Shownotes Transcript
Hi, I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast unlike any other. Why? Because every case I cover comes from the heart of my home, New England. From the rocky main coast to the historic streets of Boston to the quiet corners of Vermont and beyond, I investigate stories filled with untold twists, enduring questions, and voices that deserve to be heard.
So if you're ready to explore the darker side of New England, join me every week for Dark Down East. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Dark Down Easter's, it's Kylie. And here on Dark Down East, we dig into the facts in order to solve a case. But for some mysteries, the truth lies in the unknown.
Enter the realm of true crime's most bizarre occurrences and unravel all the possible explanations, no matter how strange they may be, in AudioChuck's newest weekly podcast, So Supernatural. Every Friday, some of the strangest stories are put under a microscope in order to try to discover what really happened. Follow and listen to So Supernatural now, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Since the moment her death was discovered, in April of 1993, the family of Valerie Fiorenza has doubted that she got a fair and thorough investigation. Her boyfriend was a cop, their relationship was tumultuous, and Valerie had even made claims of abuse in court. But when her body was found in that boyfriend's basement, investigators decided that the circumstances could only point to one conclusion, and it wasn't murder.
So what really happened here? Despite the official ruling, that question still lingers. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Valerie Fiorenza on Dark Down East. This episode contains discussion of suicide. Please listen with care. If you need someone to talk to, call or text 988. Free confidential and judgment-free support is available.
It was around 10.15 p.m. on April 15, 1993, when Massachusetts State Police were called to 28 Fairchild Avenue in the town of Saugus, where local authorities were already on the scene. According to a state police incident report completed by Trooper Norman C. Zuck, Saugus police had responded to the residents that night after they received a concerned phone call.
The caller reported that he hadn't been able to reach his ex-wife, 30-year-old Valerie Fiorenza, for almost two days. Though they were divorced, Valerie and her ex-husband, Larry Cassidy, had stayed friends, and Larry even described their relationship as best friends. So it was Larry who got a phone call from Valerie's manager at work when she didn't show up for her shift on the 14th.
Larry tried paging Valerie all day but never got a call back, so he stopped by her boyfriend's house where she was living to check in. Valerie's dog was outside barking in the backyard, a car was parked in the driveway, and Larry could hear music blasting from inside the house. I don't know if he tried knocking on the door or if he peered through the windows or if he tried anything else while he was there, but he ultimately left and resolved to continue trying to get in touch with Valerie.
Larry went by the house for a second time the next day around 7.30 p.m., and the scene was nearly identical. Dogs still outside barking, car still parked in the driveway, and music still playing inside. Something about the situation just didn't sit right with him, so he decided to call Saugus Police.
When Larry recounted the events of April 15th as he remembered them for Boston Globe reporter Kevin Cullen, he said that he had to call Saugus police twice before they actually showed up. When officers did finally arrive, they had a key to the house. You see, the home belonged to one of their own. Valerie's boyfriend was longtime Saugus patrol officer Paul Bennett.
After receiving the call from Larry, the PD reportedly contacted Paul's mother, who lived just a few streets over, and got a spare key to Paul's house before responding to the scene. There they found the dog, the loud music, and the car just as Larry had, but when the officers tried the key to the entry doors, it proved to be useless.
Both the front and rear exterior doors seemed to be wedged shut. That's when law enforcement opted to enter the house by force and proceeded to break a window on the front door to gain entry. Once inside, the source of the blocked door was revealed. Pieces of 2x4 wood lumber had been jammed up against the doorknobs.
The exact actions taken by the Saugus officials once inside the house evade me at this point, but it's reasonable to assume that they probably went from room to room looking for Valerie. When they found her, it was already too late. Police located Valerie's body in a basement storage closet suspended from a floor joist with a rope around her neck and a stool inches from her feet. Valerie was pronounced dead at the scene, and her body was transported to Tewksbury State Hospital for an autopsy.
But an early hypothesis of her death was already taking shape. Valerie Fiorenza grew up in Medford, Massachusetts with her parents Linda and George Fiorenza. She had aspirations of becoming a model and working in fashion. Valerie even attended modeling school and worked at a beauty academy before deciding to pursue an entrepreneurial career and open her own flea market.
Valerie married Larry Cassidy in 1984, and the marriage lasted about five years before they filed for divorce. Sometime after her marriage ended, possibly in 1991, Valerie started seeing the Saugus police officer, Paul Bennett. Also in 1991, Valerie's apartment was broken into, and the intruder sexually assaulted Valerie. Thankfully, the suspect was apprehended, charged, convicted, and sentenced to five years in prison.
The trauma of the event, though, took a major toll on Valerie. According to Larry, she was hospitalized after she took an indeterminate number of unknown pills. She received treatment and recovered. Paul became Valerie's protector. At least, that's how it appeared to Valerie's parents, Linda and George, for a while. But then, things started to change. They say that Paul's behavior looked a lot less like protecting and more like controlling.
Valerie had started working at a lingerie store in the town of Revere called Black Lace, where models provided private viewings to customers, particularly men. Her co-workers have said that Valerie was considered one of the more successful models at the store, earning $500 to $600 a week. And this may have been a point of contention in her relationship.
One of Valerie's closest friends, Claire, remembered how Paul was, quote-unquote, obsessed with Valerie. He seemed jealous and didn't want Valerie to, quote, have a good time, end quote. But it wasn't until December of 1992 that the full scope of Valerie and Paul's relationship dynamics was revealed in court records.
On December 29th, 1992, Valerie filed a 209A in Somerville District Court. That's an application for a restraining order. It seems Valerie and Paul were in the midst of a breakup, or at least Valerie was trying to leave his house where they were living together when things escalated to alleged harassment and stalking. The signed application reads, quote,
Paul Bennett spent the night stalking and harassing me at various establishments on December 27th, 1992. After I was packing my boxes to leave, he threw a tantrum and was throwing furniture and glasses around the house. He has threatened to use all his police powers to destroy me if I ever tried to leave him. He also on numerous occasions threatened to spray hairspray on my face with a lighter to blow it up. He has said that he could sit and envision my whole face on fire.
On December 28th, 1992, he threatened to follow, stalk, and harass me. On December 29th, 1992, he had me arrested by lying to the Saugus police, saying I had hidden his gun. I did not touch his gun. He came into the bedroom where I was sleeping with two other police officers. They woke me up, refused to let me put on any clothes, placed me in handcuffs, and brought me to the station. They refused to tell me why I was being arrested.
End quote.
According to a report by a Saugus police officer and call records I obtained from Saugus PD, the incident on December 29th was classified as a family disturbance. But Valerie's parents claim that it was much more than that. George and Linda Fiorenza posted their daughter's story, in their words, on a now-defunct website called realcrimes.com.
When it was active, the site covered cases with suspected law enforcement involvement. So, according to George and Linda's story posted on that website, on the night of December 29th, Paul was allegedly holding a gun to Valerie's head and had beaten her for hours. When the officers arrived, Paul told them Valerie hid his gun. The officers handcuffed Valerie, who was wearing just underwear, a t-shirt, and high-heeled shoes, and brought her to the police station without letting her get dressed.
The protection order was granted, but despite the allegations Valerie raised in the affidavit, her family said that Paul was not disciplined or prevented from continuing his job as a police officer for Saugus Police. Saugus Police told the Boston Globe that they had no grounds to discipline Paul. The attorney representing the town, John Vasapalli Jr., said that a restraining order filed against a police officer is not a basis for discipline.
However, Vasopalli also admitted that the town didn't do its own investigation into the allegations of abuse, not after the December incident and not after Valerie filed a 209A for a second time.
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quince.com slash downeast. Hi, Dark Down Easter's, it's Kylie. And here on Dark Down East, we dig into the facts in order to solve a case. But for some mysteries, the truth lies in the unknown. Enter the realm of true crime's most bizarre occurrences and unravel all the possible explanations, no matter how strange they may be, in AudioChuck's newest weekly podcast, So Supernatural.
Every Friday, some of the strangest stories are put under a microscope in order to try to discover what really happened. Follow and listen to So Supernatural now wherever you listen to podcasts. According to a Saugus Police incident report obtained by Boston Globe reporter Kevin Cullen, Lt. Stephen Harper responded to an incident at Valerie and Paul's home on April 12, 1993.
Paul and Valerie were fighting because she wanted a week to move out of his house. She said that Paul had been in counseling and confessed to abusing her to a doctor. In the report, Lieutenant Harper writes, quote, End quote.
Lieutenant Harper also stated in his report that another officer was ordered to escort Valerie to Lynn District Court to file an application for a restraining order that would give her enough time to move out of Paul's house. The 209A abuse prevention order filed in Lynn District Court on April 12th included Valerie's signed statement describing the alleged violence she faced at the hands of Paul. It reads, quote,
Officer Paul Bennett has on several occasions hit me, banged my head against the wall, cut me, tore my clothing off and pushed me, pulled out my neck and back, and caused me great physical harm. He has sprayed hairspray in my face, threatening to set me on fire with a lighter in hand. I have all records needed from Dr. Matthews in Topsfield with Paul's confessions.
There's some unreadable text before it continues.
End quote.
A temporary order was granted, and Paul was ordered to stay away from the home, which was his home too, as well as her place of employment, and have no contact with Valerie for five days so she had time to move out of the house. Valerie never got the chance to move out. Three days later, she was found dead in Paul's house.
According to the report by messages at State Police Trooper Norman Zuck that I was able to obtain via FOIA request from the Essex District Attorney's Office, as Valerie's body was transported for an autopsy, State Police sought out those closest to her for background interviews. Valerie's co-workers at Black Lace Lingerie told police Valerie confided in them that she was experiencing domestic violence in her relationship with Paul and she often had bruises, though she claimed they were the result of a fall.
She had also told co-workers she planned to leave Paul soon. One co-worker named Lisa had spoken to Valerie around 2 p.m. on April 13th. It's a little unclear who asked who, but either Valerie asked Lisa or Lisa asked Valerie to fill in for her at work. Valerie wasn't able to work the shift because she was looking for an apartment and said she had to get out of the place she was living.
Lisa offered to let Valerie stay with her, but Valerie reportedly refused the offer. According to Valerie's parents, also on April 13th, Valerie talked to her friend Claire and said that she'd actually found a new apartment in Medford and she was already packing her bags and getting ready to leave. Claire said that Valerie wanted to be gone before Paul found out.
It's unclear when Claire told police this information, but she says she had to seek out police herself for an interview and did so on her own volition.
Trooper Zuck references the 209A restraining order applications in the incident report I have, so it's clear investigators were aware of the accused violence and harassment in Valerie's relationship with Paul. Trooper Zuck states that investigators conducted a background interview with Paul. However, there are zero specifics in the report regarding Paul's statements or information garnered from conversations with Paul as part of the death investigation.
However, according to other sources, Paul claimed that on April 14th, Valerie called him numerous times at the police station, but he didn't answer or speak with her because he didn't want to violate the restraining order. Back at the house, state police were continuing to process the scene of Valerie's death.
Investigators found that there were only two exterior doors on Paul's house, one in the front and one in the back, and both were wedged shut by the two-by-fours that were now laying on the floor after police forced their way into the house.
Now, large sections of the report by Trooper Zuck are redacted, including a specific section about what he observed in the living room. All that remains is a note that the house was generally cluttered, but there were no obvious signs of a struggle.
In other sources, including that story I keep referring to by Kevin Cullen published in the Boston Globe, there was reportedly a copy of the restraining order Valerie had filed torn up by the coffee table. Police also found what they'd later label suicide notes.
One such note was actually a poem scratched into a candle. It read, quote, End quote.
Another was tacked up on the fridge and it appeared to be from Valerie. It read, End quote.
The third was on an Easter-themed greeting card. "Life is like a candle. One day you just burn out. I love him but he never believed me. Your chief said I couldn't be with you, wouldn't help you get better. Paul, get better." Other background interviews had apparently painted a picture of Valerie as someone who was possibly depressed, in debt, and facing an alcohol use disorder.
In the eyes of the investigators on the case, these circumstances, plus the notes, supported an already developing theory of Valerie's untimely death, that she died by suicide. The rope around her neck all but confirmed it. The three-page report by state police trooper Zuck closes abruptly, saying that the investigation found, "...no criminal activity directly attributed to Valerie Fiorenza's death."
The officer requested that the case be closed. But from the very beginning, Valerie's family questioned everything about the investigation because nothing about it made sense to them. All they knew for sure was that Valerie was afraid for her life in the days before she died, and now their daughter was dead.
They rejected the ruling that she died by suicide and instead believed the whole thing was staged by a killer who intended to skirt the very law he'd taken an oath to uphold. Linda and George Fiorenza wanted Valerie's case reopened. They wanted a second look at the autopsy, the scene, the evidence, and they made their wishes known. But the Fiorenzas were up against what they felt was a major roadblock.
Valerie's boyfriend Paul Bennett was a police officer, one that the town attorney referred to as a "pretty good cop." Feeling that Paul was afforded the benefit of the doubt and not fully investigated by his fellow officers, the Fiorenzas decided to seek justice themselves. They hired a series of private investigators and attorneys to help.
What they learned was confirmation of their own theory that Valerie's death was a homicide, staged to look like she'd taken her own life. It started with witness statements from neighbors who reported seeing unusual and unexplainable activity at 28 Fairchild Avenue on April 14th, the day before Valerie's body was discovered.
One neighbor, a woman named Elizabeth, said she saw Paul at his house that day, which was in violation of the protection order to begin with. Elizabeth claimed that she saw Paul pull up to the house in a Saugus police cruiser and she watched as he entered through the front door. Other witness statements from neighbors said they saw a canine control van arrive at the house sometime on April 15th, presumably to address the barking dog in the backyard.
However, when the animal control officers got out of the van, witnesses say they peered through the window of the house and then made a call. An ambulance arrived soon after, and EMTs also peered through the windows of the house and checked the side and backyards, but everyone left without taking any obvious action.
Information uncovered during the Fiorenza's own investigation into the case indicates that a witness then saw someone who appeared to be a plainclothes police officer pull up to 28 Fairchild Avenue about 10 minutes later. Neighbors claim that the man entered the house using a key and moments later, a light in the basement turned on for just a split second before the basement went dark again. The officer, or whoever it was, then left the house.
This all happened, again, according to Valerie's parents, and this stuff has not been verified, before Valerie's ex-husband, Larry, stopped by in an attempt to get in touch with her for a second time around 7.30 p.m. on April 15th, the visit that resulted in him calling Saugus police. To the Fiorenzas, this meant other people, including Paul, were at and inside the house in the hours leading up to the discovery of Valerie's body.
If the witness statements are accurate, it also meant Paul had a key to the house in violation of the restraining order because he was supposed to surrender any keys. But even still, Valerie could have died by suicide after the fact. And the two by fours wedged against the two entry doors to prevent anyone from entering is proof, at least to police, that only she could have caused her own death.
Except the Fiorenzas learned that this was not as solid as it first seemed, because there was a third way to get into Paul's house. The bulkhead leading into the basement and the basement door were reportedly not barricaded or held shut by two-by-fours like the other doors previously thought to be the only means of entry.
Valerie was found in the basement. So the bulkhead access seemed like the logical way for someone to get in and out of the house if that person had caused Valerie's death and then staged the scene, as the Fiorenzas allege. Elizabeth, the same neighbor who said she saw Paul at the house that day, claimed that she also overheard officials making comments as Valerie's body was removed from the home.
It was something like, she must have been real good for him to go through all this trouble. Elizabeth said the officers and the coroner broke out into a laugh. Hi, Dark Down Easter's, it's Kylie. And here on Dark Down East, we dig into the facts in order to solve a case. But for some mysteries, the truth lies in the unknown.
Enter the realm of true crime's most bizarre occurrences and unravel all the possible explanations, no matter how strange they may be, in AudioChuck's newest weekly podcast, So Supernatural. Every Friday, some of the strangest stories are put under a microscope in order to try to discover what really happened. Follow and listen to So Supernatural now, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Let's talk about the autopsy findings. Now, according to Trooper Zuck's report, he arrived at the scene at 11 p.m. on April 15th, and the local PD was already there, and so were other state police detectives. What's odd is that the medical examiner who performed Valerie's autopsy, Dr. Gerald Fagan, determined Valerie's time of death to be 10.55 p.m. on April 15th.
That's gotta be a glaring mistake because if true, if she was alive when officers arrived at the scene, they could have saved her life. Though a majority of the autopsy report findings are redacted from the source material I was able to access for this case, some of Dr. Fagan's other findings are called out in an independent review of Valerie's autopsy by a forensic pathologist hired by her parents for a second opinion.
Because Valerie's parents chose to publicly discuss only certain findings by both the original pathologist and the one they hired, and I don't have access to the full autopsy report or the complete review by the other pathologist, there's a chance these particular opinions don't tell a complete story. But the information I'm about to share, in my opinion, is among the most compelling pieces of evidence supporting the argument that Valerie did not die from asphyxia due to hanging.
Dr. Yongmyon Roh reviewed Valerie's autopsy report for George and Linda. As of the early 90s, Dr. Roh had served as the deputy chief medical examiner for the city of New York for two decades and chief forensic pathologist in Newfoundland, Canada for almost 10 years before that.
According to an excerpt of Dr. Rowe's report, the original autopsy noted that Valerie's body showed signs of partial rigor and lividity over the lower extremities and posteriorly. Partial rigor suggests that the body was either in the early stages of rigor mortis or beginning to lose rigor. Lividity, or liver mortis, refers to the pooling of blood due to gravity after death, which is usually accompanied by purple or reddish discoloration of the skin.
Levidity appears within 30 minutes to 2 hours after death and becomes fixed after 8 to 12 hours. Dr. Rowe also points out that in cases where the cause of death is strangulation, small pinpoint hemorrhages around the eyes are expected and common, which would have required specific and clear notation in the autopsy report. However, according to Dr. Rowe, there is no mention of these spots in Valerie's autopsy report. So what does this all mean?
To put it plainly, posterior rigidity is not consistent with hanging. An observation of lividity over the lower extremities, that is Valerie's legs and feet, and the posterior side, which means the back of the body, suggests that she was lying on her back for several hours after she died.
Dr. Rowe called photos of the scene poor quality, but according to his review, the picture supported a theory that, quote, the neck was tied first at one end of the rope, and then the other end of the rope was thrown around the beam three times. Dr. Rowe stated, the possibility that the victim had been strung up after her death cannot be ruled out, end quote.
According to Dr. Rowe's independent review, Valerie's death was outside the usual pattern of suicidal hangings. He called the original investigation and autopsy findings superficial. When faced with Dr. Rowe's opinions on the autopsy findings, the original pathologist who performed the autopsy said that he stood by his ruling and declined to address Dr. Rowe's opinions specifically.
If this evidence wasn't enough, Valerie's parents said that conclusions made by investigators about the circumstances of Valerie's life at the time were just plain false. She was not depressed. Valerie was eager about a new business endeavor with her father, and she was excited about a new person she'd been seeing, someone who wanted to fly her to Europe for a romantic getaway.
The debt she was in wasn't more than $10,000, not an overwhelming amount in her parents' assessment. And those supposed suicide notes? Valerie's parents believed they could have just as easily been interpreted as farewell notes since she was in the process of moving out and leaving Paul. What's more, Valerie's parents said that she had a lifelong fear of choking, and she didn't even leash her dog for that precise reason.
Valerie also exercised and took care of her body, so Linda couldn't imagine that her daughter would choose to die in what Linda described as a grotesque way. Beyond the opinions of Linda and George, Valerie's ex-husband and friend, Larry, thought it was possible Valerie died by suicide, but the circumstances were concerning and confusing to him.
According to Larry, Valerie intended to go back to court on April 16th, the day after she was found, to extend the restraining order against Paul because she hadn't been able to move into her new place yet.
Larry also said that Valerie didn't know how to tie knots and believed she wouldn't have known to remove the ceiling tiles in the basement to get to the floor joists to attach the rope. The district attorney later addressed this piece and said that someone who didn't have knowledge of tying knots still could have fastened the rope as it was found.
Firm in their own theories of Valerie's death, George and Linda Fiorenza filed a wrongful death action on April 11th, 1996. Through the years, they've also tried to have charges filed against Paul Bennett for assault and battery and stalking, but have thus far been unsuccessful in civil action, and Valerie's case has not been reopened.
Paul has not faced any charges relating to the claims made by Valerie in those restraining order applications. A judge said that without Valerie there to testify against Paul, no charges could be brought. To be clear, Paul Bennett has not been arrested or charged with any crimes relating to Valerie's death.
Valerie's parents hired multiple attorneys to represent them in the civil cases, and they say that along the way, five of the seven boxes of evidence they had were lost. After that, George and Linda struggled to find anyone else to represent them since a large portion of the investigative file was missing. Linda and George's efforts to have Valerie's case reopened tapered off as years passed.
At times, they feared for their safety if they kept pushing for something to happen. But their firmly held belief that someone else ended Valerie's life never went away, even when their concerns weren't taken seriously. As Linda put it in 1994, quote, End quote.
Is it possible that Valerie's death could have been a homicide staged to look like something else? Both official studies on the matter, as well as current events, suggest that it is entirely possible.
A 2015 study by Dr. Agnieszka Rogalska, Dr. Jonathan Thompson, and Dr. Andrew M. Baker titled The Perfect Murder, How a Suicide Became a Homicide, published in Academic Forensic Pathology International, examines the case of a 51-year-old female. Her death was initially ruled suicidal ligature hanging based on autopsy, scene circumstances, and her social history. Months later, her boyfriend confessed to staging the hanging.
The son of the 51-year-old female victim had returned home one day to discover his mother's body suspended off the ground with a woven rope ligature around her neck and an overturned stepladder nearby. The autopsy found injuries consistent with hanging, including marks on the woman's neck that corresponded with the ligature and bilateral fractures of the hyoid bone but without hemorrhage. The anterior strap muscles of the neck also did not show hemorrhage or contusion.
The woman had no known medical history. However, her family reported previous suicidal ideation, a history of weed and alcohol use, as well as what the report describes as a recent onset of paranoia and psychotic behavior. Based on these circumstances and other evidence, the victim's manner of death was ruled suicide. Four months later, the woman's boyfriend walked into a police station and confessed to accidentally choking her to death.
A bit skeptical of the man's confession, the original prosecutor and law enforcement agency asked the medical examiner to re-evaluate the autopsy findings based on the boyfriend's story. And the boyfriend agreed to a videotaped interview and reenactment using a CPR mannequin to show how he killed her.
The boyfriend claimed that because of his girlfriend's increasingly paranoid and often violent behavior, he used a chokehold maneuver to control her until she calmed down. He said that he learned the technique from law enforcement to use in his capacity as a bouncer, presumably at clubs and bars. On the night of her death, the boyfriend said he used the chokehold technique because his girlfriend was repeatedly poking him in the eye.
He held the position until she stopped struggling, but when he laid her on the ground, he realized she wasn't breathing and began performing CPR. When his efforts failed, he staged the scene with a ligature and stepstool.
The study states that the upper body control holds, like the one the boyfriend claimed he used on his girlfriend, commonly referred to as neck holds, sleeper holds, choke holds, strangle holds, and other sport-specific names, have, quote, End quote.
These holds are not always safe though. Research shows that outside of controlled environments, like in a martial arts ring for example, these control holds can have significant consequences including death.
From the study directly again, quote, Most of these instances involve law enforcement use of the chokehold, where intense struggle, concomitant drug use by the decedent, and underlying heart disease complicate the sympathetic and vasovagal effects of the hold. End quote. A.K.A., with some other factors at play, chokeholds can kill people. The study goes on to state that even without underlying factors, chokeholds can still kill people.
In the sample case examined by this study, though initial reports indicated that the female victim had no known health history, it was later determined that she had severe coronary stenosis, that is, narrowing of the blood vessels that supply oxygen to the heart, which was considered a pre-existing condition that would have likely been a contributing factor to a chokehold becoming fatal.
The injuries to the victim's hyoid bone in her neck and to the anterior strap muscles were consistent with strangulation by ligature, yes, but they were also consistent with arm placement and the type of neck hold the boyfriend demonstrated for investigators during his taped confession. With this new information, the victim's heart condition, paired with the control hold her boyfriend confessed to using to subdue her on the night of her death, was determined to be the cause of the woman's death.
it was reclassified as a homicide and the boyfriend pleaded as charged to second-degree murder. What's wild about this case is that if the boyfriend hadn't come forward with his unprompted, detailed confession, there would have been no other reason to reopen the case. All signs pointed to the manner of death being suicide. If you want to get even more current and local with the discussion here, let's talk about the case of Sandra Birchmore.
Hi, Dark Down Easter's, it's Kylie. And here on Dark Down East, we dig into the facts in order to solve a case. But for some mysteries, the truth lies in the unknown. Enter the realm of true crimes' most bizarre occurrences and unravel all the possible explanations, no matter how strange they may be, in AudioChuck's newest weekly podcast, So Supernatural.
Every Friday, some of the strangest stories are put under a microscope in order to try to discover what really happened. Follow and listen to So Supernatural now wherever you listen to podcasts.
You may have heard Sandra Birchmore's name before, even if her story hasn't crossed your feet on its own. If you're following coverage of the John O'Keefe case and the trials of Karen Reed, Sandra's name often comes up in that media coverage as Canton police are involved in both cases. Laura Cromaldi and Yvonne Abraham covered Sandra's case in an extensive story published December 29th, 2024 in the Boston Globe.
Here's the brief version of Sandra's case, based on the Boston Globe piece and FBI affidavits. 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore was about 10 weeks pregnant in early 2021. She'd told some people that the father of her child was a married police officer, 35-year-old Matthew Farwell. Sandra had been part of the Stoughton Police Explorers program, basically a teen police academy with a ton of controversy attached to it. And that's how she met Officer Farwell.
According to an FBI affidavit, federal agents allege that Sandra was 15 years old when Matthew started sexually abusing her, and it didn't stop.
Matthew's wife was due to deliver their third child just a few weeks after Sandra told him that she too was pregnant. Matthew reportedly got angry and allegedly put Sandra into a chokehold. Sandra told her friends about Matthew's anger over her pregnancy, and her friends told Sandra she should end things with him and keep her distance. But then things changed with Matthew. He seemed open to commitment and even asked for a key to Sandra's apartment.
On February 1st, 2021, Matthew asked Sandra if he could come over to her place. He was seen on security cameras in the lobby of her building shortly after he texted Sandra. Days later, after Sandra failed to show up for work, Canton police officers found her lifeless body in her bedroom, seated on the floor against her closet, with the strap of her backpack attached to the closet handle and pulled tight around her neck.
The pathologist would later say that it was so tight it was likely Sandra lost consciousness within 10 seconds and died minutes later. Sandra's manner of death was deemed suicide, but her loved ones disagreed that Sandra could ever or would ever take her own life.
After years of questioning the conclusions reached by investigators, plus an internal affairs investigation of Matthew Farwell's conduct, along with the conduct of his twin brother, who was also a police officer and their mentor, and then an FBI investigation, Matthew Farwell was charged with Sandra's murder. The federal prosecutors allege that Matthew strangled Sandra and staged her death as a suicide.
A physician hired by the government, Dr. William Smock, made a few key findings that changed the manner of death ruling in this case. First, Sandra had a fracture of the right superior horn of her hyoid bone, but that isn't consistent with the position she was found in. She was seated, which is considered an incomplete hanging, and so only partial body weight was applied to the ligature.
Hundreds of cases of partial hangings showed no hyoid bone fractures in women who were seated. Features of this nature are more commonly seen in strangulation assaults. Other evidence included a pattern imprint on Sandra's chest that was not consistent with ligature hanging, but was consistent with blunt force trauma. She also had skin missing from her nose, which is commonly seen in cases of suffocation when the victim tries to move back and forth to breathe.
and Sandra's signature necklace, a chain with a flamingo pendant, was hanging broken around her neck, indicating a struggle. There's a lot to this case, and it is still pending trial as of this episode's recording, so it has yet to be seen how this will play out. Matthew Farwell is innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law.
So, can a homicide be disguised as suicide with a staged hanging? Yes. The case examined in the 2015 study proves it can. Sandra Birchmore's case, though still up for a jury to decide, points to the possibility as well. But it is exceedingly rare.
I went down a deep rabbit hole of studies on homicides disguised as hangings, and in so many of the cases examined there are often indicators of other injury or trauma to the victim outside of the injuries associated with ligature strangulation. Evidence at the scene, like signs of a struggle, may also point to a hanging being staged. In the source material I was able to access for this case, for Valerie's case, there's limited information about the scene of her death.
The notes assumed to be written by Valerie found around the house can be interpreted differently depending on who you ask. The second opinion on the autopsy definitely raises questions about when and how and where Valerie actually died. But is it the full picture? I don't know. As Valerie's parents have said, a majority of their files on the case were lost as the boxes changed hands throughout the years. The source material that remains leaves a lot of unknowns.
Investigators have consistently stood by their ruling in Valerie's case. Paul's fellow officers at Saugus Police Department told David Leishow of the daily item that there was no belief among law enforcement that her death was the result of a homicide.
Essex County District Attorney Kevin M. Burke said that the case was among the clearest suicides he had studied as a prosecutor. Quote, This wasn't even a close call. There is hardly a clearer case of suicide than this. End quote. The alleged violence and threats against Valerie by Paul appeared to have had no bearing on the ruling of the case. If you ask Paul, Valerie was abusive towards him.
From that Boston Globe piece, quote, I know what people are telling you, but Valerie was the violent one in the relationship. They don't know the time she swung a knife at me or the time she swung a broom at me and broke a bunch of glasses. I've tried not to make Val look bad, but people are trying to blame me. End quote. Paul has said that he used to blame himself for Valerie's death, but not in the same way her parents did.
He told reporter Kevin Cullen that he often thought if he'd just answered Valerie's calls that day, things may have been different. His perspective changed after he started attending a support group following Valerie's death. He no longer blamed himself, but he did miss her. He said, quote, End quote.
According to documents from the board of the Saugus Retirement System, Paul Bennett retired from Saugus Police Department in June of 2017. I requested records pertaining to his employment at Saugus Police, including status, title, and any disciplinary actions on his record for a five-year period before and after Valerie's death.
At the time of this episode's recording, I have not received really anything regarding Paul's status or disciplinary actions from Saugus Police other than a one-sentence response that Paul was a patrol officer. So there's kind of a sub-story to Valerie Feerwens' case that feels necessary to address.
In 2024, Valerie's name began circulating online in viral social media posts. It's a little difficult to track the exact origins of this, but it may have come from a thread on Reddit several years earlier.
A user posted a photo of a building that has become a sort of landmark on Route 1 in Saugus. It's the Carla's Shoes building. It's very clearly abandoned, with the windows smashed and boarded up, peeling paint, debris all around. This building and the business it once housed is clearly not welcoming any customers and hasn't in years.
A commenter on this thread claimed that the building was owned by the parents of Valerie Fiorenza, and though the building had fallen into disrepair and was an eyesore and many people wanted it torn down, the Fiorenzas kept paying taxes on it so the city couldn't do anything about it. The user claimed it was basically in protest of the fact that their daughter's case was never reopened or in their opinion fully and properly investigated.
Other users in the thread quickly pointed out that this rumor is factually inaccurate, and it was as simple as checking tax records to show the true owner of the building, someone named Isabel Smith. It had been in Isabel's name since 1985, before and after Valerie's death.
Fast forward to mid-2024, and a creator from the area posted a video on Instagram and TikTok expanding on Valerie's case and this inaccurate tidbit that may or may not have originated from Reddit that Valerie was connected to the Carla's Shoes building somehow. That video got some traction, tens of thousands of views, hundreds of comments, and I even received a few DMs about it, which is how I learned about Valerie's case to begin with.
That creator ultimately edited the caption of the video with a correction that Valerie is not connected to the building in any way. But the video is still up.
In December of 2024, journalist Matt Scherer for WBZ News Radio in Boston covered the true story of the Carla's Shoes building in his own social media video. And he actually interviewed Valerie's mother, Linda, who was flabbergasted that anyone had made such a connection in the first place, and said in no uncertain terms that Valerie and the Fiorenza family have never owned the abandoned building in question.
According to Matt Sherr's reporting, it's still unknown why the real owners of the building have left it abandoned for so many years despite paying their property taxes. While they fought for Valerie's case to be reopened and pursued other charges against Paul Bennett, George and Linda Fiorenza also supported causes and organizations that helped other people experiencing domestic abuse.
In lieu of flowers after her death, they asked for donations to the Help for Abused Women and Children organization, also known as HAWC in Salem, which provides free confidential services to people experiencing domestic violence and abuse. Years later, after the civil cases had been thrown out, George and Linda still stood up for others facing violence in their own homes, walking to support HAWC in 2000 and again in the annual event in 2001.
Linda and George later moved out of Massachusetts and relocated to Florida. George passed away just a few years ago in 2021. We're seeing something really interesting and important happen in New England right now.
The cases of John O'Keefe and Sandra Birchmore, among others, are placing Massachusetts State Police under a microscope. Investigators' handling of death investigations when a law enforcement officer is party to the case is being called out as inadequate or downright inappropriate. Is it possible that Valerie Fierens' death is another example of a case that deserves a closer look?
Whatever you believe, Valerie's death left a painful void in the lives of those who knew and loved her. Linda has said that all Valerie wanted was a life, and hers ended far too soon. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at darkdowneast.
This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audiocheck. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
Hi, Dark Down Easter's, it's Kylie. And here on Dark Down East, we dig into the facts in order to solve a case. But for some mysteries, the truth lies in the unknown. Enter the realm of true crimes' most bizarre occurrences and unravel all the possible explanations, no matter how strange they may be, in AudioChuck's newest weekly podcast, So Supernatural.
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