FL - White House Boys, Dozier School for Boys, Marianna

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MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has ordered an investigation to determine whether the remains of 32 students were buried decades ago in shallow graves on the grounds of a former reform school for boys.

The governor's action came at the urging of four former residents of what was known as the Florida School for Boys. The four alleged that students were abused and killed by guards decades ago at the school in Marianna, Florida, just south of the Georgia border.


http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/09/reform.school.graves/
 
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has ordered an investigation to determine whether the remains of 32 students were buried decades ago in shallow graves on the grounds of a former reform school for boys.

The governor's action came at the urging of four former residents of what was known as the Florida School for Boys. The four alleged that students were abused and killed by guards decades ago at the school in Marianna, Florida, just south of the Georgia border.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/09/reform.school.graves/

I was just reading this tonight on CNN! This could be an absolutely amazing case. I cannot imagine that there are no records of this place or the individuals that ran it somewhere. It's intriguing, to say the least. I look forward to hearing more about this. I wonder how much Google info is out there? May be too long ago.
 
I just saw this too - unbelievable. but a few things come to mind: 1. how did it take decades for this to come to light? 2. if there are graves on the grounds - shouldn't there be 32 families looking for their kids? how did these deaths go unnoticed? how did the school account for 32 missing kids? that's kind of a big number to cover up! did these kids just go randomly missing? what is the range of years? being the sleuthers that we are, would we be able to dig up a list of missing kids from those years that could possibly be in there? what a huge bombshell - I just can't get over it - 32 missing kids!
 
32 bodies can be explained by possible runaways and abandoned children that went wayward. The foster system wasn't what it is today, back in the 50's..
This ought to be one interesting case!
 
Back then (and now) the care system for people who couldn't care for themselves was staffed by a lot of underpaid workers who couldn't find other jobs. Then as now it was also a playground for predators and sexual sadists. There are some stories of care systems being exploited for sex rings or basically slave labor. You see it a lot in the old stories about the orphanages, insane asylums, poor houses and boys reform schools.

Back then it was mainly a housing system, with very little oversight by anyone. Basically they were just given some money and told to care for this population. Authorities didn't want to hear complaints, literally. They sometimes didn't want to hear about it at all. The attitude was what ever is wrong, just take care of it.

On the worker's side, they didn't have resources when extra assistance was needed (no counseling etc.), no education for the type of care they were giving, funds were minimal, and they were usually overpopulated. So even the ones who tried were fighting a difficult battle. If the truth were told, I think they would find this type of thing in many of the old care systems if anyone ever looked very hard.

Luckily now if they have a loss or a complaint about the care, they hopefully do investigations and take action. More oversight is given, but still sometimes a nursing home, or handicapped home will slip by for a while. There was a scandal here locally about a group home for the mentally handicapped, where there was mistreatment of the residents that went on for a while. But I don't think they lost anybody and they supposedly did clean it up eventually.

BTW has anyone ever heard of a "Girls" reform school from back then?
 
I gave this more thought overnight - a lot of these children were black, and back then, I'm sure black people who went missing went unreported by police departments, or a file just wasn't opened - either on purpose, because there were cases of police depts being in cahoots with the KKK - or because of the whole ingrained racism of the system in general. I was looking back at missing persons cases from the 1950s and noticing that although in general there were very few missing persons reports in general, specifically the persons who were reported were mostly white, and you know there had to be more black people missing during that era.

I think families who had children in that school and were told that their kid had "run away" should come forward. it's unfortunate that it has taken this long however, and that how many of those children will still have living family members? there has to be living people though who were told that their siblings had run away, never to be seen again...perhaps this will get them thinking. It's also unfortunate that they will probably not be able to prosecute anyone for it - if any of the perpetrators are still alive, they are probably in their 80s and 90s by now, at least.
 
Some of the boys were sent there since they ran away from orphanages and places as such. I doubt if missing, they would have been reported..
 
This tears me up:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/09/reform.school.graves/

(snip)
The White House boys, who are all white, told CNN that black kids at the school were beaten even more savagely than white kids.
"I said to myself, 'What's going to happen to me, if I take him out?' " he told CNN. He recalled being about 15 feet away from the boy in the dryer. He thought about helping him, but was afraid.
"I said to myself, I can't do it, cause I'm gonna be the next one in the God-d-- dryer if I take him out," he said.
"I turned my back and walked out and it torments me every day of my life."
 
This entire story is chilling! I think after searching the graves, some of them will have more than one "body" in them.

I am glad these men came forward. I can't imagine witnessing this and carrying it with me for the rest of my life.
 
This tears me up:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/09/reform.school.graves/

(snip)
The White House boys, who are all white, told CNN that black kids at the school were beaten even more savagely than white kids.
"I said to myself, 'What's going to happen to me, if I take him out?' " he told CNN. He recalled being about 15 feet away from the boy in the dryer. He thought about helping him, but was afraid.
"I said to myself, I can't do it, cause I'm gonna be the next one in the God-d-- dryer if I take him out," he said.
"I turned my back and walked out and it torments me every day of my life."


This is extremely sad! :mad:
 
IMO, 32 death's of young kids in that short of timespan seems like alot.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,464748,00.html

(snip)
"I witnessed them killing a boy, OK. They beat him to death," Stratton told MyFOXTampaBay.com. "The state of Florida beat him at the White House. And I watched it; I seen it."
 
I did find this link....(picture of a few unnamed/marked graves)

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~fljackso/cemeteries/Dozier.html


Although it doesnt say when the fire occurred (found it in the below article..1914), but if true then perhaps the deaths happened from that....or they "the perps" made up the fire to cover the deaths of this boys??

Did find this snip from another article.....

"
Florida Governor Charlie Crist ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the allegations made by Roger Kiser and the other White House Boys. The Department of Juvenile Justice is cooperating but has no records that explain the existence of the cemetery at the reform school. One theory concerning who may be in the graves centers around the deaths of six boys after a 1914 fire, but that would account for only a few of the 30 or more graves at the Dozier School for Boys."

Came from this link....
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1288568/dozier_school_for_boys_cemetery_to.html?page=2


Actually after reading these...my thoughts are the fire happened and then the boys allegedly were murdered and buried amongst the already dead forty yrs later. Marked with similar crosses to make look alike.

I believe these men. What would make them come forward (aside from money...which is an EXCELLENT reason) individaully (apparently they didnt know each other before hand....from what I read). Interesting case.
 
Lulu, i think it's great, also. Many of these men had been keeping inside the abuse until the one started the website and reached out to others who were there. They can also make a sort of "timeline" if they have a lot of people from different years.
 

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