Why the Arrest of a MA Cop for Murder Should Have a Huge Impact on the Karen Read Case

Boston Globe. Getty Images.

It had been a fairly slow summer for the most compelling homicide case in modern Masshole history. 

Sure, there had been a few updates. After the mistrial, the defense filed a motion to dismiss, claiming four jurors had come forward to say they had unanimous Not Guilty verdicts on the two most important charges. But that motion was denied. 

Then victim John O'Keefe's family filed a Wrongful Death lawsuit against Karen Read and the two bars that served her on the night O'Keefe died. Which might be interesting in that a civil trial might compel testimony we'd otherwise not get to hear. But Read is still facing a criminal retrial in January, so her 5th amendment rights are still intact. So nothing much to talk about there. 

But then came this arrest:

I'm not going to even begin to suggest I know a ton about Stoughton Police officer Matthew Farwell being charged with the murder of Sandra Birchmore. I mean, I know the broad strokes. But Minihane has forgotten more on the subject than I'll ever know. But to really educate yourself about it, I suggest you listen to his podcast series on the matter:

And the information he's gotten since Farwell's arrest:

But here is a brief outline of the allegations:

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Source - Federal authorities indicted former Stoughton Police detective Matthew Farwell today on charges of allegedly murdering Sandra Birchmore, a 23-year-old woman that the 38-year-old North Easton resident had first met as an instructor of a Stoughton Police Department vocational youth educational program when she was a teenager. According to the Department of Justice, Farwell allegedly killed Birchmore “to prevent her from disclosing information about his longstanding sexual exploitation of her while he was on duty, beginning when she was a minor.” …

On February 1, less than two weeks later, federal prosecutors allege that Farwell “killed Birchmore by strangulation,” and then “staged Birchmore’s Canton, Massachusetts apartment,” to make it appear that the substitute teacher, who was pregnant, “had committed suicide.” 

Prosecutors alleged that Farwell left the crime scene to drive to Newton Wellesley hospital, where his wife was giving birth to their third child. …

Federal officials say there is an active and ongoing investigation into other officers, including Farwell’s twin brother William, who are also accused of grooming Birchmore for sex. Matthew Farwell, investigators say, slept with Birchmore when she was 15, two years after she became a Police Explorer. …

Farwell’s alleged crime against Birchmore came a year after he was appointed to an instructor position in the Stoughton Police Explorer Program under Stoughton police officer Robert Devine. Devine is also accused of having sexual relations with Birchmore while on duty and exchanging explicit sexual messages and videos. … 

William Farwell was also having sex, investigators say, with Birchmore while on duty. A former Stoughton animal control officer, Joshua Heal, has also admitted to having sex with Birchmore at the town’s animal shelter. Matthew Farwell’s encounter with Birchmore also occurred while he was on duty. 

All of which I bring up for the way in which this horrifying matter relates to something I do know quite a bit about, Karen Read's case. 

If you've spent much time in Massachusetts, the answer is obvious. Geography. Stoughton and Canton are bordering towns. They're both in Norfolk County. Meaning these two investigations were conducted by some of the same people in the Mass. State Police. And overseen by the same District Attorney, Michael Morrissey. In fact, the conventional wisdom is that the reason the FBI got involved in looking into the handling of O'Keefe's death was because they were already investigating Birchmore's. 

But that's only the opening of this rabbit hole, which goes a lot deeper:

--The Commonwealth's investigators in Birchmore's death reported they couldn't uncover alleged text messages between her and Farwell. The feds found them. All 30,709 of them. And they're just as grotesque as you'd imagine. If not more so:

--Trooper Guarino is the Commonwealth's expert witness who didn't find Jen McCabe's "hos long to die in cold" Google search.  Then testified the technical data she Googled it at 2:27am was "incorrect." Then said under oath all the movement of O'Keefe's phone showing it was going up and down stairs inside 34 Fairview while he was supposedly dying in the front yard was also incorrect:

--The Medical Examiner's office that couldn't determine what, exactly, O'Keefe died from determined Birchmore committed suicide. When one of the leading experts in the world on the subject informed the feds her injuries were entirely consistent with being strangled. By someone much bigger, who overpowered her. For example:

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--As Howie Carr points out, the same State Police unit that never bothered to knock on the door at 34 Fairview to ask the police officer who owned it what he knew about O'Keefe dying in his front yard, did speak to Farwell about Birchmore's death. Not at the police station. Not that "Downtown" where they always threaten to take Persons of Interest on cop shows. Not in the interview room down at the precinct. But in the parking lot of a school:

You know, just to make it official. I guess. 

Anyway, all this points to why Massholes were so endlessly fascinated by the Read investigation and subsequent trial. Because it was all so suspect from the very beginning. Because people who should've been conflicted out of the investigation before they as much as took a witness statement conducted the entire thing. Because it seemed utterly plausible that law enforcement officers tried to cover for other law enforcement officers, while victims were being denied justice and innocents were being falsely accused. Because at the very least, the people in the public trust were grossly incompetent. But it seems much more likely they were corrupt and using their official powers to cover for their own. 

I suppose a reasonable person could have watched the Read trial and come away thinking she might be responsible for O'Keefe's death. If that's you, I disagree with you, but we can interpret the evidence differently. It's just going to be really hard now for you or anyone else to argue state and local police didn't hide evidence in case because no one would ever risk their career just to protect some other, obviously guilty cop. Because what we've all seen with Matthew and William Farwell, Robert Devine, and Joshua Heal is exactly that. 

RIP to Sandra Birchmore and Boston Police officer John O'Keefe.