Matthew Farwell Walked Out of His Police Interview Without THIS

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

Tony Brueski (0:08)

Another case that is underway right now that we are covering for you. There's no cameras in the courtroom. There's no audio, but we're bringing you what has happened every single day. They're back in trial today. It is Tuesday as we are recording this, October 13th of 2026 And this is Today on NBC. The conversation around Sandra Birchmore and Matthew Farwell has moved past the basic facts and right into the murky ethical, psychological, and systematic questions. You're trying to make sense of how a death gets completely reclassified years later. The real impact of small town police dynamics and what a jury is actually going to do when faced with two completely opposite narratives of what happened behind closed doors. You guys have been dropping a lot of questions for us on this case. If you want the full case synopsis, we got it for you. But Sandra Birchmore is what we're talking about and the trial here of William Farwell or Matthew Farwell. Matthew Farwell. There's twins involved in this case, which makes it even worse, of which they passed her around.

Yes, they're both lovely brothers.

Let's go to one of the questions from the Internet. Tony, when a case goes from an official finding of self-harm to federal murder indictment, how much of that is genuine forensic discovery versus investigators finally being forced to look at what was right in front of them the entire time? Well, I mean, it's two different groups of investigators that had to look at it. So, did one not look at it correctly the entire time? Did they choose to not look at it correctly the entire time? What's troubling here is there's a lot of people involved, and it goes far beyond Farwell himself.

And that's where you start to wonder, was there a concerted effort here to cover this up, or was it bad police work? What are your guys' thoughts?

Robin Drake (2:13)

Lisa, I'm going to let you start.

Lisa (2:16)

Here's, and people wonder why we choose the bear. You have men in a position of authority who are completely running the investigation who could also be involved.

So, you cannot trust. And I know that somebody is going to say, not all men. I don't trust any man in a position of authority doing an investigation of something that he might be involved in. So if any of those police from that department were involved in investigating this and the possible connection of their compatriot, one of their own, I don't trust it. And that's why I don't trust the medical examiners. You know, first he said, oh, it was suicide. Then he had to come back and say, well, it might not have been suicide. Yeah.

So, this is why we choose the bear, though, in case anybody wonders.

Robin Drake (3:26)

And I understand that. And I think that in this case, we're looking at probably again, two things that can happen at the same time. I think it was poorly investigated. And I only say that because we have found so many instances in the stories we've covered over the last how many years, of just really bad police work. And not saying anything bad about the departments themselves, but, you know, probably not doing their best job in this situation. But then also, as Lisa mentioned, the tie in between this happened, it may have been this guy, but all these other people may have been involved, or at least have, would have known what was going on with Sandra and Matthew and some of the others in the department. I think that there's a real good chance that both happened, that there was a poor investigation and some cover up going on here.

Tony Brueski (4:16)

What does it tell you about the department though, when this was going on? Because I know they've made changes and there's new force in there, you know, to a certain extent. But what does it tell you where...

I think it was probably a secret that was not very secret, that everybody knew about that this girl is being passed around, because you had like three other officers that were doing things with her. Now, she was of age, allegedly, when those things were happening with the other three individuals. But again, they also were... They knew her from the Explorer program, they knew her from childhood, they knew Farwell was involved, at least one of the Farwells were involved, if not knowing that both were involved with her. And just treating her like a piece of discarded meat on the side of a highway that's been run over 72 times.