Early Pokémon Archive

September 9, 2021. That's not a detail, that's a future with a date on it. Doctor's visits in January, a medical record in front of the jury, eighty-five people told. She had a due date, appointments, and a plan — the whole architecture of a life being built forward. People who are leaving don't live like that. The record keeps saying so, in her own calendar.

Another message that says what he’s capable of.

Read this exchange the way the jury has to: not as gossip, as a timeline. Every text in this case is a date, a tone, and a choice about what gets put in writing and what doesn't. This one sits in January 2021 — weeks from the end, in the stretch where he was already being careful on paper. The texts don't summarize themselves. That's what the record is for.

🚨🥦🔍 GUARINO — SAID THEN / SAYS NOW Same examiner. Both cases. Nicholas Guarino testified Thursday (Oct. 15) in United States v. Farwell. THEN — Feb. 9, 2021. Farwell consented to a search of his iPhone 11. The consent covered one thing: messages between Farwell and Birchmore. Guarino extracted it, found none — Farwell had already said he deleted them — and the phone went back to Farwell the same day. (Doc 310) The limit lived nowhere on the signed form, which authorized a search of "all data." The government, citing Fanning's own later account, calls the written form misleading and the limitation oral; Guarino confirmed he searched only for those messages because that was the scope he was given. THEN — his other paper. His first report on Jennifer McCabe's phone held two searches: 6:23:51 AM and 6:24:37 AM. A deleted 2:27:40 AM record surfaced only in his supplemental report of April 24, 2023, pulled from the WAL file. His own report is careful: a user could not purposely delete from that file through the phone. What was deleted is documented. Who deleted it is not. And the fence stands: Green's affidavit lists a search at 06:24:18; Guarino's report lists 6:24:37. Two records, two times — neither gets flattened into the other. NOW — Thursday. Called about 12:47 PM, now a civilian examiner for the Norfolk DA after 10+ years as a trooper, he said he extracted five devices — including Sandra Birchmore's iPhone 12, an older XS and a MacBook, and Farwell's iPhone 11 on Feb. 9, 2021. At Fanning's request that day, he said, he searched Farwell's phone by Sandra's number, found no messages, and it was returned the same day. He also testified Lt. Fanning manually accessed Sandra's MacBook before a second extraction — he said the synced message volume had crashed department computers — and that the manual access altered data on the original device, with an earlier extraction preserved for comparison. Which data elements changed was not established in the reported testimony. And a deletion of his own — acknowledged on cross, separate from Fanning's access. Guarino acknowledged removing data he characterized as redundant — in a case that reached him as a suicide. His words, carried as a direct quote by WCVB and also reported by WJAR/NBC 10: "Originally this came to me as a suicide, the redundant data was removed." His deletion, his characterization. The record keeps the two apart, and so does this post. Then the cross — and the losses are separate losses; keep them separate. The data from the February 2021 black-bag extraction of Farwell's laptop "was not retained," he testified (McPhee's live notes). An early, partial extraction of Sandra's MacBook was not retained either (Enterprise News). An external MSP hard drive holding forensic files crashed, and files were lost with it (McPhee; Enterprise News). Asked about the digital investigation, he answered "I don't remember" — again and again. And the defense pressed him on why the loss was never documented in a report (Sue O'Connell, NBC Boston). Hold the variance where the record puts it. On direct, reporting had an earlier extraction of that MacBook preserved for comparison. On cross, an early, partial extraction "was not retained." Both sentences stand in Thursday's record. This post prints both and merges neither. No WAL, no Safari-tab, no Read-case cross in Thursday's reported testimony. What was said is above. What was not said is also the record. Judge his oath by his paper. #SandraBirchmore #FarwellTrial #SaidThenSaysNow

🚨🥦🔍 PART TWO — THE FLIPS. Sunday, the Forensic Room reviewed the Read civil hearing and told you three things. I graded all three against the paper. Here is the paper. 1️⃣ "NOT THE SAME PEOPLE." The Department's own report draws the chain: the troopers assigned to homicide investigations report to Sergeant Bukhenik. "Sergeant Bukhenik reports directly to Detective Lieutenant Tully." Lt. John Fanning — a Birchmore death investigator — is that unit's Executive Officer. And on Jan. 24, 2024, Tully executed the Read phone warrants alongside Fanning. That is page 5 of the Twomey report. Half the sentence survives — no held paper makes Proctor a Birchmore investigator. The blanket claim does not. The wall between the two cases is a sentence, not a fact. 2️⃣ "HER LAWYERS SAY NO CONSPIRACY." What counsel actually said, under the judge's own questions: the complaint alleges that individuals intended to direct the investigation toward Read. What is disclaimed is a boardroom agreement between the Town and the MSP as entities — the entities are charged with failing to prevent and oversee the individuals. The clip kept the concession. It cut the sentence before it. And the build the room mocked is the only one the statute leaves: plead an intentional agreement, and the Town's own argument answers with c. 258, § 10(c), which excludes intentional-tort claims outright. Card attached. 3️⃣ "HE COULDN'T NAME A SINGLE CASE." Gilmore v. Commonwealth, 417 Mass. 718, 723 (1994): a presentment notice fails only if it is "so obscure that educated public officials should find themselves baffled or misled." Commonwealth v. Tradition (North America) Inc., 91 Mass. App. Ct. 63, 73 (2017): when the date that triggers the limitations clock is genuinely disputed, a fact finder decides it. Cards attached. Pin cites on both. The one count argued without a case in hand was conspiracy — and counsel flagged that himself, on the record, before the room did. We follow the evidence. We don't follow a narrative. The record, not the rumor. 🥦🔍 #KarenRead #SandraBirchmore #Massachusetts #TheRecordNotTheRumor

🚨🥦🔍 PART THREE — THE LEDGER. The rest of Sunday's Forensic Room, graded one by one — the flat-wrong and the half-true, halves named. 1️⃣ WRONG HEARING. The panel asked what the hearing was even for, and answered: producing documents. The argument was a motion to dismiss — presentment, timeliness, the 12(b)(6) standard, by name. Not one captured minute concerned producing documents. That was the other proceeding that night. They reviewed the wrong hearing. 2️⃣ "GOODE IS ONLY THE TEXTS." Under the judge's questions, three more clusters came out loud: Goode's alleged bias; the securing of Canton PD headquarters and what it did to evidence preservation; Higgins's access and the sallyport footage alleged missing or partial. And ¶ 44 of the federal complaint carries Goode's own written comment about Sandra Birchmore. The texts are the smallest of four reasons his name is in the pleadings. 3️⃣ "THEY HAVE NO EVIDENCE." At a 12(b)(6) motion, the complaint's allegations are taken as alleged — the fight is notice, theory, and time. The presentment record the compression discards: a letter incorporating a 50-page draft complaint. Canton said it would not answer inside the six-month window, then never answered at all — under c. 258, § 4, that silence is a deemed denial. The MSP, on a similar letter, answered and denied. The statute is carded below. 4️⃣ THE JURY-SELECTION GRIEVANCE. Federal jury selection is not a courtroom spectacle; nobody covered Farwell's live, this desk included — docket and reporters, like everyone. The kernel is true. Who "screamed" about the room skipping it, when, in what words: unverified perimeter history. 5️⃣ THE HIGGINS TEXTS. The desk counted the whole thread: 807 bubbles, 456 of them his; cold opens run four-to-one his way. "Karen chasing him" is not supported by the paper. The only characterization in the record is an investigator's note on the January texts: "flirty." A two-sided word. Neither slogan survives the count. Half a record, delivered as the whole of it — that was Sunday. The record, not the rumor. 🥦🔍 #KarenRead #SandraBirchmore #Massachusetts #TheRecordNotTheRumor

🚨🥦🔍 PART FOUR — THE EMPTY SPACES. What Sunday's room filled with confidence is what the record doesn't hold at all. THE TEST THAT WAS NEVER RUN — ON THEM. One question the panel never asked: did anyone get toxicology on the people in that house? No. There is none in the record. Other substances, medication, nothing at all — the record doesn't say, because nobody tested them. The science was not absent from this case. In the experts' materials sits a toxicology report with the dead man's name on it — "Toxicology Report of John O'Keefe," listed among the materials the experts reviewed. For the living people inside 34 Fairview, whose capacity the room grades with such confidence, no test exists at all. Every confident account of who was capable of what that night rests on a test never run. THE WITNESSES WHO WEREN'T. A witness is someone who was there. The room's two warmest exhibits came from people who weren't: a host's coffee visits — the dog walk at Blue Hills, the television off, Jen sunning herself out back — offered as proof the McCabes are "honest people"; and a panelist scrolling her own call log, offered as the measure of what real witnesses should remember eighteen months on. Presence is what makes a witness. The rest is commentary. THE TAILLIGHT. The Commonwealth's own reconstruction expert wrote it: at 5:07:58 AM, the right rear taillight "was not broken" when the Lexus backed out of 1 Meadows — more than four hours after the alleged strike. The only Lexus impact the record documents is that morning's: the Ring camera's bump into O'Keefe's own Traverse, at half a mile an hour to one, no structural damage. The Fairview strike was never established. The same expert's report offers "consistent with" for it — while the defense's sworn experts found the damage inconsistent with a strike — one concluding the arm did not impact the Lexus at all. At 8:45 this morning, Day 5 resumes in Boston, and twelve people will be asked to decide on the record — this record, empty spaces included. Not on a rewrite. Not on a room's confidence. And be clear about whose trial this is. It isn't theirs. The Farwell trial doesn't run on their edit and it won't ask their permission. It is the proceeding where the narrative they built — the wall between the cases, the separation, the two unrelated stories — meets a federal record that carries both cases inside one chain of command. In that room, a narrative gets no vote. Paper does. And the paper will prove the narrative they built is crushed. The record, not the rumor. 🥦🔍 #KarenRead #SandraBirchmore #Massachusetts #TheRecordNotTheRumor

ELI WOOD — ONE YEAR One year ago, Eli Wood was last accounted for at his home in Kitchener — about 11:30 PM on October 18, 2025. At roughly 6 AM the next morning, fire tore through his rear-unit apartment at 25 Major Street. Waterloo Regional Police deemed it a targeted arson, and said they suspect foul play. His service dog was found dead inside. Everything he owned was destroyed. Eli was never found. He was 25 years old. A Master of Social Work student at Laurier. A son. His mother Cindy (@cindywoodameroelismo) has spent the year doing what families are left doing when the paper runs out — asking, publicly, for anyone who knows anything to call investigators instead of speculating online. The family offers a $5,000 reward. Here is the document fact of this anniversary: WRPS has issued no release on Eli's case since October 22, 2025. A full year of official silence, on a targeted arson with a missing man at the center of it. Somebody knows what happened on Major Street. The family is asking that person to call, not post. WRPS Major Crime Unit: 519-570-9777 ext. 8191 · @WRPSToday Occurrence: WA25252479 The record, not the rumor.

TAMMY LITTLE — Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Found October 19, 1982. Still unsolved. She was 20 years old, a student at the Portsmouth Beauty School, last seen alive in the early morning hours of Saturday, October 16, 1982. Three days later, she was found dead in her apartment at 315 Maplewood Avenue. The medical examiner's finding was massive head injuries. This morning is the 44th anniversary of the day she was found. Yesterday, ahead of it, the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit did something it had never done. It released a photograph of Tammy that the public has never seen, and said plainly that her case is under active investigation, her evidence re-evaluated for modern forensic testing. This anniversary carries a second name. A year before Tammy, another Portsmouth Beauty School student — Laura Kempton — was killed in her own apartment, the same way. Kempton's case is solved: in 2023, genetic genealogy gave investigators the name Ronney James Lee, dead since 2005. The two cases have been linked in public reporting for forty years. So the question the new photograph really asks is not only who remembers Tammy. It is whether the science that named Laura Kempton's killer has ever been turned, in full, on Tammy Little's evidence — and if it has, what it said. The Cold Case Unit is asking for her classmates, for Maplewood Avenue neighbors from 1982, for anyone who saw or spoke to her that weekend. Tip line: (603) 271-2663. [email protected] Forty-four years. Her family is still asking. The record, not the rumor.

🚨🥦🔍 PART ONE — THE FRAME. "If I Did It." O.J. Simpson's hypothetical edition: how it would have gone, his way. The room that loves the formula for him — innocent criminally, guilty civilly — called Sunday's show "WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE SAID." Not what they said. A do-over of a hearing none of them argued, performed as a review of it. I spent two hours watching their If I Did It. So this week the fantasy gets graded against what was actually said — the hearing, the reports, the statutes. Receipts in every part. Watch the standard the room grades by: the theory is mocked as if a conspiracy must be a good plan. Nobody ever said this was a good plan. The night at the center of all of this is bars and improvisation — and a drunken, badly run sequence is not an innocent one. Juries are asked what happened, never whether it was smart. A fantasy is graded by how it feels. A record is graded by what it holds. The record, not the rumor. 🥦🔍 #KarenRead #SandraBirchmore #Massachusetts #TheRecordNotTheRumor

🚨🥦🔍 DAY 5 — U.S. v. FARWELL (Monday) Four days in. Thirteen witnesses done. The government's case agent is still on the stand. MONDAY'S SPINE — SA HEIDI KELSCH, FBI Kelsch was called Friday afternoon and held over mid-testimony, the jury hearing the message record read in tandem — the prosecutor reading Farwell's lines, Kelsch reading Sandra's. Her foundation is already sworn: the FBI investigation began in October 2023, opened on referrals that included Chief Holmes's internal affairs investigation, and has run roughly 130 witness interviews since. She resumes Monday, expected to be up much longer. Then cross. A CORRECTION FROM THIS DESK, riding with this preview rather than as its own post: our Friday posts carried the case agent's name as "Keltch" and dated the FBI investigation's start to September 2022. The record says Kelsch — and her own sworn foundation on Friday put the start in October 2023. Both errors were ours; both are corrected in this desk's files and here. WHAT TO WATCH 1. THE CHART. On Friday the defense objected to the government's summary chart — built from some 40,000 messages — arguing it distorts context. Judge Casper preserved the objection, reserved the ruling, and said she will ask the case agent herself whether there is any indication the acts were non-consensual, so the jury is not misled. That unanswered question rides into Monday, attached to Kelsch. 2. THE LINE. Courtroom coverage carried Kelsch's words Friday, reading the 2013 messages into the record: "She was too young to consent." Watch whether the line continues Monday — and what cross does with it. 3. WHO FOLLOWS. Next name on the courtroom reporters' lineup is Donyea Holloway. Who she is gets established in the room, on the record, when she's called. AND LATER — Trooper John Fanning. The government will not call him. The defense has said it will, in its own case. The man who wrote the only account of the unrecorded parking-lot interview will eventually have to answer questions about it himself. Four days built the frame. Monday, the agent who rebuilt a closed file finishes her account of how — and then the other side gets its turn with her. Live coverage: @GrantSmithEllis @MicheleMcPhee @KristinaRex The record, not the rumor. 🥦🔍 #SandraBirchmore #Farwell

It's been the same bar since 2002. Drink with the right people, keep the night quiet, keep the badge.

🗺️ THE MAP — v2 · Oct. 17, 2026 One line was missing from v1. I found it on my own chart tonight — so here is the correction, the same night, with the paper that proves the line. WHAT CHANGED: Chris Albert and Sgt. Michael J. Lank are connected now. The record connects them twice. The Read defense's own filing (Apr. 16, 2024) calls Lank "one of Chris Albert's best friends from high school" — and puts Lank at a Canton bar with Chris and Kevin Albert on the night of Aug. 31, 2002. That night is in federal paper of its own: the defendants' summary in the Lopilato v. Lank pre-trial memorandum (Doc 24) records Chris, with Julie beside him, coming to off-duty Officer Lank in the Centerfields lot after a fight, his hand swollen. Nothing on v1 was wrong. That's the problem worth naming: a chart can be accurate about everything it shows and still mislead by what it leaves out. The line was documented in my own archive the whole time. Now it's drawn. Everything else was re-checked tonight in both directions — every line on the chart traced to its document, and every documented tie in the companion file checked against the chart. One line was missing. This is it. v1 is superseded. This post takes the pin. A full companion file stands behind this chart — every tie, every source, every gap the record refuses to fill. #KarenRead #SandraBirchmore #FarwellTrial

Count me in too. If Allen gets a retrial, I'm back on Delphi the same day. If it's allowed to stand, your rights have been quietly stripped away. What they did to Allen was torture. And the evidence they used to convict him with still baffles me.

🗺️🥦🔍 THE MAP — KAREN READ × SANDRA BIRCHMORE · v1 · Oct. 17, 2026 For two years, one sentence has held the wall: different cases, different people, nothing connects them. Every line is a document; every failed line is named. SIX PEOPLE hold documented functions in BOTH cases: JOHN FANNING (MSP Det. Lt.) — kept a journal on the "Birchmore homicide investigation" (July 2021). BRIAN TULLY (MSP Det. Lt.) — authored Report 112 in the Read matter. NICHOLAS GUARINO (forensic examiner) — extracted the defendant's phone in Farwell; in Read, his extraction of Jen McCabe's phone produced the disputed search. MICHAEL MORRISSEY (Norfolk DA) — prosecuted Read; his office's CPAC unit ran the 2021 Birchmore investigation. MATTHEW DUNNE (MSP Tpr.) — at Birchmore's apartment Feb. 4, 2021; Dunne v. Meta Platforms is his own filed case. MICHAEL J. LANK (Canton PD Sgt.) — on scene at 34 Fairview (Read); on scene at Sandra's apartment (Birchmore). ONE MAN CONNECTS BY KINSHIP, NOT AGENCY: KEVIN ALBERT (Canton PD Det.) — DEFENSE WITNESS #3 in Farwell (Doc 260) — and a man Canton PD's own report (21-79-OF) puts inside Sandra's apartment on Feb. 6, 2021, reviewing her building's video. Full file: today's Albert File. MORE THAN PEOPLE: ONE DEPARTMENT — CANTON PD searched 34 Fairview, held the scene at Birchmore's building, and produced the incident reports both cases now fight over (21-0107-OF; 21-79-OF). ONE EVIDENCE CLASS — THE PHONES: In Farwell, the extraction fight is live now (FRE 1006). In Read, it ended careers. ONE PRACTICE — REPORTS WRITTEN LATER: An 84-day supplement in Farwell; Lank's scene account in his own later report (21-79-OF). Full person-by-person sourcing: the companion file. Gaps are printed, not filled. THE FENCES — LINES THAT FAILED TESTING, NAMED SO THEY ARE NEVER QUIETLY REUSED: ✗ No document in the held record names Proctor in the Birchmore investigation. His load here is institutional, never personal. ✗ The twins' mother is carried under two names in the record (Tracie; Cynthia). Unmerged — both print. ✗ The filings name her unborn son's father only as "Witness 1" (Doc 179). The name reporting attaches to him is an inference — charted as one, never as fact. Sources cited inline. #KarenRead #SandraBirchmore #FarwellTrial

Made In Canada 🇨🇦

Looks like a man who just got caught wearing his murder outfit.

🚨🥦 THE FANNING FILE — the man who wrote it down 31 days later When John Fanning takes the stand in United States v. Farwell, the most important interview of the Birchmore investigation will be five years old. It happened in a school parking lot. It was never recorded. Nobody took notes. And the only report of it was written 31 days later, from memory, by him. February 6, 2021, about 3:10 p.m. — two days after Sandra Birchmore was found dead. Sergeant John Fanning and Trooper Matthew Dunne interviewed Matthew Farwell in the parking lot out front of the Gibbons School in Stoughton. Farwell told them he had known Sandra for about ten years, going back to when she was a Police Explorer and he was an instructor. He said the sexual relationship began sometime in early 2020. He described the "pretty nasty argument" at her apartment on February 1, said she was alive when he left — and denied he was the father of her unborn child. That denial matters to the government. Its own filing calls the statement "self-serving" — and then concedes the conditions it was made under: "That short interview occurred in a school parking lot and neither law enforcement officer recorded it or took notes of any kind." (Doc 339, ¶4) So there is no tape to check the report against, and no notes. There is only Fanning's report, dated March 9, 2021 — thirty-one days after the conversation. Dunne, the other interviewer, never wrote one at all. The March 9 batch holds a second parking lot. On February 11, Fanning and Dunne interviewed the defendant's brother, William Farwell, in a parking lot at Cobbs Corner in Stoughton. That report is dated March 9, 2021, too. Three days after the first interview, on February 9, Fanning met Matthew Farwell at the Norfolk DA's office in Canton. Fanning asked for his consent to take data off his phone, had him sign the form, took the phone, had Trooper Guarino extract it — and gave it back the same day. His report of that is dated March 11. The same day, Fanning, Dunne and another trooper retrieved Sandra's laptop in Canton and passed it to Guarino. Fanning's written analysis of it is dated August 16, 2021. It concludes, of the texts between Sandra and Matt: "There were no threats of harm by any of these individuals, including Matt." In April 2021, Guarino extracted Farwell's work phone, and Fanning analyzed both phones: no communications with Sandra Birchmore on either. And across three of his reports, from March to August 2021, the same sentence does the framing in his own hand: Trooper Dunne "responded to Canton for the suicide death of Sandra Birchmore." His partner's lead report, the one underneath all of it, closes on a different line: cause and manner of death "pending further study." If the name sounds familiar from another case, it should. The same John Fanning — by then a detective lieutenant — sits in the troopers' group chat entered as Exhibit 567 in the Karen Read case, as a supervisor, on the night Proctor texted about going through Read's phone. The words in that chat are Proctor's, not Fanning's. And in July 2024, the State Police's own internal-affairs office closed its investigation of Fanning himself — into whether he, as a supervisor in that chat, had failed to act on Proctor's texts. The allegation was not sustained: Fanning told investigators he was on vacation that week and never saw them. I can't tell you what John Fanning remembers about February 6, 2021. Neither can he, from paper — there is none from that day. What I can tell you is when he wrote it down: March 9. Thirty-one days later. Both sides have listed him as a witness in this trial. When he is sworn, everything he says about that parking lot rests on a report he wrote from memory, a month after the fact, about an interview nobody recorded. The paper is below. Read it the way I did. 🥦🔍 #SandraBirchmore #FarwellTrial

🚨🥦🔍 GUARINO — SAID THEN / SAYS NOW Same examiner. Both cases. Nicholas Guarino testified Thursday (Oct. 15) in United States v. Farwell. THEN — Feb. 9, 2021. Farwell consented to a search of his iPhone 11. The consent covered one thing: messages between Farwell and Birchmore. Guarino extracted it, found none — Farwell had already said he deleted them — and the phone went back to Farwell the same day. (Doc 310) THEN — his other paper. His first report on Jennifer McCabe's phone held two searches: 6:23:51 AM and 6:24:37 AM. A deleted 2:27:40 AM record surfaced only in his supplemental report of April 24, 2023, pulled from the WAL file. His own report is careful: a user could not purposely delete from that file through the phone. What was deleted is documented. Who deleted it is not. And the fence stands: Green's affidavit lists a search at 06:24:18; Guarino's report lists 6:24:37. Two records, two times — neither gets flattened into the other. NOW — Thursday. Called about 12:47 PM, now a civilian examiner for the Norfolk DA after 10+ years as a trooper, he said he extracted five devices — including Sandra Birchmore's iPhone 12, an older XS and a MacBook, and Farwell's iPhone 11 on Feb. 9, 2021. At Fanning's request that day, he said, he searched Farwell's phone by Sandra's number, found no messages, and it was returned the same day. He also testified Lt. Fanning manually accessed Sandra's MacBook before a second extraction — and that the manual access altered data on the original device, with an earlier extraction preserved for comparison. And a deletion of his own. Separate from Fanning's access, Guarino acknowledged removing data he characterized as redundant — in a case that reached him as a suicide. His words, carried as a direct quote by WCVB and also reported by WJAR/NBC 10: "Originally this came to me as a suicide, the redundant data was removed." His deletion, his characterization. The record keeps the two apart, and so does this post. Then the cross — and the losses are separate losses; keep them separate. The data from the February 2021 black-bag extraction of Farwell's laptop "was not retained," he testified (McPhee's live notes). An early, partial extraction of Sandra's MacBook was not retained either (Enterprise News). An external MSP hard drive holding forensic files crashed, and files were lost with it (McPhee; Enterprise News). Asked about the digital investigation, he answered "I don't remember" — again and again. And the defense pressed him on why the loss was never documented in a report (Sue O'Connell, NBC Boston). Hold the variance where the record puts it. On direct, reporting had an earlier extraction of that MacBook preserved for comparison. On cross, an early, partial extraction "was not retained." Both sentences stand in Thursday's record. This post prints both and merges neither. No WAL, no Safari-tab, no Read-case cross in Thursday's reported testimony. What was said is above. What was not said is also the record. Judge his oath by his paper. #SandraBirchmore #FarwellTrial #SaidThenSaysNow

🚨🥦🔍 HOLMES — SAID THEN / SAYS NOW He investigated his own department. Brian Holmes — Stoughton's deputy chief then, Kingston's police chief now — testified Thursday and Friday (Oct. 15–16) in United States v. Farwell. THEN — the order. On Feb. 5, 2021, the day after Sandra Birchmore was found dead, Chief Donna McNamara directed Deputy Chief Holmes to run the internal affairs investigation. It became 21-1-IA. He worked on a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, and signed the report on Aug. 29, 2022. (21-1-IA) THEN — the findings. Fourteen allegations SUSTAINED across three of his own officers. Four against Matthew Farwell — conduct unbecoming, incompetence, untruthfulness, attention and devotion to duty. Seven against William Farwell, including department-computer queries of Birchmore herself and 24 queries of himself. Three against Robert Devine, the man who had run the Explorers program. One allegation was NOT sustained: conformance to laws, against Matthew Farwell — the report states that finding would have required the testimony of Sandra Birchmore, who is deceased. Of Devine, Holmes wrote: "I do not view Devine to be a credible person." THEN — the recommendations. All three men resigned before the report issued; Devine resigned days before a second interview Holmes had scheduled for him, a timing he wrote that he drew a negative inference from. Holmes recommended the POST Commission revoke all three certifications and enter the men in the National Decertification Index. He recommended POST subpoena Facebook records to authenticate the "Marty Riggs" alias he attributed to Devine, and that his own report go to forensic statement analysts to gauge the truthfulness of all three men's statements. His conclusion: no other current member of the department had an inappropriate relationship with Sandra Birchmore. And he recommended one more investigation — 22-3-IA — to follow up with former members of the Explorers program. NOW — Thursday. Called at 3:15 PM, now chief in Kingston since April 2024, he testified he did not know, before Sandra's death, that Matthew Farwell had been having sex with her. Asked whether John Fanning's interview of Farwell was conducted in line with best practices of law enforcement, an objection cut the question off. No answer appears in the reported record. NOW — Friday, on cross. The defense took him back to the call of Jan. 20, 2021. As it was presented to him, he testified, it suggested an extramarital affair, not a statutory-rape allegation — and he agreed that learning only of a possible affair would not itself trigger an investigation. He said he had no information that Farwell had sex with an adult or a minor. He tried to interview the caller — Julia Perlin; she cooperated, in his words, "not fully," speaking with his investigator by phone. The defense also pressed him on seizing Sandra's laptop and turning off its Wi-Fi to preserve evidence. NOW — Friday, on redirect. After his internal affairs investigation, he testified, he reported to the FBI and wrote a report for the Chief. The FBI's case agent has testified the federal investigation opened in October 2023 on three referrals. His IA was one of them. Hold the two records apart, the way this post holds them. His paper sustained untruthfulness against all three men and asked that all three be decertified. His oath, this week, is that what reached his department in January 2021 read as an affair — and an affair, alone, opens no investigation. Both are in the record. Neither gets flattened into the other. And one thing his paper asked for was never mentioned across two days of testimony — not in the reported coverage: 22-3-IA, the follow-up he himself recommended. A deputy chief who sustained fourteen findings against his own. Judge his oath by his paper. #SandraBirchmore #FarwellTrial #SaidThenSaysNow