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MURDERED: Sandra Birchmore

In 2021, 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore was found dead in her apartment. And what Massachusetts investigators quickly called a suicide slowly revealed itself to be something much more sinister. Because out of the woodwork came friends, family, and co-workers with stories that Sandra had told them about her life. Stories of grooming, sexual abuse, and years of misconduct at the hands of several Stoughton Police officers… which began when she was barely a teenager. Three officers later resigned from the department. With a 2026 federal trial pending, the whole state has been left to wonder whether Sandra’s death was truly a suicide – as state police continue to maintain – or the end result of something much darker.
Duration
53m
Broadcast on
15 Dec 2025
Audio Format
other

In 2021, 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore was found dead in her apartment. And what Massachusetts investigators quickly called a suicide slowly revealed itself to be something much more sinister. Because out of the woodwork came friends, family, and co-workers with stories that Sandra had told them about her life. Stories of grooming, sexual abuse, and years of misconduct at the hands of several Stoughton Police officers… which began when she was barely a teenager. 

Three officers later resigned from the department. With a 2026 federal trial pending, the whole state has been left to wonder whether Sandra’s death was truly a suicide – as state police continue to maintain – or the end result of something much darker.

 

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What I'm about to brief you on is something deeply troubling to me as a human being and as a police chief. On February 4, 2021, 23-year-old Sandra Birchmill was found deceased in her apartment in Kitten. What I am here to talk about today is her life and how she was failed by, manipulated by and used by people of authority that she admired and trusted right up into her final days. Ms. Birchmill was a vulnerable person who had one constant in her life since childhood. Her unwavering admiration of police officers, of those serving the military, people in uniform, with oaths and duties to protect and serve. The admiration led her to form relationships with men who were willing to take advantage of her. I stand before you today as a civil servant who was heartbroken and incensed by what has transpired and who pledges that this chapter in the Stoughton Police Department and the town of Stoughton is over. It must never repeat. The revolving door is closed. There are so many stories we tell that involve corruption, cover-ups, or just downright incompetence or negligence that it makes me sometimes lose complete faith in the system. A system that is put in place to protect us, and doing this show for as long as I have, I have seen a lot more bad than good. The problems are systemic, and at times I've caught myself thinking, "What is the point? We might as well just give up because the problems are so big and have been there for so long that maybe I'm the delusional one, and this is just how the world is, evil, and the evil is so deeply rooted that we are never going to win or make a difference." But then, when I often needed the most, I get a glimpse of the good ones, the people who are fighting from the inside to make things better and fair and just. People who believe in right and wrong and know that no one is above the law, and those people give me hope all over again to keep fighting myself, and I felt all of those feelings when covering today's story, despair that an entire agency could look the other way when so much evidence was at their fingertips suggesting a boy in blue might have killed a young woman to protect his reputation, and then this fire to kick ass and take names and get behind the other people. People like Donna McNamara, the chief of the Stoughton Police Department, who you just heard at the top, she didn't just sit back and let it be. She found her own way to expose the truth, and she lit a spark that other good people out there doing the right thing fanned into a flame to get justice for Sandra Birchmore. Let me tell you how that happened. February 4, 2021, 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore was found dead in her Canton, Massachusetts Department. Police discovered her body while responding to a welfare check requested by someone at the school where she worked because she hadn't shown up in days. Sandra was found in a seated position on the floor by her bedroom closet with this duffel bag strap wrapped tightly around her neck and fixed to the handle of the closet door. The Massachusetts State Police didn't note any signs of forced entry to her apartment. The door was actually locked, and they had to get a key from the property manager just to get in. And once they were inside, they didn't see any signs of a struggle at all in the bedroom or anywhere else in the apartment. The walls didn't have any indentations or scuff marks, and there were no drag marks on the floor or anything like that, even though the apartment was cluttered with baby items

Transcription truncated.

In 2021, 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore was found dead in her apartment. And what Massachusetts investigators quickly called a suicide slowly revealed itself to be something much more sinister. Because out of the woodwork came friends, family, and co-workers with stories that Sandra had told them about her life. Stories of grooming, sexual abuse, and years of misconduct at the hands of several Stoughton Police officers… which began when she was barely a teenager. Three officers later resigned from the department. With a 2026 federal trial pending, the whole state has been left to wonder whether Sandra’s death was truly a suicide – as state police continue to maintain – or the end result of something much darker.