How Could You? Hall of Shame-Florida Industrial School for Boys/Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Marianna, Florida,”[a] forensic team found 18 bodies buried without markers in the woods behind the Florida Industrial School for Boys. Some former students claim administrators were violently abusive and could have killed the boys.

A secret graveyard tucked behind a Florida reform school is home to 31 cross-shaped grave markers, but nearly 50 unidentified bodies.

The small cemetery dates back to the early 1900s. Some former students at the Florida Industrial School for Boys in Marianna now say victims of abusive school administrators are buried there, CNN reported.

When the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated in 2009, it found that 31 boys buried in the woods behind the school died either from the flu or in a fire.

But University of South Florida anthropologist Dr. Erin Kimmerle found 18 more bodies buried without markers.

“We found burials within the current marked cemetery, and then we found burials that extend beyond that,” she said. “These are children who came here and died, for one reason or another, and have just been lost in the woods.”

None have been identified, and they can’t be exhumed without their families’ permission.

” Anthropologist Dr. Erin Kimmerle said there could also be a secret segregated graveyard for black boys on school grounds.

A group of men came forward in 2008 and said the “White House” — a small concrete building on school grounds — was the site of brutal beatings and whippings in the 1960s.

Former administrator Troy Tidwell downplayed their claims, saying only that “spankings” took place.

Another former student said a boy named Owen Smith was killed by rifle fire as they tried to run away from the school.

“I believe to this day that they shot my brother that night, and I think they probably killed him and brought him back to the school and buried him,” said his sister, Ovell Smith Krell.

Kimmerle said there could even be another secret cemetery on school grounds, a segregated one for black students.

Her team has petitioned the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice to allow them to investigate.”

Nearly 50 unidentified kids buried in Florida reform school’s century-old secret graveyard

[New York Daily News 10/14/12 by Anthony Bartkewicz]

“Using ground-penetrating radar, Kimmerle’s team has located what she says appear  to be 18 more remains than previously thought to have been buried there. After  clearing the area, her team has determined that a total of 49 graves exist. All  are unidentified. “We found burials within the current marked cemetery,  and then we found burials that extend beyond that,” Kimmerle said.
Regarding the missing boys, “for the majority, there’s no record of what  happened to them. So, they may be buried here, they may have been shipped to  their families. But we don’t know,” she said. State and school records  show that out of nearly 100 children who died while at the school, there are no  burial records for 22 of them, according to Kimmerle. “When there’s no  knowledge and no information, then people will speculate and rumors will persist  or questions remain,” she said. Kimmerle, who worked on an  international forensics team that amassed evidence used in war crimes trials  from the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, called the Florida project a  humanitarian effort for the families of the former students and for the  community.

“It’s about restoring dignity,” she said. The team  laid a grid using ground-penetrating radar to create a three-dimensional digital  image of the area. They had to clear underbrush and trees when it became  apparent the cemetery extended well beyond the small fenced area. “We  found numerous anomalies throughout,” said Rich Estabrook, a public  archaeologist working on the team. “Many of them tend to be in rows, and  somewhat symmetrical.”

The team believes these so-called “anomalies”  are graves because they are lined up in east-west configurations, the  traditional way Christians are buried. Exhumations will have to be requested by  family members. Adding to the mystery, Kimmerle’s team has determined,  based on reports from former workers and students, that another cemetery exists  on the 1,400-acre property. Those graves could contain the bodies of black  students, buried in a different area because of segregation.

The team  has petitioned to search the area, and the Florida Department of Juvenile  Justice has agreed to work with the researchers “on how best to provide them  access to the site.” But they’ll have to move quickly because the state  is in the process of selling the entire property. The mystery  surrounding the graves first made headlines in 2008 when Florida’s then-governor  Charlie Crist ordered an investigation after a group of men, known as “the White  House Boys,” came forward with stories of how they were beaten with leather  straps by school administrators inside a small, white building on school  property.

Robert Straley, who spent about 10 months at the school in  the 1960s for allegedly stealing a car, said he was taken to the “white house”  on his very first day. “I came out of there in shock, and when they hit  you, you went down a foot into the bed, and so hard, I couldn’t believe. I  didn’t know what they were hitting you with,” said Straley. Former  school administrator Troy Tidwell, a one-armed man who some former students  accused of beating them, has said that “spankings” took place at the school but  denied anyone was ever beaten or killed.

The Florida Department of Law  Enforcement’s report, issued in 2009, accounted for the 31 boys buried in the  cemetery. Although each individual plot cannot be identified, the report said  many were killed in a 1914 fire at the facility, while others died in a 1918 flu  outbreak. Two dogs and a peacock also are buried there. The Florida  Department of Law Enforcement report said poorly kept school records prevented  officials from determining what became of the other 50 students: whether they  were buried on the grounds or sent home to their families.

It said most died as a result of accidents or illness, though two were killed by  other students and one was shot by a deputy sheriff trying to run away.
One of those “White House boys” called the department’s report a  “whitewash.” “All they did was try to do their best to discredit us,”  Straley said. “They focused on that instead of focusing on an investigation.” The department has said it stands by the integrity of its report.
A Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesman said officials could not  comment on the research team’s findings until they have had time to review the  report. Owen Smith was among the 31 students identified as having been  buried in the cemetery. “He had no ambition to do anything but play  music,” said his sister, Ovell Smith Krell, who was 12 when her brother ran away  from home in 1940. She said he was headed for Nashville to become a musician,  but never made it. He was arrested in a stolen car, and sent to the reform  school.

He ran away from the school, but got caught, he told his sister  in a letter a short time afterward. A few months later, his family got  a letter from the school, notifying them that Owen had run away for a second  time. “So far, we have been unable to get any information concerning  his whereabouts,” wrote Millard Davidson, the school’s superintendent at the  time. “We will appreciate your notifying us immediately if you receive  any word from or concerning him,” Davidson wrote. Owen’s family decided  to travel to Marianna, Florida, to find out what was going on, but just before  leaving, there was a call from the school with word that Owen had been found  dead. “They think he crawled under a house to try and get warm and that  he got pneumonia and died,” said Krell, now 83.

She said her mother  asked that Owen’s body be taken to a funeral home. The family had to borrow a  car for the trip and when they arrived in Marianna two days later, school  officials allegedly told them that their son was already buried. “They  said that the body was so decomposed, you wouldn’t be able to identify him …  they took him straight out to the school and buried him,” she said.
Owen’s classmate told the family a different story. According to  his sister, the boy said as he and Owen tried to escape, “my brother was running  out across a field, an open field, and there was three men shooting at him, with  rifles.” “I believe to this day that they shot my brother that night,  and I think they probably killed him and brought him back to the school and  buried him,” she said.

With the completion of the anthropological  search, it will be up to the families of the missing students to go to a state  court to ask a judge to order exhumations. One family has already filed suit for  the return of a relative’s remains. Krell said she only hopes to give  her brother a proper burial. “I would take him and put him down with my  mom and dad in their cemetery,” she said. “I hope I get that chance.”

Florida Industrial School for Boys graveyard mystery in Marianna, Florida

[WPTV 10/15/12 by Rich Phillips/CNN]

 

For more about the abuse at this group home, read The White House Boys website and their original blog at White House Boys blog

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: “A Florida lawmaker wants the Justice Department to help investigate renewed  allegations of state-sanctioned abuse and a generations-long criminal cover-up  at a notorious reform school for boys.

Stories of torture at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys date back to the  1900s when students were kept in shackles and beaten with a leather strap.  Further investigations have shed light on mysterious deaths and abuse tied to  the institution in nearly every decade of its existence.

“The reform school may yield some ugly reminders about our past but we  absolutely must get to the bottom of this,” Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.,  said.

Earlier this week, scientists and researchers at the University of South  Florida in Tampa released a report showing at least 50 graves were found on the  compound — 19 more than originally reported by state officials. The researchers  used ground-penetrating radar and oil samples to uncover the previously  undiscovered graves. Officials had already determined that during the history of  the school’s existence, at least 98 boys between the ages of 6 and 18, as  well as two adult staff members, died at the now-shuttered school.

Most of the deaths have been attributed to a fire in 1914 as well as a flu  outbreak in the early 20th century, but questions remain about the circumstances  of some of the fatalities. Further, allegations of abuse at the school have been  well-documented.

On Wednesday, Nelson asked Attorney General Eric Holder to provide assistance  to a team of scientists as they continue to search school grounds. The Justice  Department has not said if it will help.”

 

Florida lawmaker wants Justice to probe abuse, deaths at notorious reform school

[FOX News 12/13/12 by Barnini Chakraborty]

Update 2: “Researchers at the University of South Florida are fighting with the state over access to the grounds of a now-closed reform school.

For decades, the Dozier School for Boys was notorious for the harsh treatment boys received there. Now, a forensic anthropologist and her team want permission to exhume dozens of bodies they found in unmarked graves, but are meeting resistance from state officials.

White House Boys

They’re called the White House Boys — a group of men, many now in their 60s and 70s — who were sent to the Dozier school when they were children. They take the name from a small white building on the school grounds where boys were beaten. Jerry Cooper was sent to the school in 1961. He says guards beat the boys using a leather strap.

“These were not spankings. These were beatings, brutal beatings,” Cooper says.

Cooper and other White House Boys say they know of children who died from the beatings. A few years ago, the state investigated and said it found no evidence that staff at the school had been responsible for any student deaths.

The White House boys and some family members of those who died there dismissed the report as a whitewash. The state report said 50 boys were believed buried in unmarked graves. But it said it would not be possible to identify and exhume remains from individual gravesites.

That’s when forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle got interested in the story.

“Initially, seeing that the state’s response was ‘We’ve done everything we can and there’s nothing more to be done,’ we just felt that there’s a lot that science has to offer,” Kimmerle says

Kimmerle is an associate professor at the University of South Florida who has worked with international teams to help locate and identify remains in the Balkans, Peru and Nigeria.

With the state’s permission, she and a team of researchers used ground penetrating radar to locate nearly 100 unmarked graves at the school, nearly double the amount previously known.

Backed by relatives of boys who died there, Kimmerle and her team asked the state for permission to exhume the bodies so remains can be identified and returned to their families. The administration of Gov. Rick Scott so far has refused, saying it lacks the authority to approve exhumation.

That came as a disappointment to Glen Varnadoe. His uncle, Thomas, died at the school in 1934.

“The state has an obligation to deliver my uncle’s remains to me. Me and my uncle have a civil right to his remains, and the state is currently violating those civil rights by not supplying his remains to us,” Varnadoe says.

More Questions To Answer

Although Gov. Scott is fighting exhumation, Kimmerle and her team are supported by Florida’s attorney general, members of the Legislature and by Sen. Bill Nelson. Nelson has called Gov. Scott’s action blocking the exhumations “inexcusable.” Earlier this year, he spoke to reporters after touring the school grounds.

“Let’s start trying to find the answers to these questions: What happened? How many? What happened to them? Were there crimes committed? And let’s get to the bottom of it,” Nelson said.

The University of South Florida is asking the state to reconsider its exhumation request. Kimmerle says when her team did their work, they found unmarked graves in a wooded area and some under a roadway.

“So, it’s about finding individuals for families that are asking, but it’s also about preservation. If we’re finding them now, and they essentially were lost, if something isn’t done to preserve them, they will become lost or destroyed,” Kimmerle says.

Along with the fight over whether to excavate the unmarked graves, there’s another question to be answered at the Dozier school. For most of its 100-year history, the reform school was strictly segregated. Former residents of the school say that because of where the unmarked graves are located, those found so far are likely those of black children. The whites who died, they believe, were buried elsewhere.

Kimmerle and her team are looking for another burial ground at the school, graves that, if found, will raise still more questions about what happened to the children who were housed at Florida’s most notorious reform school.”

In Florida, A Clash Over Exhuming Bodies At Reform School

[NPR 7/31/13 by Greg Allen]

Update 3: “Saying it was time to provide answers from a painful period in the state’s past, Florida’s top officials voted Tuesday to let researchers dig up and try to identify remains buried at a closed reform school for boys.

Former students have accused employees and guards at The Dozier School for Boys of physical and sexual abuse, so severe in some cases it may have led to death. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated, but in 2009 the agency concluded it was unable to substantiate or dispute the claims.

 

Researchers at the University of South Florida hope to identify boys in unmarked graves, and perhaps return them to family members for a proper burial.

 

In its quest to exhume bodies, the university was rebuffed by a judge and by one state agency before Gov. Rick Scott and Florida Cabinet members approved the plan Tuesday.

 

Researchers received nearly $200,000 from state legislators to begin their project later this month on the site 60 miles west of Tallahassee. The decision by the governor and others came despite opposition of some Jackson County residents who maintain the effort will result in negative publicity.

 

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the state needed to act.

 

“We have to look at our history, we have to go back,” Bondi said. “We know there are unmarked graves currently on that property that deserve a proper burial. It’s the right thing to do.”

 

The vote triggered a round of applause from former Dozier students at the Cabinet meeting.

 

John Bonner, who called some of the Dozier employees “vicious,” said the university’s work could help people and families get answers about what happened at the school.

 

“There’s just so many things that could come out of this that could benefit people,” said Bonner, who was at Dozier in the late ’60s.

 

The school opened in 1900 and was shut down in 2011 for budgetary reasons.

 

Sid Riley, the managing editor of the weekly Jackson County Times, wrote to state officials in July, calling the plans a “terrible project.”

 

“We have an active industrial development program and a tourist development program here. If they proceed with this terrible project, our community will be exposed to over a year of negative publicity,” Riley wrote.

 

Riley said the groups “promoting this effort” would ultimately seek compensation and the “politicians are playing up to the minority voters.”

 

Jackson County Commissioner Jeremy Branch said the project would continue to blemish the county and Marianna, where the school is located. He said he was confused as to what the exhumation of the bodies would discover.

 

“Are we trying to determine if bad things happened 100 years ago in America?” Branch said. “We know bad things happened in America.”

 

Researchers said they have already used historical documents to discover more deaths and gravesites than what the law enforcement agency found.

 

Researchers said they verified the deaths of two adult staff members and 96 children — ranging in age from 6 to 18 — between 1914 and 1973.

 

Records indicated 45 people were buried on the 1,400-acre tract from 1914 to 1952 and 31 bodies were sent elsewhere, leaving some bodies with whereabouts unknown.

 

In May, a judge rejected a request to exhume bodies from what is called “Boot Hill Cemetery,” saying the case did not meet the “threshold” to grant the order.

 

Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who reports to Scott, said in July his agency lacked the legal authority to grant a permit even though the land is state-owned. That led to a push by Bondi to get approval from the state agency that oversees state land. The agency is controlled by Scott and the Cabinet.

 

Documents obtained by The Associated Press show State Archaeologist Mary Glowacki in late April distributed a list of recommendations to the head of the state’s Division of Historical Resources, raising questions about the project.

 

The list asked questions about why an entire cemetery had to be disturbed and she raised doubts about the ability of researchers to find and identify everyone buried there.”

 

Bodies to be exhumed from notorious Florida reform school for boys

[Fox News 8/7/13]

Update 4: “A 14-year-old boy has been identified as the first of 55 bodied dug up on the grounds of a former Florida boys’ school decades after they died allegedly of neglect and brutality.

University of South Florida researchers said Thursday that remains belonging to George Owen Smith had been exhumed from the grounds of the renamed Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, an institution with a troubled history where the facilities were often decrepit and guards were accused of brutality.

In December 1940, Owen Smith’s mother wrote the superintendent of the then-Florida Industrial School for Boys about the welfare of her 14-year-old son, who had been sent there months earlier for being with a friend in a stolen car.

 

Frances Smith received a letter from superintendent Millard Davidson, saying no one knew where Owen was. A month later, the family was summoned to Florida Panhandle school and led to an unmarked grave.

 

Owen was in it, they were told – he had escaped and was found dead under a house. Frances Smith never accepted the story. She waited for him to come home.

 

Sadly, the researchers were unable to determine how Owen did in fact die, and they will probably never know.

 

Owen hastily buried in a two-foot grave, lying on his side with his hands over his head, they said. He was unclothed other than a shroud. His family says he will soon be reburied next to his mother and father in the central Florida city of Auburndale.

 

‘This is what we worked for,’ said his sister, Ovell Krell, now 86. ‘It was not an easy road.’

 

The identification was made through a DNA sample collected from Krell.

 

Official records showed 31 burials at the Marianna school between its opening in 1900 and its 2011 closure for budget reasons, but researchers found the remains of 24 additional people between last September and December.

 

Some former students from the 1950s and 1960s have for at least a decade accused employees and guards at the school of physical and sexual abuse, but the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded after an investigation that it couldn’t substantiate or dispute the claims because too much time had passed.

 

Many former Dozier inmates from that era call themselves ‘The White House Boys’ after the white building where they say the worst abuse took place.

 

In 2008, the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice held a ceremony to officially ‘seal’ the building and recognize the boys who passed through it.

 

Some of ‘The White House Boys’ were present and media coverage of the event, as well as an order from then-Governor Charlie Crist, led to the investigation.

 

Researchers, reacting to the allegations, excavated the graveyard at the school.

 

Krell said her older brother would wear a guitar string around his neck and that the family would sing country-western songs for entertainment. He hadn’t been in trouble before the stolen car, she said.

 

Over the years, the family had kept his wallet, which was displayed at Thursday’s press conference.

 

‘It was important to him and I often wondered why he left it,’ Krell said.

 

The wallet had a Junior G-Man card, which was tied to a popular radio program that featured a former FBI agent.

 

At its peak in the 1960s, 500 boys were housed at the Dozier school, most of them for minor offenses such as petty theft, truancy or running away from home.

 

In 1968, when corporal punishment was outlawed at state-run institutions, then-Governor Claude Kirk visited and found the institution in disrepair with leaky ceilings, holes in walls, cramped sleeping quarters, no heating for the winters and buckets used as toilets.

 

‘If one of your kids were kept in such circumstances,’ he said then, ‘you’d be up there with rifles.’

 

Some of the bodies were found under roads or overgrown trees, well away from the white, metal crosses marking the 31 officially recorded graves.

 

Erin Kimmerle, the lead researcher and an associate anthropology professor, said another body could soon be identified.

 

Officials have said it’s unclear if there are other graves elsewhere on the school site.

 

The team excavated only five of the property’s 1,400 acres.

 

Jerry Cooper, who is head of a White House Boys group, said the circumstances of Owen’s disappearance and the way he was buried support their contention of abuse.

 

‘I want an apology from the state for what happened there, but so far no go,’ said Cooper, who was sent there as a teenager in the early 1960s for riding in a stolen car.

 

He has said he suffered horrible beatings with a leather strap in the White House.

 

‘If they apologize, they are admitting guilt and they aren’t going to do that.'”

Boy, 14, identified as first of 55 bodies dug up under former Florida reform school decades after they were ‘murdered’

[Daily Mail 8/7/14 by Associated Press and Helen Pow]

Update 5:”Dozens of children’s bodies exhumed from old graves have begun yielding the shocking secrets of a shuttered Florida reform school, shedding light on decades of abuse, rape and deadly violence.

There was the 6-year-old boy who ended up dead after being sent to work as a house boy. And another boy who escaped but was later found shot to death with a blanket pulled over his body and a shotgun across his legs.

Then there was the ‘rape dungeon’ where students attending the Arthur G. Dozier School were taken and sexually abused.

What the researchers have learned about the horrific acts carried out at the now closed Marianna institution is outlined in a report released by the University of South Florida as researchers continue grappling with the mystery of the graves and deaths there.

 

University anthropologists have found the remains of 51 people buried at the school during a dig that also uncovered garbage, syringes, drug bottles and a dog encased in an old water cooler buried in the cemetery.

They are not only trying to identify who was buried there, but the stories behind how they and others died at the school.

Beyond studying remains, researchers are looking through the school and state records, newspaper archives and interviewing boys’ families, former inmates and former school employees to provide a history of the dead.

 

‘Maybe I’ve been doing this too long, but I’m not surprised at what horrible things people do to one another,’ said USF anthropologist Erin Kimmerle, the team leader who has researched other mass graves.

‘It’s just really sad the way people treat one another, which may be in part what’s captured the public’s attention on this — just the sense that it’s not right.’

The report, prepared for the Florida Cabinet, identifies two more people buried in graves, in addition to three who were identified previously.

One was Bennett Evans, an employee who died in a 1914 dorm fire. While there wasn’t a DNA match, remains found are consistent with his age and cause of death.

 

The other was Sam Morgan, who was brought to the school in 1915 at age 18 and later wound up dead in a case that still has unanswered questions. Morgan was identified through a DNA match with his relatives.

To date, the remains of four people have been identified through DNA matches.

It’s not an easy project. The school underreported deaths; didn’t provide death certificates, names or details in many cases, particularly involving black boys; and simply reported some boys who disappeared as no longer at the school.

And many in the Panhandle community don’t want to talk about the school’s dark past.

Several of the boys were killed after escape attempts, including Robert Hewitt, whose family lived a few miles from the school. He was hiding in his family’s house and men from the school came looking for him several times after the 1960 escape, according to relatives.

The family came home one day to find his covered body lying in a bed. He had a shotgun wound and his father’s shotgun was lying across his legs.

There’s also the story of 6-year-old George Grissam, who the school sent out to work as a house boy in 1918. He was delivered back to the school unconscious and later died.

George’s 8-year-old brother Ernest also disappeared from school records, which simply described him as ‘not here.’

Other boys died after severe beatings, being smashed in the head or other injuries. Former inmates and employees interviewed also told researchers about a ‘rape dungeon’ where boys, some younger than 12, were sexually assaulted.

While many of the cases are nearly a century old, some of the dead have surviving brothers, sisters and other relatives still seeking answers.

‘To some of this is history, but for many of the people who are involved it’s actually their reality every day,’ Kimmerle said. ‘They’re really committed and moved by this because it’s their direct family.’

The first of the bodies to be identified by researchers last summer was 14-year-old George Owen Smith, who was sent to the school after being caught in a stolen car.

In December 1940, George’s mother, Frances Smith, sent a letter to the school inquiring after her son’s welfare. She received a reply from Superintendent Millard Davison saying that no one knew where the teenager was.

A month later, the family was summoned to Florida Panhandle school and led to an unmarked grave.

Smith was in it, they were told – he had escaped and was found dead under a house. Frances Smith never accepted the story.

When Smith’s two-foot grave was opened last year, researchers found his body lying on its side without any clothes on with his hands over is head.

The reform school for boys opened its doors in 1900 on 1,400 acres of land and closed down only in 2011 for budget reasons.

Some former students from the 1950s and 1960s have for at least a decade accused employees and guards at the school of physical and sexual abuse, but the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded after an investigation that it couldn’t substantiate or dispute the claims because too much time had passed.

Many former Dozier inmates from that era call themselves ‘The White House Boys’ after the white building where they say the worst abuse took place.

In 2008, the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice held a ceremony to officially ‘seal’ the building and recognize the boys who passed through it.

At its peak in the 1960s, 500 boys were housed at the Dozier school, most of them for minor offenses such as petty theft, truancy or running away from home.

In 1968, when corporal punishment was outlawed at state-run institutions, then-Governor Claude Kirk visited and found the institution in disrepair with leaky ceilings, holes in walls, cramped sleeping quarters, no heating for the winters and buckets used as toilets.

‘If one of your kids were kept in such circumstances,’ he said then, ‘you’d be up there with rifles.’

In September 2014, the USF team identified two more sets of remains belonging to 13-year-old Thomas Varnadoe and 12-year-old Earl Wilson.

Varnadoe died in 1934, reportedly of pneumonia. Wilson was beaten to death in 1944, reportedly by four other boys while in a small confinement cottage on the property, known as the ‘sweat box.’ The other boys were convicted in his death.”

‘Rape dungeon’ and students hunted down and killed as they tried to escape: Report details a century of horrific abuse at notorious Florida reform school
[Daily Mail 2/5/15  by Associated Press and Snejana Farberov]