The former Stoughton cop accused of killing Sandra Birchmore and her unborn baby will not face the death penalty if he’s convicted.

The Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office has announced that prosecutors will not seek the death penalty for Matthew Farwell.

The order came down from Attorney General Pam Bondi, according to the new court filing.

“NOTICE OF THE UNITED STATES REGARDING THE DEATH PENALTY,” reads the court filing from Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office on Tuesday.

“The United States of America, by Leah B. Foley, United States Attorney, and Elizabeth
C. Riley, Brian A. Fogerty, and Torey B. Cummings, Assistant United States Attorneys for the
District of Massachusetts, advises the Court that the Attorney General of the United States has
directed the government not to seek the death penalty in this case,” the feds added.

Massachusetts does not have the death penalty, but the feds can seek it. Earlier this year, Farwell added death penalty defense specialist Kimberly Stevens to his team.

Federal authorities arrested and charged Farwell with Birchmore’s killing last year. Prosecutors then recently unsealed a new indictment charging him with the death of the unborn baby, which Birchmore excitedly told him was his, according to the feds.

Prosecutors say the baby’s gestational age was between eight and 10 weeks.

Authorities say that Farwell met Birchmore when as a child she joined the Police Explorers Academy, a youth program run by the Stoughton Police Department for which Farwell taught.

He quickly developed a relationship with the girl 12 years his junior, according to the indictment, and that relationship turned sexual when Birchmore skipped a school event to lose her virginity to Farwell when she was 16 years old.

Birchmore learned she was pregnant in late December 2020, about a month before she would die. Birchmore told Farwell it was his baby, according to this indictment, and he didn’t take the news well.

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Prosecutors say that Farwell on Feb. 1, 2021, entered Birchmore’s Canton apartment and strangled her to death as he knew she was weeks pregnant. He then allegedly staged the apartment to make it look like Birchmore had committed suicide.

State authorities ruled the death a suicide but then-U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said that federal prosecutors had retained their own examiner who disagreed with that ruling.

— Developing