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Federal Intervention: Why Local Police Could Not Be Trusted with Sandra Birchmore’s Case
Description
Sandra Birchmore was a child in a police youth program when officers allegedly began targeting her. She was twelve or thirteen years old. The program had no meaningful oversight or background checks on the officers who ran it. Years later, when Sandra was found dead, local investigators treated Matthew Farwell — the man now charged with her murder — as a colleague, not a suspect. He wasn't interrogated on camera. Building surveillance allegedly placed him at her apartment during the critical window. No one sought a warrant. The case was ruled self-inflicted and closed. The FBI had to take the case because local law enforcement wouldn't investigate its own officers. Other officers — Robert Devine and William Farwell — have been named in the alleged conduct but face no federal charges. The same investigative bodies here overlap with those in the Karen Read case. The federal trial is underway, but it targets one man. The department that gave its officers unsupervised access to a child remains intact.
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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.
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