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

[MuffyBee]

...not to mention sick   

 

     What I find also sad and sick beyond what may have happened at the school is that although we can't change what may have occurred ,  those against investigating and attempting to identify the remains because it might harm the reputation of the community or cast a shadow over Marianna are really the ones doing that to themselves by not wanting to get to the truth.  JMHO

[MuffyBee]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-graves-reveal-reform-school-horrors-recall-witnesses/story?id=20172337
Florida Graves Reveal Reform School Horrors, Recall Witnesses and Families
Septmber 6, 2013

2 pages

Video at Link

[MuffyBee]

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/tarrant/Fort-Worth-center-will-help-ID-boys-with-no-names-224347501.html
Fort Worth center will help ID boys with no names
September 18, 2013


Boys with no name Credit: CNN
The UNT Health Science Center in Fort Worth will attempt to identify skeletal remains found buried on the campus of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida.

FORT WORTH — The University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth is working to identify skeletal remains found buried on the grounds of a Florida reform school.
The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys opened in 1900 and closed its doors two years ago.
“There have been allegations of abuse of the boys, and possibly even boys that were claimed to have run away but were never heard from,” said Arthur Eisenberg, Ph.D., chairman of Forensic and Investigative Genetics at the UNT facility. “They never returned to their families. They just disappeared.”
The center teamed up with the University of South Florida to identify the remains. The USF team started digging on the school lot Labor Day weekend. Two coffins with remains inside were found and the digging continues.
Eisenberg’s team will be in charge of DNA testing and analysis.
“You have to get whatever DNA is left in the remains, but then you need to compare the bones to samples, family reference samples,” Dr. Eisenberg explained.
At least ten families provided DNA samples. According to the center, the remains are expected to arrive later this year.
“We need those remains to be compared to close relatives who may still be alive,” Eisenberg said.
It’s the unknown and the pain that families have to live with every day that drives him.
 


Boys with no name Credit: CNN


Boys with no name Credit: CNN


Boys with no name Credit: CNN

[MuffyBee]

http://www.usforacle.com/students-recall-dozier-dig-1.2835651
The Oracle: University of South Florida
Students recall Dozier dig
By Roberto Roldan, ASST. NEWS EDITOR
Published: Tuesday, September 17, 2013

[MuffyBee]

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20131005-unt-sleuths-to-help-florida-identify-remains-from-boys-reform-school.ece
UNT sleuths to help Florida identify remains from boys’ reform school
October 5, 2013

 

At least 96 boys, the youngest 6 years old, and two adults died between 1914 and 1973 at Florida’s school for troubled boys (eventually called the Arthur G. Dozier School) investigations have found.
But old ledgers are a jumble, grave markers are misplaced and 22 known deaths have no recorded burials. Forensic anthropologists from the University of South Florida needed ground-penetrating radar to find the remains — in the school cemetery and the woods.
After exhumation and analysis, bones will be sent to Fort Worth, to the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. So will DNA samples from as many living relatives as can be found.
“Who’s alive?” asked center co-director Arthur Eisenberg. “Who may be related to that missing boy from the 1950s — or the 1930s?”
Eisenberg’s hope: to turn bones back into boys.
•
“Incorrigible children [should] be sent, without conviction, for an indefinite period, leaving the term to be fixed by the management.” — School head W.H. Milton, 1903
•
Opened in 1900, the north Florida school soon needed more boys and income. Florida sent more young criminals, rebellious teens and sinless orphans.
Disease, accidents or murder; escape and disappearance; escape and violent death came to some.
Finding the missing and restoring names to the unknown dead is nationwide work. Yet only a few institutions and people specialize in it.
DNA expert Rhonda Roby is an associate professor at the UNT Health Science Center. She has helped identify U.S. servicemen and servicewomen, Branch Davidians, the Romanovs and victims of the 9/11 attacks, airplane crashes and murders.
Eisenberg, also a DNA expert, worked on 9/11 and advises police worldwide.
In Fort Worth, the center’s missing persons unit extracts DNA from remains. At UNT in Denton, the center’s forensic anthropologists examine bones for age, sex, race and cause of death.
The University of South Florida in Tampa is doing the forensic anthropology before DNA tests in Fort Worth. The Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice is paying for forensics and DNA work.
USF forensics leader Erin H. Kimmerle and colleagues pressed for the Dozier School exhumation. She has investigated genocide, war crimes and other human-rights cases.
•
“We found them in irons, just as common criminals. … It is nothing more nor less than a prison where juveniles are confined.” — Legislative committee, 1903
•
Dozier bones might reveal homegrown abuses and the legacy of Jim Crow. White and black boys ate, slept and were buried apart.
•
“[The black section] impressed your committee as being more in the nature of a convict camp, than anything else we can think of.” — Legislative committee, 1911
•
In 1911 came the first recorded death: “unknown colored boy,” no name, cause of death or gravesite.
Bones come to Fort Worth from around the country; the most recent Cut Day, held every other Tuesday, handled 30 cases: Michigan, Arkansas, elsewhere. Dozier bones haven’t been sent yet.
Most arrive by standard delivery, said missing-persons unit technical leader Dixie Peters, who, like most of the technicians, earned her master’s degree at the UNT Health Science Center. Some agencies deliver in person; in 2011, a Chicago officer flew down with nameless remains of eight boys killed by John Wayne Gacy.
Remains are criminal evidence, photographed, given ID numbers and locked away until Cut Day.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has ruled out prosecutions in the Dozier cases, saying any guilty parties are dead. The UNT Health Science Center will use standard care anyway.
Bones are washed with bleach, with water numerous times, then with ethanol. Once cut, small pieces go into cylinders for freezing and pulverizing into powder.
The powder goes into a separate room where automated equipment extracts the DNA. Reference samples from family members get analyzed, too.
DNA results go into CODIS, a nationwide DNA database limited to official use, and NamUs, a public federal missing-persons system managed by the UNT Health Science Center.
It’s not known what trauma Dozier bones might yield.
•
“Dormitories of industrial school burned last night. Ten lives lost. Among the dead was your son, Joe Wetherbee. Bodies charred beyond identification. Will be buried here. Greatest sympathy to family.” — Telegram to a mother from acting Superintendent W.H. Bell, 1914
•
Bones might reveal daily life.
•
“Thirty five cases of pneumonia … boys lying under wool blankets, naked. With dirty husk mattresses on the cement floor … filth, body lice … [Black boys’ dinner] was hoe cake and bacon grease thickened with flour. The dinner of the white boys was rice and bacon grease gravy.
“One boy said he was flogged for refusing to cook peas full of worms and that meat sent to the boys was kept until spoiled and then fed [to] them and they were all sick.” — Dr. G.W. Klock, state inspector, 1918
•
Or they might reveal the fates of those who fled.
•
“Skull crushed from an unknown cause … date of birth … birthplace … father … mother [all] unknown.” — Death certificate of Thomas E. Curry, 15, sentenced indefinitely for delinquency; escaped 29 days later; killed on a bridge, 1925
•
Dozier married incarceration and child labor. Boys worked at a farm, a dairy, a brick factory or a plant that did state printing “at a savings to the taxpayers,” a superintendent wrote in 1926.
•
“A sad occurrence of Tuesday, January 5, was the death of Lee Smith, fifteen year old colored boy [trapped between two hitched mules]. … This marks the first serious accident in the school in many years and is regretted very much.” — The Yellow Jacket (school newspaper), 1932
•
Parents sometimes got different stories.
•
“[Superintendent Millard Davidson] told me how troubled he was about this untimely end to George’s life. … [Services were] in the Burial Plot of the School, that is kept nicely cleaned and cared for, and will be looked after in the years to come. So please know your son’s last rites were tenderly and considerately performed.” — The Rev. V.G. Lowery, letter to the mother of George Owen Smith, 14, found dead under a house two months after his second escape, 1941
•
George’s sister recalled otherwise.
•
“[Davidson] told us he did not receive any call from the minister and so my brother had been buried the afternoon before our arrival … within hours of his being found. We learned that he had not even been embalmed — no casket NOTHING. We were shown a fresh pile of dirt in a cemetery and were told that was where my brother was buried. …
“[Another boy] said the last thing he heard or saw were two or three guards shooting at my brother. I have always felt that he was shot and killed that night and had been buried to cover up that fact.” — Ovell Krell, George Owen Smith’s sister, letter to the Florida Division of Law Enforcement, 2008
•
Mitochondrial DNA, passed from mothers, could allow identification through any relative with the same mother or maternal grandmother as a Dozier boy. More recent cases might increase the chance of finding relatives. Even into more modern times, Dozier was dangerous.
•
“Boys volunteer for beatings to work way out of Marianna school … Brutality count to be aired … State board to meet on boy-beating … Hell’s 1400 acres … Spare the Rod.” — Newspaper headlines, 1957-58
“Gun shot wounds in chest: inflicted by person or persons unknown.” — Death certificate of Robert Jerald Hewett, 16, escaped 11 days after arrival; found dead of a shotgun blast two days later, 1960.
•
Unknown. Joe. Thomas. Lee. George. Robert. The rest. Some have families waiting to know; others are waiting for families to come forward.
 

Slide show with 4 images at link.

[MuffyBee]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/remains-excavated-fla-reform-school-yard-22266126
More Remains Excavated at Fla. Reform School Yard
January 28, 2014

The remains of 55 people have been unearthed from a graveyard at a former reform school with a history of abuse, researchers said Tuesday.

University of South Florida researchers began excavating the graveyard at the now-closed Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in September. The dig finished in December.

Official records indicated 31 burials at the Marianna site, but researchers had estimated there would be about 50 graves.

All the bodies found were interred in coffins either made at the school or bought from manufacturers, said Erin Kimmerle, a forensic anthropologist leading the university's investigation. Some were found under roads or overgrown trees, well away from the white, metal crosses marking the 31 officially recorded graves.

Now, researchers will try to identify the remains and determine the causes of death. The bodies were buried sometime between the late 1920s and early 1950s, researchers said.

"We know very little about those who are buried," Kimmerle said.

They found buttons, a stone marble in a boy's pocket and hardware from coffins. Researchers recovered thousands of nails and a brass plate that read, "At rest," likely from a coffin lid.

DNA from the remains will be sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification for analysis. Twelve families have contacted researchers in the hopes of identifying relatives that might have been buried at the school, and officials hope dozens of other families will come forward and provide DNA samples to compare with the remains.
 
Another dig is scheduled next month. Nearby residents and former employees and inmates at the northwest Florida school are helping investigators determine other potential burial sites, Kimmerle said.

Video at Link

[texasmom]

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/North-Texas-team-to-identify-bodies-exhumed-from-Florida-boys-school-242475491.html

North Texas team to identify bodies exhumed at Florida boys school



by DAVID SCHECHTER
Bio | Email | Follow: @davidschechter

WFAA

Posted on January 28, 2014 at 6:22 PM

FORT WORTH — Experts at the University of North Texas are preparing to identify the remains of additional dead bodies found at a shuttered juvenile detention facility in Florida.

Florida officials said Tuesday the number of bodies they've found at the Dozier School in Marianna is up to 55.

With long-standing allegations of abuse, rape, torture, and murder, the very thought of Florida's Dozier School — for a time the largest juvenile detention camp in America — still brings chills.

And now researchers believe they've discovered 55 unidentified graves at Dozier, five more than they previously believed existed.

A team at the University of North Texas Department of Forensic and Investigative Genetics will now work to identify the names of the dead.

"Essentially, we’re going to process these samples and then use the DNA technology that we work with on a daily basis to see if we can get any association between the reference samples and the remains,” department chairman Dr. Arthur Eisenberg told reporters.

Reference samples come from the DNA of living relatives. Right now, UNT already has five bone samples in house from earlier discoveries and reference for five missing boys.

Dr. Eisenberg also hopes anthropologists at the site in Florida find clues — like coffin fragments — that help date the time of a boy’s death.

 

[Sister]

why does this remind me of Nazi war crimes?
right here in our own backyard . . .
 

[theboyzmom]

why does this remind me of Nazi war crimes?
right here in our own backyard . . .
 

I agree sister. When I first heard of this case I downloaded one of the survivors book The Whitehouse Boys. What I read in there was horrifying - and that was from someone that lived. I hate to imagine what happened to those that did not live.   

[MuffyBee]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/55-bodies-exhumed-at-shuttered-fla-reform-school/
55 BODIES EXHUMED AT SHUTTERED FLA. REFORM SCHOOL
January 28, 2014

Tampa, Fla. - An excavation has uncovered the remains of 55 people, apparently children, in a graveyard at the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida—five more than researchers expected to exhume and 24 more than officials records indicate should be there, researchers announced Tuesday.

According to state records, 96 boys died while incarcerated at the Dozier School for Boys, formerly known as the Florida State Reform School and the Florida Industrial School for Boys. Opened at the turn of the twentieth century in Marianna, west of Tallahassee, the juvenile detention center became notorious for allegations of abuse and brutality against the boys who were housed there and has been the subject of repeated state and federal investigations.
 
All 55 bodies uncovered appear to be children, researchers said, a USF spokeswoman told CBS News’ Crimesider. Researchers hope DNA testing will reveal more information about the deceased.
 

“This project has always been about fulfilling a fundamental human right for families who, like all of us, have a right to know what happened to their loved ones and are entitled to bury their relatives in a manner in which they deem proper,” said Erin Kimmerle, USF associate professor and project leader, during a press conference.

Through the university, Kimmerle and her team were granted a permit to conduct archaeological research at the site in 2011. Using technology including ground penetrating radar, the team found grave shafts of at least 50 unmarked burial sites. Five more bodies were uncovered during the excavation process.

Scientists hope to identify the remains using scientific techniques including DNA matching, according to the press release. Eleven surviving families of former Dozier students have been located and the Hillsborough County Sherriff’s Office is in the process of collecting DNA samples from them.

However, researchers are still in search of 42 families from which to collect DNA, according to the statement. They’ve released a list of those families online, and anyone with more information is urged to call Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Master Detective Greg Thomas at (813) 247-8678.

Researchers uncovered bones, teeth, and numerous artifacts in all of the 55 burials, according to the press statement. They will develop a “summary report” for each body, including information gleaned from skeletal and dental remains, artifacts, and burial context.

Bone and tooth samples will be submitted for DNA testing, according to the statement.

Fieldwork is set to resume at the shuttered school in coming months, according to the statement, and researchers will continue to search for unmarked burials using specially-trained K-9 teams and ground penetrating radar.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.wtsp.com/news/topstories/article/354538/250/55-bodies-found-buried-at-Dozier-reform-school
24 more bodies found at Dozier School for Boys than official records indicate; total currently stands at 55
January 28, 2014

St. Petersburg, FL - University of South Florida researchers say they've located 55 bodies at the now-closed Dozier School for Boys in the Florida panhandle. That's 24 more than official records indicate.
 
USF researchers will continue doing field work at Dozier through early August. The researchers needed permission from the state before they were allowed to begin exhuming graves.

Kimmerle says they'll resume work on site next month, using specially trained K9 teams to locate any additional burials. They have already used ground-penetrating radar to find bodies.

So far, bone and tooth samples from five bodies have been sent to the University of North Texas Health Science Center for DNA testing.
 


Link to pdf list of families that researchers are searching for:
http://www.wtsp.com/assetpool/documents/140128023059_5997-Dozier%20family%20chart.pdf

Anyone with with information is asked to contact Hillsborough County Sheriff's Master Detective Greg Thomas at 813-247-8678.

Slide show with 31 images at link in article.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-justice-for-dozier-boys/2163654
Editorial: Justice for Dozier boys
January 31, 2014

[MuffyBee]

http://www.theledger.com/article/20140209/news/140209235
Cadaver Dogs Help With Dozier Search
February 9, 2014

[MuffyBee]

http://tbo.com/news/education/martinez-takes-up-fight-to-get-reparations-for-dozier-victims-20140215/
Bob Martinez takes up fight to get reparations for Dozier victims
February 15, 2014

[MuffyBee]

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/UNT-scientists-begin-work-to-identify-bones-found-buried-at-Florida-Boys-School-248906911.html
UNT scientists begin work to identify bones buried at Fla. boys' school
March 6, 2014

FORT WORTH -- Inside the University of North Texas's Health Science Center, there are bones to be sanded, cut out, and washed.

It’s procedure and precision that counts in the lab, but it’s not without feeling. Each scientist knows they’re working to heal a family’s devastating pain.
 
Crews found 55 unmarked graves in the last two years, and five of those bone fragments are at UNT's facility in Fort Worth.

The process of learning who these five are will be a long one, starting with a square section of bone.

"We cut the little piece out, it gets cleaned, cut into smaller pieces," Roby said. "Then those smaller pieces are put into a compactor core which then pulverizes the bone sample."

Then, from a powder, scientists extract mitochondrial DNA.

"One reason you use mitochondrial DNA is because in an aged, very old sample, sometimes that’s all we can amplify and are able to visualize," Roby said.

This is extremely important in this case, where some of the boys buried on campus could have died 100 years ago. That DNA will then be matched with families who've donated theirs to see if they can finally find out what happened to their loved one who attended Dozier, but never came back.

Video & photos at link.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/07/us/florida-boys-school-dna-match/
Boy missing since 1940 ID'd at shuttered Florida boys school
August 7, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* George Owen Smith went missing in 1940 after being sent to Florida boys school
* After bodies exhumed from site, Ovell Krell learns that one is long-lost brother
* Dozier School for Boys closed in 2011 after ex-students reported decades of abuse
* Krell says even at age 12 she never believed claims her brother died of pneumonia

CNN) -- On their deathbeds — her father's in the 1960s and her mother's in the 1980s — Ovell Krell's parents made her promise she'd never stop looking for her brother.
"Will you find Owen and bring him back?" she recalls her dad asking.
"I'll try until the day I die, Daddy," she replied.
After more than seven decades, the 85-year-old has found Owen. She hopes to soon lay him to rest at the Auburndale, Florida, cemetery where her parents are buried.
Her mom, after all, instructed her, "Put him with me and daddy."
George Owen Smith was sent at age 14 to the Florida Industrial School for Boys in 1940 for car theft. Krell never saw him again, and her family was told he died of pneumonia after running away from the school and hiding under a house in town.
 
Aware of the school's history, Erin Kimmerle, a University of South Florida forensic anthropologist, led a team in 2012 that unearthed remains on the former campus. That bodies lay there was no secret -- 31 rusty, white crosses marked the resting places of victims who died from a dormitory fire, influenza, pneumonia and other causes -- but Kimmerle's team found 55 bodies on the 1,400-acre property.
Owen's body, the team found out last month, was the first to be pulled out of the ground. The university announced the finding Thursday.
"We hope it's the first of many identifications to come," Kimmerle said.
After sending DNA samples to the University of North Texas' Health Science Center, Kimmerle got a call July 25, telling her that one of the samples was a positive match for Krell, who, like other family members, had provided reference samples to researchers.
Kimmerle, who was chief forensic anthropologist for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and has worked to excavate mass graves all over the world, including in Nigeria and Peru, was elated.
"Two years ago, (Krell) was inspirational to us to get involved and do this work. To find her brother and to find him first, we were all a little bit in shock," she said.
She drove to Lakeland with officers from the Hillsborough Sheriff's Department to tell Krell in person -- out of respect, but also because she didn't want Krell to be alone when she got the news.
"It was a total and complete surprise. It shocked me totally numb for a moment. I couldn't say a word. I just looked at her," Krell said. "This, to me, is a miracle because when I think of all the boys and all the graves -- I know they sent 55 remains to be tested, and I'm the only one where they found a match?"
Unfortunately, researchers still don't know how Owen died. It's unclear whether the medical examiner will be able to determine a cause of death, Kimmerle said, and Florida's District 14 medical examiner Michael Hunter did not return a call seeking comment.
 
Dogged pursuit of the truth
Years ago, Krell became worried that her brother's story might go to the grave with her, so she thought, "I've got to write all this down while it's in my mind."
This is a stupid story to tell. ... It was all a bunch of lies.
Ovell Krell
She jotted down what she knew and sent it to the governor, media, FBI, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, anyone she thought might be able to help find out what happened to Owen.
The St. Petersburg Times produced a 2009 special report, "For their own good," and the FDLE opened a 2008 investigation at the behest of then-Gov. Charlie Crist.
Though ex-students provided detailed accounts of vicious beatings, sexual abuse and disappearances (Kimmerle's team found records indicating 22 boys who died at the school weren't accounted for), guards and administrators who are still alive denied the beatings.
The FDLE concluded there was insufficient evidence of physical or sexual abuse or that anyone died as a result of a criminal act.
"I really had begun to give up hope that they'd ever find him," Krell said.
At age 12, Krell thought the stories about her brother were baloney. Even his arrest seemed fishy. Car theft? Owen was 14 and had never been behind the wheel of a car. Automatic transmissions weren't as prevalent in those days. You had to know how to work a clutch and shift gears.
Despite coming from a loving but poor family, Owen ran away more than once. He always wanted to play in Nashville's "Grand Ole Opry." His passion was guitar, but "he could walk into any music store and play any instrument" without taking a single lesson, Krell said.
Krell suspects he was en route to Tennessee when he was arrested in Tavares, Florida, with a 19-year-old man.
"Owen had the wanderlust because he had so much in his body to give, and he just wanted to go out there and give it," she said. "He had God-given talent coming out of the pores of his skin. ... I never understood why God let him be born with that talent and let him be taken away like that."'
'I got what was coming to me'
Owen ran away a few weeks after arriving at the Florida Industrial School for Boys. He was quickly apprehended and wrote home to tell his family about it.
Krell remembers one chilling sentence in the letter: "I got what was coming to me."
"Those were the most ominous words," she said. "After that letter, we never heard from him again."
Her mother wrote the school, inquiring as to his whereabouts. She was told he'd run away again.
"So far we have been unable to get any information concerning his whereabouts. We will be glad to get in touch with you just as soon as we are able to locate George, and in the meantime, we will appreciate your notifying us immediately if you receive any word from or concerning him," Superintendent Millard Davidson wrote in January 1941.
Her mother wrote the school and said she would be traveling to Marianna, a five-hour drive today, "and she would not leave until she knew what happened," Krell recalled.
More...

Video at Link

[MuffyBee]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/11/first-of-55-bodies-buried-at-florida-reform-school-identified/
First of 55 bodies buried at Florida reform school identified. Researchers seek more DNA matches.
August 11, 2014


An undated photo of George Owen Smith is shown on Aug. 7th, 2014 at the University of South Florida in Tampa.  George Owen Smith is the first victim positively identified from one of the 55 unmarked graves the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. (AP photos/Chis O'Meara)

 
“Four months he was missing before my mother threatened to start investigating, and the day before she arrives, they very mysteriously find his body under a house, totally-and-completely-beyond-recognition decomposed,” Krell told CNN.

The details of Owen’s death were sketchy at best. The school told the family he was found dead under a nearby house where they suspected he crawled and died of exposure. Kimmerle told The Washington Post there is no death certificate for Owen, only a school roster and historical newspaper clips that report that same story. Still, Krell said she always had difficulty believing it. A fellow student allegedly with him during the second attempted escape later told Krell her brother was shot at by three men with rifles as he fled, according to news reports.

“If they shot him and killed him that night, I’d consider it a blessing because I know now what they did to him if they got him back to that school alive,” Krell told CNN.

During last year’s excavation, Kimmerle’s team had to clear trees and brush to reach many of the graves, which were hidden in thick woods. That’s where Owen’s body was found, buried in an unmarked grave shallower than the others, lying on his side with his hands covering his head, Kimmerle said. According to the university’s report, some did die following attempted escapes, but it’s unclear whether medical examiners will ever be able to determine what exactly happened to Owen.

It was never a secret there were bodies buried at the school. Official records cite 31 burials between its opening in 1900 and its closure in 2011. The excavation, Kimmerle said, was initially prompted by families searching for loved ones who never came home. Researchers applied for permits and, about a year ago, the Florida Cabinet met and approved the dig, she said.

But it wasn’t until late last month that DNA linked Owen to his sister. When Kimmerle and a small team recently knocked on her door to deliver the news, Kimmerle said Krell was in shock that researchers were actually able to find her brother and identify him.
 

[MuffyBee]

Can you believe the postcard?!

http://myfox8.com/2014/08/07/boy-missing-since-1940-identified-at-closed-florida-boys-school/
Boy missing since 1940 identified at closed Florida boys school
August 7, 2014

Photo gallery with six images.

[Sister]

Can you believe the postcard?!

http://myfox8.com/2014/08/07/boy-missing-since-1940-identified-at-closed-florida-boys-school/
Boy missing since 1940 identified at closed Florida boys school
August 7, 2014

Photo gallery with six images.

This is so sad . . . 

[MuffyBee]

http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2014/9/24/dozier_school_remain.html
2 more sets of remains from Dozier School for Boys ID'd
September 24, 2014

TAMPA (AP) --
University of South Florida researchers say they have identified two more sets of remains buried on the grounds of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.

In August, researchers said they had identified George Owen Smith as the first of 55 bodies they 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. Researchers will announce details regarding two more sets of remains during a news conference Thursday.