Why Farwell's Lawyers Want Sandra Birchmore's Medical Examiner

Sandra Birchmore's death certificate, uh, has been written twice, and the two versions tell completely different stories.

And by the way, as we go through this, your thoughts in the comment section on Substack and YouTube.

Love for you to, uh, to weigh in.

The first death certificate signed back in May of '21 by Dr. Maria Del Mar Capio Martinez, the state medical examiner who performed the autopsy.

She, she listed the cause of death as asphyxia by hanging and ruled it an S. Fast-forward to April 30th of 2026, and that same medical examiner's office officially amended the record to read asphyxia with the manner of death officially marked as undetermined.

Now, both sides are desperate to get that doctor on the witness stand.

The government's trial brief says she will walk the jury through both of those words.

Defense attorney Kimberly Stevens made it clear to the judge, if prosecutors don't call her, the defense absolutely will.

And the story behind that first word on that certificate, that's precisely why it took more than five long years for this case to reach a jury.

A jury selection kicked off on October sixth at the Moakley County Courthouse in, uh, the Moakley Courthouse, rather, not county, Moakley Courthouse in Boston.

Chief Judge Denise Carpert-- Carpenter, or Casper, rather, told four hundred and eleven prospective jurors that this trial will run roughly five weeks with zero cameras in the room.

Twelve jurors and four alternates will be tasked with untangling two radically different narratives covering the exact same twenty-nine minutes.

To even present their story to that jury, each side had to clear major hurdles with the judge.

That's what the pretrial motions have been.

That's what all the delays have been about.

Now it's up to those twelve people to weigh one version against the other.

So what's making it into trial after all of these motions, after all of, of this rigmarole for the last many a years? Well, the charge against Matthew Farwell hinges on a federal law prohibiting witness tampering by murder.

To convict, the government has to prove three distinct things: that Sandra was, number one, murdered, that Farwell committed the crime, and that he did it specifically to stop her from taking or talking to law enforcement about his federal offenses.

On top of that, prosecutors must show he-- her report would have reasonably made or made it to a federal agent rather than just stopping with a desk sergeant in Stoughton.

Yeah.

When a friend called in, said, "Hey, I think there's something inappropriate going on here," you know, [laughs] who got the call to deal with it? He did.

No, no HR.

Anyway, it's, it's an element of the story.

When Judge Casper refused to throw the case out in March, she left that final question squarely in the hands of the jury.

The indictment lays out three underlying federal crimes that she could have exposed.