I don't know if this should rise to the level of a warning or not, but just be prepared for the next 20 minutes or so. The only voice you're going to hear is mine. No audio, no interviews, nothing. I'm going to tell you about basically two Fridays, the Friday before and the Friday after Sandra died. Then I'll ask a whole bunch of questions about the investigation into her death that are still bothering me, and there are many, and there are many more that we'll get to as well as the series goes on.
This is sort of life when you're doing something live, an active investigation series It season one As I said in the first episode people were flying in to talk to us about stuff over and over again This one not so much This is work. We're pushing the stone uphill here, and that's okay. I don't mind it. I'm sort of enjoying the process, and sometimes you get episodes like this where I'm just going to talk because people are afraid to go on the record.
A lot of people off the record, a lot of people involved in the investigation, a lot of people, as I said later on in this episode, which you'll hear police officers are very happy privately to tell us what they think the truth is. On the record, not so much. And I understand that. It's not an easy situation. I want you to know this episode is just going to be me talking. So you're going to have to pay it.
Buckle up, fasten your seatbelt, get those pencils sharpened, and pay attention because there's going to be a lot of names and a lot of detail here. These two stories to me are very interesting, these two Fridays. I think they tell a lot. And these questions, which we're going to work hard to answer, I think tell even more. And as I said, for every question I ask, there's probably 30 more I could ask just as easily. We start the episode from the perspective of a co-worker of Sandra's.
It's the middle of a school day on Friday, January 29th, 2021. And in a hallway of East Elementary School, Sandra wants to talk. Here's what the co-worker told us in their words. I didn't know Sandra Birchmore very well. She had recently been hired as a teacher's assistant at the school, but due to different schedules, I hadn't talked to her much until that day. She saw me in the hallway and approached me saying she was pregnant and that the situation was complicated The father of her baby was married with a family as well as a police officer in Stoughton She said early on he told her that he loved her and was going to leave his family for her.
However, now she knew he was never going to do that. She then said she was worried because he was extremely angry when he found out she was pregnant. He told her that wasn't part of the plan. He wanted her to get rid of the baby. Once I could get a word in, I asked how she felt about all of it. She told me she was excited, as well as nervous about being a mom soon. She said she was going to keep the baby, and they would be a little family.
She then said she'd recently purchased baby items such as a car seat. She wanted to be as prepared as she could be. She was going to show him what she got for the baby, though she wasn't sure how he was going to react. The last thing she said to me was that if something should happen to her, he was the one responsible. I immediately asked her about a restraining order or an order of protection, and she said no, that he was too high up and knew too many people and it wasn't going to do any good.
I asked her about talking to the principal or school psychologist or calling a different town's police department, and she said no, that she was sure they would figure things out. I offered to go with her, but she declined. I did report it to the proper people who said they would talk to her and get her the help she needed. I was sick to my stomach when I heard about her death. I really hope justice is done for her and her family.
Okay, here's where things get a little complicated. We have been told that at least one member of the staff at East Elementary went into the office of school principal Darren Reynolds on the afternoon of that Friday, January 29th. 29th. Reynolds was told of what Sandra said about this married Stoughton police officer. And if anything were to happen to her, he would be responsible. This staff member told me she remembers one thing she told Reynolds in particular.
Sandra needs help, and she needs help now. Reynolds then assured the staff member he would take appropriate action, which the staff member thought meant contacting police. We spoke to Sharon Police, and they told us no calls were received from the school on January 29th. Reynolds contacted the Stoughton Police on Thursday, February 4th, to report that Sandra hadn't been in school all week. Phone calls hadn't been answered. There had been zero contact with her. If the principal had been told at all of the conversation Sandra had with staffers that previous Friday and subsequently notified the proper authorities, I would assume there would be a high level of concern if Sandra was absent and not responding to messages or calls, but they waited until Thursday morning.
Put it another way, if Darren Reynolds, the principal of the school, told a co-worker he was afraid for his life on a Friday, does anyone think the school would wait six days to contact the police if he didn't show up for work? We talked to Dara Reynolds a week ago, hoping to discuss the events of January 29th, as well as any thoughts he might have about Sandra. He was polite, a little jittery, and not particularly open to having a conversation.
He did tell us, though, he had no recollection of any staff member telling him of that talk with Sandra, of any concern for her well-being. To put it gently, this deeply angered the staff members we spoke to at the school. Three things stood out to me. One was simply that level of outrage at the denial by Reynolds Second multiple school employees told us that Reynolds tends to put things aside say he get something done and then let it drift away Last the day Sandra body was discovered there was obvious shock and sadness among the faculty at the school.
They met as a group, and counseling was offered. But, according to several sources at the school, Sandra was never mentioned again by Reynolds or school officials. No follow-up on the mental health of teachers, No asking how they were coping with the loss of a co-worker. Nothing. It was, as a staffer told me, like they wanted it to just go away. To be clear, I believe the staffers who told me they allured Reynolds and other school officials about Sandra on that Friday.
Their memories are specific. Details about that day are clear. And look, if Reynolds called the police that day and told them everything, would that mean that Sandra's alive today? There's obviously no way to know that. But if school officials told Reynolds that nothing came of it, and she was dead 72 hours later, it's just another example of the system failing Sandra Birchmore. I have other questions, questions that continue to bother me as I look through the reports and try to figure out what happened that night.
Here's another one. On Saturday morning, February 6th, Two days after Sandra's body was found, Sergeant Michael Lank reported to work as a patrol sergeant on the 8 a to 4 p shift for the Canton Police Department Two days earlier Lank had met and gone over video footage of Sandra entering and leaving her apartment building with Erin Porter property manager at Canton Woods Apartments. Two days later, Lank noticed an email I received from Porter, stating she had received a concerning phone call on Friday night the 5th.
Around 9 p.m. and would like to discuss it with Lank. He called Porter immediately, and she told him she received a call the night before on their emergency line from a woman named Tina Thompson. This is from Lank's report. Porter said Thompson was very upset making statements about Birchmore. She stated Birchmore had been dating a police officer and long redaction in the report. And then she told Birchmore that the police officer would come to another redaction.
Then the words told Birchmore, still another redaction. he would take care of the problem himself. Porter advised Thompson she should be talking to the police and not to her. Okay, so first the redactions. I understand that probably sounded really confusing. We've requested and of course been rejected in our attempt to receive unredacted version of these reports, but I feel pretty safe in speculating what may have been redacted in Thompson's conversation with Aaron Porter on the night of February 5th.
There are three redactions over two sentences. Thompson stated Sandra was dating a police officer and here we are at redaction one I suspect that redaction is about Sandra being pregnant So we go back to the report with Thompson telling Porter that the police officer and another redaction This one slightly longer in length than the first I think this is in reference to Farwell not being happy about the pregnancy The third redaction, to me, is the most interesting of the trio, with Farwell telling Birchmore, first redacted.
Then after the redaction, he would take care of the problem himself. This, to me, could be a couple of possibilities. If she didn't go away is one of them. if she didn't take care of the pregnancy. And let me note here that Sandra did tell family and friends that she'd previously been pregnant with Farwell's baby a few years before. She later said she suffered a miscarriage. So here's another example of someone we strongly believe telling an authority figure, this time on the Friday after Sandra died.
Remember, the staffers at East Elementary told the principal about their concern for Sandra the Friday before she died. Sergeant Lank provided contact info for Porter and Thompson to investigators. But here's the thing. in the hundreds of pages of files we have gone over, in both the Stoughton and DA investigations. Tina Thompson is never mentioned. There is no record of an interview with her anywhere. How is that possible? So if we look at it again, here's two more examples of Matt Farwell wanting no part of the child, potentially taking care of the problem if she doesn't.
We talked about this a couple of episodes in the first one. He drives to Sandra's apartment in the middle of a snowstorm with his wife 12 hours away from giving birth. is in her apartment for 30 minutes, and Sandra's found dead two days later. After he leaves at 9, 43 p.m. She never communicates with anyone else ever again on social media. And believe me, the DA's report spent a lot of its energy informing us that Sandra was an oversharer, as well as telling us about her sexual promiscuity.
He leaves, she's dead. It's ruled a suicide and that's that. No questions asked. Except not really. Friends don't believe that. Many on social media don't believe that. As I said before, I don't believe it. Police officers off the record don't believe it. why was this never investigated as a murder? Why was this always looked at as a suicide? Since I'm asking questions, here's another one. Matt Farwell allowed investigators to take his cell phone to retrieve data regarding his communications with Sandra.
I'll read you the report filed by Sergeant John Fanning for the Norfolk County DA's office. On February 9th, 2021, Matthew Farwell consented to a data extraction of his personal iPhone 11. On April 26, 2021, I received Matthew's work cell phone from Stoughton Police Department. I analyzed both of these phones and did not find any communication with Sandra Birchmore. Matthew said in a previous interview that he deleted all communication with Sandra. So, a question. Was it a red flag that Farwell, in his only interview, told investigators he blocked Sandra on all communication platforms right when he left her apartment that night Just decided right then and there to make a clear break of it wipe out all interactions Of course, Sandra's phone and computer have interactions with Farwell, thousands over the last year of his life.
But what I find troubling is that investigators only acknowledge communications via text or social media applications going back to 2019. Without any opportunity to extract data from Birchmore's devices, we were able to accumulate messages dating back to January 9, 2017 from friends with relative ease. Law enforcement agencies have a number of forensic tools at their disposal. In this case, the Stoughton Police and the Massachusetts State Police use Celebrite, a digital intelligence solution used to collect, review, analyze, and manage digital data.
What's unclear is exactly how they use Celebrite. Did they use the product to extract data from devices, or did they simply use it as a software solution to organize data they manually exported? In 2017, Celebrite was a key contributor to uncovering deleted text messages from the phone of an 18-year-old former police explorer in Indianapolis that killed herself back in 2015. In that case, an Indianapolis officer deleted messages from the deceased girl's phone when he arrived on scene in an attempt to cover up his relationship with the girl.
Two years later, via Celebrite, those messages were recovered and the officer was charged. Look they went back just a year and found thousands of messages proof of a sexual relationship when Sandra was 15 years old Lucky for the investigators they found communication confirming the start of that sexual relationship statutory rape to be clear In the text between Farwell and Sandra during the last year of her life, friends have confirmed to us that Sandra told them Farwell took her virginity at the age of 15.
He was 26 years old. Now imagine if they took the time and effort to go back three years, four years, five years with these messages. What could have been uncovered? Why they didn't do that is also a mystery at best. I have hundreds of other questions, but here's a few. Why is Robert Devine still allowed to practice law in Massachusetts? Why is he receiving a full pension? Why was he put on paid leave during the investigation to Sandra?
Why was Matt Farwell put on paid leave? Did anyone in the Stoughton Police Department know Devine would have teenage girls in his office, in his police car? Why did both Farwells and Devine resign before a second interview? Who else in the department knew about Sandra and Matt Farwell? Who knew about Sandra and Billy Farwell? Did the investigators ever request Billy Farwell's phone records to see if he connected with Matt Farwell the night Sandra died? Here's what we'll spend more time on in a later episode.
At one point, investigators actually asked Matt Farwell for DNA and if he would agree to take a lie detector test, his lawyer quickly declined on Farwell's behalf. Did this raise any suspicion to the investigators? Was there any follow-up? Are they totally done with Matt Farwell Given Devine reputation and history of sordid behavior in the Explorers program nationwide did anyone in the Stoughton Department ever question if he was the right person to lead the program Why is William Farwell allowed to begin a federal job with the Transportation Security Administration on the same day he resigned from the Stoughton Police Department?
Here's another one. In December 2020, a new state agency in Massachusetts called the Peace Officers and Training Commission, or POST, was created. It essentially decides who should be certified as a police officer and who should be decertified, which means never serving in law enforcement in the state again. On November 22, 2022, a post-meeting was held to consider possible decertifications. The decision on the Farwell brothers and Divine was kept private. Why? One more question. The internal investigation has a May 2, 2022 entry.
A woman, her name understandably redacted, have an incident with Matt Farwell in August 2021, a potential criminal matter. The next half page or so is completely redacted. We'll put it up on our social media platforms to show you. So we have absolutely no idea what happened. We sent multiple requests to Stoughton Police for an incident report and received no response. Again, I'll ask why. I understand protecting the identity of the victim, but there is, actually throughout the entire investigation, also a clear desire to protect Matthew Farwell.
Protection never afforded to Sandra Birchmore. I don't think Matt Farwell will be charged with anything. He will never spend a day in prison. He's never been considered a suspect by authorities in Sandra's death. And it's been made clear he'll never face charges for raping Sandra when she was 15 years old. Why? Because the victim can't speak about it. And why is that? Because she's dead. Once again, Farrell is protected. And Sandra isn't.