Ahead of a detention hearing against a “depraved” former Stoughton cop who allegedly murdered Sandra Birchmore and staged her apartment to make it appear she committed suicide, Gov. Maura Healey vowed that she wants justice done for the woman’s family.

Healey opened up about former Stoughton Police Det. Matthew Farwell’s arrest last week on WGBH’s “Ask the Governor” segment on Friday, saying she’s “glad that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is investigating” Birchmore’s “grisly” death.

The governor also touched on her “every confidence” that the incoming colonel of the Massachusetts State Police, Geoffrey Noble, will be able to shift the morale and chemistry of the embattled department.

An FBI swat team arrested Farwell, 38, of North Easton, at a Revere strip mall on Aug. 28 after he was indicted for allegedly slaying a 23-year-old Birchmore at her Canton apartment on Feb. 1, 2021.

A full detention hearing for Farwell is scheduled on Tuesday.

Farwell could face the death penalty for the alleged murder of a girl federal prosecutors say he started raping when she was just 15 and then killed after she became pregnant with his child.

Boston Public Radio co-host Margery Eagan put the governor on the spot when she highlighted how the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Birchmore’s death as a suicide.

Eagan connected the case to the Karen Read case as the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office investigated the deaths of Birchmore and John O’Keefe, Read’s Boston police officer boyfriend she is accused of backing her car into, leaving him to die in a snowstorm.

O’Keefe also died in Canton, days short of a full year after Birchmore’s death.

“The FBI apparently thinks this wasn’t a suicide,” Eagan said of Birchmore’s death. “It makes you a little nervous about what’s going on with the Canton Police, the Massachusetts Medical Examiner’s Office, and the Norfolk County investigators. Did the Medical Examiner get this wrong? How can we have confidence in these investigations in the heels especially of Karen Read and the State Police saying awful things about Karen Read, the defendant?”

Healey, the state’s Attorney General at the time, responded, recounting how she felt “horrified and disgusted” by the allegations that were coming out about Farewell potentially being involved in Birchmore’s death.

“Anything like that has got to be fully investigated,” Healey said, “and perpetrators have to be held accountable. That’s still my view.

“To me, the important thing is that something was identified here as wrong, as not right,” the governor continued, “and that there will be a full investigation and that there should be accountability and justice for Sandra Birchmore’s family. It’s a terrible situation.”

As a 12-year-old in March 2010, Birchmore applied to participate in the Police Explorers Academy, a youth program run by the SPD for which Farwell taught. She stayed in the program for about four years.

Court documents allege that Farwell worked to groom Birchmore early on, pretending to befriend the girl 12 years his junior by doing test prep with her at the library and friending her on Facebook. He began a sexual relationship with her when she was 15 and he was 27, taking her virginity, something he seems to be quite proud of based on messages uncovered during the lengthy federal investigation.

Birchmore learned she was pregnant in late December 2020, about a month before she would die.

The Birchmore and Read cases are just a couple of scandals engulfing the commonwealth’s premier law enforcement agency that Geoffrey Noble is set to take over as colonel of in October.

Healey announced earlier this week that she tapped Noble, the current lieutenant colonel of the New Jersey State Police, as the next leader of the MSP.

Noble is set to take over an agency that boasts more than 3,000 sworn and civilian personnel and a $500 million operating budget. John Mawn has served as interim colonel since February 2023, following the retirement of Colonel Christopher Mason.

“I’m hoping the colonel will be able to hire a few people to come in and help him,” Eagan told Healey on WGBH’s set at Boston Public Library, “because he’s coming in from New Jersey to a state police that has had a lot of difficulty over time, people getting arrested … there’s been a lot of scandals.”

Healey responded that Mawn has set the tone for a smooth transition, asking for “not just cooperation but collaboration” when Noble takes over.

“Col. Noble will be empowered to bring in the people he sees fit,” Healey said. “Anyone coming into that role is very mindful as a leader that the morale of the team is very important to make sure you’re working to build that chemistry and create that positive, constructive atmosphere.

“I have every confidence that he will do that,” she added, “and I have every confidence that the men and women in the state police will rise to the moment.