The federal jury in Matthew Farwell’s murder trial said Monday that it was deadlocked after 10 and a half hours of deliberation, and Chief US District Judge Denise Casper sent the panel home just before 4:30 p.m. with orders to come back Tuesday.
That left the case at its most fragile point yet. Farwell, 41, faces an automatic life sentence if convicted, and the jurors must decide two indictments: whether he killed Sandra Birchmore and whether he caused the death of her fetus. He has pleaded not guilty and says Birchmore killed herself.
Birchmore’s death has been disputed from the start. State authorities initially treated it as a suicide, but federal prosecutors say Farwell killed her on Feb. 1, 2021 to keep information she knew about his alleged federal crimes from reaching US law enforcement officials. An FBI-consulted medical expert concluded she had been strangled, and the jury has been asked to weigh that evidence against the defense’s claim that her death was self-inflicted.
Birchmore was 23 when she was found dead in her Canton apartment on Feb. 4, 2021, after not showing up for a few days for her job as an aide at a Sharon elementary school. She was pregnant and due to give birth to a baby boy in September 2021. Investigators also said Birchmore’s cellphone recorded movement for the last time three minutes before Farwell was seen on surveillance video leaving her apartment building, a detail that has become central to the government’s timeline.
Judge Casper did not end the matter Monday, and that is what matters now. The jurors are due back Tuesday, when the court can see whether they can continue working toward a unanimous verdict or whether the deadlock hardens into a mistrial. If they remain stuck, the judge could give further instructions; if not, the trial moves straight toward a decision that could decide whether Farwell spends the rest of his life in prison.
