February 20, 2025 • 40 mins
On November 16, 1979, Boston, MA cab driver Jeffrey Boyajian was killed after suffering five gunshots to the head. Another cab driver came forward claiming to have seen the crime, and through various questionable hypnotic sessions he identified James Watson and his 16 year old co-defendant Frederick Clay as the killers. Despite a total lack of physical evidence tying James to the crime, he was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Just after four am on November sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine,
in front of a Boston housing project, some neighbors heard
a commotion and saw a group of three men from
a distance, rob and Batley shoot a cab driver. Another
cab driver came forward and claimed to have witnessed the
very moment when the assailants first hailed the cab in
(00:23):
downtown Boston, and after hypnosis, the caby identified sixteen year
old Fred Clay and twenty year old James Watson as
two of the three assailants. Then the witnesses from the
scene agreed, resulting in the two young men being sent
away for life. This is wrongful conviction. You're listening to
(00:49):
wrongful conviction. You can listen to this and all the
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Welcome back to Ronfuel Conviction. We're going to go back
(01:10):
to Boston for the nineteen seventy nine robbery and murder
of a taxi driver when both public and private pressure
produced some very dubious witnesses, and two young men were
sacrificed to alleviate that pressure. Let's call it what it is.
We originally covered this story back in twenty nineteen with
Fred Clay, the co defendant of our guest today, mister
(01:30):
James Watson. James, thanks for joining us. Yes, a new problem,
and with him is his appellate attorney, Barb Monroe. Barb,
thanks for doing this.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Thank you for having me now, James.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You grew up in Boston, right.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I've been to Boston all my life, born and raised
with my mother and two brothers and two sisters. My
father he did not stay with us, but there was
another man that dead live with us, which is my baby.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Sister's father, Joe.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
And he drank a lot and he picked frice at
my mother and one day he slapped my mother in
the mouth. And I had to be around nine to ten.
I lost it and I went in the kitchen and
I got every can I can possibly get out the
cabinet and used it to throw metal and I lost
(02:16):
the fight.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
But he had bruises.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
He had bruises, so we moved from bluehoo Ave to
Orchard Pop to get away from him, and he found
us and the guy came. He came in and knocked
on the door. I ain't see him in a long time,
so I actually he really didn't recognize him. But he
knocked on the door and my mother opened the door,
and I heard her say, how did you find me?
(02:38):
And he said, I want to see my daughter, and
my mother said, you don't supposed to be here. That's
when I realized that's Joe, that's the basket.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I'm much older now, you know, I was about fifteen sixteen,
and I've told my buddy, I said, let's kick his ass,
you know what I mean, Let's whoop his ass. But
my sister, she was young. She said, I want to
see my daddy. So that's what stopped me from in
his ass.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
The family moved again, this time to the Archdale Housing
Projects in Roslindale, and over the next few years, James's
photo ended up in the system for a petty theft,
and he also met his son's mother, Diane Moses.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
I met Diane in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
It was only together for like two years before all
this happened. She had two kids already, you boy and
a girl, and then she got pregnant with my son,
Don Juan Moses. He was thirteen months at the time
before this crime happened. I was on top of the
world when he was born. I was so full of
joy it happiness to have a son. Everybody loved him,
(03:47):
especially the women. The girl loved him.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
And this brings us to the faithful night of November sixteenth,
nineteen seventy nine, just a little after four am, when
a twenty eight year old cab driver named Jeffrey Boyegian
was dropping off of fair at the Archdale Housing projects
and twenty five year old neighbor Neil Sweat described what
he saw from his window.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
A cab shows up and it's dark. It's about at
least eighty feet from where the cab is to where
this young man is looking out the window, and he
sees a cab driver getting pulled out of the cab.
And he sees three black men. Two is tall, one
was small, and then he sees the shorter one shoot
the cab driver five times and then they took off.
(04:30):
He had called another person who was there to go
to work with him to come look out the window
as well.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And the other young man was named Ben Brown.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Ben Brown he used to pick Sweat up to go
to work because Sweat couldn't read the size on the bus,
and they get on the bus together and ride up
to Rossendale Square. The whole family couldn't read it right.
The mother couldn't read it right.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
This young man who witnessed this had some severe intellectual disabilities.
And his mother was also there, and she looked out
and she saw whatever she saw, and she also had
severe intellectual disabilities as well.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And the mother's name was Philippa Sweat, and being eighty
feet away with the aid of only one street light,
the Sweats were only confident that the assailants wore leather jackets.
The two were tall and one was small, but they
weren't confident in their ability to identify them. Meanwhile, the
police continued their canvas.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I was home sleep and the detectives came and knocked
on my door, and yes, did I hear anything or
did I see anything? I said, No, I was four
in the morning. No, I was in latter Land.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
I was sleeping. I did not hear anything.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
James had a thirteen month old son, so it's more
likely that he'd be getting every minute of sleep that
he could rather than staying out till four am and
committing a robbery and murder. With two other guys, one
of whom bred Clay. He only knew through his would
be mother in law.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
His mother used to hang out with Diane's mother, and
that's how I knew Freddy.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
I never hung out with this kid. He wasn't even sixteen.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Plus Freddie lived at a foster home, not at the projects,
and perhaps both of their relationships with the system played
into how they were singled out. When another cab driver
named Richard Dwyer came forward that Friday morning with a
story which started out with some naked racism.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Supposedly, this cab driver saw three black men in the
red light district down on Washington Street. He put his
meter on to look that he was busy, So the
three black men get into a cab. In the cab left,
and then the next day is when the cab driver
allegedly sees a picture in the paper of the cab
(06:39):
that Jeffrey had been driving, and he remembers the cab
as the one he saw these three black men get into.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
But this shooting happened around four a m. And that
morning's newspaper had already been printed. So no, mister Dwyer,
you didn't recognize the licensed number of Jeffrey Boyagian's cab
in the newspaper. You couldn't have and it's possible that Dwyer, well,
he could have been motivated by some understandable fear among
cab drivers and their business interests.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
The day that James was arrested, there was an article
in the paper as well about the cab drivers being
upset that there was not enough done about the shooting
and there's been a lot of shootings and they were
saying if it was a police getting shot, they'd be
doing something. So there was a lot of pressure on
the police to get this taken care of as well.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So now, as an alleged eyewitness, Dwyer met with Boston
Police officer Patrick Brady, who had taken a number of
hypnotism courses, and at some point Dwyer was also shown
some photo arrays.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
They hypnotize him and they tell him that it's like
a video recording, so he can stop the frame when
he sees the men who were getting into the cab,
and the particular man that he focused in on was
allegedly James, because he was the polite gentleman letting the
other two in the cab at least he was polite
and he could describe him, and he described allegedly Fred
(07:57):
as well. Couldn't really describe the third person.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And I think anyone with a human brain can recognize
that their memories do not work like an on demand
video streaming service with zoom capabilities. But there's even more.
The order of photo viewing and hypnotism is also very important.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
This was going to be a case of first impression
whether hypnotic identifications would be admissible in Massachusetts. So they
knew that if the testimony came out that he had
looked at the photographs after he was hypnotized, it would
be an admissible What they said happened was that he
was shown photographs of I think it was sixteen random
(08:37):
black men from the projects, and he chose James and Fred.
Now allegedly they said this happened before he was hypnotized.
The reality that we find out when we did our
investigation was that did not happen that way. So they
had the change in narrative that he made the identification
untainted by any hypnosis. So the hypnotism in itself is
(09:00):
junk science. But the fact that the prosecutor, we believe
lied and we have found evidence in the DA files
that showed that he did. It's pretty problematic.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Perhaps the prospect of using hypnotic identifications going forward was
just too alluring. Luckily for all of us, the president
was not established. However, The doctor narrative was that Dwyer
made a tentative idea of James and Fred from sixteen
photos of local black men before being hypnotized and then
making a confident identification of both, which also raises the
(09:32):
specter of solidifying a false memory. Either way, the police
sought support for this dubious ID process.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
They have took Diane down to the police station that
Friday of the crime. I didn't know that, and she
never told me that. They pulled her over and took
it down to the station. I had to find out
down the road. They threatened to give us seven years
and frame him, take her kids from him, and cut
her off public aid. If you try to give your
boyfriend a fucking alibi, That's what he told me.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Despite Diane naming alternate suspects who were known for similar
crimes and had been wearing leather jackets, she was being
coerced into implicating James. But at this time she hadn't
yet committed to helping the police.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
So after that they had me down the station Saturday Sunday.
You know, I'm telling them I wasn't there. I didn't
do this. I got a kid man, I did not
rob no cab driver. I was not downtown four o'clock
in the morning to take a burlow. He said, are
you willing to take a polygraph test? I said, listen, man,
I'll take a polygraph test, drug syrup, whatever you want
(10:36):
me to do that make you understand that I'm telling
you the truth.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
I didn't do this. I wouldn't do this.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
And he said, okay, we'll do the polygraph one o'clock Monday,
so he let me leave.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Meanwhile, they had been talking to philipp and Neil Sweat.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
They start interviewing the Sweats and showing them photographs and
this went on over the course of the entire weekend.
Well come to find out that the Sweats wanted to
move out of the projects for a long time because
they were one of the few white families living there
and they wanted to move to the white projects. So finally,
by Monday, they convinced mister Sweat that he could identify
(11:16):
mister Watson and mister Clay and he did. Fred was
the gunman and James was just there to assist and
the third person who knows, And they moved them.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
And they tried to use hypnosis with Neil Sweat as well.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
They did, but because of his intellectual disabilities his concentration,
it didn't go so well.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
At this time, Philippus Wett was not willing to join
her son in making an ID. Meanwhile, James still thought
a polygraph would prove his innocence, but Detective Burlow didn't
come to get him until late Monday evening, without his partner,
but rather some mystery man who left. When they arrived
at the precinct and James was brought inside.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I'm sitting in the office and it's just me, Detective
Burlow and Detective Paul Carroll.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
He said, what would wrong man? You know what I mean?
Why did you kill him? This is supposed to be for
a parograph. I didn't do this.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And then he said you've been identified. I said what
he said, you've been identified.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
So get the fuck out of here. I said, who
identified me? Who let me see him?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Who?
Speaker 1 (12:16):
You know?
Speaker 4 (12:16):
You've been identified?
Speaker 3 (12:17):
And you being book for murder booked me, fingerprint me,
took me to Child Street jail and that's where I
remained for twenty three months.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
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Speaker 3 (13:25):
Freddie they made him my coat defended, which I didn't
know of. I happened to be in Childbree playing cards.
He came to hild freet and I said, damn, Freddie,
what they get you for? Oh, I'm in here for
the same thing you are. I said what, Yeah, they said,
I shot the gun.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
I said, oh shit. Later on they came and they
pulled him out.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Of child speat, and then the lawyer came up. He said, look,
they don't want you right, they want Freddy. You know me,
They want to shoot it if you testify against Freddie.
The DA said he'd give you time serve and cut
your loose. But all you have to do was testified
against Frederick Clay.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Who was a sixteen year old child at that time.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, was a baby, he was a kid. He was
locked up in a Foster home under lock and key.
The woman name was Missus Kings. He was living in
the Foster home. Well, the only way you can get
out the house is use a key to open the
door from the inside.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And if you'd like to hear Fred's side of this story,
and I hope you will, we're gonna link his interview
in the episode of description. So anyway, neither of them
took a deal. Oddly, they didn't apply more pressure on James,
considering the options time served or death.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
I didn't know about the death penalty stat too until
I went for my arraignment and Timothy o'dneill, I'll never
forget that, bastard. He asked, Judge Irwin, I can never
forget that as long as as I live. He said,
I like to indict mister Watson under the death penalty
status here on due to the nature of the crime
and the underlining felony the robbery. And Judge Irwin put
(14:54):
his glasses down over his big fucking nose and said, granted,
I said death finality. What now, I'm scared. I'm sure
you know. I mean, I'm growing gray heads at a
very early age.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Ten months. Ten months he sat in jail knowing that
he was facing the death penalty until they took it
to court, and then with a case that bears his
name and three others, they found that the death penalty
is unconstitutional.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, this is one of those cases that abolished the
death penalty in Massachusetts. But not knowing this outcome, James
still didn't waiver. It's amazing. Unfortunately, Diane Moses had her
children to think of, so she agreed to help the police.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
I found that out when I'm sitting in child Street.
And then Frank Color, her trinity, came up, said Diane,
your girlfriend Moses is going to testify against you, saying
that you told her you was there, but you didn't
do the shoot. I said, what, I never told her that.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Well, that's what she's going to testify to.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
And if you want to mean change, I ain't changing shit.
I did not do this. I did not kill nobody.
I would never kill nobody or let nobody be killed.
But anyway I had to find out down the road
they threatened her. I'm saying, wow, they must already did
a job on her. So I'm missing my son, and
I told my sister. I said, joint, go down over there,
(16:16):
get my son and bring him up here to visit me.
So she goes down to the apartment. The apartment is empty.
They took her and moved the down south you mean
like South Boston, Georgia, Georgia. And that's where she stayed
until trial. Now, even though Fred was the alleged shooter,
both Fred and James were charged with first degree murder,
which later became an issue that won James a new trial,
(16:37):
but either way, the first trial proceeded in August of
nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Fred and James were tried together and there was no
physical evidence, and Nil Sweat identified them with his magical
powers of sight, and Richard Dwyer came in and identified
both of them, and so he had everyone believing that
they had made this initial identification free of hypnotism.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And then he spoke about how his hypnotism session was
like watching a movie of the assailants getting into Jeffrey
Boyegian's cab.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yes, he said, it was like being at the movie,
you know, I mean, he can picture it clearly that Yes,
this is the guy saw he said. We walked there
at New across the street. I opened the door, let
the other two get in, and then I walked around,
looked him in the face, and then got into the
cop and the cab drove off.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Then Boston Police Officer Patrick Brady was sworn in as
an expert investigative hypnologist. Okay, and he testified that the
mind can take mental pictures that are encoded in the brain.
I'm pausing here because I'm losing my shit, okay, deep breath.
(17:54):
Then the state also presented an LAPD psychologist, a guy
named Martin Riser, who testified the the mind works like
a giant computerized videotape recording. I mean, fuck off with
this shit. And anyway, the defense presented their own expert,
a doctor named Martin Orn who said that this tape
recorder theory of human memory has no scientific support, because
(18:16):
of course it doesn't. And then the state called Ben Brown.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Ben Brown didn't testify against me.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
He testified at the first trial, and he was technically
an adverse witness for the Commonwealth. He did say he
saw two people pull the cab driver out, but he
didn't recognize the shooter, and he testified that it was
not James, that he didn't see him out there.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
So Fred and James both testified in their own defense,
saying that they'd had nothing to do with this shooting.
But then Diane Moses took the stand.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
She said, I told her that I was dead and
that he didn't do the shooting, and she said this,
He said, we are not going to tell the police
anything else. I said, we, Who the hell are you
talking about?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
We?
Speaker 4 (18:57):
She was implicating herself.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
That's how scared she was, you know, because to find out,
they kept irrastioning every time they saw her.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
So the trial wrapped up with two alleged eyewitness ideas
opposing expert testimonial hypnosis, followed by Diane Moses with this
alleged confession.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
They came back with a question that Jermy said, Judge,
can you define first degree murder? Judge says, you read
the evidence, you got the record going back and into
the right with it, so he wouldn't answer their question.
And they went back there and came back guilty, guilty
of first green murder, and the judge sent you to
your natural life and state better tentiaries.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
That was it.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
That's like from the guilty they should be back to
child Street because they didn't have the room in Wallpole.
The bids were full, so I stayed into child Street
and after the next night they shipped me off the
Wallpole about six thirty at night, and I ended up
steeping in the dayroom on a cot. The cot had
to be about four feet five feet and I'm six six.
(20:13):
And the next day you went out, got up, stand
up for count, and get up the win for breakfast.
And when I went to the child hall, a lot
of people recognize me because some of the guys in
there were older guys, which you call o gez. You
know knew my dad, if someone knew my uncle. They
schooled me on what was going down. You know, I mean,
you have any problems, you let us know. Don't hang
with that group. Don't sit at that table. You know,
(20:35):
you get the don't cut sit you know, sit with us.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
It was crazy. I was only weighing one hundred and
seventy pounds. I was scared to death. Ain't gonna bullshit you.
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
You know, because I heard all the rumors about Walpole,
you know, finding bodies two days later and they was
raping guys, and you know what I mean, said, damn man,
I got to get through this. I didn't know if
I won't get through to that. I wasn't contemplating on
killing myself, but I said, I'm gonna have to learn
how to be a fighting motherfucker and fight.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
He did, and we don't see this often, but he
actually won on direct appeal way back in March nineteen
eighty three. Now, the jury should have been instructed that
James could be found guilty of bellony murder based on
robbery only if there was proof that he knew Fred
had a gun, But obviously this is only a technical issue.
Bred never had a gun and didn't commit this murder,
(21:27):
which is where it all becomes like some weird Kafka nightmare.
But this is how they were able to Win James
in new trial, which began in January nineteen eighty four.
Now the hypnosis evidence was not included. It was excluded,
but the state added philipp A Sweat as a witness
who up until this point, well, she had never made
an id.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
When Philip pu Sweat got on a stand and it
was asked, do you see the defendant that you saw
on November sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine outside your window, Robin
his cab driver? And she said well, and the DA
got so frustrated he said, I'm gonna ask you again,
missus Sweat, now remind you each time he said this
(22:08):
To her right, he walked from the witness stand around
the table and went directly and stood behind my chair
and asked her the question again, do you see the
defendant in this courtroom that was participating in the murder
and Robbie? And she said well, and he didn't even
let her finish. Do you see the defendant that you
(22:28):
saw on the women the next sixteenth? Well, to say,
to tell you the truth, it was dark to say
that it was him. And then I said, damn, look
like I might be going home, you know what I mean.
But he stood behind my chair, and I looked at
my lawyer. I said, like, I'm saying to here, like, motherfucker,
you going to say something because he's directed this, it's
right to me.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
And she said it was it was kind of dark.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I'm saying, yeah, okay, And then finally she says, I
think that's him right there.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I said, ain't this after all that? You know what
I mean? Come on and no, But he said nothing.
My lloyds say nothing.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Then he foind he's standing around and said, drawn, he's
directing the witness to the defendant.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
You know, stop. I said, man, it's kind of late
for that.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Now.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
James's attorney set up the jury thinking that Philippus Sweat
is going to get up on that stand and say
to you, she can't identify who if it was him.
And then she gets up on the stand and says, yeah,
that was him. So that kind of sealed the deal.
I mean, there was enough there already anyways, but that
sealed the deal.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
It was too much fabricated evidence to a lank jeror
they know nothing of Mistaken identifications. Eyewitness identification is the
worst identification, especially a black man identifying a white person
or a white person dientif for the black person that
identifications could be totally whaite.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, cross racial identification has been proven to be less
accurate than guessing, and not even to mention that they
were being incentivized eighteen ways till Sunday, which gave them
a lot of very good reasons to lie. Nevertheless, he
was convicted again and then denied a direct appeal, and
because they weren't aware of many of the issues that
(24:05):
we know about now, they had effectively just given up
and submitted to life without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I've never been in a situation like the Holocaust or
anything like that, but I mean, I'd just seen you know,
documentaries on that, and that's what it's felt like. You know,
you wait to die, stay here, getting that hole and
stayed it until.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
You die, you know what I mean. Isn't humane, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And eventually a series of Supreme Court decisions began to
recognize that, at least for juveniles, first ruling in two
thousand and five that the death penalty was a violation
of the Eighth Amendments banned on cruel and unusual punishment
for juveniles, then the same for juvenile life without parole
for non homicide offenses in twenty ten, followed by an
extension to homicide cases in twenty twelve, and then those
(24:52):
decisions were ruled retroactive in twenty sixteen. So Fred, who
was only sixteen when this crime occurred, found support from
both Jeffrey Harris, who is private counsel, as well as
Lisa Kavanaugh, the director of the Committee for Public Services
Council Innocence Program, and they worked on his parole package
as well as a motion for a new trial based
(25:13):
on actual innocence.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Lisa Kavanaugh Jeff Harris took on Fred's case and there
was a different attorney appointed for James. They really dug
down deep into it and found all the stuff on
the third party culprits of who probably did do the
shooting but has never been held accountable.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Now, there were police reports that implicated two young men
from the projects, Tyrone and Junior Cooper, who were known
to wear leather jackets, and Tyrone was short matching the description.
But more importantly, according to Diane Moses's initial interview, a
man named Jimmy Poole had implicated the Cooper brothers as well.
But it looks like since the police already had Dwyer
identifying Fred and James, they were not interested in the
(25:52):
Cooper's Nonetheless, trial council should have raised this material issue
and therefore they were ineffective.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
They actually got Fred released in August of twenty seventeen.
His motion for new trial was allowed, I think a
week before they were going to release him on parole.
James did not get involved with that motion for new trial.
I was not involved yet, so he stayed behind in prison.
Then I took over his case in May of twenty eighteen.
(26:19):
Really credit to Lisa and Jeff because they did more
than half of the work for me because they had
already done Fred's case. And then we had the best
investigator in the world, John Nor Deez.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
And the investigator was able to get confirmation about Diane
Moses and her motivation to bear false witness by speaking
with her daughter Charrell Moses.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Yeah, Sorelle. How it came to me, was her daughter
acid you know in mind? Did Jimmy do that? And
she said no, I told him that because they was
going to take you away from me, take my kids
from me. So she said it was either my kids
or him.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
I gave them him.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And that's not all John NARDIZI uncovered.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
When we did our investigation, we found a letter that
the DA at the time, Tim O'Neil, had written to
a hypnosis expert because he wanted to hire him to
testify at the trial, and he laid out how it went,
and what he said in the letter was that he
was hypnotized and then he was shown photographs. But at
(27:18):
trial he kept presenting it as he made an identification,
but free of hypnotism. Then he was hypnotized, then he
made a second identification, which is why in the second
letter we found, the expert said, I can't really help
you because it's not going to be admissible because it's tainted.
So that was never turned over to the defense, even
though the defense knew. Both defense knew how the actual
(27:40):
identification process went down, but they could never prove it.
If they had this letter from the expert and the
letter he wrote to the expert, it would have been
very clear.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
So this is the proof of the false narrative, and
had they been able to prove it back at trial,
Richard Dwyer's ID would not have been admitted. But the
investigator uncovered still more even more about Dwyer.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
The cab company that he worked for was owned by
an individual named James Quinn. He's a millionaire, and the
cab drivers that were working for James Quinn were afraid
that they wasn't getting protection from stuff like this, so
him and James Quinn got together and cocked up the story.
And I also forgot to tell you that when Burlo
(28:24):
took me down to the station right that Monday night,
the other guy that was with him, I found out
was the owner of the cab company, James Quinn. But
we went to trial, I seen him again. I said, damn,
this motherfucker was in the car with me when I
went down to the station.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
So it appears that the police and Dwyer may have
been acting at the behest of this wealthy cab company
owner to close this case in order to reassure his
workers so he could keep the money rolling in. Meanwhile,
the Cooper brothers were free to commit similar crimes, including
one confirmed arm or so with the alternate suspect evidence
(29:03):
Charrell moses to hypnotism correspondence, they were able to file
a motion for new trial based on ineffective assistance of
counsel and prosecutorial misconduct.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
We had the best co counsel in the world, Madeleine
Blanchet and Rada not A Rajan from the New England
Innocence Project helped us with the investigation, so we had
a great team. Without John and Maddie and Rada and
Lisa and Jeff, I don't know what would happen to James.
And the reality is that once we found that evidence,
(29:33):
COVID hit in March of twenty twenty. So now we
have worked on the motion from the trial. Maddie, my
co counsel, took over and did the motion to stay
and it was new territory to try to get somebody
out convicted a first degree murdered not once but twice.
But she wrote a brilliant motion to stay. And one
of the reasons we were granted the stay was because
(29:54):
the Commonwealth admitted that we had a colorable claim because
of the withheld evidence between the expert and the DA,
so they admitted there was a very real chance of
winning on that issue and the judge found it as well,
so that gave us a lot of hope that it
would have a good result in the end. And before
I even filed my full motion for a new trial.
(30:17):
We got him released in April April sixteenth, twenty twenty,
he walked out the door.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
James was on supervised release while the state conducted their
own investigation, and finally, after more than forty one long years,
James was reunited with his son, Don Juan Moses, who
was just thirteen months old when James was arrested.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
He lives at May, He does hospice. He loves Karen
for the elder. He's full of love, he's full of
the passion. So he's just like his dad. I know
he's mine. I know he's mine always.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Karen and I got two grandchildren, kim Monie Jerome Moses
and Olivia Olivia Rose Moses. It's amazing, you know me.
I'm just everytime ope my eyes. I think Barbara Eyti
ope my eyes because I can mys and actually look
at the sky and not a sell I can walk
where I want to walk, say what I want to say,
(31:08):
go where I want to go, no restraints. And I
really didn't really appreciate freedom until i'd actually lost it,
And now that I got it back, I appreciated more
than you can imagine.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
And his release and Eventually, his claim of innocence got
support from an unexpected source.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
One of the main reasons he got out on the
stay is because of the victim's family. The Boegians Jerry
and Katrina wrote a letter to the district attorney and
agreed that James should be released. And you don't see
that often. They are extraordinary people, Yes they are, but
that time they didn't really have the full information. So
(31:48):
I think it was probably in the back of their
mind that first of all, Fred was released, so they
knew that one man had been wrongfully convicted. Now here
comes the second man who was also wrongfully convicted. But
they said because of his health issues and until this
was decided, it was the humane thing to do, and
there's not a lot of people that would say that.
They to this day now do believe that he is innocent,
(32:11):
and they have become quite close with James and Linda.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Linda is James's fiance.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Matter of fact, I talked to Jerry and Katrina yesterday.
We want to drive out there and go out to dinner.
I didn't meet them until it was at an Innocent conference,
and that's the first time I actually seen him in
the flesh. It brew me away because they apologized to
me what happened to me. I was like, you don't
have to apologize to me. I'm so happy, it's so
(32:36):
glad to meet you, and I'm so sorry what happened
to your brother. And we gave each other a hug
and I told him that the government owes us an apology.
They victimized us, Me, Freddie, your family, and your brother,
they victimized us. They welcomed me into their home. And
it was strange because I'm saying here, I am sitting
(32:59):
in this man's home, the brother of the man that
was murdered, and telling me that I believe you are innocent.
I was speechless. Jerry and Katrina is part of my
family now, like Barbara Monroe, angel is what I call
it that. Yeah, we're family for life.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Well that's beautiful, and there's still more good news after that.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I finished filing up the actual motion for new trial
in June twenty twenty, and then it was up to
the Conviction Integrity Unit to do their investigation and whether
they would assent to the motion, which took until November tenth.
So now it was up to the judge to allow
the motion. So we had assumed that James would have
(33:43):
his day in court. We bought him a freedom suit.
Nice custom tailor made Freedom suit for him to wear
to court. And it was November tenth and I was
having my coffee and looking at the docket and I
see motion allowed. I was like, what nobody called us?
Nobody told us. I read it on the docket. I
was stunned. I mean I was ecstatic, but I was stunned.
(34:06):
So he never got to go to court. We didn't
tell him, and we arranged an impromptu celebration, and.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
They created some reason for him to try on the suit,
that he needed to buy a new button down shirt
to go with the suit.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
It was me and my son and John, my investigator,
and we was out looking for a shirt. We drove
back to the house and everybody was there. My family
was there, Barbara, my nieces and nephews that weren't born.
When I went in and handle nieces and nephews his night,
welcome home.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
It was amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
And since he's been home, he's dedicated to time to
building a nonprofit called Confronting Injustice.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Yes, me and my fiancee, Linda Solomon formed this organization
called confronted injustice, supporting wrongfully convicted and others adversely impacted
by this judicial system. We have a YouTube channel and
we do a podcast Asking here at the House, and
we're into you guys, And what we deal with is
post incarceration syndrome. People who are locked up coming out
(35:07):
of prison. Their mind has been reprogrammed, so to speak.
You being in prison ten fifteen years, being told win,
eat shit and sleep for decades. That gets embedded in
your mind. And do you really stop believing you can't
do nothing else but what somebody else tells you to do.
People don't know how serious it is. It's really serious.
I mean then they come out here and try to function.
(35:28):
Like my buddy Freddie, he win it as a baby.
He was stopped at sixteen. So we work with guys
and women. We go to court, we go and support them.
We write letters to the parole board. And guys that
have come out, we come out. They don't have nothing,
no ID, and you need a mass ID when you
get apartment or roof over your head and food to eat.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
So we support them.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
If you want to check out the YouTube channel, it's
hosted on YouTube for BCMTV, a nonprofit media company out
of Braintree, Massachusetts. We're going to have it linked in
the episode description along with the New England in It's
It's project a great organization and getting involved with organizations
like this one goes a long way to making sure
innocent men like James, as well as innocent women across
(36:12):
the country have their freedom restored. And with that, we're
going to go to closing arguments. This is where I
think you, Barb and of course James, from the bottom
of my heart, and I'm now going to turn off
my microphone, just close my eyes and listen to anything
else you have to share. Barb, you go first, and
then just hand the mic off to James and he'll
(36:32):
take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
When these men, usually men, but women as well, come
out of prison, sometimes most of the time, they don't
even get an apology, which they should, but they certainly
don't get compensation they walk out that door. I don't
know what they get. What I think you got fifty dollars, James,
and then they took some money out because you owed
money on your canteen. And they're just left to their
(36:55):
own to figure it out. After they've been incarcerated. James
was in almost forty two years, and thankfully he had
family there to help him, and he had us as well,
but not everyone has that, and there's no compensation. They're
trying to get compensation for people immediately when they get out,
but even what they get now through this state, if
(37:15):
you are quote unquote actually innocent, which nobody ever is.
According to them, the most that somebody can get. The
most that James could have gotten was a million dollars
for forty two years in prison. Figure out the math.
That's abominable. And then if you decide to do a
claim against the city, there's prosecutorial immunity, so that's a
(37:36):
problem in itself. But then they're forced to go and
wait and wait to try to get compensation. The city
of Boston has deep pockets. They can outwait somebody. James
doesn't have time to wait for that money. So what
does he have to end up doing at some point
in time settle for less than he should be getting,
and there's no amount of money that can compensate for
(37:56):
what he's lost. But there should be a much higher
amount of time money that they should get because society
needs to correct this and these are not disposable people.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
I've got tremendous support that we got the fronting the jete.
We talk to the men on the telephone. Sometime we
write them to the house. We sit down, but eat
and help me get through whatever that's bothering them at
this particular time. You know what I mean, because there's
so much you can do at the immediate because I
don't want to see nobody go through what I went through.
(38:27):
And I know when I lay my head down tonight,
somebody's being wrongfully convicted or even murdered, I mean by
our loved government. Man, don't be afraid to speak up.
Somebody will believe you. Thanks to Barbara Maddie, I'm living
proof somebody will listen to you. You can write me.
They got in the dress. They can write and I
(38:48):
definitely will return your letter. I'm gonna do everything in
my power before i leave this planet. Hopefully something changes,
the law changes, something changes, because you know, if they
did it to one of my family members, I would
lose my shit.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(39:28):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by
the individuals featured in this show are their own and
do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
Just after four am on November sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine,
in front of a Boston housing project, some neighbors heard
a commotion and saw a group of three men from
a distance, rob and Batley shoot a cab driver. Another
cab driver came forward and claimed to have witnessed the
very moment when the assailants first hailed the cab in
(00:23):
downtown Boston, and after hypnosis, the caby identified sixteen year
old Fred Clay and twenty year old James Watson as
two of the three assailants. Then the witnesses from the
scene agreed, resulting in the two young men being sent
away for life. This is wrongful conviction. You're listening to
(00:49):
wrongful conviction. You can listen to this and all the
Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ad free
by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Welcome back to Ronfuel Conviction. We're going to go back
(01:10):
to Boston for the nineteen seventy nine robbery and murder
of a taxi driver when both public and private pressure
produced some very dubious witnesses, and two young men were
sacrificed to alleviate that pressure. Let's call it what it is.
We originally covered this story back in twenty nineteen with
Fred Clay, the co defendant of our guest today, mister
(01:30):
James Watson. James, thanks for joining us. Yes, a new problem,
and with him is his appellate attorney, Barb Monroe. Barb,
thanks for doing this.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Thank you for having me now, James.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You grew up in Boston, right.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I've been to Boston all my life, born and raised
with my mother and two brothers and two sisters. My
father he did not stay with us, but there was
another man that dead live with us, which is my baby.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Sister's father, Joe.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
And he drank a lot and he picked frice at
my mother and one day he slapped my mother in
the mouth. And I had to be around nine to ten.
I lost it and I went in the kitchen and
I got every can I can possibly get out the
cabinet and used it to throw metal and I lost
(02:16):
the fight.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
But he had bruises.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
He had bruises, so we moved from bluehoo Ave to
Orchard Pop to get away from him, and he found
us and the guy came. He came in and knocked
on the door. I ain't see him in a long time,
so I actually he really didn't recognize him. But he
knocked on the door and my mother opened the door,
and I heard her say, how did you find me?
(02:38):
And he said, I want to see my daughter, and
my mother said, you don't supposed to be here. That's
when I realized that's Joe, that's the basket.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I'm much older now, you know, I was about fifteen sixteen,
and I've told my buddy, I said, let's kick his ass,
you know what I mean, Let's whoop his ass. But
my sister, she was young. She said, I want to
see my daddy. So that's what stopped me from in
his ass.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
The family moved again, this time to the Archdale Housing
Projects in Roslindale, and over the next few years, James's
photo ended up in the system for a petty theft,
and he also met his son's mother, Diane Moses.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
I met Diane in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
It was only together for like two years before all
this happened. She had two kids already, you boy and
a girl, and then she got pregnant with my son,
Don Juan Moses. He was thirteen months at the time
before this crime happened. I was on top of the
world when he was born. I was so full of
joy it happiness to have a son. Everybody loved him,
(03:47):
especially the women. The girl loved him.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
And this brings us to the faithful night of November sixteenth,
nineteen seventy nine, just a little after four am, when
a twenty eight year old cab driver named Jeffrey Boyegian
was dropping off of fair at the Archdale Housing projects
and twenty five year old neighbor Neil Sweat described what
he saw from his window.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
A cab shows up and it's dark. It's about at
least eighty feet from where the cab is to where
this young man is looking out the window, and he
sees a cab driver getting pulled out of the cab.
And he sees three black men. Two is tall, one
was small, and then he sees the shorter one shoot
the cab driver five times and then they took off.
(04:30):
He had called another person who was there to go
to work with him to come look out the window
as well.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And the other young man was named Ben Brown.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Ben Brown he used to pick Sweat up to go
to work because Sweat couldn't read the size on the bus,
and they get on the bus together and ride up
to Rossendale Square. The whole family couldn't read it right.
The mother couldn't read it right.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
This young man who witnessed this had some severe intellectual disabilities.
And his mother was also there, and she looked out
and she saw whatever she saw, and she also had
severe intellectual disabilities as well.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And the mother's name was Philippa Sweat, and being eighty
feet away with the aid of only one street light,
the Sweats were only confident that the assailants wore leather jackets.
The two were tall and one was small, but they
weren't confident in their ability to identify them. Meanwhile, the
police continued their canvas.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I was home sleep and the detectives came and knocked
on my door, and yes, did I hear anything or
did I see anything? I said, No, I was four
in the morning. No, I was in latter Land.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
I was sleeping. I did not hear anything.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
James had a thirteen month old son, so it's more
likely that he'd be getting every minute of sleep that
he could rather than staying out till four am and
committing a robbery and murder. With two other guys, one
of whom bred Clay. He only knew through his would
be mother in law.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
His mother used to hang out with Diane's mother, and
that's how I knew Freddy.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
I never hung out with this kid. He wasn't even sixteen.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Plus Freddie lived at a foster home, not at the projects,
and perhaps both of their relationships with the system played
into how they were singled out. When another cab driver
named Richard Dwyer came forward that Friday morning with a
story which started out with some naked racism.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Supposedly, this cab driver saw three black men in the
red light district down on Washington Street. He put his
meter on to look that he was busy, So the
three black men get into a cab. In the cab left,
and then the next day is when the cab driver
allegedly sees a picture in the paper of the cab
(06:39):
that Jeffrey had been driving, and he remembers the cab
as the one he saw these three black men get into.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
But this shooting happened around four a m. And that
morning's newspaper had already been printed. So no, mister Dwyer,
you didn't recognize the licensed number of Jeffrey Boyagian's cab
in the newspaper. You couldn't have and it's possible that Dwyer, well,
he could have been motivated by some understandable fear among
cab drivers and their business interests.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
The day that James was arrested, there was an article
in the paper as well about the cab drivers being
upset that there was not enough done about the shooting
and there's been a lot of shootings and they were
saying if it was a police getting shot, they'd be
doing something. So there was a lot of pressure on
the police to get this taken care of as well.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So now, as an alleged eyewitness, Dwyer met with Boston
Police officer Patrick Brady, who had taken a number of
hypnotism courses, and at some point Dwyer was also shown
some photo arrays.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
They hypnotize him and they tell him that it's like
a video recording, so he can stop the frame when
he sees the men who were getting into the cab,
and the particular man that he focused in on was
allegedly James, because he was the polite gentleman letting the
other two in the cab at least he was polite
and he could describe him, and he described allegedly Fred
(07:57):
as well. Couldn't really describe the third person.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And I think anyone with a human brain can recognize
that their memories do not work like an on demand
video streaming service with zoom capabilities. But there's even more.
The order of photo viewing and hypnotism is also very important.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
This was going to be a case of first impression
whether hypnotic identifications would be admissible in Massachusetts. So they
knew that if the testimony came out that he had
looked at the photographs after he was hypnotized, it would
be an admissible What they said happened was that he
was shown photographs of I think it was sixteen random
(08:37):
black men from the projects, and he chose James and Fred.
Now allegedly they said this happened before he was hypnotized.
The reality that we find out when we did our
investigation was that did not happen that way. So they
had the change in narrative that he made the identification
untainted by any hypnosis. So the hypnotism in itself is
(09:00):
junk science. But the fact that the prosecutor, we believe
lied and we have found evidence in the DA files
that showed that he did. It's pretty problematic.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Perhaps the prospect of using hypnotic identifications going forward was
just too alluring. Luckily for all of us, the president
was not established. However, The doctor narrative was that Dwyer
made a tentative idea of James and Fred from sixteen
photos of local black men before being hypnotized and then
making a confident identification of both, which also raises the
(09:32):
specter of solidifying a false memory. Either way, the police
sought support for this dubious ID process.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
They have took Diane down to the police station that
Friday of the crime. I didn't know that, and she
never told me that. They pulled her over and took
it down to the station. I had to find out
down the road. They threatened to give us seven years
and frame him, take her kids from him, and cut
her off public aid. If you try to give your
boyfriend a fucking alibi, That's what he told me.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Despite Diane naming alternate suspects who were known for similar
crimes and had been wearing leather jackets, she was being
coerced into implicating James. But at this time she hadn't
yet committed to helping the police.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
So after that they had me down the station Saturday Sunday.
You know, I'm telling them I wasn't there. I didn't
do this. I got a kid man, I did not
rob no cab driver. I was not downtown four o'clock
in the morning to take a burlow. He said, are
you willing to take a polygraph test? I said, listen, man,
I'll take a polygraph test, drug syrup, whatever you want
(10:36):
me to do that make you understand that I'm telling
you the truth.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
I didn't do this. I wouldn't do this.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
And he said, okay, we'll do the polygraph one o'clock Monday,
so he let me leave.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Meanwhile, they had been talking to philipp and Neil Sweat.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
They start interviewing the Sweats and showing them photographs and
this went on over the course of the entire weekend.
Well come to find out that the Sweats wanted to
move out of the projects for a long time because
they were one of the few white families living there
and they wanted to move to the white projects. So finally,
by Monday, they convinced mister Sweat that he could identify
(11:16):
mister Watson and mister Clay and he did. Fred was
the gunman and James was just there to assist and
the third person who knows, And they moved them.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
And they tried to use hypnosis with Neil Sweat as well.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
They did, but because of his intellectual disabilities his concentration,
it didn't go so well.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
At this time, Philippus Wett was not willing to join
her son in making an ID. Meanwhile, James still thought
a polygraph would prove his innocence, but Detective Burlow didn't
come to get him until late Monday evening, without his partner,
but rather some mystery man who left. When they arrived
at the precinct and James was brought inside.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I'm sitting in the office and it's just me, Detective
Burlow and Detective Paul Carroll.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
He said, what would wrong man? You know what I mean?
Why did you kill him? This is supposed to be for
a parograph. I didn't do this.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And then he said you've been identified. I said what
he said, you've been identified.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
So get the fuck out of here. I said, who
identified me? Who let me see him?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Who?
Speaker 1 (12:16):
You know?
Speaker 4 (12:16):
You've been identified?
Speaker 3 (12:17):
And you being book for murder booked me, fingerprint me,
took me to Child Street jail and that's where I
remained for twenty three months.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
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Speaker 3 (13:25):
Freddie they made him my coat defended, which I didn't
know of. I happened to be in Childbree playing cards.
He came to hild freet and I said, damn, Freddie,
what they get you for? Oh, I'm in here for
the same thing you are. I said what, Yeah, they said,
I shot the gun.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
I said, oh shit. Later on they came and they
pulled him out.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Of child speat, and then the lawyer came up. He said, look,
they don't want you right, they want Freddy. You know me,
They want to shoot it if you testify against Freddie.
The DA said he'd give you time serve and cut
your loose. But all you have to do was testified
against Frederick Clay.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Who was a sixteen year old child at that time.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, was a baby, he was a kid. He was
locked up in a Foster home under lock and key.
The woman name was Missus Kings. He was living in
the Foster home. Well, the only way you can get
out the house is use a key to open the
door from the inside.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And if you'd like to hear Fred's side of this story,
and I hope you will, we're gonna link his interview
in the episode of description. So anyway, neither of them
took a deal. Oddly, they didn't apply more pressure on James,
considering the options time served or death.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
I didn't know about the death penalty stat too until
I went for my arraignment and Timothy o'dneill, I'll never
forget that, bastard. He asked, Judge Irwin, I can never
forget that as long as as I live. He said,
I like to indict mister Watson under the death penalty
status here on due to the nature of the crime
and the underlining felony the robbery. And Judge Irwin put
(14:54):
his glasses down over his big fucking nose and said, granted,
I said death finality. What now, I'm scared. I'm sure
you know. I mean, I'm growing gray heads at a
very early age.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Ten months. Ten months he sat in jail knowing that
he was facing the death penalty until they took it
to court, and then with a case that bears his
name and three others, they found that the death penalty
is unconstitutional.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, this is one of those cases that abolished the
death penalty in Massachusetts. But not knowing this outcome, James
still didn't waiver. It's amazing. Unfortunately, Diane Moses had her
children to think of, so she agreed to help the police.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
I found that out when I'm sitting in child Street.
And then Frank Color, her trinity, came up, said Diane,
your girlfriend Moses is going to testify against you, saying
that you told her you was there, but you didn't
do the shoot. I said, what, I never told her that.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Well, that's what she's going to testify to.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
And if you want to mean change, I ain't changing shit.
I did not do this. I did not kill nobody.
I would never kill nobody or let nobody be killed.
But anyway I had to find out down the road
they threatened her. I'm saying, wow, they must already did
a job on her. So I'm missing my son, and
I told my sister. I said, joint, go down over there,
(16:16):
get my son and bring him up here to visit me.
So she goes down to the apartment. The apartment is empty.
They took her and moved the down south you mean
like South Boston, Georgia, Georgia. And that's where she stayed
until trial. Now, even though Fred was the alleged shooter,
both Fred and James were charged with first degree murder,
which later became an issue that won James a new trial,
(16:37):
but either way, the first trial proceeded in August of
nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Fred and James were tried together and there was no
physical evidence, and Nil Sweat identified them with his magical
powers of sight, and Richard Dwyer came in and identified
both of them, and so he had everyone believing that
they had made this initial identification free of hypnotism.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And then he spoke about how his hypnotism session was
like watching a movie of the assailants getting into Jeffrey
Boyegian's cab.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yes, he said, it was like being at the movie,
you know, I mean, he can picture it clearly that Yes,
this is the guy saw he said. We walked there
at New across the street. I opened the door, let
the other two get in, and then I walked around,
looked him in the face, and then got into the
cop and the cab drove off.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Then Boston Police Officer Patrick Brady was sworn in as
an expert investigative hypnologist. Okay, and he testified that the
mind can take mental pictures that are encoded in the brain.
I'm pausing here because I'm losing my shit, okay, deep breath.
(17:54):
Then the state also presented an LAPD psychologist, a guy
named Martin Riser, who testified the the mind works like
a giant computerized videotape recording. I mean, fuck off with
this shit. And anyway, the defense presented their own expert,
a doctor named Martin Orn who said that this tape
recorder theory of human memory has no scientific support, because
(18:16):
of course it doesn't. And then the state called Ben Brown.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Ben Brown didn't testify against me.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
He testified at the first trial, and he was technically
an adverse witness for the Commonwealth. He did say he
saw two people pull the cab driver out, but he
didn't recognize the shooter, and he testified that it was
not James, that he didn't see him out there.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
So Fred and James both testified in their own defense,
saying that they'd had nothing to do with this shooting.
But then Diane Moses took the stand.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
She said, I told her that I was dead and
that he didn't do the shooting, and she said this,
He said, we are not going to tell the police
anything else. I said, we, Who the hell are you
talking about?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
We?
Speaker 4 (18:57):
She was implicating herself.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
That's how scared she was, you know, because to find out,
they kept irrastioning every time they saw her.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
So the trial wrapped up with two alleged eyewitness ideas
opposing expert testimonial hypnosis, followed by Diane Moses with this
alleged confession.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
They came back with a question that Jermy said, Judge,
can you define first degree murder? Judge says, you read
the evidence, you got the record going back and into
the right with it, so he wouldn't answer their question.
And they went back there and came back guilty, guilty
of first green murder, and the judge sent you to
your natural life and state better tentiaries.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
That was it.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
That's like from the guilty they should be back to
child Street because they didn't have the room in Wallpole.
The bids were full, so I stayed into child Street
and after the next night they shipped me off the
Wallpole about six thirty at night, and I ended up
steeping in the dayroom on a cot. The cot had
to be about four feet five feet and I'm six six.
(20:13):
And the next day you went out, got up, stand
up for count, and get up the win for breakfast.
And when I went to the child hall, a lot
of people recognize me because some of the guys in
there were older guys, which you call o gez. You
know knew my dad, if someone knew my uncle. They
schooled me on what was going down. You know, I mean,
you have any problems, you let us know. Don't hang
with that group. Don't sit at that table. You know,
(20:35):
you get the don't cut sit you know, sit with us.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
It was crazy. I was only weighing one hundred and
seventy pounds. I was scared to death. Ain't gonna bullshit you.
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
You know, because I heard all the rumors about Walpole,
you know, finding bodies two days later and they was
raping guys, and you know what I mean, said, damn man,
I got to get through this. I didn't know if
I won't get through to that. I wasn't contemplating on
killing myself, but I said, I'm gonna have to learn
how to be a fighting motherfucker and fight.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
He did, and we don't see this often, but he
actually won on direct appeal way back in March nineteen
eighty three. Now, the jury should have been instructed that
James could be found guilty of bellony murder based on
robbery only if there was proof that he knew Fred
had a gun, But obviously this is only a technical issue.
Bred never had a gun and didn't commit this murder,
(21:27):
which is where it all becomes like some weird Kafka nightmare.
But this is how they were able to Win James
in new trial, which began in January nineteen eighty four.
Now the hypnosis evidence was not included. It was excluded,
but the state added philipp A Sweat as a witness
who up until this point, well, she had never made
an id.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
When Philip pu Sweat got on a stand and it
was asked, do you see the defendant that you saw
on November sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine outside your window, Robin
his cab driver? And she said well, and the DA
got so frustrated he said, I'm gonna ask you again,
missus Sweat, now remind you each time he said this
(22:08):
To her right, he walked from the witness stand around
the table and went directly and stood behind my chair
and asked her the question again, do you see the
defendant in this courtroom that was participating in the murder
and Robbie? And she said well, and he didn't even
let her finish. Do you see the defendant that you
(22:28):
saw on the women the next sixteenth? Well, to say,
to tell you the truth, it was dark to say
that it was him. And then I said, damn, look
like I might be going home, you know what I mean.
But he stood behind my chair, and I looked at
my lawyer. I said, like, I'm saying to here, like, motherfucker,
you going to say something because he's directed this, it's
right to me.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
And she said it was it was kind of dark.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I'm saying, yeah, okay, And then finally she says, I
think that's him right there.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I said, ain't this after all that? You know what
I mean? Come on and no, But he said nothing.
My lloyds say nothing.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Then he foind he's standing around and said, drawn, he's
directing the witness to the defendant.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
You know, stop. I said, man, it's kind of late
for that.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Now.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
James's attorney set up the jury thinking that Philippus Sweat
is going to get up on that stand and say
to you, she can't identify who if it was him.
And then she gets up on the stand and says, yeah,
that was him. So that kind of sealed the deal.
I mean, there was enough there already anyways, but that
sealed the deal.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
It was too much fabricated evidence to a lank jeror
they know nothing of Mistaken identifications. Eyewitness identification is the
worst identification, especially a black man identifying a white person
or a white person dientif for the black person that
identifications could be totally whaite.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, cross racial identification has been proven to be less
accurate than guessing, and not even to mention that they
were being incentivized eighteen ways till Sunday, which gave them
a lot of very good reasons to lie. Nevertheless, he
was convicted again and then denied a direct appeal, and
because they weren't aware of many of the issues that
(24:05):
we know about now, they had effectively just given up
and submitted to life without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I've never been in a situation like the Holocaust or
anything like that, but I mean, I'd just seen you know,
documentaries on that, and that's what it's felt like. You know,
you wait to die, stay here, getting that hole and
stayed it until.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
You die, you know what I mean. Isn't humane, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And eventually a series of Supreme Court decisions began to
recognize that, at least for juveniles, first ruling in two
thousand and five that the death penalty was a violation
of the Eighth Amendments banned on cruel and unusual punishment
for juveniles, then the same for juvenile life without parole
for non homicide offenses in twenty ten, followed by an
extension to homicide cases in twenty twelve, and then those
(24:52):
decisions were ruled retroactive in twenty sixteen. So Fred, who
was only sixteen when this crime occurred, found support from
both Jeffrey Harris, who is private counsel, as well as
Lisa Kavanaugh, the director of the Committee for Public Services
Council Innocence Program, and they worked on his parole package
as well as a motion for a new trial based
(25:13):
on actual innocence.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Lisa Kavanaugh Jeff Harris took on Fred's case and there
was a different attorney appointed for James. They really dug
down deep into it and found all the stuff on
the third party culprits of who probably did do the
shooting but has never been held accountable.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Now, there were police reports that implicated two young men
from the projects, Tyrone and Junior Cooper, who were known
to wear leather jackets, and Tyrone was short matching the description.
But more importantly, according to Diane Moses's initial interview, a
man named Jimmy Poole had implicated the Cooper brothers as well.
But it looks like since the police already had Dwyer
identifying Fred and James, they were not interested in the
(25:52):
Cooper's Nonetheless, trial council should have raised this material issue
and therefore they were ineffective.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
They actually got Fred released in August of twenty seventeen.
His motion for new trial was allowed, I think a
week before they were going to release him on parole.
James did not get involved with that motion for new trial.
I was not involved yet, so he stayed behind in prison.
Then I took over his case in May of twenty eighteen.
(26:19):
Really credit to Lisa and Jeff because they did more
than half of the work for me because they had
already done Fred's case. And then we had the best
investigator in the world, John Nor Deez.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
And the investigator was able to get confirmation about Diane
Moses and her motivation to bear false witness by speaking
with her daughter Charrell Moses.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Yeah, Sorelle. How it came to me, was her daughter
acid you know in mind? Did Jimmy do that? And
she said no, I told him that because they was
going to take you away from me, take my kids
from me. So she said it was either my kids
or him.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
I gave them him.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And that's not all John NARDIZI uncovered.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
When we did our investigation, we found a letter that
the DA at the time, Tim O'Neil, had written to
a hypnosis expert because he wanted to hire him to
testify at the trial, and he laid out how it went,
and what he said in the letter was that he
was hypnotized and then he was shown photographs. But at
(27:18):
trial he kept presenting it as he made an identification,
but free of hypnotism. Then he was hypnotized, then he
made a second identification, which is why in the second
letter we found, the expert said, I can't really help
you because it's not going to be admissible because it's tainted.
So that was never turned over to the defense, even
though the defense knew. Both defense knew how the actual
(27:40):
identification process went down, but they could never prove it.
If they had this letter from the expert and the
letter he wrote to the expert, it would have been
very clear.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
So this is the proof of the false narrative, and
had they been able to prove it back at trial,
Richard Dwyer's ID would not have been admitted. But the
investigator uncovered still more even more about Dwyer.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
The cab company that he worked for was owned by
an individual named James Quinn. He's a millionaire, and the
cab drivers that were working for James Quinn were afraid
that they wasn't getting protection from stuff like this, so
him and James Quinn got together and cocked up the story.
And I also forgot to tell you that when Burlo
(28:24):
took me down to the station right that Monday night,
the other guy that was with him, I found out
was the owner of the cab company, James Quinn. But
we went to trial, I seen him again. I said, damn,
this motherfucker was in the car with me when I
went down to the station.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
So it appears that the police and Dwyer may have
been acting at the behest of this wealthy cab company
owner to close this case in order to reassure his
workers so he could keep the money rolling in. Meanwhile,
the Cooper brothers were free to commit similar crimes, including
one confirmed arm or so with the alternate suspect evidence
(29:03):
Charrell moses to hypnotism correspondence, they were able to file
a motion for new trial based on ineffective assistance of
counsel and prosecutorial misconduct.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
We had the best co counsel in the world, Madeleine
Blanchet and Rada not A Rajan from the New England
Innocence Project helped us with the investigation, so we had
a great team. Without John and Maddie and Rada and
Lisa and Jeff, I don't know what would happen to James.
And the reality is that once we found that evidence,
(29:33):
COVID hit in March of twenty twenty. So now we
have worked on the motion from the trial. Maddie, my
co counsel, took over and did the motion to stay
and it was new territory to try to get somebody
out convicted a first degree murdered not once but twice.
But she wrote a brilliant motion to stay. And one
of the reasons we were granted the stay was because
(29:54):
the Commonwealth admitted that we had a colorable claim because
of the withheld evidence between the expert and the DA,
so they admitted there was a very real chance of
winning on that issue and the judge found it as well,
so that gave us a lot of hope that it
would have a good result in the end. And before
I even filed my full motion for a new trial.
(30:17):
We got him released in April April sixteenth, twenty twenty,
he walked out the door.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
James was on supervised release while the state conducted their
own investigation, and finally, after more than forty one long years,
James was reunited with his son, Don Juan Moses, who
was just thirteen months old when James was arrested.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
He lives at May, He does hospice. He loves Karen
for the elder. He's full of love, he's full of
the passion. So he's just like his dad. I know
he's mine. I know he's mine always.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Karen and I got two grandchildren, kim Monie Jerome Moses
and Olivia Olivia Rose Moses. It's amazing, you know me.
I'm just everytime ope my eyes. I think Barbara Eyti
ope my eyes because I can mys and actually look
at the sky and not a sell I can walk
where I want to walk, say what I want to say,
(31:08):
go where I want to go, no restraints. And I
really didn't really appreciate freedom until i'd actually lost it,
And now that I got it back, I appreciated more
than you can imagine.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
And his release and Eventually, his claim of innocence got
support from an unexpected source.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
One of the main reasons he got out on the
stay is because of the victim's family. The Boegians Jerry
and Katrina wrote a letter to the district attorney and
agreed that James should be released. And you don't see
that often. They are extraordinary people, Yes they are, but
that time they didn't really have the full information. So
(31:48):
I think it was probably in the back of their
mind that first of all, Fred was released, so they
knew that one man had been wrongfully convicted. Now here
comes the second man who was also wrongfully convicted. But
they said because of his health issues and until this
was decided, it was the humane thing to do, and
there's not a lot of people that would say that.
They to this day now do believe that he is innocent,
(32:11):
and they have become quite close with James and Linda.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Linda is James's fiance.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Matter of fact, I talked to Jerry and Katrina yesterday.
We want to drive out there and go out to dinner.
I didn't meet them until it was at an Innocent conference,
and that's the first time I actually seen him in
the flesh. It brew me away because they apologized to
me what happened to me. I was like, you don't
have to apologize to me. I'm so happy, it's so
(32:36):
glad to meet you, and I'm so sorry what happened
to your brother. And we gave each other a hug
and I told him that the government owes us an apology.
They victimized us, Me, Freddie, your family, and your brother,
they victimized us. They welcomed me into their home. And
it was strange because I'm saying here, I am sitting
(32:59):
in this man's home, the brother of the man that
was murdered, and telling me that I believe you are innocent.
I was speechless. Jerry and Katrina is part of my
family now, like Barbara Monroe, angel is what I call
it that. Yeah, we're family for life.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Well that's beautiful, and there's still more good news after that.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I finished filing up the actual motion for new trial
in June twenty twenty, and then it was up to
the Conviction Integrity Unit to do their investigation and whether
they would assent to the motion, which took until November tenth.
So now it was up to the judge to allow
the motion. So we had assumed that James would have
(33:43):
his day in court. We bought him a freedom suit.
Nice custom tailor made Freedom suit for him to wear
to court. And it was November tenth and I was
having my coffee and looking at the docket and I
see motion allowed. I was like, what nobody called us?
Nobody told us. I read it on the docket. I
was stunned. I mean I was ecstatic, but I was stunned.
(34:06):
So he never got to go to court. We didn't
tell him, and we arranged an impromptu celebration, and.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
They created some reason for him to try on the suit,
that he needed to buy a new button down shirt
to go with the suit.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
It was me and my son and John, my investigator,
and we was out looking for a shirt. We drove
back to the house and everybody was there. My family
was there, Barbara, my nieces and nephews that weren't born.
When I went in and handle nieces and nephews his night,
welcome home.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
It was amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
And since he's been home, he's dedicated to time to
building a nonprofit called Confronting Injustice.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Yes, me and my fiancee, Linda Solomon formed this organization
called confronted injustice, supporting wrongfully convicted and others adversely impacted
by this judicial system. We have a YouTube channel and
we do a podcast Asking here at the House, and
we're into you guys, And what we deal with is
post incarceration syndrome. People who are locked up coming out
(35:07):
of prison. Their mind has been reprogrammed, so to speak.
You being in prison ten fifteen years, being told win,
eat shit and sleep for decades. That gets embedded in
your mind. And do you really stop believing you can't
do nothing else but what somebody else tells you to do.
People don't know how serious it is. It's really serious.
I mean then they come out here and try to function.
(35:28):
Like my buddy Freddie, he win it as a baby.
He was stopped at sixteen. So we work with guys
and women. We go to court, we go and support them.
We write letters to the parole board. And guys that
have come out, we come out. They don't have nothing,
no ID, and you need a mass ID when you
get apartment or roof over your head and food to eat.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
So we support them.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
If you want to check out the YouTube channel, it's
hosted on YouTube for BCMTV, a nonprofit media company out
of Braintree, Massachusetts. We're going to have it linked in
the episode description along with the New England in It's
It's project a great organization and getting involved with organizations
like this one goes a long way to making sure
innocent men like James, as well as innocent women across
(36:12):
the country have their freedom restored. And with that, we're
going to go to closing arguments. This is where I
think you, Barb and of course James, from the bottom
of my heart, and I'm now going to turn off
my microphone, just close my eyes and listen to anything
else you have to share. Barb, you go first, and
then just hand the mic off to James and he'll
(36:32):
take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
When these men, usually men, but women as well, come
out of prison, sometimes most of the time, they don't
even get an apology, which they should, but they certainly
don't get compensation they walk out that door. I don't
know what they get. What I think you got fifty dollars, James,
and then they took some money out because you owed
money on your canteen. And they're just left to their
(36:55):
own to figure it out. After they've been incarcerated. James
was in almost forty two years, and thankfully he had
family there to help him, and he had us as well,
but not everyone has that, and there's no compensation. They're
trying to get compensation for people immediately when they get out,
but even what they get now through this state, if
(37:15):
you are quote unquote actually innocent, which nobody ever is.
According to them, the most that somebody can get. The
most that James could have gotten was a million dollars
for forty two years in prison. Figure out the math.
That's abominable. And then if you decide to do a
claim against the city, there's prosecutorial immunity, so that's a
(37:36):
problem in itself. But then they're forced to go and
wait and wait to try to get compensation. The city
of Boston has deep pockets. They can outwait somebody. James
doesn't have time to wait for that money. So what
does he have to end up doing at some point
in time settle for less than he should be getting,
and there's no amount of money that can compensate for
(37:56):
what he's lost. But there should be a much higher
amount of time money that they should get because society
needs to correct this and these are not disposable people.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
I've got tremendous support that we got the fronting the jete.
We talk to the men on the telephone. Sometime we
write them to the house. We sit down, but eat
and help me get through whatever that's bothering them at
this particular time. You know what I mean, because there's
so much you can do at the immediate because I
don't want to see nobody go through what I went through.
(38:27):
And I know when I lay my head down tonight,
somebody's being wrongfully convicted or even murdered, I mean by
our loved government. Man, don't be afraid to speak up.
Somebody will believe you. Thanks to Barbara Maddie, I'm living
proof somebody will listen to you. You can write me.
They got in the dress. They can write and I
(38:48):
definitely will return your letter. I'm gonna do everything in
my power before i leave this planet. Hopefully something changes,
the law changes, something changes, because you know, if they
did it to one of my family members, I would
lose my shit.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(39:28):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by
the individuals featured in this show are their own and
do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com