The system around Sandra Birchmore was broken long before she was found hanged in her Canton apartment. In the fourth installment of our five-part series on the death of Sandra Birchmore, Katie pulls back the curtain on the Stoughton Police Explorers program, which first brought Sandra in at 12 years-old. Stoughton Deputy Chief Robert Devine ran it while blurring boundaries with teen girls, and twins Matthew and William Farwell were shaped from “model” cadets to officers who later used their power to exploit Sandra. As Katie connects years of red flags, missed complaints, and a department that kept promoting the same men around vulnerable kids, she ties that culture directly to Sandra’s death…and to the moment it finally snapped into focus, when internal affairs blew the lid off the case and former Officer Matthew Farwell landed in handcuffs.

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