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http://jezebel.com/they-were-truly-gone-solving-the-mysteries-of-the-dozi-1679570296/+maxread
The Florida authorities called the Dozier School for Boys a reformatory, a home for orphans or wayward boys who needed a little guidance. But the boys sent to the school called it Hell.
The Dozier School was located in the tiny town of Marianna, West of Tallahassee and three hours from the Georgia line. It opened in 1900 as the Florida State Reform School, and despite years of reports of series abuse and mistreatment, it remained open for over 100 years. At least 98 people died there over the years, two staff members and 96 boys aged six to 18. Men who were once Dozier residents recounted brutal beatings they received in the White House, a small outbuilding on the school grounds whose walls remain spattered with what looks like blood. More than one survivor has called the building "a torture chamber."
A group of men who were sent to the school in the 1950s and '60s have banded together to tell their stories: they call themselves the White House Boys. The Tampa Bay Times has done the best coverage of the Dozier School, including an investigation in 2009 that uncovered squalid conditions, staff neglect and mistreatment from 1900 to the present day, depicting the school, as they put it, as "a place of abuse and neglect, of falsified records, bloody noses and broken bones." (Meanwhile, some Marianna residents have called all the stories on the school "one-sided" and complained that the coverage has made the town look bad.)
In 2009, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated the abuse claims and said they were unable to substantiate them. But three years after Dozier finally closed its doors, an anthropological team has been working to uncover the schools' dead and its many secrets. What they've found since beginning work in January 2012 with federal funding casts significant doubt on the state's claims.
Dr. Erin Kimmerle is a forensic anthropologist, an associate professor at the University of South Florida and a leader of the team excavating Dozier. (Before coming to USF, she worked as the Chief Anthropologist at the Hague, analyzing mass graves in Bosnia and Croatia.) Along with two colleagues (Antoinette Jackson and Christian Wells) and a crew of graduate students, Kimmerle has been excavating Boot Hill, the burial ground at Dozier, as well as the surrounding area and trying, through DNA testing, to return the boys' remains to their families for a proper burial.
In January of 2014, the team exhumed 55 bodies—five more than they expected to find, 24 more than official records said were buried there. There are still many questions: how many boys lie buried under the Dozier grounds, their bodies slowly entwining with the roots of the mulberry trees around them? How did they die? And who do we hold accountable for the 100 years of suffering the Dozier school inflicted?
Last week I spoke on the phone with Dr. Kimmerle about her work at Dozier. The state says she and her team have until August 5 of this year to continue searching the school grounds.
The Florida authorities called the Dozier School for Boys a reformatory, a home for orphans or wayward boys who needed a little guidance. But the boys sent to the school called it Hell.
The Dozier School was located in the tiny town of Marianna, West of Tallahassee and three hours from the Georgia line. It opened in 1900 as the Florida State Reform School, and despite years of reports of series abuse and mistreatment, it remained open for over 100 years. At least 98 people died there over the years, two staff members and 96 boys aged six to 18. Men who were once Dozier residents recounted brutal beatings they received in the White House, a small outbuilding on the school grounds whose walls remain spattered with what looks like blood. More than one survivor has called the building "a torture chamber."
A group of men who were sent to the school in the 1950s and '60s have banded together to tell their stories: they call themselves the White House Boys. The Tampa Bay Times has done the best coverage of the Dozier School, including an investigation in 2009 that uncovered squalid conditions, staff neglect and mistreatment from 1900 to the present day, depicting the school, as they put it, as "a place of abuse and neglect, of falsified records, bloody noses and broken bones." (Meanwhile, some Marianna residents have called all the stories on the school "one-sided" and complained that the coverage has made the town look bad.)
In 2009, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated the abuse claims and said they were unable to substantiate them. But three years after Dozier finally closed its doors, an anthropological team has been working to uncover the schools' dead and its many secrets. What they've found since beginning work in January 2012 with federal funding casts significant doubt on the state's claims.
Dr. Erin Kimmerle is a forensic anthropologist, an associate professor at the University of South Florida and a leader of the team excavating Dozier. (Before coming to USF, she worked as the Chief Anthropologist at the Hague, analyzing mass graves in Bosnia and Croatia.) Along with two colleagues (Antoinette Jackson and Christian Wells) and a crew of graduate students, Kimmerle has been excavating Boot Hill, the burial ground at Dozier, as well as the surrounding area and trying, through DNA testing, to return the boys' remains to their families for a proper burial.
In January of 2014, the team exhumed 55 bodies—five more than they expected to find, 24 more than official records said were buried there. There are still many questions: how many boys lie buried under the Dozier grounds, their bodies slowly entwining with the roots of the mulberry trees around them? How did they die? And who do we hold accountable for the 100 years of suffering the Dozier school inflicted?
Last week I spoke on the phone with Dr. Kimmerle about her work at Dozier. The state says she and her team have until August 5 of this year to continue searching the school grounds.
