Sandra Birchmore: Part 5

The FBI makes an arrest and presents a very different story of the last few months, days, and hours of Sandra Birchmore’s life.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sandra’s family asks an outside medical expert to review her autopsy, and his findings send shockwaves throughout the community. Meanwhile, the FBI turns its lens on Sandra’s case.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stoughton’s police chief orders an internal investigation into Sandra Birchmore’s ties to the department, and to the men inside it. What it uncovers changes not only the story of Sandra’s death, but the story of her life.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Massachusetts State police interview the man Sandra was seeing, married Stoughton police detective Matthew Farwell. During a non-recorded conversation in a school parking lot, Farwell refers to Sandra as a casual fling. But her friends tell the police a very different story. And Sandra’s death certificate puts investigators and the family further at odds.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In February 2021, 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore is found dead in her apartment in eastern Massachusetts. Officers quickly label the death a suicide. This news confounds her family, because Sandra was pregnant and planning for her future. And they worry about the mystery man she was dating—an older, married cop from her hometown. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741-741. Please take care while listening.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Isolde Raftery was in her senior year of high school in the late 90s, the budding journalist and her best friend published a piece in the school newspaper that deeply fractured — even shattered — the image the school had of itself. Not only that, it led the two teenage friends to believe they were responsible for the death of a teacher, who died by suicide. Twenty-five years later, Isolde, now managing editor at KUOW, and her friend Ella, a civil rights attorney, reinvestigate their own story to get to the bottom of the guilt they carried, in a fantastic podcast called, Adults in the Room. In this episode of What Happened to Her, Melissa Jeltsen talks to Isolde about the web of grooming and abuse they uncovered, what it was like to turn her investigative lens on herself, and how the story has changed her perspective of what they and their fellow students experienced.  If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741-741. Please take care while listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lisette Johnson survived what almost no one does: her husband shot her, then killed himself. Murder-suicides happen every week in America, and they usually disappear after a local headline — with the perpetrator dead, there's no trial, no unfolding story. Except, Lisette lived, and what she told Melissa Jeltsen has shaped how she's covered these cases ever since. When a murder-suicide made national news this spring — Virginia's former Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax killed his wife, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, then himself — Melissa thought of Lisette. In this first episode of What Happened to Her, Lisette shares her story. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline at thehotline.org or call them at 800.799.SAFE for free, confidential support 24 hours a day.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For four seasons, investigative reporter Melissa Jeltsen has told the stories of women whose lives — and deaths — were shaped by the failures of the systems meant to protect them. Now she's widening her lens, with new episodes every week. In What Happened to Her, Melissa takes on the stories that won't let her go. Women whose deaths were too quickly ruled suicides. Women no one believed. Cases everyone else called closed. Some weeks, a mystery unfolds across multiple episodes. In others, Melissa sits down with fellow investigative journalists and podcast hosts to go behind the scenes on the cases — and the women — they just couldn't shake.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As new chapters unfold, experts examine whether the law can truly recognize the harm caused when fertility care fails. Former CRH patients are left to reckon with the lives they’re living — and how far some have diverged from what they once imagined.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two former employees describe what they saw as the clinic unraveled. Their stories, and a look into public records, help piece together how CRH fell apart. Plus court documents reveal Dr. Vasquez’s version of events.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.