Remains of 55 Bodies Found Beneath Florida Reform School
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TAMPA, Fla.—Researchers excavating unmarked graves at a notorious reform school in the Florida Panhandle said Tuesday that they have retrieved the remains of 55 bodies, nearly double the number originally believed to be buried there over many decades.
The exhumations mark a milestone in a painstaking effort to unravel the longtime mystery of what happened to scores of children who were sent to the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla., and died. The institution for wayward youth, which the state opened in 1900 and closed in 2011, faced allegations throughout its history of brutal beatings, rapes and forced labor. Relatives of boys who died there, as well as former students who survived, have long believed some kids perished in suspicious circumstances.
Despite a string of state and federal investigations over the years, school officials repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who supported the excavation effort, said, "Hopefully, surviving family members are closer to the closure they deserve. It's such a tragedy that so many young boys lost their lives there."
Because the school kept shoddy and sometimes contradictory records, burial locations weren't always recorded, and the cause of death was sometimes listed as "unknown." A Florida Department of Law Enforcement inquiry completed in 2009 had concluded that 31 boys were buried in a cemetery on the 1,400-acre campus.
A child's marble, right was found in one of reform school's grave sites. Associated Press
In announcing their findings Tuesday, a team of forensic anthropologists at the University of South Florida here painted a grim picture. Among the thousands of artifacts they retrieved were bones and teeth. There was also a metal plate from a coffin, reading "At Rest," and a marble in a boy's pocket. They are now analyzing the remains to try to determine how the boys died and submitting DNA samples for testing in hope of identifying the boys and returning them to relatives for proper burials.
"We're hoping to bring the families resolution and hopefully some sense of peace," said Erin Kimmerle, a USF professor leading the research team.
Researchers are working with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office to locate possible relatives of the dead boys who can submit DNA samples for comparison against the remains. So far, the families of 12 boys have come forward. On Tuesday, the team released more than 40 additional names of boys whose relatives are being sought by authorities.
The tally of bodies from the school could climb. Researchers focused their excavation work in the past four months on the area surrounding the cemetery, where they found remains in wooded areas, under trees and beneath a roadway. Because the school was segregated and the cemetery was located on the African-American side, it is possible that additional burials occurred on the white side, Ms. Kimmerle said.
University of South Florida Associate Professor Christian Wells looks at some artifacts during a news conference Tuesday in Tampa regarding a research project at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. AP
Next week, researchers will begin searching spots on that side of the school where they believe, based on their investigation, that additional boys might be buried. As they did in the area of the cemetery, they will look for signs of burial shafts using ground-penetrating radar.
Ms. Kimmerle has already sent DNA samples from five sets of remains to the University of North Texas Health Science Center, which is handling the DNA analysis. Funding for the two-year-old effort has come from the Florida Legislature and the National Institute of Justice, part of the U.S. Justice Department.
The exhumations mark a milestone in a painstaking effort to unravel the longtime mystery of what happened to scores of children who were sent to the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla., and died. The institution for wayward youth, which the state opened in 1900 and closed in 2011, faced allegations throughout its history of brutal beatings, rapes and forced labor. Relatives of boys who died there, as well as former students who survived, have long believed some kids perished in suspicious circumstances.
Despite a string of state and federal investigations over the years, school officials repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who supported the excavation effort, said, "Hopefully, surviving family members are closer to the closure they deserve. It's such a tragedy that so many young boys lost their lives there."
Because the school kept shoddy and sometimes contradictory records, burial locations weren't always recorded, and the cause of death was sometimes listed as "unknown." A Florida Department of Law Enforcement inquiry completed in 2009 had concluded that 31 boys were buried in a cemetery on the 1,400-acre campus.
A child's marble, right was found in one of reform school's grave sites. Associated Press
In announcing their findings Tuesday, a team of forensic anthropologists at the University of South Florida here painted a grim picture. Among the thousands of artifacts they retrieved were bones and teeth. There was also a metal plate from a coffin, reading "At Rest," and a marble in a boy's pocket. They are now analyzing the remains to try to determine how the boys died and submitting DNA samples for testing in hope of identifying the boys and returning them to relatives for proper burials.
"We're hoping to bring the families resolution and hopefully some sense of peace," said Erin Kimmerle, a USF professor leading the research team.
Researchers are working with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office to locate possible relatives of the dead boys who can submit DNA samples for comparison against the remains. So far, the families of 12 boys have come forward. On Tuesday, the team released more than 40 additional names of boys whose relatives are being sought by authorities.
The tally of bodies from the school could climb. Researchers focused their excavation work in the past four months on the area surrounding the cemetery, where they found remains in wooded areas, under trees and beneath a roadway. Because the school was segregated and the cemetery was located on the African-American side, it is possible that additional burials occurred on the white side, Ms. Kimmerle said.
University of South Florida Associate Professor Christian Wells looks at some artifacts during a news conference Tuesday in Tampa regarding a research project at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. AP
Next week, researchers will begin searching spots on that side of the school where they believe, based on their investigation, that additional boys might be buried. As they did in the area of the cemetery, they will look for signs of burial shafts using ground-penetrating radar.
Ms. Kimmerle has already sent DNA samples from five sets of remains to the University of North Texas Health Science Center, which is handling the DNA analysis. Funding for the two-year-old effort has come from the Florida Legislature and the National Institute of Justice, part of the U.S. Justice Department.
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What a ? nightmare.
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Well damn
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Here's the rest of the article for those who want to read it.....One of those hoping for answers is Ovell Krell, whose brother, George Owen Smith, was sent to Dozier in 1940 at the age of 14, allegedly for stealing a car with an older teen. The next year, the family received word that Owen had disappeared from the school and was later found dead of pneumonia. Although his parents asked the school to keep the body at a funeral home so they could retrieve it, the school buried him before they arrived, said Ms. Krell, 85 years old.
Unable to see Owen's body, his mother spent the rest of her life plagued with doubt. "Every night, she sat out on the porch, waiting to see if he could find his way home," Ms. Krell said. "My mother was never the same."
Ms. Krell, who has given a DNA sample, said that if a set of remains proves to be her brother's, she would bury them between her mother's and father's plots at a cemetery in Auburndale, Fla. "In my heart, I want to believe they would know he was there," she said.
The Dozier School was originally intended for kids who had committed crimes, such as theft and murder, researchers say. But in later years, changes to the law lowered the bar to include minor infractions, from "incorrigibility" to "truancy."
Robert Straley, one of a group of former students who helped bring to light the alleged horrors at Dozier, said he was sent there in 1963, when he was 13, for car theft. He was beaten the first night, he said, getting 35 or 40 lashes with a whip more than three feet long. The school "was brutal beyond belief," he said. -
That places is gonna be haunted as ? Jesus Christ
