Overview
- A court filing by U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley says Attorney General Pam Bondi directed prosecutors not to seek the death penalty.
- Matthew Farwell has pleaded not guilty to killing a witness and to a fetal-death count tied to Sandra Birchmore’s 2021 death.
- Prosecutors allege Farwell strangled Birchmore in her Canton apartment and staged the scene to resemble a suicide.
- A superseding indictment says Birchmore was 8 to 10 weeks pregnant; DNA testing has excluded Farwell as the fetus’s father.
- The judge had set a Jan. 20, 2026 deadline for the capital decision; Farwell remains detained as trial is set for October 2026 in Boston federal court.