Fl. 50/60's era Reform School Investigated

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Ex-Reform School Student Says He Witnessed Boy's Beating Death
Wednesday, December 10, 2008

As authorities began investigating unmarked graves near a reform school where boys were brutally abused in the 1950s and '60s, one former student remembered the horrors that happened inside.

Don Stratton, now 63, went to the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla., and says he saw the unimaginable at the place known simply as the "White House."

"I witnessed them killing a boy, OK. They beat him to death," Stratton told MyFOXTampaBay.com. "The state of Florida beat him at the White House. And I watched it; I seen it."

He said the school controlled students with fear. Twice a week, the children — ages 9 to 16 — would be taken into a room and beaten. The boys called it "going down," according to MyFOXTampaBay.com.

"They turned the fan on, so you wouldn't hear the screaming. But I could hear the screaming 'cause I was right there," said Stratton, who was beaten three times.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist wrote to the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Tuesday, asking authorities to determine the origin of the more than 30 unidentified graves and whether any crimes were committed.

The agency said it planned an immediate investigation.

The move comes after a group of former inmates, now in their 60s, asked for an investigation into the graves marked only by white metal crosses — which they believe contain the bodies of boys who were beaten to death. The men say they were severely beaten while they were at the detention center.

Stratton also wants retribution.

"I would like to see the state of Florida take responsibility for what happened when I was 13 years old," he said.

[CSA FD]

Officials Probe Unmarked Graves at Florida Reform School
Tuesday, December 09, 2008

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A former inmate at a Florida reform school known for severe beatings decades ago says he remembers walking into a laundry room, peering through a foggy dryer window and seeing a boy tumbling inside. Afraid of retribution, Dick Colon walked away.

But Colon now wonders whether the boy he saw could be buried near the school. Florida law enforcement said Tuesday they have started an investigation into the enduring mystery: Who lies beneath the more than 30 white metal crosses — bearing no names or dates or other details — at a makeshift cemetery near the grounds of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, where youngsters were routinely beaten and abused in the 1950s and '60s.

"I think about it very often because I feel guilty. I felt as though I could have walked over there and opened the door and tried to give him some help, but then what the hell was going to happen to me if I did?" said Colon, now 65 and living in Baltimore. "That particular kid was never seen again."

Gov. Charlie Crist ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate at the urging of Colon and other men who committed crimes as boys and were sent to the school. The agency was tapped to find out what was in the graves, identify any remains and determine whether any crimes occurred.

"Justice always cries out for a conclusion and this is no different," Crist told reporters. "If there's an opportunity to find out exactly what happened there, to be able to verify if there were these kinds of horrible atrocities ... we have a duty to do so."

The Department of Juvenile Justice has no records that explain what's in the cemetery near the 108-year-old reform school.

One theory is the graves contain the bodies of six boys who died in a 1914 school fire. But that would only explain a fraction of the markers.

Current school superintendent Mary Zahasky hopes the graves do not contain children.

"When I first saw it — those kinds of things tug at your heart. I'm a mother myself," she said. "I just can't imagine having my child buried out there like that."

Colon is part of a group of men who call themselves "The White House Boys Survivors" because they suffered abuse in a small, white building known as the White House. It contained two rooms where guards would beat children, one for black inmates; one for whites.

The boys were forced to lie on a bed, face down in a pillow covered with blood, spit and mucous, and were repeatedly struck with a long leather-and-metal strap for offenses as slight as singing, or talking to a black inmate. They described beatings so severe that underwear became imbedded in skin.

The Department of Juvenile Justice acknowledged the abuse in October, placing a plaque on the now-closed white building.

"The staff was so brutal that just even the slightest frown on your face or even the slightest word out of context could cause you to be sent down to the White House and be viciously beaten to the point that you would become unconscious and bleed profusely down your legs and your back," Bryant Middleton, 63, of Fort Walton Beach, said Monday.

After the October ceremony, Department of Juvenile Justice staff took five of the former inmates to the cemetery, which is located near the facility that used to house black inmates. An adult prison now stands on the property.

"This is a big occasion for the state of Florida," Michael O'McCarthy, 66, who was sent to the detention center when he was 15 for stealing auto parts, said of the investigation. "Rarely do state or federal governments like to admit that they have committed this type of egregious, destructive kinds of crimes, especially to children."

At least one former reform school student said the men's stories may be exaggerated.

"They were justified in giving me these paddlings because, hey, I was wrong," said Phil Hail of Anniston, Ala., who remembered going to the white building once for getting low grades in 1957. "It comes down to if you abide by the rules, you're not punished."

Hail's description was similar to what the other men described, but he said the school wasn't a "house of horrors."

"Was (the school) run with a very strict hand? Yes, it was," he said. "Were the paddlings very severe? Yes, they were."

[CSA FD]

Boys school probe stirs painful memories
Dec. 15, 2008

MARIANNA, Florida (CNN) -- Leaning against his cane, Bryant Middleton shuffled toward the makeshift cemetery. Tears welled in his eyes as he leaned down to touch one of the crosses.

"This shouldn't be," he said. "This shouldn't be."

Thirty-one crosses made of tubular steel and painted white line up unevenly in the grass and weeds of what used to be the grounds of a reform school in Marianna, Florida. The anonymous crosses are rusting away but their secrets may soon be exposed.

When boys disappeared from the school, administrators explained it away, said former student Roger Kiser.

They'd say, "Well, he ran away and the swamp got him," Kiser recalled. Or, "The gators got him." Or, 'Water moccasins got him."

Kiser and other former students believe authorities will soon find the remains of children and teens sent to the Florida School for Boys half a century ago.

On the orders of Gov. Charlie Crist, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement last week opened an investigation to determine if anyone is buried here, whether crimes were committed, and if so, who was responsible.

A group of men in their 60s, who once attended the school, have told investigators they believe the bodies are classmates who disappeared after being savagely beaten by administrators and workers.

The FLDE is just beginning its investigation, so there is no way to know if there is any truth to the allegations. The investigation will be challenging. Finding records and witnesses from nearly half a century ago will be difficult if not impossible. Many of the administrators and employees of the reform school are dead. Read more about the investigation

Middleton is 64 now, a former Army Ranger. He was 14 then, a wayward boy. He was sent to the Florida School for Boys for breaking and entering.

He recently accompanied CNN to the school grounds.

This is a travesty against mankind and the state of Florida should be ashamed of themselves," he said, choking back tears.

"It's as if they were tossed out here like they were nothing but garbage. And it's just downright criminal. Somebody needs to be accountable for this."

A single-story, nondescript building anchors the other side of the property. The white cinder block structure looks so simple, so bland, that it is difficult to imagine the pain, terror and torture it conjures up in the men who say their childhoods were ravaged within its four walls.

The building was known as "the white house."

Middleton said he was brought there six times. He recalled that his tormentors, including one known as "the whipper," would turn on a large industrial fan to muffle the screams of the boys who were beaten with long leather straps, reinforced with metal.

Dick Colon said he went to the white house 11 times during his 30 months at the school. He's one of four men known as "the White House Boys."

Colon, Kiser, Robert Straley and Michael O'McCarthy, the original four White House Boys, spoke out about the 31 crosses and their boyhood abuse and pushed for an investigation.

Colon recalls his visits to the white house as if they were yesterday:

He said he was forced to lie face down in a blood-soaked pillow -- a pillow with small pieces of lips, tongue and skin on it from the previous boy. He'd clench the metal bar of the bed. The ceilings were low. He would hear the strap hit the ceiling and make a "tick" sound before it swung down on him.

"After that tick, you'd go 'Aaaahh,' and then you'd grab that bar, and go 'Ooooohhhhhhh,' and the spindles of the bed would bounce, and sometimes the bed would come off the ground," Colon told CNN.

Kiser, a fellow White House Boy, said the beatings provided entertainment for the guards and administrators.

"There were bets, and money changed hands on who could draw blood on the first blow," he said. He recalled his reaction when he went into a bathroom to clean up after enduring another beating.

"I looked up into that mirror and I just screamed," he said. "I just saw this monster. I couldn't even tell who I was."

Colon said his reaction was to bury the pain inside. He told a story about how another boy's terror left him wrestling with his own best and worst instincts even to this day.

He walked into the school's laundry room one day and saw a black teenager inside a large tumble dryer that was running. He wanted to save the boy, and tried to talk himself into being brave.

"I said, 'Do it! Do it! Do it!' " he recalled, his eyes beginning to tear. "And then I thought to myself, 'If you do it, they're gonna put you in there. You're gonna be next.' And I walked away."

After a long, tearful pause, Colon continued.

"I've been married to my wife for 42 years, and never told her," he said, wiping tears away with a handkerchief. "I don't know how often in a week I think about that."

"A chicken s---, I was," he sobbed.

Still, Colon's is ultimately a success story. At the reform school, he studied to be an electrician and now owns a multimillion-dollar company in Baltimore, Maryland.

Colon founded a scholarship fund for high achievers at the very same school that haunts his memories. It is called the Arthur Dozier School for Boys, and Colon returns every year to talk to the students about hope and hard work.

"They need to know they can do things and have a future," he said. "Many just accept that they will be in prison someday."