True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews

Alan Bono was 40 years old. He came to Connecticut to run a boarding kennel. He rented an apartment to Arne Johnson and Debbie Glatzel. He was killed on his own lawn on a February afternoon — the first homicide in Brookfield's 193-year history. Three movies, a book, and a Netflix documentary later, a franchise worth more than $2 billion has been built on what happened to him. He has never had a scene written from his perspective. The Glatzel family received $4,500. The Warrens received more than $81,000. Arne Johnson has never said the devil made him do it. His attorney: "The priests said that. The Warrens said that." An 11-year-old described the killing months before it happened. His brother saw nothing. Their mother was secretly drugging the family's food.
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Sandra Birchmore was found dead in her Canton apartment in February 2021. Federal prosecutors allege that former Stoughton officer Matthew Farwell killed her and staged the scene. Now they are asking jurors to assess DNA from the duffel bag strap found around her neck. Tony Brueski and former prosecutor Eric Faddis examine that evidence alongside an unresolved dispute over police records.
Prosecutors say Farwell’s DNA was recovered from the strap. They point to surveillance video of his visit to the apartment building and the timing of the last activity on Sandra’s phone. Their presentation also emphasizes communications they allege were deleted and Sandra’s plans for her unborn child and a nursing career. Defense lawyers say Farwell visited to end their relationship and that Sandra later died by suicide. Farwell denies the charges.
At the same time, Stoughton Police Chief Donna McNamara has accused Town Manager Thomas Calter of demanding that she destroy a second internal affairs report connected to the Birchmore case. Calter disputes the allegation. Reporting indicates that inquiry addressed the way the department handled a friend’s warning call in January 2021. The report’s findings have not been publicly established, and their relationship to the criminal trial remains an open question.
Faddis considers how DNA may support or fail to settle a contested timeline, what jurors can take from surveillance and digital records, and why separate allegations of misconduct by police officials require careful verification. The evidence being tested at trial concerns Sandra’s death; the report dispute concerns how her warnings were handled. Both demand answers, but neither answers the other automatically.
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Matthew Farwell spoke to the state investigators examining Sandra Birchmore's death, but their pivotal school-parking-lot interview produced no recording and no notes. Trooper Matthew Dunne told jurors that his supervisor, Sgt. John Fanning, approved the approach to keep the conversation informal. The idea was to avoid pushing Farwell to stop talking. Was the price of that strategy too high?
Sandra Birchmore was found dead in her Canton apartment in February 2021. Federal prosecutors allege that Farwell, a former Stoughton police detective, killed her and staged her death as suicide. Farwell has pleaded not guilty and maintains that Birchmore ended her own life. The trial places the initial state investigation under an unusual spotlight: prosecutors are asking jurors to consider what police failed to obtain, preserve and follow up.
Dunne testified that Farwell made misleading statements about the history of his relationship with Birchmore. He also acknowledged that he did not interview Farwell's coworkers. Bob Motta explores how those gaps affect a case built on disputed accounts. A question about what a person said is harder to resolve when the interview leaves no audio record.
Eric Faddis examines the digital and departmental evidence. Nicholas Guarino testified he did not find Birchmore messages during his search of Farwell's phone and that the device was returned. Later FBI work recovered extensive communications from Birchmore's devices. Witness testimony about how police leadership learned of the lobby surveillance video adds another concern about communication within the Stoughton department.
There are legal differences between a flawed investigation, negligent supervision and an intentional cover-up. Tony Brueski and his guests focus on the decisions the witnesses described and what proof would be needed before moving from an accusation of incompetence to one of deliberate misconduct.
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Unknown male DNA has become a major point of contention ahead of Alex Murdaugh's retrial. Defense lawyers told Judge Debra McCaslin that genetic material recovered beneath both of Maggie Murdaugh's hands and from her phone includes an unidentified male contribution. They argued that records available before the original trial did not communicate the full significance of the underlying numbers. The prosecution challenged the need to expend remaining samples on additional testing.
The judge gave the defense permission to perform independent Y-STR analysis, which may help isolate male DNA from samples dominated by female DNA. The testing has yet to deliver an identification. The defense wants an answer before the second jury hears the case, while prosecutors have stressed the limited quantity of material and the risk of exhausting it.
Another exchange illustrated why precise claims matter. Attorney Dick Harpootlian had told the court Murdaugh passed a polygraph with flying colors. McCaslin corrected him: the financial-conduct examination was failed, and Murdaugh was never given a polygraph concerning his wife and son's deaths. The defense also argued it struggled with a 73-gigabyte evidence production immediately before the 2023 trial. The judge rejected a separate bid to examine broad ballistics records from unrelated shootings.
Tony Brueski and Robin Dreeke connect the forensic dispute to the court's insistence that both sides stop fighting over rhetoric and prepare for the evidence a jury will actually hear. The murder retrial is scheduled for April 5, 2027, in Sumter County. Alex Murdaugh maintains his innocence in the killings.
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Sandra Birchmore’s friend called the Stoughton Police Department to report a relationship involving officer Matthew Farwell. The federal indictment alleges someone working at the department told Farwell about the call. The government has not identified that employee in the indictment, leaving an important gap in the story of how the warning was handled.
Prosecutors allege Matthew later killed Sandra and made the scene look like a suicide. He has pleaded not guilty and his defense says Sandra took her own life. Bob Motta examines how investigators should preserve complaints, identify who handled them, and separate an internal policy failure from evidence that a particular person committed a crime.
A department investigation completed in 2022 identified serious misconduct by three former Stoughton officers: Matthew Farwell, his twin brother William Farwell, and former deputy chief Robert Devine. William was permanently decertified in September 2024. The state disciplinary record identifies false information to investigators and other alleged misconduct, but does not establish that William was the source of the warning to Matthew.
The conflict extends to Stoughton’s leadership. Police Chief Donna McNamara alleges Town Manager Thomas Calter demanded that she destroy a report produced in connection with a second internal investigation of the Birchmore matter. Calter denies her allegations. Both officials were placed on administrative leave as the town launched separate investigations.
Tony Brueski and Bob Motta unpack the legal significance of the call and the department’s documented findings. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott considers the pressure on people who report wrongdoing when their institution is accused of failing to protect them. The central question is what the available records can actually prove about the warning and its aftermath.
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