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Matthew Farwell's defense in the Sandra Birchmore trial comes down to a disagreement between doctors, and the doctor on his side is not a hired stranger with a thin résumé. Dr. Thomas Andrew spent twenty years as the chief medical examiner of New Hampshire. His conclusion is that a suicidal hanging cannot be ruled out as the cause of Sandra's death.
He is not alone in failing to call it a homicide. The Massachusetts medical examiner who actually examined Sandra's body first ruled it a suicide, then withdrew that in April 2026 and listed the manner as undetermined. Prosecutors answer with two retained experts, including a strangulation specialist who points to a clasp-shaped imprint on Sandra's neck and a fractured bone in her throat. Farwell's lawyers argue those findings are equally consistent with hanging. Judge Denise Casper said the dispute looked better suited to cross-examination than exclusion and let the testimony in.
The defense also has Sandra's own records. Casper ruled her mental health history and prior suicidal thoughts are admissible, because Farwell's case is that she died by suicide and what she wrote about that bears directly on it.
Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis joins Tony Brueski as the trial gets underway in Boston.
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