HalveBlue
12-10-2008, 08:46 AM
Inquiry Urged into Remains Buried at School for Boys (http://www.miamiherald.com/884/story/805176.html?pageNum=2&mi_pluck_action=page_nav#Comments_Container)
Former residents of the Florida School for Boys recounted painful memories while pushing the state to investigate the unmarked graves at the school and identify the bodies.
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- Convinced the 32 unmarked graves at the Florida School for Boys in Marianna are the bodies of boys abused and killed there decades ago, four former residents of the school are demanding the governor and state and federal attorneys investigate.
Standing on the steps of the U.S. Courthouse on Monday, the men recounted painful memories of their classmates who disappeared decades ago after brutal beatings or torture at the school for delinquent boys. They asked Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to identify the remains to bring the families peace.
The graves were on what officials once called ''the colored side'' of the school. The men now believe they remain unmarked ''to hide the nature of those children's deaths,'' said Michael O'McCarthy, 66, who resided at the school in 1958-59.
''Given the institution's meticulous records . . . there is no practical reason that the identity of the children buried there was not recorded,'' he said.
Gov. Charlie Crist said he is supportive of an investigation and the Department of Juvenile Justice ''will cooperate with any investigation and turn over every document,'' said Frank Penela, department spokesman.
On Monday, the men recalled stories of boys who mouthed off to a supervisor and were shoved into a tumbling clothes dryer and left alone. Others were sent to the torture chamber known as the White House for beatings, and never returned, they said. And then there was the boy who mixed orange juice with rubbing alcohol and got intoxicated.
''He never came back to the cottage. He never returned to school. He just literally vanished off the face of the earth,'' recalled Bryant E. Middleton of Fort Walton Beach, now 63.
In 1959, Middleton conspired with the missing boy to spike their orange juice but, rather than get drunk, Middleton got sick.
''The last I saw of him, he was very intoxicated and I saw a very important staff member -- one that we all feared on a daily basis -- walk over and grab him and bring him up to the administration building,'' he said. ``That boy was never seen again.''
The men learned of the graves six weeks ago when the Department of Juvenile Justice invited five of the men back to the school to dedicate a plaque outside the white cinder-block building -- the so-called White House. The ceremony was held to mark an end to a dark and brutal chapter of Florida's history.
O'McCarthy is now project director of the group that calls itself ''The White House Boys'' and he believes the location of the grave provides reasonable evidence that the victims are African-American male children.
''We are shocked and puzzled . . . that neither the Florida governor's office, the Department of Juvenile Justice nor Florida Department of Law Enforcement have launched an investigation into these remains,'' he said.
Dick Colon, 65, of Baltimore, one of the White House Boys, recalled working in the laundry in the late 1950s with some black boys. Colon went into the restroom and when he came out, the room had been cleared and one black boy was tumbling in the dryer.
`` I think about it very often because I feel guilty. I could have walked over there and opened the door and try to give him some help, but what would happen to me if I were to do that? So I just walked out to the street and that particular kid was never seen again.''
Roger Kiser, 63, of Brunswick, Ga., believes he witnessed two to three deaths during his stay at the school in 1958-59 and again in 1960. One was a white boy who was shaking cream to make butter under the dining table -- but a school attendant suspected him of masturbating. He was taken away ``and never seen again.''
Another time, he saw one of the school staff members order two boys into the tumble dryer.
Later, their bodies were hauled away and he and others were ordered to say nothing about it, he said.
They were warned, Kiser said, that if they were caught talking ''we would be taken to the White House and beaten. Corporal punishment was the means by which they controlled us,'' he said. ``We lived in daily fear.''
The men are also asking for the investigation to include the school's use of the boys for slave labor, sexual abuse, sex trafficking and kidnapping for sexual assault.
Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at [email protected]
__________________________________________________ _______________
The same story as covered by CNN, Search of 32 Graves Ordered at Florida Reform School (http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/09/reform.school.graves/index.html).
WTF, over?
That's some pretty sick shit.
Sticking someone into an industrial sized dryer and leaving them to die.
Really, WTF? :barf:
Former residents of the Florida School for Boys recounted painful memories while pushing the state to investigate the unmarked graves at the school and identify the bodies.
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- Convinced the 32 unmarked graves at the Florida School for Boys in Marianna are the bodies of boys abused and killed there decades ago, four former residents of the school are demanding the governor and state and federal attorneys investigate.
Standing on the steps of the U.S. Courthouse on Monday, the men recounted painful memories of their classmates who disappeared decades ago after brutal beatings or torture at the school for delinquent boys. They asked Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to identify the remains to bring the families peace.
The graves were on what officials once called ''the colored side'' of the school. The men now believe they remain unmarked ''to hide the nature of those children's deaths,'' said Michael O'McCarthy, 66, who resided at the school in 1958-59.
''Given the institution's meticulous records . . . there is no practical reason that the identity of the children buried there was not recorded,'' he said.
Gov. Charlie Crist said he is supportive of an investigation and the Department of Juvenile Justice ''will cooperate with any investigation and turn over every document,'' said Frank Penela, department spokesman.
On Monday, the men recalled stories of boys who mouthed off to a supervisor and were shoved into a tumbling clothes dryer and left alone. Others were sent to the torture chamber known as the White House for beatings, and never returned, they said. And then there was the boy who mixed orange juice with rubbing alcohol and got intoxicated.
''He never came back to the cottage. He never returned to school. He just literally vanished off the face of the earth,'' recalled Bryant E. Middleton of Fort Walton Beach, now 63.
In 1959, Middleton conspired with the missing boy to spike their orange juice but, rather than get drunk, Middleton got sick.
''The last I saw of him, he was very intoxicated and I saw a very important staff member -- one that we all feared on a daily basis -- walk over and grab him and bring him up to the administration building,'' he said. ``That boy was never seen again.''
The men learned of the graves six weeks ago when the Department of Juvenile Justice invited five of the men back to the school to dedicate a plaque outside the white cinder-block building -- the so-called White House. The ceremony was held to mark an end to a dark and brutal chapter of Florida's history.
O'McCarthy is now project director of the group that calls itself ''The White House Boys'' and he believes the location of the grave provides reasonable evidence that the victims are African-American male children.
''We are shocked and puzzled . . . that neither the Florida governor's office, the Department of Juvenile Justice nor Florida Department of Law Enforcement have launched an investigation into these remains,'' he said.
Dick Colon, 65, of Baltimore, one of the White House Boys, recalled working in the laundry in the late 1950s with some black boys. Colon went into the restroom and when he came out, the room had been cleared and one black boy was tumbling in the dryer.
`` I think about it very often because I feel guilty. I could have walked over there and opened the door and try to give him some help, but what would happen to me if I were to do that? So I just walked out to the street and that particular kid was never seen again.''
Roger Kiser, 63, of Brunswick, Ga., believes he witnessed two to three deaths during his stay at the school in 1958-59 and again in 1960. One was a white boy who was shaking cream to make butter under the dining table -- but a school attendant suspected him of masturbating. He was taken away ``and never seen again.''
Another time, he saw one of the school staff members order two boys into the tumble dryer.
Later, their bodies were hauled away and he and others were ordered to say nothing about it, he said.
They were warned, Kiser said, that if they were caught talking ''we would be taken to the White House and beaten. Corporal punishment was the means by which they controlled us,'' he said. ``We lived in daily fear.''
The men are also asking for the investigation to include the school's use of the boys for slave labor, sexual abuse, sex trafficking and kidnapping for sexual assault.
Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at [email protected]
__________________________________________________ _______________
The same story as covered by CNN, Search of 32 Graves Ordered at Florida Reform School (http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/09/reform.school.graves/index.html).
WTF, over?
That's some pretty sick shit.
Sticking someone into an industrial sized dryer and leaving them to die.
Really, WTF? :barf: