming to other cities? It really comes out to be missing. So hopefully you guys are ready for other cities. Thank you. Well, Michaela, you're not alone on that. This is the first time we've done this.

So this may be the birth of something special. I hate to say it, but stay tuned. And Michaela, since you were unable to join us, we would like to personally say thank you to you for watching Dateline and for being such a big fan. And if it goes, well, Lester, I'm sure there could be another one. You know, as you said, stay tuned for that. Finally, M. Lorenzer 21 asked a question.

that I think a lot of viewers will have about this episode. But is there a part two because this isn't finished? It is not finished. As I mentioned, Matthew Farwell still is heading to trial as of now. You know, there could always be a plea agreement. But as of now, trial date has not been set, but we expect one to be set. And also, you know, we want to follow up with all the people we interviewed. Angelique, Sandra's cousin, you know, people like her, we would absolutely like to talk to talk to them again about

this case. And, you know, what we'd love to hear also from the Boston Globe in our second episode on this, they were instrumental along with Angelique in really bringing this case to the forefront and getting eyes on it and keeping the pressure on. And so I know the family is very grateful to the Boston Globe and that, you know, that the reporter on that story is someone we would love to talk to for a part two. So we'll see where things go. And I would definitely say that you can expect one, and we'll see what happens. A lot to learn about that story still. Andrea, thanks very much.

That's going to do it for talking Dateline this week. Remember, if you have any questions about the stories we're covering or Dateline itself reaches 24-7 on social media at Dateline NBC. There's also a number to call. If you have questions for talking Dateline, leave a message for us in a voicemail at 212-413-5-252 and send us a video on socials for a chance to be featured in a future episode. And before we go, the Dateline live event we mentioned in Nashville is coming up very soon.

It's this Sunday, September 28th. I'll be there with the rest of the Dateline crew, and you can still get tickets. Head to Datelinenbc.com slash event. You can also find a link in the description of this episode. We will see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC. Thanks for joining us. You know, You know,

Thank you.