'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

University of South Florida researchers have found the remains of 51 people buried at Arthur G. Dozier School in Marianna, Florida
The reform school was in operation between 1900 and 2011
A 6-year-old boy ended up dead after being sent to work as a house boy, and another boy was found shot to death after escape attempt
To date, the remains of four people have been identified through DNA matches
Former inmates and employees talked about a 'rape dungeon' where boys, some younger than 12, were sexually assaulted
Some ex-Dozier inmates call themselves 'The White House Boys' after the white building where the worst abuse happened

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.


Buried and forgotten: This December 20, 2013, file photo shows where researchers found some of the remains of 55 people in a graveyard at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida

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.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2941503/Report-describes-horrific-treatment-deaths-reform-school.html#ixzz3TL4D7yPB
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The horrors of this world!