Bones unearthed in search at former Florida reform school
"human bones, ... impossible to know if they came from any of the teenaged boys who were housed at Dozier during its infamous 111-year existence. ... closed in mid-2011."
"... former residents of Dozier, now in their 60s and 70s, have told of brutal beatings and boys - mostly black juveniles - disappearing without explanation more than 50 years ago"
Bones unearthed in search at former Florida reform school
University of South Florida assistant professor of anthropology Dr. Erin Kimmerle exhumes a grave at the Boot Hill cemetery at the now closed Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, August 31, 2013. REUTERS-Edmund D Fountain-Pool
Bill Cotterell
MARIANNA, Florida
Sat Aug 31, 2013 10:45pm EDT
(Reuters) - 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 Old South 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," ...
"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.
"... part of a program funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and state of Florida."
"... 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."
"...former residents of Dozier, now in their 60s and 70s, have told of brutal beatings and boys - mostly black juveniles - disappearing without explanation more than 50 years ago. Blood relatives of some of the boys have given DNA samples, to be matched against evidence taken from the skeletal remains."
"Tananarive Due, who came to the dig with some family members, said her great-uncle, Robert Stephens, died at the school in 1937."
"The story was ... he tried to run away at one point," she said. "The official cause of death was a stabbing by another inmate, that's what it was listed as. But with so many of these boys, who knows how they died? Their families never had a chance to say 'good-bye' to their loved ones."
"Johnny Lee Gaddy, 67, said he was locked up from 1957 to 1961 for truancy. He said he was severely beaten, but in his teens became a good farm worker, hoping to get released."
"Gaddy said he had heard of teens disappearing without explanation"
link-
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/01/us-usa-florida-school-idUSBRE97U03720130901
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