Investigators: Graves at reform school site hold fire, flu victims
A Florida state investigation has determined that 31 crosses on the grounds of a former reform school mark graves of teens and employees who died in a fire and an influenza outbreak.
One grave even contains the body of a student who was slain by another student, the investigation found.
The five-month investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement rules out claims by a group of reform school survivors that students who were beaten by guards are buried there.
The former students, now in their 60s, call themselves the "white house boys," after a concrete-block building where boys were taken for punishment. They said that they witnessed murders, and that students suddenly disappeared after they suffered severe beatings at the school, in Marianna, Florida, in the 1950s and '60s.
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One grave even contains the body of a student who was slain by another student, the investigation found.
The five-month investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement rules out claims by a group of reform school survivors that students who were beaten by guards are buried there.
The former students, now in their 60s, call themselves the "white house boys," after a concrete-block building where boys were taken for punishment. They said that they witnessed murders, and that students suddenly disappeared after they suffered severe beatings at the school, in Marianna, Florida, in the 1950s and '60s.