Hidden Killers Live! Daily True Crime News & Breakdowns

When investigators interviewed Matthew Farwell about Sandra Birchmore's death, they did it in a school parking lot without taking notes or making a recording. Trooper Matthew Dunne testified that Sgt. John Fanning, his supervisor, made those tactical decisions. The aim, Dunne explained, was to prevent Farwell from ending the conversation and asking for an attorney. So what was gained by the approach, and what was lost?Tony Brueski and Bob Motta examine the judgment call that sat above the initial investigation. Dunne later told jurors that Farwell had been untruthful about his relationship with Birchmore. The trooper...

Alex Murdaugh's attorneys say a swab from Maggie Murdaugh's phone contains unknown male DNA, including material they argue cannot belong to Alex. They also say recent testing identified male genetic material beneath fingernails on both of Maggie's hands. The prosecution disputes how much can be inferred from small samples and cautions that consuming the remaining material might end opportunities for other tests.At an October 16 pretrial hearing, Judge Debra McCaslin authorized independent testing rather than treating either side's argument as the answer. The defense specifically sought Y-STR analysis to focus on the male component of mixed DNA...

Stoughton Police Chief Donna McNamara alleges that Town Manager Thomas Calter instructed her to destroy a report connected to a second internal investigation arising from the Sandra Birchmore case. Calter denies the allegations. The dispute led to litigation and became public as both officials were placed on paid administrative leave during separate investigations.That second inquiry sits alongside an earlier question about what happened inside the Stoughton Police Department. On January 20, 2021, a friend called about Sandra Birchmore’s relationship with Matthew Farwell. Prosecutors allege a department employee told Farwell about the warning. Their indictment does not say wh...

Matthew Farwell’s phone was handed back after a State Police examiner searched for Sandra Birchmore’s number and found no messages. Nicholas Guarino described that February 9, 2021 extraction under oath. He also testified that a password on Sandra’s DoorDash account, “mfarwell1,” allowed police to access her laptop.The FBI later found roughly 24,000 communications between Farwell and Birchmore on Sandra’s devices. Prosecutors allege Farwell deleted his messages following his first police interview. The phone the state returned is no longer in State Police possession, making the decisions about how it was searched and preserved a critical part of the...

Trooper Matthew Dunne testified that he did not attend Sandra Birchmore's autopsy. He also said he initially saw no reason to treat her death as suspicious. Federal prosecutors have been asking him why a case involving a pregnant woman and a married police detective was handled with so few recorded interviews and so little follow-up.Dunne and his supervisor interviewed Matthew Farwell at an elementary school parking lot. Dunne said neither took notes or recorded the exchange because they hoped a less formal setting would keep Farwell from refusing to speak. He later acknowledged that Farwell's account...

Sandra Birchmore’s final days have become the focus of sharply opposed accounts in Matthew Farwell’s federal trial. His lawyer says Sandra acted in despair after a difficult period. Prosecutors say Farwell’s DNA on evidence collected at her apartment supports their allegation that he killed her and staged the scene.Defense attorney Kimberly Stevens highlighted medication from childhood, a prior attempt to end her life, and the pressure of unpaid debts. She told jurors Sandra’s bank balance had fallen to $2.90 in late January 2021. The defense points out that testing did not match Farwell beneath her fing...

An FBI examiner testified that an iPhone linked to Matthew Farwell searched for Massachusetts consent law and deleted-message recovery on February 9, 2021. That was eight days after Sandra Birchmore died. The searches entered the record as federal prosecutors argued that Farwell killed Sandra and made her death appear self-inflicted.Farwell has pleaded not guilty. His defense argues that Sandra took her own life. The jury is hearing digital evidence alongside the earlier police investigation and the surveillance timeline from the night of her death. A recorded search can help reconstruct someone’s interests. It cannot, by itself, settle wh...

Gypsy Rose Blanchard reportedly said something about Ken Urker in prison that reads very differently after his death on October 1, 2026.Leaked recordings reported to be from 2020 and 2021 prison calls capture Gypsy talking with Ryan Anderson about Ken and saying she had told Ken she hoped he would overdose. Years later, Ken was found dead at his Raceland home on his thirty-fourth birthday. The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office report describes drug paraphernalia at the scene, including syringes and a spoon near a brown powdery substance. Deputies also reported a syringe and holstered handgun near the bed. The sh...

The first investigation of Sandra Birchmore’s death is itself facing questions in federal court. A state lab found male DNA on a strap recovered from the apartment. Yet a later federal filing says investigators never collected Matthew Farwell’s DNA for comparison during that original investigation. State Police investigator Matthew Dunne described an unrecorded school-parking-lot interview of Farwell and the decision not to take notes. Separately, FBI Agent Heidi Kelsch read jurors text messages exchanged by Farwell and Sandra. Prosecutors say those communications undercut his earlier descriptions of their contact. Farwell denies the charges, and his attorneys maintain Sand...

Eric Faddis is back with me on Sandra Birchmore and Alex Murdaugh, two cases where officers close to the accused keep coming up.Testimony at Matthew Farwell's federal trial showed a State Police examiner returned Farwell's phone after finding no messages, and the FBI later found thousands. Stoughton's former deputy chief said he first saw the masked lobby video online. Chief Donna McNamara, who exposed the officers, is on paid leave and suing the town.Alex Murdaugh's lawyers won the right to test unknown DNA from Maggie Murdaugh's nails and phone, and they're pressing prosecutors...

Timmy Gibson was a licensed minister with the Assemblies of God for decades. On Homicide Happy Hour, he described the licensing process. Every year, a form arrives asking whether you've upheld the moral standard. Gibson says every pastor he personally knew lied. There is no verification and no audit. One friend who told the truth about marijuana was stripped of his license. Gibson says the system cannot police itself because it was never designed to. That's how someone like JP Miller can allegedly operate for years without intervention. Miller set up Solid Rock Church so that he was the...

Alex Murdaugh's defense says DNA on Maggie Murdaugh's phone means she wasn't the last person to handle it, and a judge just let them test it. Eric Faddis joins me to break down what that could mean for the April 2027 retrial.Judge Debra McCaslin also blocked the defense from digging through ballistics files from other shootings, calling it a fishing expedition, but ordered the state to hand over its 3D crime-scene scans of Moselle. The defense can now build its own reconstruction.The judge corrected Dick Harpootlian's claim that Murdaugh passed a polygraph, saying the...

Stoughton Police Chief Donna McNamara testified for the government at Matthew Farwell's trial while on paid leave, and both sides had already agreed not to ask her about her fight with Town Hall. Eric Faddis joins me to ask why.McNamara says Town Manager Thomas Calter ordered her to destroy a 2024 internal report on the Sandra Birchmore case. Calter flatly denies it. Her lawyer says the report holds damaging material about another former police employee.Calter has said the report deals with how the department handled the January 20, 2021 call from Sandra's friend. A dispatcher testified...

Matthew Farwell is the one on trial, but the cops who handled Sandra Birchmore's death keep taking the stand. Eric Faddis joins me to rank the five worst moments.State Police examiner Nicholas Guarino testified he found no messages between Farwell and Sandra on Farwell's phone and returned it to him. The FBI later recovered thousands. A dispatcher testified he carried a friend's warning call about Farwell straight to Farwell's office, and that his notes went in the trash.Former Stoughton deputy chief Brian Holmes testified he first saw the lobby video of a masked...

Matthew Farwell's defense is telling a federal jury that Sandra Birchmore took her own life. Eric Faddis joins me to test that claim against the five strongest pieces of the government's case.The DNA comes first. Prosecutors say Farwell's genetic profile was found on the strap used to hang Sandra from a closet door, and that state investigators never collected a sample from him in 2021. The FBI got one in 2024.The phone comes next. Prosecutors say Farwell searched whether Cellebrite could recover deleted iMessages after Sandra died, and that State Police found no messages between...

What three Stoughton officers were allegedly doing to Sandra Birchmore over the course of a decade — and why the department is still trying to bury it. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott breaks down the psychology of every layer of this case in a comprehensive four-part interview. The targeting: how officers allegedly used a badge, a youth program, and a grieving child’s missing father to reshape her understanding of love. The individual: Farwell’s alleged double life, the mask, the clothes he allegedly wore from Sandra’s building to his wife’s hospital room. The group: Devine’s mentorship of the Farwell brot...

When Timmy Gibson heard JP Miller's sermons, he didn't hear theology. He heard a pastor allegedly using scripture to control the room. Gibson left the evangelical ministry after thirty years and sat down for Homicide Happy Hour to talk about Miller. He quoted one sermon where Miller allegedly told his congregation that if wives fall short, the devil has twenty replacements lined up. Gibson says that's gaslighting dressed as doctrine. Miller has been indicted federally for cyberstalking and making false statements. He denies the charges. Mica Miller died in April 2024. Her death was ruled a suicide, and Miller is...

The chief who exposed the Stoughton officers connected to Sandra Birchmore is the one off the job. Chief Donna McNamara, the department’s first female chief and first female officer, allegedly opened a second investigation into the misconduct — and says Town Manager Robin Calter demanded she destroy the findings. McNamara refused. She is now on administrative leave. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines why whistleblowers inside law enforcement — particularly women — are disproportionately punished for doing what the institution was supposed to do on its own. Someone inside the department allegedly tipped Matthew Farwell that someone had called the station about him. The seco...

Three Stoughton police officers, one youth program, and one girl who entered it as a grieving child. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examines how that structure allegedly operated and what it did to Sandra Birchmore’s ability to understand her own situation. Robert Devine ran the Explorers program and mentored the Farwell brothers as teenagers. Years later, those same brothers allegedly targeted Sandra through the program Devine built. William Farwell allegedly participated while knowing Sandra was pregnant with Matthew’s baby. After Sandra’s death, Devine sat at his own hearing and called her a liar. Scott, author of Nightbird, explains how on...

Prosecutors allege Matthew Farwell went directly from Sandra Birchmore’s apartment building to the hospital where his wife was in labor — wearing the same clothes. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott breaks down what that journey reveals about a man who allegedly lived a double life for years and never expected it to end. Farwell met Sandra in his patrol car while on duty. He logged the hours as work. The arrangement held until Sandra became pregnant and her friend called the Stoughton police station asking about Farwell. That phone call, Scott says, is when the structure Farwell had built began breaking apar...