RESEARCHERS from a Florida university has begun exhuming dozens of graves at a notorious former reform school where ex-inmates from the 1950s and 1960s have detailed horrific beatings that took place in a small, white concrete block building at the facility.
A group of survivors that call themselves the "White House Boys" have pushed for five years for an investigation into the graves at the former Dozier Boys School, which was plagued by scandal almost from its inception; tales of physical, mental and sexual abuse of the children have been documented.
The school opened in 1900 and shut down two years ago for budgetary reasons.
After the state ended an investigation in 2010 and said it could not substantiate or refute claims that boys died at the hands of staff, the University of South Florida began its own research and discovered even more graves than the state had identified.
USF has worked for months to secure a permit to exhume the remains, finally receiving permission from Governor Rick Scott and the state Cabinet after being rejected by Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who reports to Scott.
USF spokeswoman Lara Wade said in a message on Saturday that the work had begun.
Researchers are removing dirt with trowels and by hand to find the remains believed to be between about 50 centimetres to a little more than 90 centimetres 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.
Kimmerle said the remains of about 50 people were in the graves. Some are marked with a plain, white steel cross, and others have no markings.
The school segregated white and black inmates and the remains were located where black inmates were held, Robert Straley, a spokesman for the "White House Boys," said.
He suspects there is another white cemetery that hasn't been discovered.
"I think that there are at least 100 more bodies up there," he said.
"At some point they are going to find more bodies, I'm dead certain of that. There has to be a white graveyard on the white side."
USF will work at the site until Tuesday and hopes to unearth the remains of two to four boys before resuming the excavation at a later date, Kimmerle said. The initial work will ensure that the process works smoothly before researchers return to the site.
DNA obtained at the site 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.
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