THE family of a pregnant woman found dead in her apartment believe allegations of a police cover-up could hinge on the discovery of a broken necklace that was initially dismissed by investigators.
The federal murder trial of former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell began this week, with prosecutors accusing him of killing 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore and staging her death as a suicide.
Birchmore, who was 10 weeks pregnant, was found dead in her Canton, Massachusetts, apartment on February 1, 2021.
Her death was initially ruled a suicide, but an FBI investigation later led to Farwell being charged with murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
Her devastated family are now praying for justice after a campaign to overturn the suicide ruling and trigger a federal investigation proved successful.
Barbara Wright, Birchmore’s late mother’s cousin, has led that campaign.
She told The U.S. Sun that a potentially crucial piece of evidence was discovered by family friends while cleaning out the apartment.
“That was her favorite necklace,” Wright said. “She got that from her grandmother. She wore it every day. She loved that necklace.
“They were insisting it was a suicide and when my family asked why it was missed out initially, they thought that it was because in suicides, a lot of times at the end they change their minds and maybe she changed her mind, was trying to get the ligature off and pulled it off her own neck.
“I don’t think she would do that. She wouldn’t break that necklace. It meant too much to her.”
According to the FBI indictment documents, Birchmore, who worked as a substitute teacher, habitually wore a thin gold chain with a pink flamingo charm.
Canton Police officers and State Police troopers found her body seated on her bedroom floor, with a US. Army ACU-pattern duffel bag strap tied tightly around her neck and secured to the closet doorknob.
Crime-scene photographs showed the necklace broken, with the chain hanging down the left side of her neck beneath the duffle-bag strap while the charm lay on her right abdomen.
But family members later found the necklace on her bedroom floor while cleaning out her apartment and observed that the chain had broken in the middle rather than at the clasp.
A large clump of Birchmore’s hair was also reportedly embedded in the broken links.
Independent forensic expert Dr. William Smock concluded that the broken chain and entangled hair were physical evidence consistent with a violent struggle during an assault.
Wright said the condition of the necklace, combined with the hair found caught in the links, was difficult for the family to reconcile with the original suicide ruling.
“It shows a sign of a struggle,” Wright added. “The federal prosecutors described the ligature as being painfully entangled in her hair. Nobody does that when there is suicide.
“They don’t painfully entangle a ligature in their own hair. None of it makes sense to me. It doesn’t add up.”
The necklace is one of several physical findings that Smock has cited in challenging the original determination.
The autopsy documented a fracture to the right superior horn of Birchmore’s hyoid bone.
Smock placed particular emphasis on the circumstances in which her body was found: seated on the floor with a ligature around her neck, representing an incomplete hanging in which only part of the body’s weight is applied to the neck.
After reviewing hundreds of seated-hanging cases described in forensic medical literature, Smock said he found no reported examples of a hyoid fracture in a seated woman.
He concluded that the injury was more consistent with manual strangulation or a full-suspension hanging than with a seated suicide.
Additional injuries documented in the autopsy included a distinct imprint on Birchmore’s upper right chest.
According to Smock, the pattern corresponded to a buckle on the strap and indicated that the buckle had been forced downward against her body, producing blunt-force trauma.
Although first responders reportedly found the buckle near her ear, Smock cited the corresponding imprint on the chest as evidence of an injury sustained during the incident.
Autopsy photographs also showed abrasions and areas of missing skin on the lower and lateral portions of Birchmore’s nose.
Smock interpreted the injuries as consistent with a victim struggling to breathe during suffocation.
Taken together, Smock said the broken necklace containing Birchmore’s hair, the hyoid fracture, the chest-buckle imprint and the nasal abrasions supported his conclusion that Birchmore died from asphyxia and that her death was homicide.
His assessment directly contradicted the initial determination of suicide and is expected to feature prominently in the prosecution’s case over the circumstances of Birchmore’s death.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/17120133/sandra-birchmore-matthew-farwell-murder-trial-necklace/
