Sandra Birchmore Case: Judge Denies Motion to Drop Ex-Officer Matthew Farwell's Charges | Crime House 24/7

Good morning, everyone.

We have multiple breaking true crime cases this morning that you need to know about and

we're starting with the biggest one.

A former Massachusetts police officer accused of grooming a girl through a youth program

and later killing her when she became pregnant has just lost his bid to have the case dismissed.

Now the case against Matthew Farwell in the death of Sandra Birchmore is officially moving

to trial.

This is Crime House 24-7, your non-stop source for the biggest crime cases developing

right now.

Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Vanessa Richardson and we have quite a line up for you today.

Here's what you need to know.

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On Monday, March 9th, a federal judge denied former Stoughton Massachusetts police officer

Matthew Farwell's motion to dismiss the charges against him in the death of 23-year-old Sandra

Birchmore and her unborn child.

Chief U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper ruled in an 11-page memorandum that the two

count federal indictment is legally sound, and the prosecution will continue.

Farwell's trial is scheduled for October 2026.

This is a case that has drawn intense public attention in Massachusetts and beyond.

Here's the full picture.

Sandra Birchmore was found dead in her Canton Massachusetts apartment on February 4th 2021.

She was 23 years old and three months pregnant.

The state medical examiner initially ruled her death as suicide by hanging, and the Norfolk

County District Attorney's Office declined to bring any criminal charges.

For years, Birchmore's family and supporters pushed for answers, insisting that the circumstances

of her death did not add up.

In June of 2024, Birchmore's family hired a forensic pathologist who determined her death

was a homicide.

And in August of 2024 that year, federal authorities arrested Farwell and charged him with killing

Birchmore to prevent her from reporting sexual crimes he had committed against her.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Farwell strangled Birchmore in her apartment on or about February

1st 2021 and then staged the scene to make it look like she had taken her own life.

And last fall, prosecutors brought an additional charge, causing the death of Birchmore's

unborn child during the commission of the offense.

Farwell has pleaded not guilty to both counts.

According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Birchmore's family in 2022, she first met

Farwell when she enrolled in the Stoughton Police Department's Police Explorer's Academy,

a youth program designed to introduce local kids to law enforcement careers.

She was around 12 years old at the time.

Farwell was a volunteer with the program and later became an instructor when he joined

the department as a full-time officer in 2012.

He was supposed to be a mentor and a role model.

Instead, prosecutors say he exploited that position of trust.

Federal prosecutors alleged that before Farwell engaged in sexual intercourse and other sexual

contact with Birchmore beginning when she was 15 years old and Farwell was 27.

That relationship allegedly continued for years until her death, at times occurring while

Farwell was on duty.

In December 2020, Birchmore discovered she was pregnant and told Farwell he was the father.

DNA testing later excluded Farwell as the biological father, but authorities have not disclosed

whether paternity has been established.

According to court documents, Birchmore disclosed to loved ones that Farwell allegedly became

violent with her when they discussed the pregnancy and his role in the child's life.

At one point while she was pregnant, Farwell allegedly held Birchmore in a headlock and

told her that he wished she were dead.

Even on January 20, 2021, a friend of Birchmore's called the Stoten Police Department and reported

that Farwell and Birchmore were having a sexual relationship.

A department employee told Farwell, who was a married father about the call, prosecutors

alleged that within days, Farwell killed Birchmore to prevent her from reporting his alleged

crimes to law enforcement.

Farwell's defense team had argued the indictment was defective in both form and substance.

They said it failed to establish federal jurisdiction because it did not identify a specific federal

offense that Birchmore might have reported or specify who she would have reported it to.

They also argued the second charge, the death of her unborn child, was tied to the first

count and should be dismissed along with it.

Judge Casper rejected every argument.

She wrote that the indictment recites the elements of the crime and contains sufficient

factual allegations to allow Farwell to prepare his defense.

At a hearing last week, prosecutors told the judge that Farwell killed Birchmore before

she had the chance to report him to authorities.

They argued the defense was asking for an impossible level of detail about something that never

happened because she was killed first.

Farwell, who is now 40, is being held at a detention facility in Rhode Island while awaiting

trial.

He resigned from the Stoten Police Department in 2022.

The judge previously denied a separate defense motion to move the trial out of state due

to media coverage.

Birchmore's relatives and supporters have packed the courtroom at every hearing, and her

cousin, Barbara Wright, has publicly called Farwell a monster and a killer.

If convicted, Farwell faces a possible life sentence.

U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi has directed prosecutors not to seek the death penalty.

And while that case moves toward trial in Massachusetts, authorities in California announced

a break this week in a case that had gone unsolved for two months, and the man arrested

for the killing is the victim's own child's father.

Two men have been arrested in connection with the shooting death of a 24-year-old mother

who was found dead inside her car on a residential street in Sunnyvale, California.

The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety announced the arrests on March 9, more than two

months after the killing.

The victim was identified as Cambory Chirinos Flores, a mountain view resident and the mother

of a five-year-old son.

She was found shot to death inside a vehicle in the 1200 block of Vienna Drive near a mobile

home park around 9.39 pm on January 7.

Officers had responded to reports of gunfire in the area and discovered Chirinos Flores

unresponsive inside the car.

She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators say Chirinos Flores had been sitting inside the vehicle when she was shot.

Police believe the attack happened quickly, and by the time officers arrived, the suspects

had already fled the area, leaving detectives with few immediate leads.

In the early hours of the investigation, authorities described the case as particularly difficult

with limited witness information and little physical evidence to work from.

Chirinos Flores was originally from Honduras and had moved to the United States several

years earlier.

According to relatives and community members, she was working multiple jobs while raising

her young son and trying to build a stable life for her family.

Her relatives publicly pleaded for answers in the weeks following the killing, urging

investigators not to let the case go unsolved.

At a press briefing, the afternoon of March 9, Sunnyvale Chief of Public Safety Dan Pester

said detectives had been working the case around the clock in the weeks after the shooting.

As investigators gathered new information and forensic evidence, the investigation gradually

gained momentum.

That work culminated on March 5 when authorities carried out a coordinated arrest operation,

spanning two counties and involving multiple local and federal law enforcement agencies.

The two suspects are 32-year-old Garzan Chirinos of Sunnyvale and 30-year-old Alfonso

Inestrosa of Hollister.

Both men were taken into custody during coordinated operations conducted by a Sunnyvale Department

of Public Safety SWAT team and were booked into the Santa Clara County jail on suspicion

of homicide.

Chief Pester confirmed during the press conference that Garzan Chirinos is the father of Chirinos

Flores' five-year-old son.

The victim and Chirinos share the same last name because of their child, which investigators

say is the known connection between the two.

Police also revealed that Inestrosa was wanted on an outstanding homicide warrant in New

Jersey at the time of his arrest.

Police say they recovered a shotgun near the scene that they believe was used in the

killing.

However, investigators have not publicly stated which of the two suspects fired the fatal

shots or what role each man may have played in the attack.

That determination will likely come as prosecutors review the evidence and the case moves through

the court system.

According to police, Chirinos has a prior history of domestic violence-related offenses involving

a different victim dating back to 2018.

The couple's five-year-old son is now in the custody of child protective services.

Authorities said the child was not harmed during the incident and was not present during

the shooting.

For investigators, the arrests mark a significant step forward after weeks of uncertainty as

they work to determine exactly how the killing unfolded and what led up to the deadly

confrontation.

And from a case where a young mother was targeted, we now turn to the shooting death of a woman

in Houston that has left a community devastated.

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out there at the best price 61-year-old marietta allyson of austin texas was shot and killed

late friday night in houston's heights neighborhood while she was in town to support her best friend

through chemotherapy 18-year-old darius duane hall has been charged with capital murder as well

as federal cardjacking and firearms charges in connection with her death according to the houston

police department allyson was shot on west 20th street near loren street just around midnight on

friday march 6th allyson had driven her best friend cassie daniel from the md anderson cancer center

back to a friend's apartment after daniel's chemotherapy treatment for stage 4 ovarian cancer

daniel had been diagnosed earlier this year and allyson had insisted she move in with her

and her husband in austin so she could help care for her through treatment after dropping

daniel off allyson drove around the block to find a parking spot it was while she was walking

from her car toward the apartment that according to prosecutors a masked man approached attempted

to steal her purse and shot her in the neck when she resisted daniel said she and her friend at

the apartment heard the gunshot when allyson did not come back the friend went outside to look

for her and found her on the sidewalk police arrived and transported allyson to a hospital where

she later died hall the suspect was spotted driving daniel's vehicle about an hour later and

led police on a high-speed chase before crashing the car on a freeway he then fled on foot and

barricaded himself inside an empty apartment and was later apprehended by swat officers and taken

into custody according to the houston police department hall appeared in court monday and was

charged with capital murder evading arrest and tampering with evidence a judge denied him bond

and he remains in the harris county jail and on tuesday the u.s attorney's office announced

federal carjacking and firearms charges court records say hall was already under court ordered

supervision for four other charges including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon as a juvenile

at the time of the killing in court prosecutors said hall confessed to evading police and being in

the vehicle but denied involvement in the shooting itself daniel described allyson like a sister

and said her number one mission was to help her beat cancer one friend told reporters that allyson

had cut short a trip to Istanbul to come home and care for daniel after the diagnosis friends

remembered allyson who co-founded her own travel company as someone who lived her life like every

day was her last and who was rooted in love for every person she met and for our final story today

the sentencing of a new jersey man who killed his girlfriend and left her body in a refrigerator

in the woods 46 year old Christopher blevans of new jersey was sentenced on march 6th to 17 years

in state prison for the killing of his girlfriend 50 year old Laura Hughes a mother of two from

run a mead new jersey blevans had pleaded guilty in october to one count of first degree aggravated

manslaughter he was originally charged with first degree murder but that charge was dropped as

part of a plea deal prosecutors say blevans strangled hues and then placed her body inside a

refrigerator which he transported in the bed of his green dodge ram pickup truck and left in bell

plain state forest in katame county license plate readers captured images of his truck carrying

would appear to be a refrigerator shaped object on two separate days before he left the country

hues remains were discovered on december 22nd 2024 wrapped in a sleeping bag inside the refrigerator

which had been secured with straps and covered with a rug investigators said the couple had a

history of domestic violence as well as drug and alcohol abuse after the killing blevans fled the

country on august 2nd 2024 he drove his dodge ram south through texas and crossed into mexico he was

eventually located and turned himself into mexico law enforcement authorities on august 27th after

being returned to the united states he was arrested in california following his arrest he allegedly

told investigators he had panicked after being involved in a violent incident at sentencing blevans

apologized for the pain and suffering he had caused and said he did not know why it happened

hues ex-husband and the father of her two daughters told the court the family should never have

to worry that their mother's killer would someday walk down the same side of the sidewalk

with blevans now sentenced to 17 years in state prison the case has reached its conclusion

in court offering hues family a measure of justice as they continue to mourn the loved one they lost

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high listeners it's Vanessa Richardson I wanted to take a brief moment to tell you about

another show from crime house that I know you'll love America's most infamous crimes hosted by Katie

Ring each week Katie takes on a notorious crime whether unfolding now or etched into American history

revealing not just what happened but how it forever changed our society serial killers who terrorized

cities unsolved mysteries that keep detectives up at night and investigations that change the way

we think about justice each case unfolds across multiple episodes released every Tuesday through

Thursday from the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't

these are the stories behind the headlines listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes

Tuesday through Thursday on Apple podcasts Spotify Amazon music or wherever you listen to podcasts

before you go let me tell you what else is happening at crime house today on conspiracy theories

cults and crimes we examine one of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world Stonehenge

for centuries the massive standing stones on the Salisbury plain have inspired wonder scholarship

tourism and speculation archaeologists have spent decades studying Stonehenge through excavation

radio carbon dating and landscape analysis they've developed increasingly sophisticated

understandings of how and when it was constructed and yet alongside that scholarship another

narrative has flourished one that attributes the monument to law civilizations extra terrestrial

secret energy grids or hidden global knowledge Stonehenge is not unique in that respect across

the world ancient monuments have become magnets for fringe theories when structures are large

old and incomplete in the historical record they invite interpretation and when interpretation leaves

gaps imagination often rushes in to fill them here are five ancient monuments that have drawn

sustained fringe speculation and what their histories actually reveal number one the great pyramids

of Giza engineering or alien intervention the pyramids of Giza constructed during Egypt's fourth

dynasty around four thousand five hundred years ago remain among the most studied structures in

human history archaeological evidence documents quarry sites worker settlements tool marks and

construction ramps that collectively demonstrate how the pyramids were built by organized labor forces

under state direction despite this body of evidence fringe narratives have long claimed that the

pyramids could not have been constructed without extra terrestrial assistance or access to lost

advanced technology these theories often rely on arguments about scale and precision the stones

are large the alignments are astronomically significant therefore the reasoning goes ancient people

must not have been capable of such feats what this framing overlooks is the cumulative evidence of

Egyptian engineering sophistication it also reflects a subtle but persistent bias the assumption

that ancient civilizations particularly non-European ones could not achieve monumental engineering

without external intervention the pyramids attract fringe theory not because the evidence is absent

but because the scale of the accomplishment challenges modern intuitions about ancient capacity

number two the Nazca lines ritual pathways or alien landing strips in the Peruvian desert

enormous geoglyphs stretch across the landscape depicting animals geometric shapes and straight lines

extending from miles created between five hundred BCE and five hundred CE by the Nazca culture

the lines are visible most clearly from the air fringe theories have claimed that the lines were

constructed as landing strips for alien spacecraft or as messages intended for extra terrestrial

observers archaeological research however suggests ceremonial and ritual significance the lines

are associated with water sources pilgrimage routes and religious practices tied to environmental

cycles in an arid region the appeal of alien narratives often rests on the aerial visibility of

the designs because the full images are best appreciated from above some conclude they must have

been intended for beings in the sky what this ignores is that elevated vantage points exist

naturally in the surrounding terrain and that ancient cultures frequently engaged in symbolic

expression at large scales for cosmological or ritual reasons the Nazca lines demonstrate how

unfamiliar perspective can generate speculation when cultural context is not fully understood

number three Easter Island the massive stone figures known as Moai on Easter Island have been

interpreted in countless ways some fringe narratives suggest that the island's civilization was

destroyed by mysterious external forces or that the statues were created using knowledge now

lost to history early academic interpretations once framed Rapa Nui as a cautionary tale of environmental

collapse suggesting that over exploitation led to societal downfall more recent research has

complicated that narrative revealing a more nuanced history involving adaptation resilience

and external pressures following European contact fringe theories sometimes portray the Moai

as evidence of vanished advanced knowledge in reality archaeological studies have documented

quarry sites transportation methods and social structures associated with their construction Easter

Island attracts speculation partly because of its geographic isolation isolation fosters myth when

a society develops distinctive monumental architecture far from continental centers it invites

narratives about lost secrets the archaeological record however points to human ingenuity rather than

extraterrestrial or mystical intervention number four gobeckley tepe civilization before agriculture

discovered in southeastern turkey and dating back more than 11,000 years gobeckley tepe predates

stonehenge by several millennia massive stone pillars arranged in circular formations suggest

organized construction during a period traditionally associated with hunter gatherer societies

the site challenged earlier assumptions that monumental architecture followed the development of

agriculture instead it suggested that communal ritual spaces may have preceded settled farming

communities because gobeckley tepe rewrote part of the academic timeline fringe theorists quickly

incorporated it into broader narratives about lost civilizations or advanced prehistoric cultures

erased from history in reality the significance of gobeckley tepe lies precisely in its documented

archaeological context the site demonstrates that social complexity can emerge in forms not

previously anticipated scientific revision does not imply conspiracy it reflects the evolving

nature of evidence-based research yet whenever established timelines shift fringe speculation

tends to expand into the gaps number five machu peachy hidden city or extraterrestrial blueprint

machu peachy constructed in the 15th century by the inca civilization is a testament to advanced

stone masonry and high altitude engineering the precision of its fitted stones and its dramatic

mountain top location have inspired awe since its international rediscovery in 1911 fringe

sometimes attribute its construction to alien influence or lost super technologies as with the

pyramids the assumption is that the technical achievement exceeds what ancient peoples could have

accomplished archaeological research however reveals a sophisticated inca society with deep knowledge

of stonework astronomy agriculture and infrastructure the construction methods though impressive are

consistent with other documented inca sites machu peachy's mystique arises from its preservation

and dramatic setting the interplay between clouds mountains and architecture creates an atmosphere

that invites myth making but atmosphere is not evidence why ancient monuments attract fringe

theories ancient monuments share several characteristics that make them especially vulnerable to

speculative narratives they're not old enough that direct written records are limited or absent

they are physically imposing often constructed at scales that challenge modern assumptions about

ancient labor capacity they align with celestial bodies or geographic features in ways that

feel intentional but are not always immediately explainable without context when evidence is in

complete imagination fills the void fringe theories often rely on the idea that mainstream

scholarship is suppressing a more dramatic truth this framing transforms ordinary archaeological

debate into perceived conspiracy in reality archaeology is iterative interpretations evolve as new

tools and discoveries emerge radio carbon dating improves ground penetrating radar reveals

buried structures genetic studies illuminate migration patterns the presence of unanswered

questions does not imply hidden knowledge it reflects the complexity of reconstructing the distant

past stonehenge has inspired centuries of speculation druids aliens lost civilizations and hidden

energy lines have all been invoked to explain its presence on the english landscape modern archaeology

offers a different explanation one grounded in excavation dating and contextual analysis for the

full examination of stonehenge the theories that surround it and the evidence that grounds it

listen to today's episode of conspiracy theories cults and crimes because sometimes the most enduring

mysteries are not about what happened they're about why we're so eager to believe something more

extraordinary did you've been listening to crime house 247 bringing you breaking crime news

i'm vinesse Richardson we'll be back tomorrow morning with more developing stories stay safe and

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