STOUGHTON OR MURDER?

SHE WAS 23 AND EXCITEDLY EXPECTING HER FIRST CHILD WHEN SHE APPEARED TO TAKE HER OWN LIFE. NOW AUTHORITIES SUSPECT FOUL PLAY BY HER MARRIED POLICE OFFICER BOYFRIEND

- CHRISTINE PELISEK

• Justice for Sandra Birchmore

When she learned she was pregnant in late 2020, Sandra Birchmore contacted her cousin in Seattle with the exciting news. "She woke me up at 4 o'clock in the morning to tell me,” recalls Barbara Wright, 68. "She was over the moon." Unmarried, Birchmore immediately began preparing for the birth, buying toys and looking in advance for a photographer to take pictures of her newborn. She was planning a social media announcement on Feb. 14, 2021-Valentine's Day. "She had a friend make a sign that said, 'I'm expecting a new little one to love. My own little Valentine," says Wright.

But on Feb. 4 the news Birchmore's friends and family received was tragic. That day police officers performing a welfare check after Birchmore didn't show up for work found the 23-year-old teaching assistant’s body at her Canton, Mass., apartment. She was seated on the fl oor with a luggage strap looped around her neck and tied to a closet doorknob. Following an autopsy, Birchmore’s death was offi cially ruled a suicide—but those who knew her vehemently disagreed. “I knew she didn’t kill her baby," says Wright. "I knew that above all else."