Hey, it's Carter, all of us at Parkhurst really want to thank you for your continuing support throughout the year, Sparkasse could not be what it is today without you. We also wanted to give you a heads up that we're taking a break for the holidays and we won't be back until after the new year. But since the season is all about giving, we do have something special lined up for the next two weeks. So be sure to tune in.

In the meantime, enjoy the season and we'll be back the first week of January with our regular programming. Have a happy and safe New Year. Due to the graphic nature of today's episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode features discussions of eugenics and physical and sexual abuse of a child that some people may find offensive. Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13.

Seven year old Freddy boys gazed out the window of a train car, mesmerized, the mundane pattern of utility poles disappeared as the train entered a dark tunnel. For a few moments, the glass showcased Freddie's reflection. His swollen crying eyes stared back at him.

Freddy was used to traveling to unknown locations. Since 1941, he'd been passed through the foster care system just an hour before the doe eyed boy stood in a courtroom as the judge signed an order for Freddy's next destination, the Walter E..

For an old school for the feeble minded, Freddy wasn't sure what the word feeble minded meant, but as soon as it was said, a social worker grabbed him by the hand and led him to the train.

When the railroad car arrived at the platform, the social worker took Freddy's bag and escorted him to steady ground. She hailed a taxi and told Freddy he was going to a mansion where there would be other children to play with.

After ten minutes, the car turned up a narrow private street. It was lined with giant trees, something Freddy had likely only seen in picture books. For the first time in his life, Freddy felt optimistic.

The boy adjusted his position when he saw a green baseball diamond on his right behind it. Seventy two brick buildings were peppered across 186 acres of lush rolling hills.

Some of the architecture on campus was three stories tall, with high arches, white columns and a clock tower. Freddie's new home resembled an ornate castle, but this place was no fairy tale.

For the next 11 years, Freddie and the other kids at the Walter E.. Fernald school were subjected to horrible atrocities, including forced labor, physical and sexual assault and scientific experimentations. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify original from cast every Monday and Wednesday, we dig into the complicated stories behind the world's most controversial events and search for the truth.

I'm Carter Roy. And I'm Molly Brandenberg.

And neither of us are conspiracy theorists, but we are open minded, skeptical and curious.

Don't get us wrong. Sometimes the official version is the truth, but sometimes it's not.

You can find episodes of conspiracy theories and all other Spotify originals from Park asked for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

This is our first episode on the Walter E.. Fernald State School, built in 1888 in Waltham, Massachusetts. The institution was home to thousands of children and marketed as an educational facility for intellectual disabilities. However, a large percentage of the school's residents were mis diagnosed. Many orphans and abandoned children were wrongfully admitted to Fernald by the state.

In this episode, we're going to explore life at the Fernald school through the lens of one young man named Freddy Boice. We'll see the relationships he built and the consequences he and many children suffered there due to the American eugenics movement.

Next time we're going to cover the grotesque experiment that occurred at Fernald in the 1950s and how it may have been funded by the government's Atomic Energy Commission. The AEC may have even continued their research outside of Fernald. Finally, we'll see if the United States government is still testing dangerous materials on U.S. civilians today. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. Frederick voice seemed destined for failure from the day he was born. Like many of the children he'd inevitably end up with, Freddie was a product of a household so dysfunctional that it ultimately sealed his fate.

Weeks before Freddie was born in 1941, his father died by suicide. His mother, Mina, couldn't handle the pressure of raising Freddie and his two year old brother alone. So she turned to alcohol, hoping to forget her problems.

Mina apparently left her sons alone in their Boston apartment while she went for a nightcap. When neighbors heard cries seeping through the hollow walls, they alerted the authorities in August of 1941.

The Department of Public Welfare broke open the voices locked door social service workers took the children from their home. The two siblings were placed with different foster families. Baby Freddie never saw his brother again.

Three years after their separation, Freddie was moved to his second foster home. When he arrived, he was in poor condition. He was malnourished, had sores on his head, and would often sit in one position for hours without moving or talking. When he did speak, Freddie had trouble forming his words. His foster parents reported this behavior to the state.

Social workers hired a physician to examine Freddie. Doctors found that the boy was capable of speaking, but he was so shy that he chose not to engage. They said that Freddie would grow out of this behavior developmentally. There was nothing wrong with him.

Freddie's foster parents felt this was an inadequate assessment. They sought a second opinion and in nineteen forty six brought him to an institution for IQ testing. Five year old Freddie underwent a series of complicated exams. He was asked to remember and repeat five digit numbers. He was told to define advanced terms like timid or tame. He was also read a story and asked to repeat the title many minutes later, if Freddie was one word of his points were detected, the test was not only difficult, it was discriminatory.

Freddie was never given a proper education. He never learned his shapes or colors. He didn't know how to count. He'd never been taught to write or read. In fact, he'd hardly even seen a book. But none of this was taken into consideration.

After Freddie completed the exam, he was deemed, quote, feeble minded of the familial type, meaning his intellectual disability was his parents fault. Doctors claimed that he was developmentally behind by two years. They suggested he be sent to a state run institution for the intellectually disabled after the death of his foster mother in 1949.

This recommendation finally came to pass on April. Twenty sixth, seven year old Freddie stood knee shaking before a judge at the Boston City Courthouse. He was about to learn his fate.

A psychiatrist informed the judge that Freddie had indeed failed those IQ tests a couple of years prior. By their assessment, he was living with a mild intellectual disability without being able to defend himself. Freddie Boys was committed indefinitely to the Walter E.. Fernald School for the Feeble Minded.

The institute was originally called the Experimental School for Teaching and Training Idiotic Children. It was also America's first state run center for the intellectually disabled. Its founder, Samuel Gridley Howe, was a teacher, a physician and an abolitionist. He believed that with proper education and tools, children with intellectual disabilities could go on to live independent, ordinary lives.

After Howe's death in 1876, the school was relocated from Boston to Waltham, Massachusetts, on a sprawling 196 acre, a state with 72 buildings. House curriculum expanded to include shop and trade courses. Children participated in chores and the upkeep of the facility, making the school its own self-sustaining compound.

But outside of Howe's institution, the world was changing. The turn of the 20th century brought about a new sociopolitical movement called eugenics. It allowed places like the experimental school to practice discrimination while claiming it was in the best interest of humanity.

Pioneered by English sociologist Sir Francis Galton, eugenics came from the Greek phrase good in birth. Galton pitched the concept as a way to improve civilization by encouraging only the most sophisticated, intelligent and healthiest citizens to procreate.

This philosophy gave many middle class white families a reason to feel superior. It justified their discriminatory attitudes towards the poor and provided a reason to belittle immigrants.

As a result, Americans followed two different methods to implement eugenics. The first was referred to as positive eugenics. This urged many upper middle class families to have more children.

Doctors, professors and political leaders gave lectures promoting this idea.

State fairs and local competitions awarded people for the perfect eugenic marriage, better babies contests rated families for their child's superior health. Even the nation's president, Teddy Roosevelt, suggested that America could use good breeders.

Then there was the darker side of the movement deemed negative eugenics. This process was aimed at eradicating anyone who was considered mentally, physically or mentally disabled. Advocates of this campaign touted placards with political hyperbole like I cannot read the sign. By what right have I?

Children, doctors convinced parents to abort a child if they exhibited early signs of birth defects, institutions in prisons sterilized men and women, leaving them unable to reproduce. Politicians turned state run schools into asylums where the intellectually disabled would, according to them, no longer. Or be a burden to society by the 1920s, the school's third superintendent, Walter E. Fernald, used this movement to taint the institution's legacy. Dr. Fernald was known internationally as an expert on mental health conditions, but that didn't mean he was sympathetic.

He saw the residents of his institution as a, quote, parasitic burden on the working class.

Unlike how Fernald believed these children had no hope of becoming self-sufficient. Dr. Fernald claimed it is now believed that it is better and cheaper for the community to assume the permanent care of this class before they have carried out a long career of expensive crime.

Essentially, he wanted to round up as many of these children he deemed unsuitable for reproduction as he could just to propagate a more wholesome, healthy and dominant America. Phonons legacy was so profound the school took his name after his death in 1925. It was henceforth known as the Walter E.. Fernald School for the Feeble Minded.

In order to execute for Arnold's notion of unsuitability, states gave corrupt and faulty IQ tests, not unlike the one Freddi had taken. Doctors falsely diagnosed children of being intellectually disabled. Politicians encouraged social service agents, judges and the police to incarcerate boys and girls of any age that didn't have a place in their vision of society.

Unfortunately, Freddy Boys was one of those kids when Freddy rode up to the red brick halls of Fernald in 1949, more than 900 other people were occupying the facility. 38 percent of them were not intellectually disabled, but were kept at the school as free labor.

The institution's board of directors insisted they needed, quote, high functioning children to work without pay as groundskeepers, custodians and cooks.

Freddy had no idea what was in store when he arrived at the boys dormitory. The smell of home cooked food wafted in from the kitchen. A nurse named Eleanor Jock handed Freddy a pair of green overalls and led him to the second floor. Eventually, they came to Ward No.

One inside 36 cots lined either side of the room. Freddy expected to hear the sounds of laughter and play, but it was eerily quiet.

Nurse Jock showed Freddy to his bed, which smelled faintly of urine. The boy next to him didn't greet Freddy. Instead, he kept mumbling the same syllables over and over again. Every few minutes, an attendant would scream at the child to be quiet. The noise left Freddy shaken as well.

The situation continued for the next few hours until it was time for Freddie's first meal.

At five o'clock, he became like a calf and a herd of cattle as he was forced to hold hands with these strangers down to the cafeteria.

Trembling, Freddy took a seat at a long table. Another boy shuffled slop out of a bowl and onto his plate. Nauseated, Freddy refused to touch his food.

That evening, he returned to Ward one for a few more hours of anxiety and boredom until it was time for bed. The attendant ordered the boys to turn to their right and face the fire escape so no one could look each other in the face. There they find a moment to goof off or express some joy.

The lights went out and a radio crackled on. Classical music flooded the room, drowning out the sounds of already snoring children.

Underneath the melody of Mozart's Twenty Fifth Symphony, Freddie's eyes welled up with tears. He didn't know where he was or what he'd done to deserve this punishment. Afraid to move or even sniffle, he stifled his cries into a pillow. Maybe tomorrow would be better. Perhaps then he'd receive some answers.

Coming up, Freddy learns the dark secrets of Fernald. Hi, everyone, it's Molly.

If you haven't had a chance to check out the playful new podcast Blind Dating, now is the time to binge what you've missed before. Catching all new episodes every Wednesday in the Spotify original from past. We're expanding the places you can meet your match with a twist you'll never see coming. Join host Tara Michel as she introduces one hopeful single to two strangers and a voice only call through a series of illuminating games and questions, the trio will get to know one another without the distraction of appearances.

But in the end, is personality enough for these strangers to fall head over heels? Or once the cameras are turned on, will they head for the hills? Connect with new episodes of blind dating every Wednesday you can find and follow blind dating, free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Now back to the story.

After being passed through the Massachusetts foster care system, Freddie Boyce was sent to the Walter E. Fernald School in April 1949. The institution was designed to house and educate those with intellectual disabilities. But more than 38 percent of the occupants were, quote, high functioning individuals imprisoned there for free labor. Freddie happened to be one of them.

After his first sleepless night at Fernald, Freddie realized there'd be plenty of other challenges before the sun came up and attendant turned on the lights. She proceeded to rip the blankets off of every single one of the 36 boys in his ward.

Freddie and his bunkmates were instructed to make their beds and get dressed. Then they were told to help the boys with cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy who couldn't perform these tasks on their own.

That's when Freddie made his first friend, a Bow-Legged boy named Albert, for the first time, Freddy had the opportunity to ask where he was. Albert explained to him that this was a state school. He promised Freddy, as long as he did what he was told, he'd get along here just fine.

Freddy joined hands with Albert and his other ward mates as they walked in a line down to the cafeteria. Breakfast was always hot cereal, toast and a glass of milk.

Three times a week, Freddy passed the girls dormitory on his way to the Saints Training Center in Waverly Hall. While he didn't mind sneaking a peek at the pretty girls who came and went, he was terrified of who he'd come across once inside the hall.

This was because the upper floors of Waverly were home to the intellectually disabled older men, many of whom were heavily sedated. Freddy fear this was a terrifying glimpse into his own future.

However, many of the boys looked forward to this hour long sense training sessions. The female instructors were kind. Some kids perceive the training as a game. In these sessions, instructors asked Freddy to perform tasks like stringing thread through holes on a piece of paper. Sometimes they asked him to march in place or practice tying his shoes.

After his first session, an instructor reported that Freddy, quote, seemed good material for training. The record also stated that Freddy scored a 75 on his IQ test, which was just 10 points below average for a child his age. A good assessment for a seven year old who'd never received a proper education. Once Freddie graduated from since training, he began regular classroom studies with a teacher named Kenneth Bilodeau, a former psychologist. Mr. Bilodeau strive to give these children the positive adult influence they never had.

He recognized that many of them had never attended school before, causing them to fall or two or three years behind their academic level. He believed their lack of intelligence wasn't genetic. It was systemic.

When one child was terrified to see the Fernald Barber, Mr. Bilodeau cut the boy's hair himself. Another child had never gone ice skating, so Mr. Bilodeau rented a few pairs of skates and taught the boys on a frozen pond.

He also knew that the institute's academic quality did not measure up to even the lowest rated public schools. Books and other supplies were hard to come by. Teachers lack the credentials to handle children with special needs. Many kids. Freddie's age needed to be taught from the beginning, learning their alphabet colors and how to read or write.

The problem was the school days at Fernald were half as long as in ordinary classrooms, children like Freddie split their afternoons between their education and manual training, which was a euphemism for forced labor in various shops across campus.

There was the brush and broom factory where kids cut straw and fastened it to wooden handles, a print shop where the children made traffic tickets and stationery for local police departments. Some residents as young as five were forced to work on looms, weaving textiles and rugs.

One month of work and these shops created an average of three hundred and fifty towels and linens, one hundred and fifty brooms and 25000 pieces of stationery, all of which were given to government agencies free of charge.

In the hot summer months, boys worked from eight a.m. to five p.m. in Fernand's fields, harvesting and planting crops without a break. So Albert was wrong. Fernald wasn't a state school. It was a prison camp. The longer Fredi spent it for Fernald, the more he recognized how corrupt the conditions were and Mr. Bilodeau was the antithesis of most employees at Fernald, many of the attendants were violent towards the kids, often threatening things like shock treatments and lobotomies just to keep them in line.

While those punishments rarely came to pass, the threats manifested themselves in other horrific ways. Beatings, torture and sexual assaults were not unheard of at the institute. As a result, many children learn to disassociate from their realities. A few kids became expressionless in their behavior, submitting to their discipline without retaliation or tears.

One of the biggest villains at Fernald was an attendant named James McGuinn. He was a small, yet imposing man with jet black hair and a malevolent look in his eye.

The children could tell when McGinn was coming, his keyring jingled as he walked down the hall. Over time, that subtle noise struck fear in the hearts of every child at the institute. McGinn used any excuse to take his rage out on the kids. If someone snickered, coughed or didn't make their bed properly, McGinn used those keys to abuse the perpetrator.

Sometimes McGinn took a more barbaric approach for his own amusement. He'd line the boys up and forced them to remove their pants. Then he'd go down the line, yanking on each of the boy's testicles, leaving a trail of teary eyed kids in his wake one evening, Freddy had enough of McGinnes violence.

During their dinner service, McGinn paced the cafeteria with a wooden spoon, ready to hit anyone that made too much noise. When Freddy spotted McGinn hovering over a boy named Robert, Freddy screamed, Stop.

The entire cafeteria grew silent as McGinn turned his attention to Freddie, he sauntered over, then raised the spoon, striking Freddie across the face not once, but four times.

Other attendants were more discreet about their disgraceful behavior. One evening, an 11 year old resident named Joey Almeda woke around 2:00 a.m. to use the bathroom. During that time, he was approached by a male attendant who demanded to perform oral sex on the boy. After he was finished, the employee gave Joey chocolate and told him to forget about what happened here. Most of these children had no one they could speak to about the abuse. Visitors were only allowed once a month for four hours slots and what were called company Sundays.

But a majority of the residents had been orphaned or abandoned, which meant they had no guests at all.

Meanwhile, the school's latest superintendent, Dr. Malcolm Farrell, turned a blind eye to the corruption, Farrell was an ex military official who cared less about the residents well-being than he did about government funding, public relations and politics.

By 1949, Farrell had struck several deals between the institute and curious researchers. At this time, America was on the cusp of a cold war against the Soviet Union. Scientific advancements were more important than ever before. To help aid in the efforts, Farrell opened the Fernald school's doors, welcoming any research that may be useful for a generous grant, of course.

Luckily for Farrell, the school had one of the world's top scientists at its disposal. Clemans E. Bender was a German psychiatrist and neuropathologists that ran the laboratory at Fernald. thenDo was behind the theory that malfunctioning pituitary and thyroid gland stunted the brain's development, leading to intellectual disabilities.

Bender started at Fernald in 1947. He used the institute's deceased residents in an effort to prove this theory. If someone died of an accident, pneumonia or tuberculosis, which happened frequently at Fernald, their bodies were turned over to bendir for his personal studies.

Together, Farrell and Bender tried to transform Fernald from a state school into a scientific research facility. As the grants poured in, Bendir assembled a team of 24 scientists, but their subjects weren't limited to the deceased.

One of Bender's first experiments at Fernald included residents with Down syndrome, Bender fed these children a series of hormones to increase stability in their thyroid and pituitary glands, hoping to somehow undo the condition.

Today, we know the Down syndrome is caused by an additional chromosome in the genetic sequence. This meant that Bender's unjustified experiments were entirely in vain and produce no viable results.

Some of the children residing at Fernald were assigned to help Dr. Bender in his lab. Joey Almeda was forced to sweep floors and clean autopsy tables. The boy couldn't help but get chills each time he spotted the jars preserved with fetus's spinal cords and brains, some of which belonged to previous residents that he knew personally in Joey was afraid he'd be next.

His fears seemed justified. Joey and other kids at Renauld were constantly threatened by attendants who swore You better behave or you'll wind up in one of Dr. Bender's pickle jars.

Bender became Fernand's resident mad scientist. Many of the boys terrified one another with the rumors they'd heard stories of McColm experiments, gruesome autopsies and shallow graves where Bender left his subjects to rot.

At the time, they thought these were just tall tales. But kids at the institute would later come to learn they had a reason to be distrustful. Coming up, the boys stage an uprising at Fernald. Now back to the story. After being committed to the Walter E Fernald State School in 1949, Freddie Boyce was subjected to numerous atrocities. The so-called educational facility cut the children's class time so that they could perform manual labor. What's more, staff members physically and sexually abused the residents.

Over the years, Freddie came to realize that he was different than most other boys at Fernald. He didn't need help eating or getting dressed in the morning when he was assigned to assist the janitors, him up the floors and clean the toilets just as well as they had. Freddie was advanced, intelligent.

Even more importantly, Freddy knew he was smart in Mr. Belowdecks class. He'd raise his hand and ask the most sophisticated questions he could design to below Ludo's incredulity. This led to long discussions about religion, space and the history of the universe, many of which Bilodeau couldn't explain himself.

Eleven year old Freddy didn't belong at Fernald, and he knew it. He issued daily complaints to the attendants professing There ain't nothing wrong with me.

But Freddy was stuck there. He grew frustrated and then enraged. Soon he was rebelling at every opportunity.

Freddie even stood up to McGinn, refusing his humiliating commands. In the workshops, Freddie became sloppy and unproductive. The school principal changed his report card from cooperative in good natured to sneaky and defiant.

However, Freddie wasn't alone in this upwelling of angst. Many of the boys at Fernald followed his lead.

Before long, kids continued to talk. When they were asked to be quiet, they dragged their feet. When they were given instructions, they knew they outnumbered the staff and that it would be hard to punish everyone a 13 year old boy will call.

Johnnie was the first to escalate the rebellion. For months, he'd been sneaking into the cellar to do push ups, sit ups. He even made weights out of water bottles. Everyone saw that Johnnie was getting larger, but the attendants chalked it up to pubescent hormones.

First, he used this newfound confidence and strength to protect weaker kids from bullies and violent attendance. But when a new supervisor took over his ward, he targeted Johnnie as a threat.

One morning, the attendants singled out the boy and told him to make every bed in the ward. The man then left the room. He was headed downstairs.

When Johnnie came from behind, Johnnie flung himself on top of the supervisor, knocking him down the staircase. When the two reached the first landing, Johnnie pummeled the man with his fists until another staff member broke up the fight. As punishment, Johnnie was sentenced to the shadowy ward. Twenty two traumatic fate that Freddy had only heard rumors about but would soon see for himself.

As weeks turned into months, Freddie and the other boys came to realize they were never going to be released from Fernald as a result, they spent the evenings lying in bed fantasizing about their escapes.

Some of the boys noticed they could remove the grade from the ventilation shafts in the corner of each ward. They shimmied down the four foot wide piping into the basement where they made their way under the grounds undetected.

Well, most never made it off the property. Freddie had more ambition than them. He staged his escape in 1953 at three thirty.

On a February afternoon that day, Freddie strolled right out the front door of the boys dormitory towards the schoolhouse, assuming that someone would be watching. He entered the classrooms and waited until the coast was clear. Then he escaped out the back door. He made a mad dash for a forest that hugged the property a few yards into the woods.

Twelve year old Freddie went tumbling down an embankment. When he gained his bearings, he realized he'd made it off the property. He was just a few feet from the highway.

Freddie strolled along the roadway for miles, the temperature dropping as the sun set. He'd always dreamed of this moment. This was freedom. But now he realized he had nowhere to go. No one who could take him in Freddie had only two options go back to Fernald or freeze to death.

Freddie decided to retrace his steps back to campus. The punishment couldn't be any worse than the frostbite consuming his toes. Maybe he could slip back into the dormitory without anyone noticing he'd left.

That wasn't the case. As soon as Freddie returned, McGinn was cross armed and ready with a set of weaponized keys. He grabbed Freddie by the wrist and told him where he was being sent. The infamous Ward 22.

Freddie had never been to this part of campus. Ward 22 was known as phonons. Private jailhouse kids came back with their heads shaved, telling stories of how they were beaten, starved, unable to use the toilet.

McGinn wore a smirk as he shoved Freddie into one of the eight by 12 cells. For the next 24 hours, Freddie sat on a stained mattress, waiting for the torment others had suffered. Thankfully, it never came.

As the years passed, Ward 22 proved to be an ineffective discipline method. By the late 1950s, the school was home to more than 2600 people. Arson and escape attempts were a daily occurrence. Kids broke into the administration offices to steal snacks or money. The workshops were vandalized. There wasn't enough staff or space and more to to punish everyone.

Superintendent Farrell's tiny empire was crumbling before him. Political factors also made it difficult for him to enforce punishment on the residents at Fernald, Massachusetts, Senator John F. Kennedy urged the public to treat intellectual disabilities more delicately.

Local governments pressured state schools to offer better care conditions in education to their residents.

So Ferrell put on a smile and allowed volunteers to help out at Fernald. He told the staff to stop using the term feeble minded and suggested they call the residents mentally subnormal. But it was just an attempt to save face. Nothing changed when it came to the treatment of Fernand's occupants, and it all came to a head on November 4th, 1957.

That afternoon, 40 young men were packed into the day room in Ward twenty two, by this point, so many kids had gotten punished. There weren't enough cells for them all here.

A boy named Charlie Hatch formed a plan. He wanted them to overthrow the guards and confront the school's administrators. It was time they got out of Fernald for good.

15 of the boys joined Hatch in the uprising at around three p.m., one of the kids lit a fire in the dayroom, causing a distraction. Then the boys attacked the attendants on duty to keep other authorities from entering the building.

A few kids unfurled a fire hose and stood guard on the first floor. Meanwhile, Hatch and a couple others used pipes to destroy mirrors, wall fixtures and anything else they could reach.

News of the riots spread quickly across campus. Freddy watched from the boys dormitory as Farrell tried to quell the rebellion with a megaphone. The Waltham Fire Department arrived to extinguish the blaze. In the end, no one was injured and no one escaped. But it was clear that the boys at Fernald could no longer be contained.

With War 22 out of commission, the staff at Fernald turned the north building into their new jail. This location was known for housing the severely disabled residents at Fernald. Many of the kids felt that the humiliation of having to reside in the north building was worse than the punishment they endured in war.

22 After another failed escape attempt, Freddie was forced to take up residency in the north building. Now, at 17 years old, he wasn't going to stand for punishment or humiliation any longer. He wanted to speak with someone in charge.

Hours later, Freddie was sitting across a desk from Dr. Lawrence Kelly. Kelly had examined Freddie when he first arrived at the school in 1949. At the time, he'd agreed with the notion that Freddie was feeble minded of the familial type.

Now Kelly faced a very different young man. He questioned Freddie on how he'd outwitted the staff and what strategies he took to stages various breakouts. Kelly was beyond impressed with Freddie's guile for Freddie.

This was a huge victory. It was the first time since arriving at Fernald that someone of authority was willing to listen to his side. Freddie looked Dr. Kelly in the eye and ask him something no one else had before. If you had a kid, would you put him in this place? Kelly was speechless. This was not the feeble minded individual he had admitted a decade ago. The doctor looked to the administrator sitting in on the meeting and asked, what's this kid doing here?

He then turned back to Freddie saying, I wouldn't put my child here. You're right, I wouldn't do it.

Little did Freddie know that meeting would be his ticket out of the institute. After that day, Dr. Kelly determined it was time for Freddie to leave Fernald and start a new life in the real world.

This revelation sparked a psychiatrist named Edward Jones to look into the Fernald school. Further, his investigation uncovered more than 250 other kids like Freddie, individuals who were falsely reported by social service agents as intellectually disabled.

After another year of panel meetings between doctors, psychologists and social workers, 19 year old Freddie Boyce was released from Fernald.

Ten days after he left, he landed a job at a manufacturing company. He secured his own home to rent in downtown Waltham, and at long last he found the freedom he'd fought his entire life for.

In the summer of 1960, dozens more were released from the Fernald school under similar pretenses. They shouldn't have been there in the first place. Most went on to get decent jobs, earn a living and start a family. But the institute had failed to prepare them for the outside world.

Many former residents still didn't know how to read or write, since they'd never handled money, they weren't sure how to pay bills or set budgets, they didn't know how to drive or use public transportation. It was as if they were visitors from another planet.

Luckily, most adapted to the change quickly, but the memories of Fernald haunted them for decades.

In December 1993, Freddy Boice was out doing his annual Christmas shopping when he caught a report over the car radio. The newscaster mention the words Walter E.. Fernald state school. Freddie turned up the dial but didn't anticipate what came next. In the 1940s and 50s, a group of boys were unwittingly subjected to harmful radiation experiments. They were being poisoned through their oatmeal.

Next time, we'll explore the conspiracy behind the Fernald school experiments. We'll also examine some of the more nefarious government cover ups they led to conspiracy theory No.

One under government funding. The Fernald School, along with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tricked boys into joining a science club. They then fed them radioactive oatmeal and tracked their progress. Conspiracy theory number two.

The Atomic Energy Commission was responsible for various other radiation experiments during the Cold War, and they had a habit of using underprivileged citizens as their guinea pigs.

And finally, conspiracy theory number three, the US government is still performing harmful experiments on citizens without their knowledge today.

The events that transpired at Fernald were grotesque, deplorable and heartbreaking, but they may also be a cautionary tale.

We live in a world where terrible acts are justified by those in power, where people prey on the weak for their own personal gain. How can we tell who's going to be next? Thanks for tuning into conspiracy theories, we'll be back Wednesday with part two. Among the many sources we used, we found the State Boys Rebellion by Michael D'Antonio. Valuable to our research, you can find all episodes of conspiracy theories and all other Spotify originals from our cast for free on Spotify.

Until then, remember, the truth isn't always the best story, and the official story isn't always the truth.

Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify original from past. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cuddler Sound Design by Dick Schroder with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Freddie Beckley. This episode of Conspiracy Theories was written by Lori Gottlieb with writing assistants by Nicholas Zwart, Fact Checking by Anya Byerly and research by Brad Klein and Brian Peteris. Conspiracy Theory stars Molly Brandenberg and Carter Roy. Listeners, there's no better time to follow your heart and check out the hit Spotify original from Park Cast Blind Dating every Wednesday.

Find out if personality alone is enough to make a love connection. Follow blind dating, free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.