Grave Exhumations & Investigation at The Dozier School for Boys, Marianna, FL

[MuffyBee]

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-504083_162-10017794-1.html
Historic Photographs: The Dozier School for Boys


Florida's former Dozier School for Boys, seen here in a 1968 photograph, has earned a lasting reputation for abuse of its inmates, CBS News reports. 96 boys died at the school, and 45 are believed to be buried at the site, where a large-scale exhumation effort will soon begin. Former Florida Governor Claude Kirk, left, tours the school in this 1968 photograph.

Author: Crimesider Staff
Credit: Florida Memory Project


In 1968, corporal punishment was outlawed in state-run institutions. That same year, then Florida Governor Claude Kirk, right, visited the school then known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Upon touring the school, Kirk said, If one of your kids were kept in such circumstances, youd be up here with rifles.

Author: Crimesider Staff
Credit: Florida Memory Project

[MuffyBee]

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-504083_162-10017794.html
Historic Photographs: The Dozier School for Boys

Photo gallery with 9 images.  (2 posted above)

[MuffyBee]

http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/2013/08/31/2752247/
Excavation of graves begins at old reform school
August 31, 2013

University of South Florida researchers began exhuming dozens of graves Saturday at the site of a former reform school. (August 31)

Video: 1:14

[MuffyBee]

http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/national/dozier-school-for-boys-investigation-florida-to-exhume-bodies-buried-at-former-boys-school
Dozier School for Boys investigation: Florida to exhume bodies buried at former boys school
August 31, 2013

(2 pgs)

[MuffyBee]

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/work-to-excavate-graves-begins-at-former-dozier-school-for-boys
Work to excavate graves begins at former Dozier school for boys
August 31, 2013

MARIANNA, Fla. - University of South Florida researchers began work to exhume dozens of graves Saturday at a former Panhandle reform school in hopes of identifying the boys buried there and learning how they died.

USF spokeswoman Lara Wade said in a message Saturday that the work had begun, with researcher measuring and marking the site. Researchers then will remove dirt with trowels and by hand to find the remains, which are believed to be 19 inches to 3-plus feet under the surface.

"In these historic cases, it's really about having an accurate record and finding out what happened and knowing the truth about what happened," said Erin Kimmerle, a USF anthropologist who is leading the excavation.
 

[MuffyBee]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/31/20273510-human-bones-found-in-dig-at-notorious-dozier-reform-school-in-florida
Human bones found in dig at notorious Dozier reform school in Florida
August 31, 2013

MARIANNA, Fla. - Teams of searchers recovered human bones from the sands of Florida Panhandle woodlands on Saturday in a "boot hill" graveyard where juveniles who disappeared from a notorious reform school more than a half-century ago are believed to have been secretly buried.
"We have found evidence of burial hardware - hinges on coffins," said Dr. Christian Wells, an anthropologist from the University of South Florida, in a briefing about a mile from the closed excavation site near the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.
"There appear to be a few pieces associated with burial shrouds, and there are pins consistent with the 1920s and 1930s, - based on the style of the pins - and they appear to be brass," he said.
Some "large-bone fragments" were found on the first day of digging, Wells said. They were human bones, he added, but it was impossible to know if they came from any of the teenaged boys who were housed at Dozier during its infamous 111-year existence. The school was closed in mid-2011.
The bones will be examined in laboratories at the University of South Florida and the University of North Texas, as part of a program funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and state of Florida.
After forensic investigators, using ground-piercing radar and old public records, detected 31 spots showing possible human remains, researchers planted crude white crosses on a nearby hillside to commemorate the unaccounted-for boys.

 

The forensic teams will work through Tuesday. Remains that can be identified will be re-interred at family plots and any unidentified remains will be numbered and buried - with records kept for later return to families, if any come forward.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/human-remains-found-in-shallow-hole-at-dozier-school/2139448
Human remains found in shallow hole at Dozier school
August 31, 2013

MARIANNA — At sunup Saturday, in a clearing surrounded by kudzu-heavy woods on the campus of a brutal reform school, a team of researchers carefully began digging holes around a little clandestine cemetery, hoping the red dirt would give up its secrets.

They were searching for the remains of young wards of the Dozier School for Boys, who died in state custody and were buried without the dignity of a permanent marker.
 
The team of about 20 anthropologists, archaeologists, police detectives and graduate students say their fieldwork on this inaugural trip will end Tuesday, but they plan to return later for several more weeks of work. The first day "went very well, as we expected," Kimmerle said. "It's a very slow process and we wanted to start out using very traditional archaeological methods to control the context."

By sundown, they had opened three large holes, slowly digging deeper into the red clay and darker patches of mottled earth, which indicate burial shafts. They sifted the dirt for coffin nails, burial furniture and other artifacts that might add context.

Across Pennsylvania Avenue, on what was the white side of campus before integration, a group of older men stood before a tall chain-linked fence topped with razor wire. They call themselves the Black Boys of Dozier and the White House Boys, and they're the impetus for the archaeological work.

In 2008, after decades of silence, a group of them went public with stories of physical and sexual abuse in the 1950s and 1960s at the school, then called the Florida School for Boys or the Florida Industrial School. As their numbers grew into the hundreds, stories surfaced of classmates who disappeared and of ruthless guards who beat them bloody in a squat building on campus called the White House. The men felt insulted when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 2009 found no evidence of foul play and didn't use ground penetrating radar to map the graveyard. Using GPR two years later, USF found 50 possible grave shafts, 19 more than the FDLE found.

The men came Saturday to show solidarity, and to bear witness.

Among them stood Tananarive Due, an author and professor from Atlanta. Her great uncle, Robert Stephens, died at the school in 1937. School records say he was killed by another student, but the family has heard conflicting stories. They want to learn what happened to him, and to rebury his remains at the family plot in Quincy.

"That would be a great sense of homecoming," she said.

She and her family drove to the little cemetery and stood among the crosses as pastor Ronald Mizer, from the local St. James AME Church, prayed with them.

"We're not here to castigate the state of Florida, but it was important to me to be here so that my grandson could understand," said her father, John Due, a lawyer, who draped his arm over the 9-year-old grandson's shoulder. "So that we could resolve some of the bitterness."

"Thank you all for your good work," Tananarive Due told the researchers.

"Thank you for keeping the story alive," her father said.

The Dues and the families of six other boys who died here have submitted DNA samples to help identify remains. They were happy the project was approved by the Florida Cabinet last month, after several challenges.

Some Jackson County residents, led mostly by amateur historian Dale Cox, have been upset by the project and have tried to stop it. Cox only recently quit his campaign to halt the exhumations. Local politicians say they're worried the media coverage of the exhumations will reflect poorly on rural Jackson County and on Marianna, "the City of Southern Charm," population 9,000.

But many here have been welcoming. Deputies from the Jackson County Sheriff's Office are providing security at the site. The Marianna police chief drove out to see if the researchers needed anything. One woman approached the group at a Mexican restaurant on Friday evening.

"Are you the folks doing the exhumations?" she whispered. "I hope you find the truth."

Jan Poller, who has lived in Marianna since 1983, drove to the site Saturday morning and introduced herself to a USF representative. She said she wanted to thank the team.

"I know you got a lot of negative responses, but this is something that needs to be resolved," she said. "If you had a relative missing all these years, you'd want to know what happened."

[theboyzmom]

This is such a horrible story. I hope that some peace can come to the families and men that were at this place.

[Nut44x4]

 

[MuffyBee]

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/hefty-federal-grant-will-help-fund-unique-dozier-graves-project/2138703
Hefty federal grant will help unearth graves at old Dozier School for Boys
August 28, 2013

or decades, the little graveyard on the campus of the old Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna was all but forgotten. Once in a while, inmates from the nearby county jail would cut the grass at Boot Hill while the Panhandle sun baked the crooked rows of 31 pipe crosses that didn't even mark actual graves. But visitors to the clearing in the pines were few and far between.

On Saturday, as forensic anthropologists and archaeologists from the University of South Florida will begin unearthing remains of the boys buried here, many will turn their attention to the cemetery on the edge of town, about an hour's drive west of Tallahassee.

USF has fielded requests for information from media outlets around the world, a spokeswoman said. And a new Department of Justice grant for $423,528, announced today, coupled with $190,000 from the state, will fund the exhumations and DNA testing that researchers will use to identify the remains and determine how the boys met their deaths.
Dr. Greg Ridgeway, acting director of the DOJ's National Institute of Justice, which issued the grant, said the project is unique.

"As far as I know, we haven't done this kind of mass site before," he said. "In addition to the compelling story in this particular case … as a science agency, we recognize that there's a lot we can learn here."
More...

Video at Link

[MuffyBee]

http://www.tallahassee.com/viewart/20130901/NEWS01/309010023/Town-tight-lipped-about-publicity-old-wound-
Town tight-lipped about publicity on 'old wound'
August 31, 2013

MARIANNA — As university researchers dig into an unsavory chapter of Marianna’s past, many in the rural Panhandle community would simply prefer the issue remain buried.

With the name of the city repeatedly associated with news reports about decades of questionable deaths at the former state-run Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, many in downtown Marianna on Thursday preferred to remain tight-lipped about the excavation of unmarked graves that began Saturday.

At Florida Land Title, an employee noted he served on a number of local boards as a reason not to publicly discuss how the coverage and research is impacting the city. Meanwhile, a worker at ERA Chipola Realty in Marianna declined to comment, saying the firm’s “clientele is the community, and we try not to choose sides on things that could be political.”

Those willing to speak called the work — approved by Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet — a waste of taxpayer money, with one saying the effort by University of South Florida researchers is to “make a reputation and make money.”

When asked about the excavation, long-time Marianna resident Ken Stoutamire summed up his feelings by saying he had “disgust” with the government for allowing the dig to proceed.

“I don’t know of anybody who approves of it around here,” said Stoutamire, whose family has been farming in the Panhandle since before Florida achieved statehood. “It doesn’t reflect good on Marianna. There is just Marianna and the boy’s school. The association is hurting us. And we need them to get out of here.”

Marianna resident Bill Hopkins said the excavation is “dragging up an old wound.”

“I haven’t heard anybody saying that just because this is happening out here I’m not going to stop here, but it’s just a shadow over our community that we don’t need,” said Hopkins, a World War II veteran who has lived in the city of just more than 6,000 for 43 years.
 

The university researchers, led by Erin Kimmerle and Christian Wells, have a one-year window to search the grounds for reportedly unaccounted-for bodies of boys who died between 1900 and 1952.

“The lady (researcher) had the best of intentions, that’s my gut feeling, but she probably didn’t know the lay of the land before she got into it,” said Jesse Smallwood a retiree who moved from Melbourne to Marianna two years ago as a less-expensive place to take care of his wife. “They’ll do a lot of digging but not get much done from it.”

[Sister]

This is such a horrible story. I hope that some peace can come to the families and men that were at this place.

absolutely!

 

[MuffyBee]

http://www.pnj.com/viewart/20130903/NEWS02/130903014/First-phase-grave-excavations-former-Dozier-School-Boys-complete
First phase of grave excavations at former Dozier School for Boys complete
September 3, 2013

MARIANNA — Researchers unearthed the remains of two children buried at a former reform school that had a history of extreme abuse, and the bones will be analyzed in hopes of identifying the children and determining how they died, the anthropologist leading the excavation said Tuesday.

Based on the size of the remains, the children probably were between the ages of 10 and 13 when they died, said Erin Kimmerle, the University of South Florida professor who is heading the project to exhume an estimated 50 graves.

The remains were buried close to each other, but one had a very elaborate coffin and the other was plain, Kimmerle said. The coffins were different sizes and one was found a little less than 1.5 feet below the surface and the other more than 2.5 feet below the ground.

"It probably reflects a very different period in time and different people involved in the burial," she said.
 
On Tuesday, researchers were restoring the area they dug. The remains will be brought to Tampa, where they'll be studied.

DNA from the remains will be sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification for analysis. The hope is that it can be matched to relatives. Ten families have contacted researchers in hopes of identifying relatives that might be buried at Dozier.

Based on the art deco style of the more elaborate coffin, Kimmerle said she believes it was made sometime after the 1930s. Shroud pins were found with the remains, meaning the child was wrapped in a shroud before he was buried. Buttons were found with the other set of remains. There wasn't enough information to estimate when that child was buried.

The team will return to the area in the fall to excavate the other graves. The four days of work was done in part to work out logistics on how to complete the project.

Families of any children identified through the research will be able to claim the remains and bury them in family plots. Files will be kept of any unidentified remains and they will be reinterred where they were found.

USF will also look for any other areas where people might be buried.

"We have some additional areas that we're interested in searching and winter months are best because if you're checking out in the woods you don't want the vegetation," Kimmerle said.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/topstories/article/326466/483/Remains-of-two-boys-exhumed-at-controversial-Dozier-School-for-Boys
Remains of two boys exhumed at controversial Dozier School for Boys
September 3, 2013

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The first phase of exhuming bodies from the former Dozier School for Boys has wrapped up following four days of excavation work by University of South Florida researchers in Marianna.

The USF team led by Professor Erin Kimmerle focused this past weekend on exhuming the remains of two boys located deep in the woods on the property of the reform school formerly operated by the state of Florida.

Dr. Kimmerle says a preliminary analysis of the boys' dental remains indicates they were between the ages of 10 and 13.

Now the skeletal and dental remains are heading to a secure facility at USF where they will be analyzed. DNA samples will be sent to the University of North Texas to try to find a match with families.

Kimmerle says that's the main goal of this mission -- reunite families with the remains of their loved ones.
 
So far, 10 families have submitted DNA samples in the hopes they can find a long lost relative.

Kimmerle says the condition of the remains is good, but it's too early to know how the boys died.

The two burials are quite different even though they are close to each other in the area known as Boot Hill Cemetery.

Kimmerle says one of the coffins has very extensive and elaborate hardware, while the other has none. One was buried about 80 centimeters down, while the other was only in a shallow grave of about 40 centimeters below the surface.

"So it probably reflects very different periods of time and different people involved in the burial."

The unmarked graves are located about 40 meters from an area marked with 31 white, metal crosses. Those crosses were placed years after burials and have no correlation to the location of bodies in the cemetery.

But Kimmerle says the excavated graves had been covered by thick brush and the roots caused a lot of damage.

"We see a lot of roots into the graves and root damage with the remains and that compromised them. So they were literally lost in the woods."

The team of USF anthropologists limited their work to the two bodies in this first phase because they wanted to test their equipment and protocols for future work.

They were surprised to discover the water table was so high, even on the hill where they believe about 50 boys were buried between 1900 and 1960.

It's unclear who is buried in the area around the old Boot Hill Cemetery and how they died.
 
Kimmerle says the team of about 25 USF researchers will return to the property later this fall to excavate more bodies. The timing will depend on the weather.

If September is dry, she says they'll be back in October. But if it's wet, the work may be delayed until November.

They have one year to complete their work under rules set by Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet.

Kimmerle says she thinks that will be enough time.

"We want to get it done in a year. We're very focused on that so I think if we find what we expect, we'll be able to hit that. If there's something unexpected, then who knows."
 
Kimmerle is making a point of thanking local residents for the support they've expressed in the team's work. She says residents are writing letters and verbally expressing their support for the work now under way at the old Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, which operated from 1900 to 2011.

Photo slide show at link.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/03/3604098/grave-excavation-begins-at-dozier.html
Grave excavation begins at Dozier school


Photo gallery with nine images of the excavations.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Local-Man-Speaks-Out-About-His-Experience-at-Dozier-School-For-Boys--222115331.html
Local Man Speaks Out On Dozier School Experience
September 2, 2013

 

Herbert Alexander attended Dozier School for Boys in 1962 and again in '63. He explained one of his experiences, "It's a white building but inside they got a bed and they got leather beside the wall and you lay on that bed and hold that bed and that's where they beat you down."

Herbert Alexander says he was sent to the Dozier School for Boys, and beat during his time there explaining, "So they beat you straight, some of them they couldn't beat straight. Some of them don't last."

The 67-year old was sent to the school twice. He says his time there made him who he is today-- a decorated and proud war veteran. Still, he says there's a dark cloud he cannot erase; "Those crosses that were up there, back then looked like toothpicks. You know they were little sticks with a cross and we would sit up there and think how are these boys going to get home."

That memory encouraged him to contact the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, in hope the families of those boys will find closure. FDLE's investigative findings stated "interviews confirmed... administrators used corporal punishment as a tool to encourage obedience."

Alexander says, "These boys that were left up there they weren't gonna never leave. So now I feel good about it that they taking the bodies and finally taking them home to wherever they came from."

Crews started excavating on the grounds Sunday. Anthropologists believe 19 more bodies-- on top of the 31 believed to be there-- are buried on the grounds. The bodies of 22 others still have not been accounted for.

Video at Link

[texasmom]

Thanks for all the updates, MuffyBee.   

So sad...   

[Nut44x4]

...not to mention sick   

[texasmom]

...not to mention sick   

 

[MuffyBee]

Thanks for all the updates, MuffyBee.   

So sad...   

You're welcome, texasmom.  I agree, it's so sad.