Left-leaning outlets are silent on the Birchmore murder trial
Matthew Farwell, a former Stoughton, Massachusetts police officer, is headed to trial on charges that he strangled Sandra Birchmore in 2020, staged her death as a suicide, and that the pregnancy she carried was his. The left-leaning press, which covered Birchmore's story extensively when the FBI first reopened the case in 2022, has published nothing on the trial date. Three right-leaning outlets are carrying the story alone. When a cop faces a murder trial for killing a woman he allegedly groomed at 15, the silence from one side of the press is its own data point.
Massachusetts police officer faces murder trial in Sandra Birchmore staged suicide case
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What happened
Sandra Birchmore was found hanged in her Canton, Massachusetts apartment in February 2020. Her death was initially ruled a suicide. Subsequent reporting and a federal investigation revealed she had been sexually exploited as a child by members of a youth program with ties to local law enforcement, and that she was pregnant at the time of her death. Former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell, one of the men prosecutors say groomed Birchmore beginning at age 15, has been charged with murder. Prosecutors allege he strangled her and staged the scene. Farwell is now scheduled to stand trial. Fox News and the New York Post are reporting the trial date; the Washington Examiner published a loosely related opinion piece invoking the case. No left-leaning outlet in this set of sources has covered the development.
Right-leaning outlets are carrying the trial news alone
Fox News names Farwell directly, specifies the grooming allegation starting at age 15, and frames the story as a straightforward criminal proceeding: former officer, pregnant victim, murder charge. The New York Post goes further, citing grooming 'starting at 12' in its headline (a discrepancy from Fox's '15' worth watching as trial evidence emerges) and calling Farwell 'disgraced.' Both outlets note the pregnancy and the staged-suicide allegation. Neither buries the law enforcement angle. The Washington Examiner's contribution is an opinion column that uses the Birchmore case as a rhetorical prop alongside an unrelated campus sexual assault story, which is a different editorial choice than reporting the trial.
What one side told you that the other didn't
Left-leaning outlets broke this story. Now they've gone quiet.
In 2022, outlets including NBC News, CNN, and the Boston Globe drove the Birchmore story into national consciousness, covering the FBI's involvement and the allegations of systemic abuse. None of those outlets appear in this coverage of Farwell's murder trial. The story didn't get less serious. A man is now scheduled to be tried for murder. The press that built the public record on Birchmore's case is not covering the moment that record goes before a jury.
Fox and the Post disagree on when the grooming started.
Fox News reports prosecutors say Farwell groomed Birchmore 'starting at age 15.' The New York Post's headline says 'starting at 12.' Both are citing the same prosecution. That discrepancy matters: the age at which abuse began affects the legal and moral weight of the case, and with only right-leaning outlets covering the trial, there is no competitive pressure to resolve it. One specific number, and two outlets can't agree on it.
What to watch
If a trial date is confirmed and proceedings begin, watch whether left-leaning outlets that covered the 2022 FBI investigation re-engage. The outlets that built this story's national profile have an obvious news hook when opening arguments start. If they stay absent through jury selection, the gap is a pattern, not a scheduling artifact.
This kind of gap — where one side reports a fact and the other doesn’t mention it — shows up in about 40% of major stories.