Wire reporting: (AP, via Local 10)

A federal jury in Boston is scheduled to resume deliberations Monday in the murder trial of Matthew Farwell, a former Stoughton, Massachusetts, police officer charged in the 2021 death of Sandra Birchmore^1,2.

WCVB and WMUR said the panel of eight men and four women deliberated for nearly four hours Friday after closing arguments, asked the judge if they could stay late, and left after about 5 p.m. because of staffing issues^1,2.

Prosecutors say Farwell killed Birchmore, who was 23 and pregnant, and staged the scene as a suicide to conceal a sexual relationship that they say began when she was 15 and he was 27, after they met through a Stoughton Police youth program^1,3,4.

Farwell has pleaded not guilty⁴. His lawyers have not denied an extramarital relationship but argue he did not kill her and that the evidence is consistent with suicide^4,6.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Fogerty told jurors Friday that Farwell went to Birchmore's Canton apartment on Feb. 1, 2021, to prevent her from exposing him¹. Surveillance video showed a man identified as Farwell entering the building at 9:14 p.m. wearing a mask and leaving at 9:43 p.m., minutes after Birchmore's phone recorded its last steps, according to trial coverage^1,4.

Birchmore was found Feb. 4, 2021, with a duffle bag strap around her neck^1,4. Local authorities first treated the death as a suicide; the Massachusetts medical examiner later changed the manner of death to undetermined^1,4. Federal prosecutors charged Farwell in 2024 and added a count in 2025 related to the death of the unborn child^3,4. The Justice Department said in December 2025 it would not seek the death penalty³.

Prosecution expert Dr. William Smock testified that injuries, including a hyoid fracture and an imprint on Birchmore's chest, pointed to a staged homicide^1,4. Defense pathologist Dr. Thomas Andrew said the apartment lacked signs of a struggle and that the evidence favored hanging, not manual strangulation^1,4,5.

DNA testing presented at trial indicated Farwell was not the father of Birchmore's unborn child; Jason Pickard testified he learned he was the father last year⁴. State crime-lab testimony described Farwell's DNA on the strap prosecutors say was used as a ligature¹.

Farwell did not testify^4,5. He told state investigators he went to the apartment to end the relationship, according to Trooper Matt Dunne^1,4. A verdict has not been reported^1,2.