Advocates who created VAW Advocate Case Reviews (VACR) of police sexual assault investigations. Oversight & transparency matter.
Earth
Joined June 2019
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For training to have an impact individuals have to:
(1) want to be there
(2) believe there are things they don’t know
(3) be receptive to learning new information even if it challenges core beliefs.
The ppl who need it most generally don’t meet these criteria.
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Advocate Case Review retweeted
Family of First Nation woman who died after being denied medical travel asks OPP to launch investigation
cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/o…
Advocate Case Review retweeted
Has the death of this unidentified woman been labelled a homicide, @rcmpmb?
Woman's death in Flin Flon considered suspicious: RCMP
cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/…
Advocate Case Review retweeted
We all know what this means, even if the @RCMPSask will probably never say.
Woman, man about same age.
Woman's death suspicious.
Man's death not-suspicious.
No risk to public safety.
The public isn't stupid. Don't treat us like we are.
The RCMP says officers got a report about two dead people at the home on Wednesday morning. When police attended the home, they found the remains of a 51-year-old woman and a 53-year-old man.
cjme.com/2026/10/30/rcmp-hom…
Advocate Case Review retweeted
'Her only defence was her voice': Crown says in closing argument at 2024 femicide trial for victim, Brkti Berhe
ottawacitizen.com/news/closi… #CallItFemicide
We aren’t having the right conversations about police & VAWG.
cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/…
Advocate Case Review retweeted
I’ve found that most don’t understand how insidious grooming is…@TheCarolErskine does an excellent job of breaking it down for the uninformed.
Just stop! This is my message for those posting comments blaming Sandra Birchmore for other sexual encounters besides Matthew Farwell. Someone commented on a Facebook post recently about Sandra Birchmore: “She’s no angel! What was done to her was wrong, but she knew what she was doing as she got older.”
That statement and others like it reflect a profound misunderstanding of grooming and childhood sexual exploitation.
As I explained on @JusticeServedTV Sandra's sexual encounters with other men cannot be separated from the grooming that began when she was just 12 years old.
Grooming is not simply about obtaining sex from a child. It is about systematically dismantling that child's understanding of love, trust, boundaries, and relationships.
Farwell exploited Sandra's vulnerabilities and her admiration for police officers. Through years of relentless manipulation, he conditioned her to associate sexual availability with affection, acceptance, and approval.
This is the reason groomers like Farwell can continue to sexually exploit victims into adulthood and leave them vulnerable to exploitation by others. That conditioning did not disappear when Sandra turned 18.
A birthday does not erase years of psychological manipulation.
What some characterize as promiscuity, actually reflects the lasting consequences of childhood sexual exploitation. Sandra's adult behavior must be understood in the context of what was done to her as a child.
As a Juvenile Court judge for more than two decades, I saw firsthand how grooming and sexual trauma can distort a young person's understanding of relationships and personal boundaries.
Stop judging and blaming Sandra for behaviors shaped by years of grooming that distorted her understanding of personal boundaries and left her vulnerable to continued sexual exploitation. Just stop.
Advocate Case Review retweeted
This is bleak.
As a non-parent, I never judge parents unless there's a case of abuse or a clear case of really bad parenting.
I've come to appreciate how difficult it is to be a parent and how parents sometimes have to make compromises to care for their kids that don't always meet the standards they've set for themselves or that, if shared publicly, might require a great deal of vulnerability.
But if your daughter's teacher asks you to name three things that make your own child special, and you turn to an AI assistant for the answer, I'm going to judge you as a parent.
There's a difference between using AI to help organize things, or even clean up something you've already written about your child, and relying on AI to answer a deeply personal question about what makes your child special.
Maybe Marissa Mayer already knew all three things about her daughter. That's not the point. The point is that she was asked to identify what makes her daughter special, and she outsourced the answer to AI.
And what makes this even more absurd is that the assistant came back with three of the most generic descriptions imaginable: empathetic, creative, and an animal lover.
Those are lovely qualities, but they could describe millions of children.
And if you think this is a story that reflects well on you as a parent, let alone one worth proudly sharing with the world, you are clearly untethered from reality.
ALT Two New York Times article screenshots on a gray card. On the left, a photo of Marissa Mayer, blonde, in a teal dress with a pink and white blossom-branch print and a woven tan belt, standing with her hands folded against a glass wall in front of green foliage. On the right, the article text: Marissa Mayer has reinvented herself as a start-up founder, with a team of 10 engineers — a fraction of the armies of programmers she once commanded at Yahoo and Google. Kelsey McClellan for The New York Times Maybe We All Need an A.I. Wife Marissa Mayer made her name as a pioneer at Google, then as chief executive at Yahoo. Now Mayer is entering the crowded marketplace for A.I. assistants — and hoping to draw in more women. By Alexandra Alter Reporting from Palo Alto Oct. 25, 2026 Late last year, Marissa Mayer was struggling with what felt like an impossible task. Her daughter Marielle was turning 10, and Marielle's teacher wanted three bullet points summarizing what made her special.
Advocate Case Review retweeted
Just stop! This is my message for those posting comments blaming Sandra Birchmore for other sexual encounters besides Matthew Farwell. Someone commented on a Facebook post recently about Sandra Birchmore: “She’s no angel! What was done to her was wrong, but she knew what she was doing as she got older.”
That statement and others like it reflect a profound misunderstanding of grooming and childhood sexual exploitation.
As I explained on @JusticeServedTV Sandra's sexual encounters with other men cannot be separated from the grooming that began when she was just 12 years old.
Grooming is not simply about obtaining sex from a child. It is about systematically dismantling that child's understanding of love, trust, boundaries, and relationships.
Farwell exploited Sandra's vulnerabilities and her admiration for police officers. Through years of relentless manipulation, he conditioned her to associate sexual availability with affection, acceptance, and approval.
This is the reason groomers like Farwell can continue to sexually exploit victims into adulthood and leave them vulnerable to exploitation by others. That conditioning did not disappear when Sandra turned 18.
A birthday does not erase years of psychological manipulation.
What some characterize as promiscuity, actually reflects the lasting consequences of childhood sexual exploitation. Sandra's adult behavior must be understood in the context of what was done to her as a child.
As a Juvenile Court judge for more than two decades, I saw firsthand how grooming and sexual trauma can distort a young person's understanding of relationships and personal boundaries.
Stop judging and blaming Sandra for behaviors shaped by years of grooming that distorted her understanding of personal boundaries and left her vulnerable to continued sexual exploitation. Just stop.
“A high-risk sex offender who was being monitored by police”
I think it’s pretty clear he *wasn’t* being monitored by police.
cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/…
Advocate Case Review retweeted
On April 10th, 2013, Sandra Birchmore was 15. Matthew Farwell was about to turn 27. Intercourse with Birchmore on that date is statutory rate by law.
"In Massachusetts, sexual intercourse with a child under 16 is rape of a child under G.L. c. 265, § 23. The child’s consent is not a defense. A person convicted under § 23 faces imprisonment in state prison for life or for any term of years. The Commonwealth may indict a person for rape of a child at any time after the offense. G.L. c. 277, § 63.
The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office received the Stoughton Police Department’s findings in 2022. No Massachusetts prosecutor has charged Mr. Farwell with rape of a child or with any other crime."
Advocate Case Review retweeted
My law firm is gearing up to take on the Federal Government over the thousands of sexual assault/ intimate partner violence cases that are thrown out of the criminal court system due to delays. We are ready. Everyday a woman is murdered in Canada because her abuser escaped consequences. Learn more at jordanchallenge.ca and watch the video below and SHARE:
Advocate Case Review retweeted
After the devastating testimony harmful to Farwell by the expert on grooming, the defense asked the predictable question: “The law for consent in Massachusetts is 16?” In other words, let’s blame the child who had been groomed by that time for almost three years when the abuse started. A sickening strategy of desperation.
FYI…Massachusetts was the last state in New England to close a loophole in its age-of-consent laws that left 16- and 17-year-olds vulnerable to sexual exploitation by adults in positions of authority.
While neighboring states had already enacted criminal protections, Massachusetts did not close this loophole until 3 months ago in July 2026.
The question is not whether a 16- or 17-year-old can legally consent to sexual activity generally. It is whether an adult entrusted with supervising or protecting that child should be permitted to exploit that position of authority.
If the law had been enacted when Sandra was 16 and 17, Matthew Farwell could potentially have faced additional felony charges for sexual abuse of Sandra Birchmore. But like everything else in Massachusetts when it comes to protecting children, it’s never surprising that Massachusetts is dead last.
In SA cases we're constantly told that a case can't proceed without the victim. "Dead victims cannot testify in murder trials either. Their deaths do not absolve prosecutors of their responsibility to pursue justice."
The sad truth is that we will likely never see aggravated statutory rape charges filed by the Norfolk County DA's office against Mathew Farwell. As federal prosecutors question investigators assigned to DA Michael Morrissey's office, the public is learning the shocking extent of the evidence overlooked and the investigative steps never taken in Sandra Birchmore's death.
Yet equally indefensible was the decision not to prosecute Matthew Farwell for statutory rape. Prosecutors publicly, (and unbelievably) justified that decision by publicly claiming the case would be “difficult to prove because the main witness, Birchmore, was dead.”
Think about the enormity of that statement. Dead victims cannot testify in murder trials either. Their deaths do not absolve prosecutors of their responsibility to pursue justice.
Sandra's death should have intensified the search for corroborating evidence, including Farwell's own admissions in text messages, not become the convenient justification for failing to prosecute.
When Michael Morrissey leaves office, his legacy will be forever stained by the death of Sandra Birchmore.
That is the legacy Morrissey will leave behind: an office that failed to protect a sexually exploited child, failed to deliver justice after her death, and failed to hold accountable the very men who had sworn to uphold the law.
Sandra Birchmore deserved justice. Instead, she became the face of an institution that failed her in life and in death.
“Crown and defence lawyers jointly recommended a prison sentence of six years.” 15 prior convictions including beating her & setting fire to his mother’s home.
SIX. YEARS.
CBC News : 'I am not a piece of evidence': N.S. court hears from woman nearly killed by ex-partner
cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot…
Advocate Case Review retweeted
CBC News : 'I am not a piece of evidence': N.S. court hears from woman nearly killed by ex-partner
cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot…
Advocate Case Review retweeted
Our government and our courts, as a matter of course, are opaque. They say "Oh, we're very transparent", but it is completely false. Open courts is not "Well, if you can take the day off and travel you can observe" or "If you spend thousands of dollars you can get a transcript". It's taking every effort to make something available.
Whenever anything happens, the government response is to keep silent and pretend that this is good enough.
And once upon a time, the mushroom strategy worked great for the government and the courts.
Now, it just means that anyone with a rumour they want to spread can spread whatever and that's what fills the gaps.
It's time for the government and the courts to adopt real transparency.
Advocate Case Review retweeted
The sad truth is that we will likely never see aggravated statutory rape charges filed by the Norfolk County DA's office against Mathew Farwell. As federal prosecutors question investigators assigned to DA Michael Morrissey's office, the public is learning the shocking extent of the evidence overlooked and the investigative steps never taken in Sandra Birchmore's death.
Yet equally indefensible was the decision not to prosecute Matthew Farwell for statutory rape. Prosecutors publicly, (and unbelievably) justified that decision by publicly claiming the case would be “difficult to prove because the main witness, Birchmore, was dead.”
Think about the enormity of that statement. Dead victims cannot testify in murder trials either. Their deaths do not absolve prosecutors of their responsibility to pursue justice.
Sandra's death should have intensified the search for corroborating evidence, including Farwell's own admissions in text messages, not become the convenient justification for failing to prosecute.
When Michael Morrissey leaves office, his legacy will be forever stained by the death of Sandra Birchmore.
That is the legacy Morrissey will leave behind: an office that failed to protect a sexually exploited child, failed to deliver justice after her death, and failed to hold accountable the very men who had sworn to uphold the law.
Sandra Birchmore deserved justice. Instead, she became the face of an institution that failed her in life and in death.
There’s a lot of accountability yet to happen. They better not try to one-and-done this thing.
An aside observation. Sandra Birchmore confided in men who had a lot to lose if their own alleged sexual abuse of Sandra was revealed:
late 2020/early 2021 Birchmore told Joshua Heal, now an Abington Police Officer, that Matthew Farwell was violent with her. Heal is accused of sexually abusing Birchmore at the Stoughton Animal shelter when he was the town's animal control officer. No action was taken by Heal, an Abington cop, married at the time
Jan. 10, 2021 Birchmore meets Billy Farwell in her Canton Woods parking lot. She tells Billy she is pregnant with Matt's baby. They have sex, per POST decertification report. No action taken by Billy Farwell, a Stoughton cop, also married
Jan. 24, 2021, she told U.S. Army recruiter Jason Pickard, the father of her unborn child, that Matt Farwell was casing her apartment. The U.S. Army has strict rules about military members fraternizing with recruits, like Sandra. Investigators recovered sexual explicit videos and photos of Birchmore and Pickard on the Farwell brothers' phones, per Stoughton IAD report. No action taken by Pickard, a member of the U.S. military
These three men are all referenced in the Stoughton IAD report that former Deputy Chief Brian Holmes testified last week made him fear that there were crimes being committed in other states
Advocate Case Review retweeted
A man drugged and raped a New York college student and left her for dead while he photographed and decimated her naked pictures.
Women are enraged.
Men are judging her appearance and saying “nothing of value has been lost”.
Any man who speaks this way has no value at all.
Advocate Case Review retweeted
oh great.
Supreme Court decision says sexual history relevant in some cases ctvnews.ca/canada/article/su…