corq
Member
Boy’s Casket Exhumed; He’s Not In It
http://news.kron4.com/news/boys-casket-exhumed-hes-not-in-it/
http://news.kron4.com/news/boys-casket-exhumed-hes-not-in-it/
There's a photograph of Thomas Varnadoe, a black and white family portrait taken late in 1925. Thomas is 4 years old, wearing a Peter Pan collar and breeches and he's squinting against the light. He's barefoot like his big brother, Hubert, who's standing behind Thomas. It's the only photograph of Thomas his family has.
The Hernando County sheriff came for Thomas and Hubert nine years later, in 1934. They'd been accused of stealing a typewriter from an old maid and they were charged with "malicious trespassing." They were not represented by a lawyer, nor were they tried. Their parents protested, but couldn't stop the sheriff, who shipped the boys that September north to the Marianna reformatory, which by then had a brick-making plant, printing press and farm, all of which relied on child labor.
Thirty-four days later, Thomas, 13, who left home in good health, was dead. The campus newspaper, the Yellow Jacket, reported the news under a front-page story about the school's productive dairy farm.
Glen spoke first, about how long and hard they'd fought for this day, about the journalists who wouldn't let the issue die, about Erin Kimmerle's work to find and exhume Thomas. Gene was next, and he told of how the unanswered questions had haunted them all.
"We can only imagine the horror," Gene said. "Some of the Old South slave mindset died hard in Florida."
Glen invited Richard to speak. The old man stood and faced the crowd. He could barely talk.
"I feel like we plucked my brother out of the depths of hell," he said.
When it was over, people slowly peeled away, heading back to work and school and life. Erin Kimmerle, too. There were still questions about Florida's oldest reform school, about who the rest of the remains belonged to and how those boys died. But this chapter felt closed. A family had answers. And they had bones that belonged with them. This part of her job was finished.
Two more sets of remains were identified today from the Dozier School for Boys...
Researchers from the University of South Florida investigating the Dozier School say one of the two people identified was found with a lead ball lodged in the remains of his hip. He's identified as Sam Morgan, who entered the reform school in 1915, at the age of 18. He was later used as an "indentured servant" at local farms and businesses. But he was never listed by the school as deceased...
The other person was identified at Bennett Evans, an employee at the school who died in a fire in the dormitory in 1914.
As researchers exhume unmarked graves at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna,, Florida, detectives are searching for possible bodies at the sister campus in Okeechobee.
The Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office told WPBF 25 News they plan on bringing cadaver dogs to the campus in April.
When the notorious state-run reform school in Marianna became overcrowded, they opened a second Florida School for Boys campus in Okeechobee in the late 1950s. Several of the same staff members accused of brutal beatings in Marianna were transferred to the Okeechobee campus.
SABBMAuthorities call for reopening Dozier School for Boys investigation
Investigators find another 20 bodies
http://www.news4jax.com/news/author...dozier-school-for-boys-investigation/31365058
[Excerpt]
For more than 60 years, the Dozier School for Boys in rural north Florida was a place to be feared. A 2009 investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found 31 marked and unmarked graves at the school.
Now, after authorities found another 20 bodies, there are calls for a state law enforcement investigation to be reopened.
When University of South Florida researchers began unearthing bodies at the defunct school, many local residents were unhappy.
"It's something that happened 50-60 years ago. You know, let bygones be bygones," said insurance agent John Perkins.
"I believe it's going to be a hornet's nest," John Cooper said.
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My note: The "Additional 20 bodies" is only additional to the 2009 FDLE search at Dozier, not the most recent count if you've already been following the USF efforts on this case.
~ corq
RSBMAlso of interest: http://tampabay.com/tbprojects/dcloud/dcloud-template.html?doc=1630218-cabinetdozierupdate very long read, detailing numerous irregularities about the bodies found at the sites the team exhumed.
I realize during the earlier years of this school, poverty, Jim Crow south and other factors meant life was cheap, but I'm still just heartbroken that children were actually treated like this, even if some of them were delinquents or throwaways, it's all still horrendous.
Some of the report details violence that may have stemmed from other boys at the school. Another story of one child hunted down from running away from the school, sounds as if he was located at his own home and possibly killed with a weapon in the house.
Yet it's pretty clear administration at the school took no interest in the health and welfare of most of these kids in any way whatsoever. :tantrum: JMO