At seventeen years old, Fred Clay was sentenced to prison for a crime he did not commit.

Various flawed
ideas in psychology were used to determine his guilt. Ken Richardson/Ken Richardson hide caption
toggle caption Ken Richardson/Ken Richardson
At seventeen years old, Fred Clay was sentenced to prison for a crime he did not commit. Various flawed
ideas in psychology were used to determine his guilt.
Ken Richardson/Ken Richardson
On an autumn night in 1979, a young cab driver named Jeffrey Boyajian was sitting in his taxi, waiting
for his next fare. It was around 4 a.m., and he was parked in downtown Boston's red-light district, known
then as the 'Combat Zone.'
Three men approached the curb and got into Jeffrey's cab. He drove them across the city to a public
housing complex called the Archdale Housing Development.
When Jeffrey stopped the cab, the three passengers made their real intentions clear. They pulled Jeffrey
out of the car to rob him. After he begged for his life, one of the men raised his left arm and fired several
shots into Jeffrey's head.
Minutes later, the police arrived to find Jeffrey lying in a pool of his own blood near a dumpster. The
robbers had fled.
Over the next few days, police used now-discredited psychological techniques — including hypnosis —
to get two eyewitnesses to identify the shooters. One of them, they claimed, was sixteen-year-old Fred
Clay.
Fred Clay's image was part of a twelve-photo array shown to two eyewitnesses in Jeffrey Boyajian's
murder case. Both witnesses identified Fred ⁠— but only after police used flawed psychological
techniques to elicit their testimonies. Lisa Kavanaugh / CPCS Innocence Program hide caption
toggle caption Lisa Kavanaugh / CPCS Innocence Program
Fred Clay's image was part of a twelve-photo array shown to two eyewitnesses in Jeffrey Boyajian's
murder case. Both witnesses identified Fred ⁠— but only after police used flawed psychological
techniques to elicit their testimonies.
Lisa Kavanaugh / CPCS Innocence Program
Fred remembers the day the police came to arrest him.
"They told me that I was being arrested for [the] murder of a cab driver," said Fred. "And I said, 'Excuse
me, you got the wrong person.'"
The night of the murder, Fred had been asleep in bed at his foster home. His foster mother had seen him,
and could have backed up his alibi.
But the police were sure they had the right person.
"People say they want to know the truth," said Fred. "But when you tell them the truth, they don't respect
the truth."
Eventually, Fred was tried in court for the murder. The state relied on questionable psychological
practices and ideas about human behavior as it argued for Fred's guilt, and determined that he should be
sentenced as an adult.
This week on Hidden Brain, we go back four decades to retrace the steps of Fred's arrest and prosecution.
We'll uncover the harm that arose when flawed ideas from psychology — ideas that continue to pervade
some courtrooms today — were used to put a teenager behind bars for life.
Additional Resources:
"Wrongfully Jailed For 38 Years, Fred Clay Rebuilds His Life In Lowell," by Chris Burrell, WGBH,
2018.
"Eyewitness testimony," by Gary Wells, Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment, 2002.
"False witness: why is the US still using hypnosis to convict criminals?" by Ariel Ramchandani, The
Guardian, 2019.
"Invisible Ink? What Rorschach Tests Really Tell Us," Association for Psychological Science, 2009.
"The Reasonable Black Child: Race, Adolescence, and the Fourth Amendment," by Kristin Henning,
American University Law Review, 2018.
"The Essence of Innocence: Consequences of Dehumanizing Black Children," Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 2014.