The former Massachusetts cop accused of strangling pregnant lover Sandra Birchmore and staging her death to look like a suicide, has agreed to stay in police custody pending trial.
Ex-Stoughton Police Det. Matthew Farwell, 38, requested to waive his detention hearing slated for later this week, prosecutors announced Monday.
Over the weekend, Farwell's attorneys filed the motion, seeking additional time to review materials related to the case.
"This order is without prejudice to the defendant filing a motion at any time seeking a full detention hearing and the setting of conditions of release, regardless of whether there have been changed circumstances," Judge M. Page Kelley wrote in her ruling, according to the Boston Globe.
Farwell was arrested Aug. 28. He pleaded not guilty in the murder of Birchmore, 23, who he allegedly first started to have sexual relations with when she was a member of the Stoughton Police Explorers program at the age of 15, according to prosecutors.
Birchmore was three months pregnant with Farwell's child when she was found hanging in her Canton, Massachusetts, apartment in February 2021.
A state medical examiner determined she died by suicide, but an independent medical examiner hired by Birchmore's family earlier this year ruled her death homicide by strangulation, citing the scope of her wounds and the positioning of a ligature in his determination.
According to court documents, prosecutors alleged Farwell was motivated to kill Birchmore, in part, to keep her from accusing him of coercion, enticement, and wire fraud. Her death was purportedly the culmination of a years-long pattern of abuse, said prosecutors.
Farwell was the last known person to see Birchmore alive when he was captured on surveillance footage entering and leaving her apartment three days before she was found dead in 2021.
Wearing a medical face mask, "he killed her and staged her body and apartment to make it appear that Birchmore had died by suicide," the affidavit read.
