Fernald School News Today

For years the Massachusetts State Police kept material for criminal cases at the old Fernald school, including graphic evidence for homicide investigations and at least one unsolved murder, accessible to any trespasser.

A decade after the city bought the property from the state, the legacy of the Fernald School is at the center of a fraught debate.

State officials say public records laws prevent them from sharing the vast troves of documents on former residents, even with immediate family members. Yet a handful of states have found ways to do precisely that.

The city bought the 190-acre property in part using money from the state, and promised to preserve the site. But it has let the buildings fall into disrepair.

It was not enough that those residents lost all agency in their lives and were segregated from their community, friends, and family. But then the chronicles of their health conditions, struggles, and needs were treated like so much trash.

The city of Waltham on Thursday mourned the loss of police Officer Paul J. Tracey, a 28-year veteran of the department who was killed Wednesday alongside a utility worker when both men were struck in a crash that injured two other workers.

The experimental subjects, from the Walter E. Fernald State School in Massachusetts, had been deemed "mentally retarded."

Chaplains are diverse in who they are, the roles they hold, and the places they occupy, both religious and nonreligious.

Three decades of isolation and neglect can leave a mark on a person, but not Neil Henderson. Born in 1931, he left his family in Lowell, Mass., when he was just 8 years old. He would spend more than 30 years in various Massachusetts facilities for the...

Meet Jean Marshall, Phillipstons oldest resident, who was recently awarded the Boston Post Cane