The judge overseeing the Karen Read murder trial issued an order Tuesday barring Read’s defense team from mentioning the investigation into Sandra Birchmore‘s death.
Birchmore was found dead in her Canton apartment a year before Read’s boyfriend, John O’Keefe, was found outside a Canton home. Local police ruled Birchmore’s death a suicide, but federal prosecutors have charged former Stoughton Police officer Matthew Farwell with killing her. Prosecutors say Farwell sexually abused Birchmore for years, beginning when she was a teenager.
The Birchmore case has drawn comparisons to Read’s because they both involve the Canton Police Department and Massachusetts State Police. Both cases also feature accusations of corrupt police officers.
Prosecutors in the Read case said in a court filing that Birchmore’s death was “not related or material to the death of John O’Keefe.”
“Questioning an officer’s involvement in an unrelated death investigation particularly one remote in time and circumstance, is irrelevant, would have no tendency to prove any material issue in this case, is speculative, and would confuse the jury,” the filing reads.
The filing notes the ongoing prosecution of Matthew Farwell by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts.
“Testimony about this unrelated death investigation would result in a trial within a trial, with much of the information being inadmissible, confidential, or offered without a proper foundation,” their motion reads.
Judge Beverly Cannone allowed prosecutors’ motion to prohibit mention of Birchmore, but noted that if the “door was opened” by a witness bringing up the case, it could be allowed in.
During a pre-trial hearing, Elizabeth Little, a lawyer for Read’s defense, argued the “parallels in these cases couldn’t be clearer.”
Both cases involve a “failure to investigate a law enforcement officer who should have been a suspect,” she said. “The reports by investigating officers that led to the improper clearing of [Farwell] go directly toward the credibility of those officers.”
But special prosecutor Hank Brennan argued the cases had nothing to do with one another.
“There is no good-faith basis that there is something in that case that is relevant to this case,” he said.
Cannone ultimately denied a defense request to obtain unredacted copies of the police reports in the Birchmore investigation.
