BOSTON — A defense lawyer for Matthew Farwell revealed Friday that a Massachusetts State Police trooper tasked with examining Sandra Birchmore’s laptop lost the device’s raw data in 2024, potentially destroying evidence that could have benefited Farwell’s defense.
On Aug. 24, 2024, the server Trooper Nicholas Guarino was using to review Birchmore’s laptop “crashed completely and failed,” leaving investigators with only a PDF extraction of the device, said Joanne Daley, one of Farwell’s two federal public defenders. The data loss came just four days before Farwell’s arrest on charges connected with Birchmore’s death.
“They lost everything,” Daley said during a Friday morning hearing in Farwell’s case…