May 5, 2023 • 22 mins
In this bonus episode, Melissa talks with Laura Crimaldi — a reporter for The Boston Globe — who is covering a contemporary case with eerie similarities to Sandy Beal.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Before we begin, please note this episode includes talk of suicide.
Please take care while listening. Last year I made a
podcast about a young woman named Sandy Beale. In February
nineteen seventy seven, when she was just eighteen years old,
she was found dead in her car from a gunshot wound,
(00:23):
her life cut tragically short. I've been reporting on the
deaths of women for a while now, and something I've
come to realize is when you investigate how or why
someone died, you're really investigating how they lived. And what
I learned about Sandy, she had been living under enormous
stress and had needed to navigate through some incredibly difficult situations.
(00:46):
Sandy's family never bought the police's story that she took
her own life. Instead, they suspected her much older boyfriend,
who happened to be a Maryland State trooper and married.
As I looked into Sandy's death and life, I learned
that she had likely been involved with multiple police officers,
many of whom were connected to the Explorer Program, a
(01:07):
youth police education and training program that Sandy attended as
a teen. To me, this was a clear sign of
a deeply toxic and most likely predatory environment. Sandy died
forty five years ago, and my investigation took me deep
into the police culture of the nineteen seventies. So it
was pretty alarming when I learned of a much more
(01:28):
recent case that appeared eerily similar, so similar in fact,
that the victims even have the same first name, Sandra.
Sandra Birchmore grew up in Massachusetts and joined the Stoton
Police Explorer program when she was thirteen years old. A
decade later, in February twenty twenty one, she died by suicide.
(01:49):
The last person to see her alive is believed to
be Matthew Farwell, a police officer who mentored her in
the Explorer program and whom she said she was in
a romantic relationship with. I talked about this case a
little in the final episode of What Happened to Sandy
Beal But in the wake of Sandra Birchmore's death and
since the podcast was released, the Stoughton Police Department has
(02:11):
come under intense scrutiny. Three police officers have resigned, the
district attorneys investigating whether criminal charges should be brought, and
Sandra's family has filed a civil suit accusing local police
of participating in a ten year period of sexual abuse
and mistreatment. As I've been working on the next season
of What Happened To which we'll be telling the story
(02:33):
of a different woman, I keep getting emails and messages
about Sandra Birchmore. So today we're bringing you this bonus
episode to make sense of how this type of police
sexual misconduct continues to persevere decades after Sandy Beal's experience.
To help go through the case and discuss how or
if anything might change in Stoughton, I spoke with Laura Crimaldy,
(02:56):
a reporter from the Boston Globe who has been covering
Sandra Burchmore's since the beginning. I'm Melissa Jelson, and this
is what Happened to Sandy Beale, a bonus episode about
the other Sandra.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Sandra Birchmore was a young woman who grew up in
the town of Stoughton, Massachusetts, south of Boston. I think
that she had a difficult childhood, that there were factors
in her household that made her look to outside influences
for support and guidance and direction. She was drawn to
the discipline, order, and hierarchical structure of law enforcement that
(03:39):
was a way for her to make sense of the
world around her, and at an early age, she developed
an interest in law enforcement and got involved with the
Police Explorers program in her community through the police department.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Sandra, like Sandy, admired law enforcement, and she really seemed
to enjoy the Explorer program, so much so that she
encouraged other people to join.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
She would publish pictures on her Facebook page of her
with the Explorers. She also posted a lot of photographs
of her at different community events in her hometown of Stoughton,
in which she was posing with different police officers, some
who were involved with the Explorer's program and some who
were not involved in Explorers directly but were members of
(04:24):
the department.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
At some point, Sandra began to confide in her friends
about a sexual relationship she was having with a police
officer she met as an Explorer, Matthew Farwell. He and
his twin brother William, had actually once been Explorers themselves,
and now as officers in the Stoughton Police Department, they
both helped out with the program.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
What was learned later was that Sander birch Moore told
friends that when she was fifteen years old, she began
to have sex with Matthew Farwell, and that relationship continued
until her death, and at the time of her death,
she was telling friends that she was pregnant and that
(05:07):
she believed the father was Matthew Farwell. Sandra Birchmore was
telling people that she was happy about this pregnancy and
she was eager to become a mother.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The evening she was last heard from in February twenty
twenty one, she texted with a colleague in the school
system she worked at, wondering if school would be canceled
the next day because of an impending snowstorm, and.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
At some point in the evening she learned that Matt
Farwell was going to stop by her apartment and visit her.
Matt Farwell later told police that he visited Sandra Birchmore
and that they had an argument. There was a confrontation,
and Matt Farwell described the confrontation as being a bad fight,
(05:51):
but he said it wasn't physical. His intent, he told investigators,
was to break off his relationship with Sandra Birchmore. Sandra
insisted that she was pregnant and that he was the
father of the child, and he disputed her version of events.
He said he was not the father, according to interviews
he gave to police afterwards, he was recorded on surveillance
(06:16):
leaving her apartment sometime after about a thirty minute visit,
and it's after that visit that Sander's friends say that
they didn't hear from her again. The school department contacted
police a couple days later and asked for a well
being check at Sandra's home because she hadn't reported for work,
and so when police went her apartment a few days later,
(06:40):
she was found dead there, and the Office of the
Chief Medical Examiner in Massachusetts concluded that she died by suicide,
and her date of death is listed as the day
her body was found, which was February fourth, twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Sandra was just twenty three years old when she died.
As with Sandy beal under Birchmore's friends were confused and
concerned that her death had been ruled a suicide. Many
of them knew she had been in a relationship with
a police officer and that she said he was the
father of her unborn child.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So in the days after her death, there were concern
among some of her family members and her friends about
the circumstances of her death, she had recently gone out
with some of her cousins and told them about her
pregnancy and appeared really excited and eager to become a mother,
and had even received some gifts for the baby, like
(07:33):
a stroller or carriage, was talking to a hairdresser about
arranging a photo shoot to memorialize her pregnancy. So the
idea that she was dead and that the initial reports
were that she killed herself didn't comport with what those
who know Sandra believed at the time. And also, some
(07:54):
of the people in her circle knew that she had
been in a relationship with a Stoton police officer. They
knew he was a detective, and there was concern among
those who knew Sandra best that any police investigation into
the circumstances of her death might be tainted by her
relationship with this local police officer, And so some of
(08:17):
her friends did post on social media asking people who
knew Sandra to contact the prosecutor's office and tell them
what they knew about Sandra, and they wanted to make
sure that any investigation into her death took into consideration
those other factors.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So here's where Sandra Birchmore's case is different than Sandy Bill's.
Despite the fact that there were serious concerns in some
officer's behavior with Sandy Bill, I found little to no
evidence of an ethics inquiry or that officers involved faced
any repercussions for their actions. But in Sandra Birchmore's case,
after hearing from her friends and family, Stoughton Police began
(09:12):
an internal investigation into her death and any potential misconduct
committed by members of the department. Laura Carmaldi went through
the details with me.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So after Sandra's death, there were two investigations that were initiated.
One was a death investigation, which was conducted by the
prosecutor's office that serves a community where Sandra was found.
And then secondly, the Stoughton Police Department initiated an internal
investigation that began in Earnest once the medical examiner had
(09:43):
ruled that Sandra had died by suicide. The department hired
outside investigators. They were retired police officers who had experienced
with doing internal investigations, and also delegated the deputy police
chief in the town to to conduct interviews and gather
evidence looking into police interactions with Sandra Birchmore. While she
(10:07):
was a police explorer and in the years afterwards.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
The findings were made public in September twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
That investigation found that two Stoughton police officers, Matthew Farwell
and his twin brother William Farwell, as well as their mentor,
Robert Devine, had had inappropriate relations with Sandra over a
period of years. And the investigation further found that a
(10:37):
Stoughton Animal control officer also had inappropriate relations with Sandra,
and that a military recruiter had inappropriate communications with Sandra.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Multiple Stoughton police officers, all affiliated with the Explorer's program,
as well as two other authority fail are alleged to
have had inappropriate contact with Sandra. This is heartbreakingly similar
to what I believe happened with Sandy Beale, and there's
a reason why these police youth programs can become breeding
grounds for abuse. On one side, you have older male
(11:16):
figures in positions of authority, and on the other teens
maybe from vulnerable backgrounds, who were eager for mentors.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
That report is heavily redacted and does not give the
specific details about the allegations, but it does establish that
Sandra Birchmore met Matthew Farwell as a police explorer, that
she looked up to him when she was a police explorer,
and that at some point in her teenage years he
(11:46):
embarked upon an inappropriate relationship with her that continued right
up until around the time of her death. Matthew Farewell,
through an attorney, has said that he has not committed
any crime. They found William Farwell was also engaged in
an inappropriate relationship with Sandra Birchmore, but it doesn't specify
(12:08):
how old she was when that relationship began. It also
found that he was involved in introducing her to other people.
It doesn't exactly specify who these people were that he
introduced her to or what the purpose of it was,
but the way it's written in the report, it gives
(12:29):
the impression that in doing so, he was not acting
in her best interest. We haven't heard from William Farewell publicly,
but he did leave the department in the summer and
got another position with a Transportation security administration, which said
publicly that they found no negative information about him when
(12:51):
they were conducting a background check.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
The third Stote Police officer named in the report was
Robert Devine, who had run the departments florer program.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Robert Devine has publicly denied any wrongdoing. There's a portion
of the report that alleges that he used a made
up screen name on Facebook to communicate with Sander Barchmore,
and that he used that Facebook account to set up
meetings with her arranged to meet her at a restaurant
(13:24):
while he was on duty.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
The Stoton Police Department recommended that Robert Devine, Matthew Farwell,
and William Farwell all be decertified by the state Board,
but it's a new system in Massachusetts and the decertification
hasn't happened yet. As it stands, before the investigation was
even finished, all three officers had voluntarily left the department.
The animal control officer found a job in a nearby
(13:49):
community where he was placed on paid administrative leave. It's
unknown if the military recruiter faced any repercussions, as his
identity has never been revealed publicly, and despite the fact
that Sandra Birchmore told her friends that she and Matthew
Farwell began having sex when she was fifteen, there have
not been, as of yet, any criminal charges against him.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
A prosecutor could consider a statutory rape crime because the
age of consent in Massachusetts is sixteen years old. The
department said at the time that it released its internal
affairs report that it was forwarding the documentation and the
evidence to the Prosecutor's office to consider whether any criminal
charges are warranted, and the prosecutor has not made any
(14:35):
announcements yet as to whether he plans to pursue any
criminal charges.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
One key difference between Sander Birchmore's case and Sandy Bal's
case is how the police department responded once they were
alerted to possible inappropriate conduct. So in Sandy Bal's case,
the police officer investigating her death received a number of
phone calls from other cops who insinuated that they may
have been sexually involved with her. He told me that
(15:02):
he did report this to higher ups, but that it
didn't trigger an investigation or any media coverage or public
statements by the police department addressing their wrongs. In contrast,
the Stoughton police chief has addressed Sandra Birchmore's case publicly.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
She gave a news conference to announce the findings of
the internal investigation, in which she was very sober faced, emotional.
She described Sandra's life I thought in poignant terms and
touched upon the reverence that Sandra showed during her life
for law enforcement and the military, and drew a bright
(15:39):
line between Sandra's reverence for those people and the officers
who were the subject to report in their conduct, which
she described as rendering them unfit to serve. It was
an emotional news conference. It was one of the few
times that we've seen a police chief come out and
say publicly that she wished to certify some of her
(16:02):
former officers, in part because it's a new system in Massachusetts.
She showed a lot of empathy for Sandra and her
family and the people who loved her, and a considerable
amount of regret that she had been subject to such
misconduct where she should have felt safe and protected, and
that the miscontact was perpetrated against her by those who
(16:25):
are sworn to uphold the law.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
These public reckonings can be helpful as they send the
message that police abuses won't just be swept under the rug,
and when it comes to public trust, transparency is key.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
One thing that was revealed in this investigation, which I
don't think was publicly known before, is that there were
big questions about the Farewell brothers law before they became
police officers or even applied to be police officers. They
were getting into trouble when they were explorers and personing
officers and pulling people over as they were driving through
(17:00):
streets in Stoughton, and that piece of information was known,
It was considered during the hiring process for both of them,
and it was overlooked because both of them eventually were hired.
So there are a lot of open questions that are
left from the investigation that will likely be addressed in
the coming months. But there's also the more lasting impact
(17:23):
what kind of trust can the public have in a
department like this where the department itself has admitted that
their officers were unfit to serve.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
As they wait to see if the prosecutor decides to
bring any charges, Sandra Birchmore's family has moved forward with
a civil suit.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
They filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Farwell brothers,
Robert Divine, and the animal control officer who now works
in the neighboring community of Abington as a police officer.
The other defendants in the lawsuit are the town of
Stone and It's a police department. The parts of that
(18:03):
complaint that concerned the department and the town have to
do with negligent hiring and supervision of the officers who
were interacting with Sandra.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It is still so striking to me how similar Sandy
Bill and Sandra Birchmore's cases are, even though they were
decades apart. They both really seemed to admire law enforcement,
and then both of them appeared to have been taken
advantage of by more than one person in a position
of power. When I was reporting on the Explorer program
that Sandy Bill was a part of, I discovered that
(18:47):
it had very little oversight. I was able to track
down one of the first officers who was involved in
the program, and he told me that they underwent no
training before engaging with teenagers and they were basically left
on their own to organize the program. Sandra Birchmore started
in the Explorer program when she was thirteen years old.
It was overseen by Robert Devine, the same officer later
(19:11):
accused of inappropriate conduct with her.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
At the time, he was rising through the ranks of
the department. As he got further and further along in
his career, there were fewer and fewer people who were
overseeing him, and those who were overseeing him might have
seen that program as a success because it was popular.
I got news coverage in the local papers, and it
was seen as something that was positive about the Stoton
(19:37):
Police Department.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I was curious if Laura thought that what happened to
Sandra Birchmore had made any sort of impact on policing
in the community.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
I think that Sandra Birchmore's story has just touched upon
the questions of power and authority that we give to
police officers, and how I should provide checks on that
power and authority. I think that it's been one of
(20:07):
the sadder cases that we have heard about in terms
of police misconduct, because it took place over years and
that she suffered for a long time, and it was
mostly hidden from view until she died. This particular case
highlights the crucial stuff that happens when police officers are
(20:30):
being hired and scrutinized. I think there's been a lot
of focus in recent years about who's entering law enforcement
and what their backgrounds are, what their histories are. If
there's stuff that is known about their backgrounds that might
be considered for disqualification, how are the hiring panels going
to treat it. I think that anyone who was a
(20:54):
young person has met someone like Sandra, someone who is
a little vulnerable but found a way to strengthen herself,
found something that fit, that felt like she could help
herself by getting involved in something, and in Sandra's case,
it was police Explorers. What's so sad about Sandra's case
(21:15):
is that she sought out the Explorers to improve her life,
to give her some stability and direction, and ultimately it
was the choice that led her to her death.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
For more information, make sure to check out Laura Cromaldi's
original reporting at The Boston Globe. If you have information
you wish to share about Sandra Birchmore or Police Explorer programs,
please send me an email at what Happened to Sandy
Beal at gmail dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
Before we begin, please note this episode includes talk of suicide.
Please take care while listening. Last year I made a
podcast about a young woman named Sandy Beale. In February
nineteen seventy seven, when she was just eighteen years old,
she was found dead in her car from a gunshot wound,
(00:23):
her life cut tragically short. I've been reporting on the
deaths of women for a while now, and something I've
come to realize is when you investigate how or why
someone died, you're really investigating how they lived. And what
I learned about Sandy, she had been living under enormous
stress and had needed to navigate through some incredibly difficult situations.
(00:46):
Sandy's family never bought the police's story that she took
her own life. Instead, they suspected her much older boyfriend,
who happened to be a Maryland State trooper and married.
As I looked into Sandy's death and life, I learned
that she had likely been involved with multiple police officers,
many of whom were connected to the Explorer Program, a
(01:07):
youth police education and training program that Sandy attended as
a teen. To me, this was a clear sign of
a deeply toxic and most likely predatory environment. Sandy died
forty five years ago, and my investigation took me deep
into the police culture of the nineteen seventies. So it
was pretty alarming when I learned of a much more
(01:28):
recent case that appeared eerily similar, so similar in fact,
that the victims even have the same first name, Sandra.
Sandra Birchmore grew up in Massachusetts and joined the Stoton
Police Explorer program when she was thirteen years old. A
decade later, in February twenty twenty one, she died by suicide.
(01:49):
The last person to see her alive is believed to
be Matthew Farwell, a police officer who mentored her in
the Explorer program and whom she said she was in
a romantic relationship with. I talked about this case a
little in the final episode of What Happened to Sandy
Beal But in the wake of Sandra Birchmore's death and
since the podcast was released, the Stoughton Police Department has
(02:11):
come under intense scrutiny. Three police officers have resigned, the
district attorneys investigating whether criminal charges should be brought, and
Sandra's family has filed a civil suit accusing local police
of participating in a ten year period of sexual abuse
and mistreatment. As I've been working on the next season
of What Happened To which we'll be telling the story
(02:33):
of a different woman, I keep getting emails and messages
about Sandra Birchmore. So today we're bringing you this bonus
episode to make sense of how this type of police
sexual misconduct continues to persevere decades after Sandy Beal's experience.
To help go through the case and discuss how or
if anything might change in Stoughton, I spoke with Laura Crimaldy,
(02:56):
a reporter from the Boston Globe who has been covering
Sandra Burchmore's since the beginning. I'm Melissa Jelson, and this
is what Happened to Sandy Beale, a bonus episode about
the other Sandra.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Sandra Birchmore was a young woman who grew up in
the town of Stoughton, Massachusetts, south of Boston. I think
that she had a difficult childhood, that there were factors
in her household that made her look to outside influences
for support and guidance and direction. She was drawn to
the discipline, order, and hierarchical structure of law enforcement that
(03:39):
was a way for her to make sense of the
world around her, and at an early age, she developed
an interest in law enforcement and got involved with the
Police Explorers program in her community through the police department.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Sandra, like Sandy, admired law enforcement, and she really seemed
to enjoy the Explorer program, so much so that she
encouraged other people to join.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
She would publish pictures on her Facebook page of her
with the Explorers. She also posted a lot of photographs
of her at different community events in her hometown of Stoughton,
in which she was posing with different police officers, some
who were involved with the Explorer's program and some who
were not involved in Explorers directly but were members of
(04:24):
the department.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
At some point, Sandra began to confide in her friends
about a sexual relationship she was having with a police
officer she met as an Explorer, Matthew Farwell. He and
his twin brother William, had actually once been Explorers themselves,
and now as officers in the Stoughton Police Department, they
both helped out with the program.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
What was learned later was that Sander birch Moore told
friends that when she was fifteen years old, she began
to have sex with Matthew Farwell, and that relationship continued
until her death, and at the time of her death,
she was telling friends that she was pregnant and that
(05:07):
she believed the father was Matthew Farwell. Sandra Birchmore was
telling people that she was happy about this pregnancy and
she was eager to become a mother.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The evening she was last heard from in February twenty
twenty one, she texted with a colleague in the school
system she worked at, wondering if school would be canceled
the next day because of an impending snowstorm, and.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
At some point in the evening she learned that Matt
Farwell was going to stop by her apartment and visit her.
Matt Farwell later told police that he visited Sandra Birchmore
and that they had an argument. There was a confrontation,
and Matt Farwell described the confrontation as being a bad fight,
(05:51):
but he said it wasn't physical. His intent, he told investigators,
was to break off his relationship with Sandra Birchmore. Sandra
insisted that she was pregnant and that he was the
father of the child, and he disputed her version of events.
He said he was not the father, according to interviews
he gave to police afterwards, he was recorded on surveillance
(06:16):
leaving her apartment sometime after about a thirty minute visit,
and it's after that visit that Sander's friends say that
they didn't hear from her again. The school department contacted
police a couple days later and asked for a well
being check at Sandra's home because she hadn't reported for work,
and so when police went her apartment a few days later,
(06:40):
she was found dead there, and the Office of the
Chief Medical Examiner in Massachusetts concluded that she died by suicide,
and her date of death is listed as the day
her body was found, which was February fourth, twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Sandra was just twenty three years old when she died.
As with Sandy beal under Birchmore's friends were confused and
concerned that her death had been ruled a suicide. Many
of them knew she had been in a relationship with
a police officer and that she said he was the
father of her unborn child.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So in the days after her death, there were concern
among some of her family members and her friends about
the circumstances of her death, she had recently gone out
with some of her cousins and told them about her
pregnancy and appeared really excited and eager to become a mother,
and had even received some gifts for the baby, like
(07:33):
a stroller or carriage, was talking to a hairdresser about
arranging a photo shoot to memorialize her pregnancy. So the
idea that she was dead and that the initial reports
were that she killed herself didn't comport with what those
who know Sandra believed at the time. And also, some
(07:54):
of the people in her circle knew that she had
been in a relationship with a Stoton police officer. They
knew he was a detective, and there was concern among
those who knew Sandra best that any police investigation into
the circumstances of her death might be tainted by her
relationship with this local police officer, And so some of
(08:17):
her friends did post on social media asking people who
knew Sandra to contact the prosecutor's office and tell them
what they knew about Sandra, and they wanted to make
sure that any investigation into her death took into consideration
those other factors.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So here's where Sandra Birchmore's case is different than Sandy Bill's.
Despite the fact that there were serious concerns in some
officer's behavior with Sandy Bill, I found little to no
evidence of an ethics inquiry or that officers involved faced
any repercussions for their actions. But in Sandra Birchmore's case,
after hearing from her friends and family, Stoughton Police began
(09:12):
an internal investigation into her death and any potential misconduct
committed by members of the department. Laura Carmaldi went through
the details with me.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So after Sandra's death, there were two investigations that were initiated.
One was a death investigation, which was conducted by the
prosecutor's office that serves a community where Sandra was found.
And then secondly, the Stoughton Police Department initiated an internal
investigation that began in Earnest once the medical examiner had
(09:43):
ruled that Sandra had died by suicide. The department hired
outside investigators. They were retired police officers who had experienced
with doing internal investigations, and also delegated the deputy police
chief in the town to to conduct interviews and gather
evidence looking into police interactions with Sandra Birchmore. While she
(10:07):
was a police explorer and in the years afterwards.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
The findings were made public in September twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
That investigation found that two Stoughton police officers, Matthew Farwell
and his twin brother William Farwell, as well as their mentor,
Robert Devine, had had inappropriate relations with Sandra over a
period of years. And the investigation further found that a
(10:37):
Stoughton Animal control officer also had inappropriate relations with Sandra,
and that a military recruiter had inappropriate communications with Sandra.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Multiple Stoughton police officers, all affiliated with the Explorer's program,
as well as two other authority fail are alleged to
have had inappropriate contact with Sandra. This is heartbreakingly similar
to what I believe happened with Sandy Beale, and there's
a reason why these police youth programs can become breeding
grounds for abuse. On one side, you have older male
(11:16):
figures in positions of authority, and on the other teens
maybe from vulnerable backgrounds, who were eager for mentors.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
That report is heavily redacted and does not give the
specific details about the allegations, but it does establish that
Sandra Birchmore met Matthew Farwell as a police explorer, that
she looked up to him when she was a police explorer,
and that at some point in her teenage years he
(11:46):
embarked upon an inappropriate relationship with her that continued right
up until around the time of her death. Matthew Farewell,
through an attorney, has said that he has not committed
any crime. They found William Farwell was also engaged in
an inappropriate relationship with Sandra Birchmore, but it doesn't specify
(12:08):
how old she was when that relationship began. It also
found that he was involved in introducing her to other people.
It doesn't exactly specify who these people were that he
introduced her to or what the purpose of it was,
but the way it's written in the report, it gives
(12:29):
the impression that in doing so, he was not acting
in her best interest. We haven't heard from William Farewell publicly,
but he did leave the department in the summer and
got another position with a Transportation security administration, which said
publicly that they found no negative information about him when
(12:51):
they were conducting a background check.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
The third Stote Police officer named in the report was
Robert Devine, who had run the departments florer program.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Robert Devine has publicly denied any wrongdoing. There's a portion
of the report that alleges that he used a made
up screen name on Facebook to communicate with Sander Barchmore,
and that he used that Facebook account to set up
meetings with her arranged to meet her at a restaurant
(13:24):
while he was on duty.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
The Stoton Police Department recommended that Robert Devine, Matthew Farwell,
and William Farwell all be decertified by the state Board,
but it's a new system in Massachusetts and the decertification
hasn't happened yet. As it stands, before the investigation was
even finished, all three officers had voluntarily left the department.
The animal control officer found a job in a nearby
(13:49):
community where he was placed on paid administrative leave. It's
unknown if the military recruiter faced any repercussions, as his
identity has never been revealed publicly, and despite the fact
that Sandra Birchmore told her friends that she and Matthew
Farwell began having sex when she was fifteen, there have
not been, as of yet, any criminal charges against him.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
A prosecutor could consider a statutory rape crime because the
age of consent in Massachusetts is sixteen years old. The
department said at the time that it released its internal
affairs report that it was forwarding the documentation and the
evidence to the Prosecutor's office to consider whether any criminal
charges are warranted, and the prosecutor has not made any
(14:35):
announcements yet as to whether he plans to pursue any
criminal charges.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
One key difference between Sander Birchmore's case and Sandy Bal's
case is how the police department responded once they were
alerted to possible inappropriate conduct. So in Sandy Bal's case,
the police officer investigating her death received a number of
phone calls from other cops who insinuated that they may
have been sexually involved with her. He told me that
(15:02):
he did report this to higher ups, but that it
didn't trigger an investigation or any media coverage or public
statements by the police department addressing their wrongs. In contrast,
the Stoughton police chief has addressed Sandra Birchmore's case publicly.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
She gave a news conference to announce the findings of
the internal investigation, in which she was very sober faced, emotional.
She described Sandra's life I thought in poignant terms and
touched upon the reverence that Sandra showed during her life
for law enforcement and the military, and drew a bright
(15:39):
line between Sandra's reverence for those people and the officers
who were the subject to report in their conduct, which
she described as rendering them unfit to serve. It was
an emotional news conference. It was one of the few
times that we've seen a police chief come out and
say publicly that she wished to certify some of her
(16:02):
former officers, in part because it's a new system in Massachusetts.
She showed a lot of empathy for Sandra and her
family and the people who loved her, and a considerable
amount of regret that she had been subject to such
misconduct where she should have felt safe and protected, and
that the miscontact was perpetrated against her by those who
(16:25):
are sworn to uphold the law.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
These public reckonings can be helpful as they send the
message that police abuses won't just be swept under the rug,
and when it comes to public trust, transparency is key.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
One thing that was revealed in this investigation, which I
don't think was publicly known before, is that there were
big questions about the Farewell brothers law before they became
police officers or even applied to be police officers. They
were getting into trouble when they were explorers and personing
officers and pulling people over as they were driving through
(17:00):
streets in Stoughton, and that piece of information was known,
It was considered during the hiring process for both of them,
and it was overlooked because both of them eventually were hired.
So there are a lot of open questions that are
left from the investigation that will likely be addressed in
the coming months. But there's also the more lasting impact
(17:23):
what kind of trust can the public have in a
department like this where the department itself has admitted that
their officers were unfit to serve.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
As they wait to see if the prosecutor decides to
bring any charges, Sandra Birchmore's family has moved forward with
a civil suit.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
They filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Farwell brothers,
Robert Divine, and the animal control officer who now works
in the neighboring community of Abington as a police officer.
The other defendants in the lawsuit are the town of
Stone and It's a police department. The parts of that
(18:03):
complaint that concerned the department and the town have to
do with negligent hiring and supervision of the officers who
were interacting with Sandra.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It is still so striking to me how similar Sandy
Bill and Sandra Birchmore's cases are, even though they were
decades apart. They both really seemed to admire law enforcement,
and then both of them appeared to have been taken
advantage of by more than one person in a position
of power. When I was reporting on the Explorer program
that Sandy Bill was a part of, I discovered that
(18:47):
it had very little oversight. I was able to track
down one of the first officers who was involved in
the program, and he told me that they underwent no
training before engaging with teenagers and they were basically left
on their own to organize the program. Sandra Birchmore started
in the Explorer program when she was thirteen years old.
It was overseen by Robert Devine, the same officer later
(19:11):
accused of inappropriate conduct with her.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
At the time, he was rising through the ranks of
the department. As he got further and further along in
his career, there were fewer and fewer people who were
overseeing him, and those who were overseeing him might have
seen that program as a success because it was popular.
I got news coverage in the local papers, and it
was seen as something that was positive about the Stoton
(19:37):
Police Department.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I was curious if Laura thought that what happened to
Sandra Birchmore had made any sort of impact on policing
in the community.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
I think that Sandra Birchmore's story has just touched upon
the questions of power and authority that we give to
police officers, and how I should provide checks on that
power and authority. I think that it's been one of
(20:07):
the sadder cases that we have heard about in terms
of police misconduct, because it took place over years and
that she suffered for a long time, and it was
mostly hidden from view until she died. This particular case
highlights the crucial stuff that happens when police officers are
(20:30):
being hired and scrutinized. I think there's been a lot
of focus in recent years about who's entering law enforcement
and what their backgrounds are, what their histories are. If
there's stuff that is known about their backgrounds that might
be considered for disqualification, how are the hiring panels going
to treat it. I think that anyone who was a
(20:54):
young person has met someone like Sandra, someone who is
a little vulnerable but found a way to strengthen herself,
found something that fit, that felt like she could help
herself by getting involved in something, and in Sandra's case,
it was police Explorers. What's so sad about Sandra's case
(21:15):
is that she sought out the Explorers to improve her life,
to give her some stability and direction, and ultimately it
was the choice that led her to her death.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
For more information, make sure to check out Laura Cromaldi's
original reporting at The Boston Globe. If you have information
you wish to share about Sandra Birchmore or Police Explorer programs,
please send me an email at what Happened to Sandy
Beal at gmail dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
Host
Melissa Jeltsen
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