September 3, 2024 • 44 mins
Sandra Birchmore is 23-years-old and 3-months pregnant when she is found dead in her apartment. Her death is ruled a suicide, but her family doesn't believe it so they hire world renowned forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden, to review her death. The former chief medical examiner of New York City writes a letter of his findings in which he details why he believes the death of Sandra Birchmore is not a suicide, it is a homicide. On this episode of Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan will explain how Dr. Baden came to his conclusion and how the Federal Government got involved in the case that ended up with the arrest of Police Detective Matthew Farwell who is now charged with Murder and staging the crime scene.
Transcript Highlights
00:42.43 Introduction: Trust
02:12.59 Discussion of becoming numb to investigations
04:57.94 Discussion of "explorer" group
07:37.19 Discussion of police officers involved with children
10:01.54 Talk about investigation of suicide
15:01.44 Discussion of getting all possible info at scene
20:08.48 Discussion of Post Mortem Lividity in seated position
25:15.37 Talk about conversations among those who work closely
30:09.57 Discussion of victim being involved sexually with police officer, allegedly
35:21.22 Discussion about autopsy
40:04.86 Talk about what level of contact between law officers in different departments
44:17.43 Conclusion - Will Update
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body does. But Joseph's gotten more. It's hard to try
to kind of understand how people define the word trust
any longer. It seems as though that ever since I
was a child, that there has been this kind of
evolution in what the word trust actually means. When I
(00:24):
was little, if you were doing something you should not
have been doing, there was this perception that you could
trust others, even outside of your family, to essentially tell
your parents what you had been doing. And that went
both ways for other people's kids as well. But trust
(00:49):
has kind of taken on a different meaning. I think
it comes down to this idea of protection. And when
we turn over, if you will, our precious young children
to those in authority, and they violate trust, there's something
(01:13):
very very dark about that. Today we're going to talk
about that darkness, and we're going to talk about the
impact that trust placed with the wrong folks had on
a young lady by the name of Sandra Birchmore. I'm
(01:39):
Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks, Dave. I've often
said that you know, as an investigator, if you you
know your work cases where you kind of get numb
to it relative to you know, you have two adults
that get into a fight and they wind up maybe
(02:03):
killing the other one. Back in the eighties, I remember
it seemed like night after night I would go on
so called dry by shooting homicides rival gangs that were
going after one another. They're involved in this street life
and that sort of thing, and there's an inherent risk
with that. There's an inherent danger with it. But when
(02:24):
it comes to kids, there's something about it that she
can never really get numb to. It's like a fresh
wound that opens up every time for an investigator. And
in this particular case we're talking, we're talking about a
young woman who she died as a young woman, but
this story actually begins a decade earlier, where she was
(02:48):
involved in an Explorer program.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I don't know if everybody knows what the Explorer program is.
It's an extension of Boy Scouts where it began, but
it is more in tune with learn about a profession.
I'll give you an example. When I was a young person,
there was an Explorer post that dealt with radio and
television broadcasting, and their professionals volunteered their time and it
(03:15):
was once a week at night, and you had a
couple of hours to go down the TV station, radio
station and you would take part in a class pretty
much and learn real world applications. They also had one
for the police and fire and things like that. And
in this particular case, Sandra Birgmore at twelve years old,
which is about the earliest age you can actually be
part of an Explorer post, and some it's fourteen, but
(03:37):
at this particular post, it was twelve. At twelve years old,
she joined the Explorer Post in Stoton, Massachusetts, which was
the police department. The Stoton Police Department had an Explorer
Post and these individuals, young people were able to learn
about police work investigations, you know, more than just being
(03:59):
a street cup, learning all the different aspects of law
enforcement firsthand as a young person. And these posts usually
have an age group beginning and ending. You know, it's
twelve to from twelve to eighteen or fourteen.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
To twenty one.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
And in this particular case, Sandra Birchmore was a part
of this police Explorer post starting at age twelve through
eighteen six years And think about the difference in ages
of a person when you're twelve years old versus eighteen.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Holy smokes, yeah, I've had teenagers in my house. There
you go, I think I begin to think about my daughter,
my son, and you know, and this is kind of obvious,
but you know, just the kind of the the trajectory
of the changes that they go through during that period
of time, that eighteen year old would not recognize that
(04:49):
twelve year old now on any level, you don't recognize
them as a parent. And so and I think that
one of the kind of dicey areas here is that
when you have a very young, impressionable child that enters
into this kind of I don't know, it's it's very weighty.
(05:11):
You know, you're talking about a police department. There's all
kinds of stuff there. Yeah, and they go into this
environment and like it or not, both fire and police.
It's it's got a real when you're around people, it's
a very familial kind of thing, you know, because you
refer to each other as brothers. And so when you
get kind of adopted into that little tribe, if you're
(05:34):
going through, say, tough times in your life, that's someplace
that someone would feel safe and would flee to. And
once you flee to that kind of environment like that,
any kind of protections that you might have begin to
kind of fall, and boy is it it is just
ripe for the taking when you think about if there's
(05:58):
a predator around.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
It, that's what happening is there was more than one.
Now you're dealing with police officers that are in their
twenties and thirties. In this particular case, we're going to
talk about one specific police officer named Matthew Farwell. His
brother was also involved in a few others. But Matthew
Farwell was a part of the Explorer Post as one
of the volunteers as a leader there. He also was
(06:21):
on the police force in Stoton. He was a detective.
Well mentioned Sandra Burchmore started at the post when she
was twelve years old and remained until she was eighteen. Well,
what we didn't tell you is how close she got
with certain members of the post. And I think you
just talked about that with the familial connection. But you're
talking about a twelve year old girl, and by the way,
(06:43):
a diminutive person. She was small. She was four foot
ten inches tall. Yeah, this is a this is.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Not wait wait, that's an adulthood. Yes, yes, so she
would have been even more to me. I mean, just
you think of and look, I know some people will
take offense to this. I don't care. It's the idea
that you know back then. If you think she's diminutive
as an adult, yeah, she would appear rather fragile. She'd
probably be mistaken for somebody much younger as a matter
(07:10):
of fact, Dave.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yep, and she was. And Matthew Farewell is six foot four.
She's four to ten. He's six foot four. He's a
big man. Yeah, And they develop a relationship and some
would call it, I would call it grooming. That Matthew
Farwell began grooming Sandra Birchmore and somewhere in her third
(07:39):
year of being involved with the Explorer Post, the grooming
ended and the activity began. That's what is alleged because
Sandra Birgmore is the reason we're talking about this is
this young woman who began her experience with police at
the Explorer Post at twelve years old. At twenty three
(08:02):
years old and three months pregnant, committed suicide the same week.
She was researching photographers to take infant baby pictures when
they're first born and getting a scheduled time so she
could have that done and then she committed suicide. Supposedly
it was rule to suicide at first, but Joe, the
(08:25):
reason we're doing this show today is because it was
rule to suicide, yeah, at first, but then it changed. Right,
how do we go from something that is cut and
dry suicide to anything else?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Hard to kind of take the measure of it, Dave,
And it took a while. This investigation, like you stated,
started in twenty twenty one, and it was when she
was found in her apartment. And my understanding is is
(09:08):
that when she was found in her apartment, she had
been down for maybe three days by that time by
the time they had found her. And just let me
speak just for a moment about suicide and kind of
from the medical examiner's perspective, how we view these. First off,
I will just be very very honest with our friends here,
(09:33):
even though it is a death investigation once a local
police department, and in this case, we have to make clear, Dave,
that her death did not occur in the town in
which she was involved in the explore post. Her death
(09:54):
actually occurred in Canton, Massachusetts. And we all know that
name because we can't seem to get past it because
in recent months, all we've heard about is the Karen
Reid case. So you're talking about a death that occurred
there in that jurisdiction where she had her her home.
(10:16):
But in general, in very broad strokes, when you're talking
about suicide investigation, once the police get the indication, many times,
and I've had this happen, actually, it seems day over
and over again. Once you make the statement as an
EMMY investigator or a corner that yeah, this looks like
(10:37):
it's consistent with a suicide, guess what happens with the detectives.
Many times they'll say, Okay, well, yeah, we'll leave you
with this and we'll go ahead and go about our
business because from a prosecutorial standpoint, there's nothing for them
to do at that point. Tom, You're not going to
(10:59):
put the cuffs on anybody. You're not seeking some mysterious
person that's out there. And so their interest, their interest
drops off precipitously, and many times the full weight of
this falls onto the shoulders of the emmy or the
corner to conduct the investigation. And one of the elements
(11:20):
that and I'm glad you mentioned this about the let's see,
I think there was like a stroller the image that
she had had from ultrasound was actually sitting out on
the bar in the actual kitchen. She's talking about purchasing
clothing and doing all these sorts of things, you know,
(11:42):
for the baby, because she's very excited about. One of
the things that we do with suicide is we try
to find an element of intent relative to the individual
that has taken their life. Obviously, and well, how do
you do that? Well? For us, one of the things
we do, first off, we want to find out if
an individual is suffering from any kind of psychopathology at all.
(12:06):
Are they currently under the care of psychologist or psychiatrists,
Are they on any kind of medications that would lend itself?
Are they being treated for anxiety depression? Also, has there
ever been a previous attempt at taking their own life?
Is there any evidence of that on the body, because
many times I've had people dave that, and this is
(12:27):
kind of the classic thing that you look for. You
look at the risk to see if there's old, old
scars that are consistent with healed healed you know, cut
marks on their arm that might be kind of superficial.
They tried once it didn't work. Have they vocalized Here's
here's kind of the terminology that the psychology psychology types
(12:49):
like to use. They will say, did the person have
suicidal ideation? Which means were they thinking about it? The
next step is was there vocalation with it? And so
what that means is they're thinking about it and they're
actually saying it to somebody. So we go to a
great links as medical legal investigators to try to understand this.
(13:13):
What's their medical history? Is there anything that we need
to do to explore to try to find that kernel
of intent? And I got to tell you, Dave, in
this particular case, I don't think anything like that existed. Dave.
(13:39):
You know, I know I've said this to you before,
but it bears repeating our working supposition as medical legal
death investigators, and it should be with homicide detectives too.
But it is that every death, not some deaths, but
every death, and I'm talking about even people that have
obvious natural disease, every death we work is a homicide
(14:00):
until we can prove otherwise. And what I mean by
that is that until I can until I can scientifically
verify whether it's per physical examination or history that I'm
getting from family members, or maybe a more extensive examination
that is conducted at the morgue. I'm going to assume
(14:23):
everybody dies at the hand of another because here's the thing.
Those cases, homicide cases are so highly complex that once
you cross that threshold into that dwelling, you cannot step
across that threshold again for the first time. All right,
you can't repeat that. So you have to make sure
(14:43):
that you've covered all of your bases upon that initial
contact at the scene, to make sure you haven't missed anything.
And day when she was found, it kind of seemed
like it was probably going to be a suicide at
that point in time.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Now, you mentioned that where Sandra Berchman lived was not
in the town where she had been a part of
the police force through their Explorer program that was in Stoton,
But she lived in a place called Canton. So the
people on the police force that would have that knew
(15:19):
her from being in the Explorer post, they wouldn't have
been involved in the investigation into a suicide, would they.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
No, No, they wouldn't know unless some kind of information
came up in the course of the investigation that said, well,
I'll put it to this way. You walk into a
scene where you will find some kind of collateral information
at that scene that says, you know, she's received some
kind of award from this other police department. Trust me,
(15:49):
that's going to catch the eyes of an investigator that's there.
And maybe she's got I don't know, maybe she's got
T shirts, maybe they hand out explorer badges. Maybe maybe
she's got things in her possession that would give you
an indication that she is really interested in law enforcement. Now,
(16:09):
you might make a phone call at that point and
Tom say, hey, look, we've got we're here at a scene.
We've got this young lady that's deceased, and is she
one of yours? I mean, you know, because she's got
all of this stuff from your jurisdiction, they might, you know,
probe that at that moment in Tom, that's really, you know,
that's really what you would be looking for.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And that makes sense. I mean, you're you find somebody
hanging in a closet or on a doorknob, you would
think you've got to find out. You know, when Robin Williams,
the comedian, committed suicide using his belt and the door
of his closet, his closet doorknob, there was a lot
(16:49):
of breaking down of how is that possible?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
What happened? You know?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And and he's a celebrity who had mental uh had issues?
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, he did, he had physically. Can I say something
real quick about that, that report that those investigators did.
I cannot, for the life of me remember the name
of that county. It's in the adjacent Greater San Francisco area.
Is Marin County? I can't remember, But that, arguably, Dave,
(17:20):
that might be one of the finest medical legal death
investigator reports I've ever read in my life. It was
thorough beyond anything you can imagine. So to that point, yeah, yeah,
and he did he did facilitate his own hanging, you know,
from you know, from a door knob essentially and using
(17:43):
a belt in order to do that. And it sounds
as though that, even though they have not released all
of the information in this particular case, it sounds as
though that that might be what they observed when they
arrived at the scene, Dave.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
And it is in Marion County by the way, I
looked that up while you were talking. Because when when
you come up on a scene like this and you
are going to start trying to find out who the
person is, because you said that it was a couple
of days between the time that she actually died and
the time her body was found. Yes, so she would
(18:17):
have already gone through the processes that you explained in
one of our shows last.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Week, you know, the postpartum changes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, And so what stage what would her body be
like after two or three days hanging like that?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Well, first off, her limbs are going to be flaccid
by that moment, Tom, and one of the ways that
could determine she had been down And I'm just talking
about not merely, I'm not talking about when was the
last time she was spoken to. I'm just talking about
what does the body tell us? All right, So if
they're staying two to three days down range, first off,
there's a high probability that ruger mortis would either be
(18:59):
completely dis paid it or easily broken. Okay, So the
rigidity in her arms after that period of time would
no longer be there. I mean literally, Dave, you could
pick her arm up at the elbow and you could
easily flex it. At that point time, you could open
her jaw, you know, to inspect a mouth and that
(19:20):
sort of thing. Whereas if it had happened like if
they had found her within that twenty four hour time frame,
you'd see the rigidity, but slowly it fades away. And
here's one of the things. So if you look at
if you look at her from this perspective with the
absence of rigidity possibly and then the settling of the
(19:41):
blood with the post mortem lividity, and the key is here,
what do we do when we have a body that's
in a seated position. Well, if you're if you're seated,
you know on your rear end, the blood is going
to gravitate to that area. Guess what, It'll be non blanchable.
So if you pressed skin, that purple discoloration would not disappear.
(20:04):
So for us when we're looking at a body trying
to determine how long the body has been down relative
to post mortem interval, there's no doubt that you would
see that and you would think as an investigator, Wow,
she's been down a while. And also at that point
in time, when you have for that many for that
(20:25):
period of time, you would sometimes you can pick up
on a very faint odor. Also, there are these changes
that occur after say like seventy two hours, you'll begin
to see the fingertips shrivel and they'll become like dehydrated
to a certain degree, but only the fingertips. You're not
(20:45):
going to see it all through the body. And so
there are just signs that you can tell that they've
been down longer than just say a couple of hours.
And that's one of the things that you try to
brack at that time, because if you can bracket time.
And we know that they know some stuff about Sandra,
that there had been phone calls that were placed where
(21:06):
she was trying to schedule these these infant photographs. You know,
she's this is a young lady that's very excited about
this day. There was there was actually a stroller. You know,
she'd bought a stroller. You remember this, you know, as
a dad, I mean, your guts are turning inside out
and you're terrified, but there's a bit of excitement to it,
(21:27):
and you're purchasing clothes and diapers and all that stuff
to get ready. It's one of the finest times of
my life. I remember being excited, and as well you
should be. You're celebrating a new life that's going to
come and you know, but you you marry all of
that together that circumstantial data, and it paints a picture
of what was going on at that at those moments
(21:48):
prior to her death. Here's the thing, Dave, who's going
to go to all of this trouble if they're going
to end their life, you know who's going to do
these things? And so for me, as an em ME
investigator corner investigator, I'm sitting there thinking this doesn't add up,
and not to say, you know, and I don't think
(22:08):
there's a note, but notes for the exception, not the norm.
People think you're gonna find suicide note. I'd say probably
two out of ten cases that I worked with suicides
would you find a note or some kind of scribbling.
They are, in fact the exception, not the norm. So
that's not a real good placeholder for you from an
(22:30):
evidentiary standpoint.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
But you mentioned you would try to ascertain what was
going on in her life at the time, was her
mental emotional stability, what is she thinking? And based on
what they are seeing, a young woman very excited about
being pregnant and the thought of having her baby, and
now she's what appears to be committed suicide. Now are
(22:53):
they going to start looking from an investigative standpoint, they're
going to look at all of her personal relationships obviously, right,
that's yes, first place I'm going to start, because we
got to find out more about her. What could have
turned her if we believe it's a suicide, what could
have turned her mood so dark when it was so sunshine,
rainbows and unicorns do this? And yeah, how do you
(23:16):
find that out?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I mean really, are we actually going to be picking
up the phone going through the rolodex? What are we
going to do?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well? I got to tell you the first place I
always start. Yeah, I like to talk to the immediate family.
But Dave, I got to tell you not everybody talks
to their immediate family. Now, who do you spend the
most time with if you're single and you're working, that's
a big clue. Who do you spend the most time with? Well,
it's not your mom and dad most of the time.
(23:43):
It's not siblings, because you know, once you once you
become an adult, if you have siblings, you kind of
go your separate ways to live your life. It's going
to be people you work with. And yes, she might
have girlfriends. You know that she interacts with some male friends. Perhaps,
but if you are working full time. Think about how
(24:03):
much time all of us spend at work. Now. They
say you can't choose your family, but many times you
can't choose the individuals you work with. Either they're hired
independent of you. But there are the certain relationships at
work where you begin to feel confident with the people
that you talk with that you can find information in
(24:24):
them that you're not going to call up a sibling
necessarily that you only see a couple of times a year.
I go One of the things I always do is
I try to track down where this individual work and
try to find somebody at work that'll have a conversation
with me. I'll start with like a supervisor most of
the time, because supervisors can tell you a lot. You know,
(24:45):
first off, they know if you've been sicking out, they
know what your job performance is like. They know what
your attitude is like while you're there. Are you angry
or you easily frustrated? Have you, you know, threatened to
do harm to anybody in the office. And then the
people that shares the space immediately adjacent to you, they're
going to see. The thing about it is, if you
(25:07):
work in one of these cubicle type of environments. Isn't
it amazing the conversations you can hear are going on
next to you, you know, I mean that's you know,
it's that kind of thing. And you have to begin
to kind of in dwell that space that these individuals lived,
their their living space, if you will, and go back
and retroactively try to piece together all of this stuff.
(25:30):
You know, you do that if they have physicians. I
love to call physicians up, and I try to be
very gentle when I do this, because people really develop
great relationships with physicians. And you drop the bomb on
a physician like that and tell them that their patient
is dead. You try to be as gentle as you
can with them, but you want to try to get
information from them. Now. Sometimes physicians won't give it up
(25:51):
because they're afraid of get ensued and out of that group,
psychiatrists are the worst. You have to issue a subpoena
many times, but I have had and they'll say, sure, sure,
I'll tell you everything. I'll give you what she's been
diagnosed with or whatever. But there's no indication of any
of this kind of thing here. As a matter of fact,
what we're hearing about is kind of a bright and
(26:12):
cheery affect, and it's a head scratcher when you're an investigator.
So how do you put two and two together where
you've got this young woman that's in her home that
has apparently hung herself, but yet she's living this life
where she's excited about what the future holes Dave.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
At what point, Joe, do you look at the surroundings
and say this doesn't look right. Was there anything in
the surroundings around this supposed suicide that stood out?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Well? First off, she is not what you refer to
as a Let me phrase this so that folks understand.
She is not what is referred to as a classic
suspension hanging where you have that hard point where where
an individual is going to tie off a rope or
(27:07):
some type of ligature and then kind of free swing
in the air. Kinds of classic kind of hanging type
of thing. We're talking about a supported hanging and a
lot of people, I think I've had people in classes
that have asked me, how in the world can somebody
do this? Well, they can do it. I've had people
hang themselves on the side of hospital beds in psychiatric
(27:30):
wards where they just essentially wrap something around their neck
they tie it off and they just sit down and
then go to sleep, because you're cutting off your carrotids
at that point in time, and it's more of a
it's more you're depriving the brain of oxygen, is what's
essentially happening at this point in time. It's not a
matter with hanging like this where it's kind of supported
(27:51):
and they just kind of lean into it and sit down.
It's not one of these events where there's a violent drop,
you know, like in an like an old Western movie,
you know, where they drop through the floor of the
gallows and that sort of thing. It's not like that.
There's not a level of violence there that comes along
with this. This is kind of a uh, slowly kind
(28:12):
of sinking down. I think many people think, you know,
how is it that you can resist the urge to
take this thing off of your neck? And that's the
big question, isn't it How could you have done this?
And also do these injuries actually marry up with the
(28:33):
idea of this being self inflicted or is it something
a bit more ominous? Dave, I'm not going to say
I didn't see this coming, because this case has been
(28:54):
mentioned to me. Well, actually it was mentioned to me
by some friends that I have in the I guess
probably a year and a half two years ago, and
I took a look at it at that tom Something
just didn't add up with it, and there were suspicions
that were floating around. You even mentioned that day. I
think that's that's a good place to start with this
(29:14):
isn't it was? There were phone calls that were made
to her being discovered dead, correct.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
You know I mentioned at the very beginning that she
was involved in the explorer post at the police station
there in Stoughton, and that's a big part of this story.
And she did have a relationship with some of the
adult men that were volunteers that were part of that
explorer post from about the age of fifteen. Now she
(29:45):
was there when she was twelve. When she was fifteen,
she starts having a child cannot have a sexual relationship
with an adult. They can be raped by an adult,
They cannot have sexual relations with an adult. So I
am misspeaking every time I say that, and I apologize.
She groomed and raped by allegedly, allegedly, and when her
(30:06):
suicide is being investigated, they start peeling the curtain back
to find out more about her, and they find out, oh,
wait a minute, she was really involved in the Explorer post.
And wait a minute. Two weeks before her death, the
Stodent Police Department got a phone call from an anonymous
person who said that that Sandra is pregnant.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
And that.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
One of the police officers is the father. And that's
what began the investigation explosion. And yet Sandra Birchman Birchmore
rather was three months pregnant when she died. Matthew Farwell,
(30:55):
who's thirty eight now, was the man that was accused
of impressignating her. And so they start that investigation, and
they find out that a number of police officers in
the Stoton Police Office, officers in Stoton Police Department were
involved in inappropriate relationships with individuals in the community, and
(31:20):
that it was a big investigation into the police department.
And again you had this young woman's suicide that started,
you know, that really opened the door for the investigation.
And that phone call to the police department that says, hey,
this guy is putting hands on her, that was the
part that really got their attention. I think I mentioned
(31:40):
this earlier. As an adult woman of twenty three Sander
Birchmore is four foot ten and Matthew Farwell is six
foot four. Putting hands on her at that size, that's
that's shrek. You know, that's a big person compared to
her dominiuative stature. She's three months pregnant, and now they're
(32:02):
looking into all of her relationships with all of the men.
All of the men now that are involved in that
Explorer post are now exposed and they're digging through the
department Joe, all to find out what really happened. Meanwhile,
her family, Sandra Birchmar's family would not They're like, there's
no way that she was excited about being pregnant. There's
no way this happened the way you're claiming it did.
(32:23):
There's a cover up going on. So they hired their
own pathologists, not just any pathologists. They're filing a lawsuit,
So they hired former New York pathologists, a guy who's
one of the biggest names in America, Michael Boden. Doctor
Michael Boden was hired by the family.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Joe. Yeah, and listen, if you're there, there's a couple
of people out there that if if you're seeking to
illuminate a situation relatives to forensic pathology. I think that
probably doctor Boden is at the top of the heap.
(33:02):
And of course we all know he has famously been
involved in the examination of the Jeffrey Epstein case. And
I have to tell you this is not too dissimilar
when we begin to think about the mechanism that is
involved in this, we're talking about a hanging, Dave. And listen,
(33:25):
you know, with doctor Boden, he's got a lot of
miles on the tires relative to how many of these
cases he's seen over the years. Because not only did
he work as at OCME, the Office Chief Medical Examiner
in New York, he's also the state Medical Examiner for
the State of New York. He's seen a thing or
(33:47):
two during his time. And let me kind of break
this down to you. Now, we don't know the specifics
at this point in time, but one of the things
that you look for, if our friends will just kind
of think about hanging. When you think about a classic hanging,
(34:08):
a ligature is placed around the neck and because of
the distribution of weight, the body is literally pulling down
on the ligature. If it's anchored to like a doorknob.
Like we've mentioned, as it pulls down, that noose forms
like a gigantic tear drop in the air. Okay, just
(34:29):
think about it. Okay, where it's it's you have the apex,
it's up at like the twelve o'clock position, and as
a result of that, the ligature marks themselves will run
up behind the ears. Okay, because the weight it's being
pulled down. I'm wondering, just wondering if when they conducted
(34:52):
this autopsy. First off, I want to know, was the
literature removed from her neck at the scene. That's a problem.
We have kind of a standing rule that if you
find a body that is suspended, and remember what do
we say about her, that she had been down two
(35:12):
to three days, you have no reason to remove the
literature at that point. In tom there's no reason. You
literally you go to the anchor point and you cut
the anchor point. You don't cut it away from the
neck because you want to see the body in this
initial configuration at the morgue. Most of the time, a
(35:33):
physician is not going to be at the scene. It's
going to be an emmy investigator and they will document
it photographically and they'll bring those in the images. They'll
have those images transmitted to the pathologist. They'll be able
to see how the body looked there. But there's something
about being able to appreciate that literature slash noose around
the neck in its pristine form. You don't want to
remove it. Now we've got this idea of the tear
(35:57):
drop right that's going upward and this form this forms
something called tinting feature, like a pup tint okay, so
that when you remove the ligature, you'll see these furrows
that run behind the ears that go upward, and it's
generally kind of low on the neck on the anterior side. However,
(36:18):
when you're looking at a ligature strangulation and they have
mentioned the term strangulation, we don't know if the strangulation
was facilitated by hands or if it was facilitated by
a ligature. Those marks, if it is a ligature and
it's a ligature strangulation, are going to run parallel to
(36:38):
the shoulders, not vertical in orientation, but parallel, so it
literally goes back and the furrow looks completely different. I'm
wondering if they missed that at autopsy. And the other
thing is if this was a manual strangulation where hands
were actually placed on her neck. Going back to what
Boden had talked to about with Epstein, one of the
(37:03):
things that his bone of contention with Epstein is that
the hywood was fractured, and highwood fractures generally only occur
with manual strangulation. So how thoroughly did they dissect the
neck at autopsy, which is something that you would as
a matter of fact, not only would you dissect the neck,
you would preserve the organs of the neck. That means
(37:26):
that the layernix comes out, you examine it at autopsy,
you save the hyroid. You do not, I mean do
not send it to the funeral home with the body.
But if they're thinking that this is a suicide, that
might be gone. So doctor Biden might only have photographs
to refer to the other thing you're going to be
looking for, or when the layer of skin is reflected
(37:50):
and you begin to look for the hemorrhages, dave in
a soft tissue of the neck. If you have like
a manual strangulation, those those areas of hemorrhage will be
very diffuse because it covers a wider area than just
that narrow little furrow. Well, something missed in the soft
tissues of the neck. Relative to that, there's something that
(38:13):
is telling doctor Boden, I would imagine scientifically, at least
something he can there's a proverbial nail. He can hang
his hat on his intellectual hat. And because he's sticking
his he's sticking his neck out relative to this. He's
calling this a homicide. He's not saying well, he's not
wishing away. He's saying this is a homicide. And not
only is he saying it, the family is taking this
(38:36):
as gospel and they're pursuing a civil action in this case.
And that's kind of how all this, how all this
kicked up, And of course this is going to draw
the eye of the of the of the FBI, and
well the chief at least the chief of police in Stoton.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
She said, I'm not a forensic pathologist. I'm not a scientist,
but reading doctor Boden's letter, she's just mortified by what
she's reading. That what he said took place. And that's
where you were talking about that investigation. Granted he's a
hired hand by the family. They're trying to find out
(39:14):
what happened to their daughter, their you know, their loved
one that they didn't believe committed suicide. And doctor Bodden
mentioned Joe beyond the physical examination. He mentioned in his paper,
the investigation that was done by the Stoton Police Department
into the life of this young woman. And you know
when we were talking about how happy she was about
(39:35):
being pregnant and all of those things, you know that
she was doing giant lineup of a photographer that all
came from Stoton Police Department from their investigation.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
So you know, so this is my question. I think
from an investigative standpoint, this actually took place in Canton,
and I'm just wondering. I'm just wondering. And this is
just me thinking out loud, what level of contact is
there between Stotent and Canton? Because that troubles me. This
(40:08):
is another reason this troubles me, Dave. I've over the
course of my career, I've done I don't just instruct
in college, Okay, I'm not just a college professor. I
teach at police Academy and I also teach investigators. I
have sat through and I have administered instruction and the
investigation of stage suicides. Well, David, that's what That's what
(40:33):
really gives this such a dark, sinister turn, is that
when you've got a civilian that does a and we've
covered them before on bodybacks, Dave, A staged suicide. I
think we did one very recently. I forgive me, I
can't remember which one it was, but we have done it, Dave.
(40:53):
If you're a police officer, a detective, an investigator, you're
sitting through a class, and these classes can last maybe
one two days, sixteen hours of instruction. Perhaps, Hey, what
did you learn in that class? Because let me tell
you what the FBI is doing now. The FBI will
(41:16):
have literally gone back into his training records. Let this
sink in just for a second. We'll go into his
training records and they will look at every school he's
ever attended, any kind of professional training he's had. And
it's something that cops hear about, but it's not necessarily
(41:40):
something that everyone is trained in. He's a detective, so
and it's a small department. My thought is is that
in a department to small, you're not going to have
like an individual homicide division. You're going to have a
what they're referred to as a crimes against person. So
he would handle assaults, battery, homicides, abuse cases, that sort
(42:04):
of thing, anything that's a crime against a person as
opposed to a property crime, which might be a theft
or something like that. So they're very broad ranging, you know,
practitioners in this environment. I wonder what kind of training
he's had, Has he had any exposure to this whatsoever.
The FBI likes him for this, I mean, they have
(42:25):
charged him now, and their charges are very interesting the
way they're worded, because you know, the Feds, the FEDS
don't have and even the US Attorney General for that
district when he gave his press conference, he actually alluded
(42:46):
to the fact that the Feds don't have a homicide charge,
and they don't they don't investigate homicide is a state charge.
They are investigating this case from the perspective of he
killed a witness. Think about that just a second. That
goes to that goes to like the very essence constitutionally
(43:06):
when you begin to think about civil rights, as you know,
you're depriving somebody of their ability to communicate with the
cops if they're going to give testimony against them, So
you're going to eliminate somebody. And plus FBI generally investigates
when it comes to policing. They will investigate any kind
of malfeasans that's going on inside of a department. And
(43:29):
that's the other troubling thing. You think they're going to
come in to investigate a single cop that's having a
sexual relationship that started as a minor. Why didn't it?
And that's that's my question here. Why didn't it just
stop with the Massachusetts State Police? Why was this kicked
up to a federal level? Because anytime you get to
(43:52):
that level where you're drawing, you're drawing the eye of
you know, the all seeing eye and think about the
movie Lord of the you know that big eye going
when you draw the attention of the FBI. They're doing
other stuff, trust me. But yet this one case that
is a suicide draws their attention so that they're invested
(44:16):
in the investigation. Dave, I think, in my estimation, this
is merely the stream that they're going to pull that
could perhaps unravel the entire sweater. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan,
and this is body packs
Body does. But Joseph's gotten more. It's hard to try
to kind of understand how people define the word trust
any longer. It seems as though that ever since I
was a child, that there has been this kind of
evolution in what the word trust actually means. When I
(00:24):
was little, if you were doing something you should not
have been doing, there was this perception that you could
trust others, even outside of your family, to essentially tell
your parents what you had been doing. And that went
both ways for other people's kids as well. But trust
(00:49):
has kind of taken on a different meaning. I think
it comes down to this idea of protection. And when
we turn over, if you will, our precious young children
to those in authority, and they violate trust, there's something
(01:13):
very very dark about that. Today we're going to talk
about that darkness, and we're going to talk about the
impact that trust placed with the wrong folks had on
a young lady by the name of Sandra Birchmore. I'm
(01:39):
Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks, Dave. I've often
said that you know, as an investigator, if you you
know your work cases where you kind of get numb
to it relative to you know, you have two adults
that get into a fight and they wind up maybe
(02:03):
killing the other one. Back in the eighties, I remember
it seemed like night after night I would go on
so called dry by shooting homicides rival gangs that were
going after one another. They're involved in this street life
and that sort of thing, and there's an inherent risk
with that. There's an inherent danger with it. But when
(02:24):
it comes to kids, there's something about it that she
can never really get numb to. It's like a fresh
wound that opens up every time for an investigator. And
in this particular case we're talking, we're talking about a
young woman who she died as a young woman, but
this story actually begins a decade earlier, where she was
(02:48):
involved in an Explorer program.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I don't know if everybody knows what the Explorer program is.
It's an extension of Boy Scouts where it began, but
it is more in tune with learn about a profession.
I'll give you an example. When I was a young person,
there was an Explorer post that dealt with radio and
television broadcasting, and their professionals volunteered their time and it
(03:15):
was once a week at night, and you had a
couple of hours to go down the TV station, radio
station and you would take part in a class pretty
much and learn real world applications. They also had one
for the police and fire and things like that. And
in this particular case, Sandra Birgmore at twelve years old,
which is about the earliest age you can actually be
part of an Explorer post, and some it's fourteen, but
(03:37):
at this particular post, it was twelve. At twelve years old,
she joined the Explorer Post in Stoton, Massachusetts, which was
the police department. The Stoton Police Department had an Explorer
Post and these individuals, young people were able to learn
about police work investigations, you know, more than just being
(03:59):
a street cup, learning all the different aspects of law
enforcement firsthand as a young person. And these posts usually
have an age group beginning and ending. You know, it's
twelve to from twelve to eighteen or fourteen.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
To twenty one.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
And in this particular case, Sandra Birchmore was a part
of this police Explorer post starting at age twelve through
eighteen six years And think about the difference in ages
of a person when you're twelve years old versus eighteen.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Holy smokes, yeah, I've had teenagers in my house. There
you go, I think I begin to think about my daughter,
my son, and you know, and this is kind of obvious,
but you know, just the kind of the the trajectory
of the changes that they go through during that period
of time, that eighteen year old would not recognize that
(04:49):
twelve year old now on any level, you don't recognize
them as a parent. And so and I think that
one of the kind of dicey areas here is that
when you have a very young, impressionable child that enters
into this kind of I don't know, it's it's very weighty.
(05:11):
You know, you're talking about a police department. There's all
kinds of stuff there. Yeah, and they go into this
environment and like it or not, both fire and police.
It's it's got a real when you're around people, it's
a very familial kind of thing, you know, because you
refer to each other as brothers. And so when you
get kind of adopted into that little tribe, if you're
(05:34):
going through, say, tough times in your life, that's someplace
that someone would feel safe and would flee to. And
once you flee to that kind of environment like that,
any kind of protections that you might have begin to
kind of fall, and boy is it it is just
ripe for the taking when you think about if there's
(05:58):
a predator around.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
It, that's what happening is there was more than one.
Now you're dealing with police officers that are in their
twenties and thirties. In this particular case, we're going to
talk about one specific police officer named Matthew Farwell. His
brother was also involved in a few others. But Matthew
Farwell was a part of the Explorer Post as one
of the volunteers as a leader there. He also was
(06:21):
on the police force in Stoton. He was a detective.
Well mentioned Sandra Burchmore started at the post when she
was twelve years old and remained until she was eighteen. Well,
what we didn't tell you is how close she got
with certain members of the post. And I think you
just talked about that with the familial connection. But you're
talking about a twelve year old girl, and by the way,
(06:43):
a diminutive person. She was small. She was four foot
ten inches tall. Yeah, this is a this is.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Not wait wait, that's an adulthood. Yes, yes, so she
would have been even more to me. I mean, just
you think of and look, I know some people will
take offense to this. I don't care. It's the idea
that you know back then. If you think she's diminutive
as an adult, yeah, she would appear rather fragile. She'd
probably be mistaken for somebody much younger as a matter
(07:10):
of fact, Dave.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yep, and she was. And Matthew Farewell is six foot four.
She's four to ten. He's six foot four. He's a
big man. Yeah, And they develop a relationship and some
would call it, I would call it grooming. That Matthew
Farwell began grooming Sandra Birchmore and somewhere in her third
(07:39):
year of being involved with the Explorer Post, the grooming
ended and the activity began. That's what is alleged because
Sandra Birgmore is the reason we're talking about this is
this young woman who began her experience with police at
the Explorer Post at twelve years old. At twenty three
(08:02):
years old and three months pregnant, committed suicide the same week.
She was researching photographers to take infant baby pictures when
they're first born and getting a scheduled time so she
could have that done and then she committed suicide. Supposedly
it was rule to suicide at first, but Joe, the
(08:25):
reason we're doing this show today is because it was
rule to suicide, yeah, at first, but then it changed. Right,
how do we go from something that is cut and
dry suicide to anything else?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Hard to kind of take the measure of it, Dave,
And it took a while. This investigation, like you stated,
started in twenty twenty one, and it was when she
was found in her apartment. And my understanding is is
(09:08):
that when she was found in her apartment, she had
been down for maybe three days by that time by
the time they had found her. And just let me
speak just for a moment about suicide and kind of
from the medical examiner's perspective, how we view these. First off,
I will just be very very honest with our friends here,
(09:33):
even though it is a death investigation once a local
police department, and in this case, we have to make clear, Dave,
that her death did not occur in the town in
which she was involved in the explore post. Her death
(09:54):
actually occurred in Canton, Massachusetts. And we all know that
name because we can't seem to get past it because
in recent months, all we've heard about is the Karen
Reid case. So you're talking about a death that occurred
there in that jurisdiction where she had her her home.
(10:16):
But in general, in very broad strokes, when you're talking
about suicide investigation, once the police get the indication, many times,
and I've had this happen, actually, it seems day over
and over again. Once you make the statement as an
EMMY investigator or a corner that yeah, this looks like
(10:37):
it's consistent with a suicide, guess what happens with the detectives.
Many times they'll say, Okay, well, yeah, we'll leave you
with this and we'll go ahead and go about our
business because from a prosecutorial standpoint, there's nothing for them
to do at that point. Tom, You're not going to
(10:59):
put the cuffs on anybody. You're not seeking some mysterious
person that's out there. And so their interest, their interest
drops off precipitously, and many times the full weight of
this falls onto the shoulders of the emmy or the
corner to conduct the investigation. And one of the elements
(11:20):
that and I'm glad you mentioned this about the let's see,
I think there was like a stroller the image that
she had had from ultrasound was actually sitting out on
the bar in the actual kitchen. She's talking about purchasing
clothing and doing all these sorts of things, you know,
(11:42):
for the baby, because she's very excited about. One of
the things that we do with suicide is we try
to find an element of intent relative to the individual
that has taken their life. Obviously, and well, how do
you do that? Well? For us, one of the things
we do, first off, we want to find out if
an individual is suffering from any kind of psychopathology at all.
(12:06):
Are they currently under the care of psychologist or psychiatrists,
Are they on any kind of medications that would lend itself?
Are they being treated for anxiety depression? Also, has there
ever been a previous attempt at taking their own life?
Is there any evidence of that on the body, because
many times I've had people dave that, and this is
(12:27):
kind of the classic thing that you look for. You
look at the risk to see if there's old, old
scars that are consistent with healed healed you know, cut
marks on their arm that might be kind of superficial.
They tried once it didn't work. Have they vocalized Here's
here's kind of the terminology that the psychology psychology types
(12:49):
like to use. They will say, did the person have
suicidal ideation? Which means were they thinking about it? The
next step is was there vocalation with it? And so
what that means is they're thinking about it and they're
actually saying it to somebody. So we go to a
great links as medical legal investigators to try to understand this.
(13:13):
What's their medical history? Is there anything that we need
to do to explore to try to find that kernel
of intent? And I got to tell you, Dave, in
this particular case, I don't think anything like that existed. Dave.
(13:39):
You know, I know I've said this to you before,
but it bears repeating our working supposition as medical legal
death investigators, and it should be with homicide detectives too.
But it is that every death, not some deaths, but
every death, and I'm talking about even people that have
obvious natural disease, every death we work is a homicide
(14:00):
until we can prove otherwise. And what I mean by
that is that until I can until I can scientifically
verify whether it's per physical examination or history that I'm
getting from family members, or maybe a more extensive examination
that is conducted at the morgue. I'm going to assume
(14:23):
everybody dies at the hand of another because here's the thing.
Those cases, homicide cases are so highly complex that once
you cross that threshold into that dwelling, you cannot step
across that threshold again for the first time. All right,
you can't repeat that. So you have to make sure
(14:43):
that you've covered all of your bases upon that initial
contact at the scene, to make sure you haven't missed anything.
And day when she was found, it kind of seemed
like it was probably going to be a suicide at
that point in time.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Now, you mentioned that where Sandra Berchman lived was not
in the town where she had been a part of
the police force through their Explorer program that was in Stoton,
But she lived in a place called Canton. So the
people on the police force that would have that knew
(15:19):
her from being in the Explorer post, they wouldn't have
been involved in the investigation into a suicide, would they.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
No, No, they wouldn't know unless some kind of information
came up in the course of the investigation that said, well,
I'll put it to this way. You walk into a
scene where you will find some kind of collateral information
at that scene that says, you know, she's received some
kind of award from this other police department. Trust me,
(15:49):
that's going to catch the eyes of an investigator that's there.
And maybe she's got I don't know, maybe she's got
T shirts, maybe they hand out explorer badges. Maybe maybe
she's got things in her possession that would give you
an indication that she is really interested in law enforcement. Now,
(16:09):
you might make a phone call at that point and
Tom say, hey, look, we've got we're here at a scene.
We've got this young lady that's deceased, and is she
one of yours? I mean, you know, because she's got
all of this stuff from your jurisdiction, they might, you know,
probe that at that moment in Tom, that's really, you know,
that's really what you would be looking for.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And that makes sense. I mean, you're you find somebody
hanging in a closet or on a doorknob, you would
think you've got to find out. You know, when Robin Williams,
the comedian, committed suicide using his belt and the door
of his closet, his closet doorknob, there was a lot
(16:49):
of breaking down of how is that possible?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
What happened? You know?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And and he's a celebrity who had mental uh had issues?
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, he did, he had physically. Can I say something
real quick about that, that report that those investigators did.
I cannot, for the life of me remember the name
of that county. It's in the adjacent Greater San Francisco area.
Is Marin County? I can't remember, But that, arguably, Dave,
(17:20):
that might be one of the finest medical legal death
investigator reports I've ever read in my life. It was
thorough beyond anything you can imagine. So to that point, yeah, yeah,
and he did he did facilitate his own hanging, you know,
from you know, from a door knob essentially and using
(17:43):
a belt in order to do that. And it sounds
as though that, even though they have not released all
of the information in this particular case, it sounds as
though that that might be what they observed when they
arrived at the scene, Dave.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
And it is in Marion County by the way, I
looked that up while you were talking. Because when when
you come up on a scene like this and you
are going to start trying to find out who the
person is, because you said that it was a couple
of days between the time that she actually died and
the time her body was found. Yes, so she would
(18:17):
have already gone through the processes that you explained in
one of our shows last.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Week, you know, the postpartum changes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, And so what stage what would her body be
like after two or three days hanging like that?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Well, first off, her limbs are going to be flaccid
by that moment, Tom, and one of the ways that
could determine she had been down And I'm just talking
about not merely, I'm not talking about when was the
last time she was spoken to. I'm just talking about
what does the body tell us? All right, So if
they're staying two to three days down range, first off,
there's a high probability that ruger mortis would either be
(18:59):
completely dis paid it or easily broken. Okay, So the
rigidity in her arms after that period of time would
no longer be there. I mean literally, Dave, you could
pick her arm up at the elbow and you could
easily flex it. At that point time, you could open
her jaw, you know, to inspect a mouth and that
(19:20):
sort of thing. Whereas if it had happened like if
they had found her within that twenty four hour time frame,
you'd see the rigidity, but slowly it fades away. And
here's one of the things. So if you look at
if you look at her from this perspective with the
absence of rigidity possibly and then the settling of the
(19:41):
blood with the post mortem lividity, and the key is here,
what do we do when we have a body that's
in a seated position. Well, if you're if you're seated,
you know on your rear end, the blood is going
to gravitate to that area. Guess what, It'll be non blanchable.
So if you pressed skin, that purple discoloration would not disappear.
(20:04):
So for us when we're looking at a body trying
to determine how long the body has been down relative
to post mortem interval, there's no doubt that you would
see that and you would think as an investigator, Wow,
she's been down a while. And also at that point
in time, when you have for that many for that
(20:25):
period of time, you would sometimes you can pick up
on a very faint odor. Also, there are these changes
that occur after say like seventy two hours, you'll begin
to see the fingertips shrivel and they'll become like dehydrated
to a certain degree, but only the fingertips. You're not
(20:45):
going to see it all through the body. And so
there are just signs that you can tell that they've
been down longer than just say a couple of hours.
And that's one of the things that you try to
brack at that time, because if you can bracket time.
And we know that they know some stuff about Sandra,
that there had been phone calls that were placed where
(21:06):
she was trying to schedule these these infant photographs. You know,
she's this is a young lady that's very excited about
this day. There was there was actually a stroller. You know,
she'd bought a stroller. You remember this, you know, as
a dad, I mean, your guts are turning inside out
and you're terrified, but there's a bit of excitement to it,
(21:27):
and you're purchasing clothes and diapers and all that stuff
to get ready. It's one of the finest times of
my life. I remember being excited, and as well you
should be. You're celebrating a new life that's going to
come and you know, but you you marry all of
that together that circumstantial data, and it paints a picture
of what was going on at that at those moments
(21:48):
prior to her death. Here's the thing, Dave, who's going
to go to all of this trouble if they're going
to end their life, you know who's going to do
these things? And so for me, as an em ME
investigator corner investigator, I'm sitting there thinking this doesn't add up,
and not to say, you know, and I don't think
(22:08):
there's a note, but notes for the exception, not the norm.
People think you're gonna find suicide note. I'd say probably
two out of ten cases that I worked with suicides
would you find a note or some kind of scribbling.
They are, in fact the exception, not the norm. So
that's not a real good placeholder for you from an
(22:30):
evidentiary standpoint.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
But you mentioned you would try to ascertain what was
going on in her life at the time, was her
mental emotional stability, what is she thinking? And based on
what they are seeing, a young woman very excited about
being pregnant and the thought of having her baby, and
now she's what appears to be committed suicide. Now are
(22:53):
they going to start looking from an investigative standpoint, they're
going to look at all of her personal relationships obviously, right,
that's yes, first place I'm going to start, because we
got to find out more about her. What could have
turned her if we believe it's a suicide, what could
have turned her mood so dark when it was so sunshine,
rainbows and unicorns do this? And yeah, how do you
(23:16):
find that out?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I mean really, are we actually going to be picking
up the phone going through the rolodex? What are we
going to do?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well? I got to tell you the first place I
always start. Yeah, I like to talk to the immediate family.
But Dave, I got to tell you not everybody talks
to their immediate family. Now, who do you spend the
most time with if you're single and you're working, that's
a big clue. Who do you spend the most time with? Well,
it's not your mom and dad most of the time.
(23:43):
It's not siblings, because you know, once you once you
become an adult, if you have siblings, you kind of
go your separate ways to live your life. It's going
to be people you work with. And yes, she might
have girlfriends. You know that she interacts with some male friends. Perhaps,
but if you are working full time. Think about how
(24:03):
much time all of us spend at work. Now. They
say you can't choose your family, but many times you
can't choose the individuals you work with. Either they're hired
independent of you. But there are the certain relationships at
work where you begin to feel confident with the people
that you talk with that you can find information in
(24:24):
them that you're not going to call up a sibling
necessarily that you only see a couple of times a year.
I go One of the things I always do is
I try to track down where this individual work and
try to find somebody at work that'll have a conversation
with me. I'll start with like a supervisor most of
the time, because supervisors can tell you a lot. You know,
(24:45):
first off, they know if you've been sicking out, they
know what your job performance is like. They know what
your attitude is like while you're there. Are you angry
or you easily frustrated? Have you, you know, threatened to
do harm to anybody in the office. And then the
people that shares the space immediately adjacent to you, they're
going to see. The thing about it is, if you
(25:07):
work in one of these cubicle type of environments. Isn't
it amazing the conversations you can hear are going on
next to you, you know, I mean that's you know,
it's that kind of thing. And you have to begin
to kind of in dwell that space that these individuals lived,
their their living space, if you will, and go back
and retroactively try to piece together all of this stuff.
(25:30):
You know, you do that if they have physicians. I
love to call physicians up, and I try to be
very gentle when I do this, because people really develop
great relationships with physicians. And you drop the bomb on
a physician like that and tell them that their patient
is dead. You try to be as gentle as you
can with them, but you want to try to get
information from them. Now. Sometimes physicians won't give it up
(25:51):
because they're afraid of get ensued and out of that group,
psychiatrists are the worst. You have to issue a subpoena
many times, but I have had and they'll say, sure, sure,
I'll tell you everything. I'll give you what she's been
diagnosed with or whatever. But there's no indication of any
of this kind of thing here. As a matter of fact,
what we're hearing about is kind of a bright and
(26:12):
cheery affect, and it's a head scratcher when you're an investigator.
So how do you put two and two together where
you've got this young woman that's in her home that
has apparently hung herself, but yet she's living this life
where she's excited about what the future holes Dave.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
At what point, Joe, do you look at the surroundings
and say this doesn't look right. Was there anything in
the surroundings around this supposed suicide that stood out?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Well? First off, she is not what you refer to
as a Let me phrase this so that folks understand.
She is not what is referred to as a classic
suspension hanging where you have that hard point where where
an individual is going to tie off a rope or
(27:07):
some type of ligature and then kind of free swing
in the air. Kinds of classic kind of hanging type
of thing. We're talking about a supported hanging and a
lot of people, I think I've had people in classes
that have asked me, how in the world can somebody
do this? Well, they can do it. I've had people
hang themselves on the side of hospital beds in psychiatric
(27:30):
wards where they just essentially wrap something around their neck
they tie it off and they just sit down and
then go to sleep, because you're cutting off your carrotids
at that point in time, and it's more of a
it's more you're depriving the brain of oxygen, is what's
essentially happening at this point in time. It's not a
matter with hanging like this where it's kind of supported
(27:51):
and they just kind of lean into it and sit down.
It's not one of these events where there's a violent drop,
you know, like in an like an old Western movie,
you know, where they drop through the floor of the
gallows and that sort of thing. It's not like that.
There's not a level of violence there that comes along
with this. This is kind of a uh, slowly kind
(28:12):
of sinking down. I think many people think, you know,
how is it that you can resist the urge to
take this thing off of your neck? And that's the
big question, isn't it How could you have done this?
And also do these injuries actually marry up with the
(28:33):
idea of this being self inflicted or is it something
a bit more ominous? Dave, I'm not going to say
I didn't see this coming, because this case has been
(28:54):
mentioned to me. Well, actually it was mentioned to me
by some friends that I have in the I guess
probably a year and a half two years ago, and
I took a look at it at that tom Something
just didn't add up with it, and there were suspicions
that were floating around. You even mentioned that day. I
think that's that's a good place to start with this
(29:14):
isn't it was? There were phone calls that were made
to her being discovered dead, correct.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
You know I mentioned at the very beginning that she
was involved in the explorer post at the police station
there in Stoughton, and that's a big part of this story.
And she did have a relationship with some of the
adult men that were volunteers that were part of that
explorer post from about the age of fifteen. Now she
(29:45):
was there when she was twelve. When she was fifteen,
she starts having a child cannot have a sexual relationship
with an adult. They can be raped by an adult,
They cannot have sexual relations with an adult. So I
am misspeaking every time I say that, and I apologize.
She groomed and raped by allegedly, allegedly, and when her
(30:06):
suicide is being investigated, they start peeling the curtain back
to find out more about her, and they find out, oh,
wait a minute, she was really involved in the Explorer post.
And wait a minute. Two weeks before her death, the
Stodent Police Department got a phone call from an anonymous
person who said that that Sandra is pregnant.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
And that.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
One of the police officers is the father. And that's
what began the investigation explosion. And yet Sandra Birchman Birchmore
rather was three months pregnant when she died. Matthew Farwell,
(30:55):
who's thirty eight now, was the man that was accused
of impressignating her. And so they start that investigation, and
they find out that a number of police officers in
the Stoton Police Office, officers in Stoton Police Department were
involved in inappropriate relationships with individuals in the community, and
(31:20):
that it was a big investigation into the police department.
And again you had this young woman's suicide that started,
you know, that really opened the door for the investigation.
And that phone call to the police department that says, hey,
this guy is putting hands on her, that was the
part that really got their attention. I think I mentioned
(31:40):
this earlier. As an adult woman of twenty three Sander
Birchmore is four foot ten and Matthew Farwell is six
foot four. Putting hands on her at that size, that's
that's shrek. You know, that's a big person compared to
her dominiuative stature. She's three months pregnant, and now they're
(32:02):
looking into all of her relationships with all of the men.
All of the men now that are involved in that
Explorer post are now exposed and they're digging through the
department Joe, all to find out what really happened. Meanwhile,
her family, Sandra Birchmar's family would not They're like, there's
no way that she was excited about being pregnant. There's
no way this happened the way you're claiming it did.
(32:23):
There's a cover up going on. So they hired their
own pathologists, not just any pathologists. They're filing a lawsuit,
So they hired former New York pathologists, a guy who's
one of the biggest names in America, Michael Boden. Doctor
Michael Boden was hired by the family.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Joe. Yeah, and listen, if you're there, there's a couple
of people out there that if if you're seeking to
illuminate a situation relatives to forensic pathology. I think that
probably doctor Boden is at the top of the heap.
(33:02):
And of course we all know he has famously been
involved in the examination of the Jeffrey Epstein case. And
I have to tell you this is not too dissimilar
when we begin to think about the mechanism that is
involved in this, we're talking about a hanging, Dave. And listen,
(33:25):
you know, with doctor Boden, he's got a lot of
miles on the tires relative to how many of these
cases he's seen over the years. Because not only did
he work as at OCME, the Office Chief Medical Examiner
in New York, he's also the state Medical Examiner for
the State of New York. He's seen a thing or
(33:47):
two during his time. And let me kind of break
this down to you. Now, we don't know the specifics
at this point in time, but one of the things
that you look for, if our friends will just kind
of think about hanging. When you think about a classic hanging,
(34:08):
a ligature is placed around the neck and because of
the distribution of weight, the body is literally pulling down
on the ligature. If it's anchored to like a doorknob.
Like we've mentioned, as it pulls down, that noose forms
like a gigantic tear drop in the air. Okay, just
(34:29):
think about it. Okay, where it's it's you have the apex,
it's up at like the twelve o'clock position, and as
a result of that, the ligature marks themselves will run
up behind the ears. Okay, because the weight it's being
pulled down. I'm wondering, just wondering if when they conducted
(34:52):
this autopsy. First off, I want to know, was the
literature removed from her neck at the scene. That's a problem.
We have kind of a standing rule that if you
find a body that is suspended, and remember what do
we say about her, that she had been down two
(35:12):
to three days, you have no reason to remove the
literature at that point. In tom there's no reason. You
literally you go to the anchor point and you cut
the anchor point. You don't cut it away from the
neck because you want to see the body in this
initial configuration at the morgue. Most of the time, a
(35:33):
physician is not going to be at the scene. It's
going to be an emmy investigator and they will document
it photographically and they'll bring those in the images. They'll
have those images transmitted to the pathologist. They'll be able
to see how the body looked there. But there's something
about being able to appreciate that literature slash noose around
the neck in its pristine form. You don't want to
remove it. Now we've got this idea of the tear
(35:57):
drop right that's going upward and this form this forms
something called tinting feature, like a pup tint okay, so
that when you remove the ligature, you'll see these furrows
that run behind the ears that go upward, and it's
generally kind of low on the neck on the anterior side. However,
(36:18):
when you're looking at a ligature strangulation and they have
mentioned the term strangulation, we don't know if the strangulation
was facilitated by hands or if it was facilitated by
a ligature. Those marks, if it is a ligature and
it's a ligature strangulation, are going to run parallel to
(36:38):
the shoulders, not vertical in orientation, but parallel, so it
literally goes back and the furrow looks completely different. I'm
wondering if they missed that at autopsy. And the other
thing is if this was a manual strangulation where hands
were actually placed on her neck. Going back to what
Boden had talked to about with Epstein, one of the
(37:03):
things that his bone of contention with Epstein is that
the hywood was fractured, and highwood fractures generally only occur
with manual strangulation. So how thoroughly did they dissect the
neck at autopsy, which is something that you would as
a matter of fact, not only would you dissect the neck,
you would preserve the organs of the neck. That means
(37:26):
that the layernix comes out, you examine it at autopsy,
you save the hyroid. You do not, I mean do
not send it to the funeral home with the body.
But if they're thinking that this is a suicide, that
might be gone. So doctor Biden might only have photographs
to refer to the other thing you're going to be
looking for, or when the layer of skin is reflected
(37:50):
and you begin to look for the hemorrhages, dave in
a soft tissue of the neck. If you have like
a manual strangulation, those those areas of hemorrhage will be
very diffuse because it covers a wider area than just
that narrow little furrow. Well, something missed in the soft
tissues of the neck. Relative to that, there's something that
(38:13):
is telling doctor Boden, I would imagine scientifically, at least
something he can there's a proverbial nail. He can hang
his hat on his intellectual hat. And because he's sticking
his he's sticking his neck out relative to this. He's
calling this a homicide. He's not saying well, he's not
wishing away. He's saying this is a homicide. And not
only is he saying it, the family is taking this
(38:36):
as gospel and they're pursuing a civil action in this case.
And that's kind of how all this, how all this
kicked up, And of course this is going to draw
the eye of the of the of the FBI, and
well the chief at least the chief of police in Stoton.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
She said, I'm not a forensic pathologist. I'm not a scientist,
but reading doctor Boden's letter, she's just mortified by what
she's reading. That what he said took place. And that's
where you were talking about that investigation. Granted he's a
hired hand by the family. They're trying to find out
(39:14):
what happened to their daughter, their you know, their loved
one that they didn't believe committed suicide. And doctor Bodden
mentioned Joe beyond the physical examination. He mentioned in his paper,
the investigation that was done by the Stoton Police Department
into the life of this young woman. And you know
when we were talking about how happy she was about
(39:35):
being pregnant and all of those things, you know that
she was doing giant lineup of a photographer that all
came from Stoton Police Department from their investigation.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
So you know, so this is my question. I think
from an investigative standpoint, this actually took place in Canton,
and I'm just wondering. I'm just wondering. And this is
just me thinking out loud, what level of contact is
there between Stotent and Canton? Because that troubles me. This
(40:08):
is another reason this troubles me, Dave. I've over the
course of my career, I've done I don't just instruct
in college, Okay, I'm not just a college professor. I
teach at police Academy and I also teach investigators. I
have sat through and I have administered instruction and the
investigation of stage suicides. Well, David, that's what That's what
(40:33):
really gives this such a dark, sinister turn, is that
when you've got a civilian that does a and we've
covered them before on bodybacks, Dave, A staged suicide. I
think we did one very recently. I forgive me, I
can't remember which one it was, but we have done it, Dave.
(40:53):
If you're a police officer, a detective, an investigator, you're
sitting through a class, and these classes can last maybe
one two days, sixteen hours of instruction. Perhaps, Hey, what
did you learn in that class? Because let me tell
you what the FBI is doing now. The FBI will
(41:16):
have literally gone back into his training records. Let this
sink in just for a second. We'll go into his
training records and they will look at every school he's
ever attended, any kind of professional training he's had. And
it's something that cops hear about, but it's not necessarily
(41:40):
something that everyone is trained in. He's a detective, so
and it's a small department. My thought is is that
in a department to small, you're not going to have
like an individual homicide division. You're going to have a
what they're referred to as a crimes against person. So
he would handle assaults, battery, homicides, abuse cases, that sort
(42:04):
of thing, anything that's a crime against a person as
opposed to a property crime, which might be a theft
or something like that. So they're very broad ranging, you know,
practitioners in this environment. I wonder what kind of training
he's had, Has he had any exposure to this whatsoever.
The FBI likes him for this, I mean, they have
(42:25):
charged him now, and their charges are very interesting the
way they're worded, because you know, the Feds, the FEDS
don't have and even the US Attorney General for that
district when he gave his press conference, he actually alluded
(42:46):
to the fact that the Feds don't have a homicide charge,
and they don't they don't investigate homicide is a state charge.
They are investigating this case from the perspective of he
killed a witness. Think about that just a second. That
goes to that goes to like the very essence constitutionally
(43:06):
when you begin to think about civil rights, as you know,
you're depriving somebody of their ability to communicate with the
cops if they're going to give testimony against them, So
you're going to eliminate somebody. And plus FBI generally investigates
when it comes to policing. They will investigate any kind
of malfeasans that's going on inside of a department. And
(43:29):
that's the other troubling thing. You think they're going to
come in to investigate a single cop that's having a
sexual relationship that started as a minor. Why didn't it?
And that's that's my question here. Why didn't it just
stop with the Massachusetts State Police? Why was this kicked
up to a federal level? Because anytime you get to
(43:52):
that level where you're drawing, you're drawing the eye of
you know, the all seeing eye and think about the
movie Lord of the you know that big eye going
when you draw the attention of the FBI. They're doing
other stuff, trust me. But yet this one case that
is a suicide draws their attention so that they're invested
(44:16):
in the investigation. Dave, I think, in my estimation, this
is merely the stream that they're going to pull that
could perhaps unravel the entire sweater. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan,
and this is body packs
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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