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Subscribe to RSSAfter months of studying the grounds of Florida's largest reform school, a team of anthropologists identify 19 more graves suggesting more boys were allegedly tortured and killed there. WFLA's Yolanda Fernandez reports.
Scientists have found 19 previously unknown grave shafts on the grounds of a notorious Florida reform school, suggesting that many more boys died there amid brutal conditions than had previously been known, the researchers said Monday.
The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, which was also known as the Florida State Reform School, closed in June 2011 after state investigators and the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division confirmed widespread abuse over many decades.
The state attributed its decision to close the school to budgetary reasons. Yet long before then, the institution had been the target of investigations and lawsuits alleging not only physical and mental abuse but also forced labor, rape and even murder of the young charges sent to its care since it opened in 1900.
The prominent writer Roger Dean Kiser, author of "The White House Boys — An American Tragedy," about the horrors he experienced while incarcerated there in the 1950s as a child, has called the school a "concentration camp for little boys." He wrote that "a devil was hiding behind every tree, every building and even behind every blade of manicured grass."
They're called the White House Boys because much of the abuse occurred in an 11-room building on the school grounds known as the White House, where former students say they were beaten with leather straps. A group of the former students sued the state in 2010, but the case was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired.
Previous investigations and records had reported that 31 boys were buried on school grounds, and that most of them died in a fire and an influenza outbreak at the school in the early 1900s. But researchers at the University of South Florida, in Tampa, say they now estimate there are at least 50 grave shafts in the area of the school's cemetery and the surrounding woods. Some graves may have been the final resting place for more than one boy, the researchers said in an interim report released Monday.
Records recovered and examined by the researchers indicate that at least 96 boys and two adults died at the school from 1914 to 1973. Most of boys who were committed to the school and died there were African-American.
Read the full report (.pdf — contents may be distressing for some readers)
But that may be only the tip of the iceberg: The researchers didn't have access to student records after 1960, when such documents became subject to privacy laws. Moreover, researchers couldn't test the entire area because of overgrowth and vegetative conditions, they said.
And more chillingly, there may be other, secret graveyards somewhere on the grounds, given the number of still-unaccounted-for cases and the practice of segregating cemeteries during the first half of the last century, Erin Kimmerle, an assistant professor of anthropology at the university, said on a conference call with reporters. It's highly unlikely that white boys were buried with black boys during those decades, but as yet, the researchers haven't found a previously hidden whites-only cemetery.
"I didn't realize going in how much of a story of civil rights it was," Kimmerle said.
The research team used ground-penetrating radar and other methods to map the school's cemetery and chemically analyzed the soil to identify the number of graves.
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"We anticipated finding about 25 to 30 grave shafts," said Christian Wells, an assistant professor of anthropology who led the anthropological work at the site, "but in fact we found a minimum of 50" — all of them on the north side of the campus, called Boot Hill, where African-American boys were segregated.
A full picture of the sheer scale of the abuses remains difficult to paint, because there are significant gaps and discrepancies in the records, "and the cause and manner of death for the majority of cases are unknown," the report said.
"Many questions persist about who is buried at the school and the circumstances surrounding their deaths," the report said. But Kimmerle said the team had determined that at least 20 boys died within the first three months of having been remanded to the school's custody — probably because they were unable to cope with the crowding and the conditions — and that burial locations were unspecified for nearly three times more African-American boys than for white boys.
University of South Florida
Anthropologists from the University of South Florida marked previously undiscovered graves at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla., during field work in May 2012.
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Geeze - Why did it have to be Florida?
Is that really what matters in this?
Shamefull. Completely shamefull!!! These are the only words I can think of right now. We spend so much time condemning the actions of other countries and yet this????? God bless America I guess.
Geeze - Why did it have to be Florida?
Where are the African-American fathers of these young boys and why did they have to go to reform school?
Probably off fighting in WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Viet Nam war, being posted out of the country. White boys were also sent to reform schools during those times, when they failed at "being the man of the house," and were doing dumb stuff, like stealing to feed their siblings.
Seriously? From 1900, who knows?
It didn't close until 2011? The fault should be widespread and many going to prison. Sounds similar to the Catholic boys and girls schools in Canada and Ireland that are documented and criminal. All of these schools should be watched alot closer. The sins of man seem to be aimed at children so many times. We need to wake up as a society,as humanity is sacrificed and we cannot tolerate this one more day! Charge those responsible.
Sorry for double post.
Yeah, I've got me blinders on. Didn't see or hear or know a thing bout it. How anyone can believe nothing horrific went on there just goes to show you there are still evil people living today. Everyone knows gdamn good and well torture went on at that hell hole and black people got the brunt of it (i am white...not an idiot either).
How does such insanity go on without someone knowing. This world is so full of evil
While I agree that it's unlikely they would have buried black and white together in the first half of the twentieth century (or put catholics, protestants, and jews in the same cemetery)...but were they really burying people here, or was it more like they were 'disposing of evidence'? Because when you're just getting rid of a body you probably don't care about the racist thing...
Soooo, they just closed because othe budget?? NOT because of alleged abuse??? That really ticks me off..... and there are already people going off about the whole black and whie thing. Yes, that happened there were slaves and people didn't like the blacks, but at least that is not happening now like it used to. Get over it, it wasn't you that was chained and was a slave. If people are going to complain and whine about slavery take a look around! Almost every race including whites and blacks are being sold into sex trafficking, starting really young! Take a look around! Stop dwelling over the past and the crying over what happened so long ago and start looking around at what's going on now!
There is somthing very sinister afoot.
And people wonder why people are a mess .... Gosh so many years of abuse and everyone looked the blind eye ... People should be ashamed ... its a sick and twisted world we live in with monsters hiding everywhere .....
G and we wonder where all these fricken murderers come from?
Wouldn't you have wondered what happened if your child suddenly disappeared from there with no explanation...?
Wow! All this from the superior race! For all of you supremisist out there, there is no superior race, just superior people. And the people that murdered those young boys were no where near superior. I know that the murderers' had family and children of their own. Wonder where they are and how they are feeling right now?
In this country we're all equal under the law.
what a shame. i imagine that some of those kids did not die from sickness back then,and the statute of limitations ran out ??? my god , what kind of society do we humans really have ??? i hope names can go with those lost,white or black. no one deserves to die nameless or forgotten. R.I.P. TO THOSE SOULS OF CHILDREN.
WTF is wrong with people. Unbelieveable.
Until recently 'spare the rod and spoil the child' was the rule. Now we know that beatings don't work. When most of these children were killed it was thought that corporal punishment was good for them, that it made them strong and tough.
Now we know it for precisely what it was: physical abuse.
I hope anyone who was associated with the running of that school BURNS IN HELL for what they did!!!
You think Florida is the only State with this kind of history ? Think again ,and its not limited to the South.
i'll bet the gays had a hay day back then and now they have moved on to our prisons/////////
You, sir, are not fit for polite society with such speculations.
somebody needs to get a court order and start digging around Westboro State Hospital and Westboro's Lyman School for Boys
At least there is no statute of limitation on God's judgement.
This is not a "racial" issue, it is a HUMAN issue. A travesty of profound dimension.
The children who were sent there were basically sent to a death and torture camp, and saying that former "inmates" of this "school" can not receive justice and compensation because of some arbitrary statue of limitations reeks with the State using the rule of the law to get around the spirit of the law.
May whatever God you believe in have mercy on your soul, because ALL men die, and to the people who were responsible for these boys, you too, will one day meet your maker....we'll see if the "statue of limitations" applies when YOU have to explain yourselves to God.
Hot-in-Miami........Parents did not choose to send their children (kids) to a reform school it is the Judge in court that is responsible for the sentence as punishment for breaking some minor law.
In the early parts of the last century, kids were tossed in reform schools and other institutions because their parents were alcoholics, abusive, not around, self centered or dead. Of course abused and neglected kids will act out and if a kid is homeless, he/she will steal for food. There isn't just one sad part to this but one of them is after enduring abuse or neglect from parents or guardians, they're sent to this reform school and further abused. Back then, children had no rights and very few, if any, advocates to fight on their behalf.
Fergus, that's not always true. Thousands of parents every year choose to send their children to privately run reform schools that use the magic of slick modern marketing and call themselves "therapeutic boarding schools." That's the new euphemism for a private, for-profit reform school. Part of the pitch to parents is "let us save your kid before he or she gets in trouble with the law and gets sent somewhere worse under court order."
But they don't tell the parents that most of these places are as bad or worse than any state-run reform school. At least in a state facility, inmates have legal rights and access to outsiders -- lawyers, doctors, and communication with parents. Not true in a private "school" where parents sign over power of attorney to let the program "parent" their child as the program sees fit.
Anyone who thinks such atrocities and others don't continue knows nothing about the cracks in the foster care system. We owe our young people much better care and guardianship than we provide. How we treat and care for our most vulnerable populations speaks volumes about our character.