They are using cadaver dogs at FL's Dozier School for Boys to search outside the graveyard sites.

[madfloridian]

This is a tragic story that went on too long. It went on through the tenure of both Democratic and Republican governors and legislators for a century. We heard about that infamous school growing up. It certainly wasn't a secret from those that could have done something about it.

Now they are searching areas around the schools with cadaver dogs.

Cadaver dogs helping with search for bodies at Dozier School




EDMUND D. FOUNTAIN | Times Marian Beland of Somersville, Conn., and her cadaver dog, a Portuguese water dog named Tracer, search Tuesday for additional grave sites at the former Dozier School for Boys. Researchers from the University of South Florida enlisted teams of cadaver dogs to help in their search.

The teams of dogs from as far away as Utah and Massachusetts joined the search Monday. The specially trained dogs can pick up scent from human remains buried long ago and are often used to find lost burials.

The dogs combed the 1,400-acre campus Tuesday, sniffing through the thick Panhandle woodlands, soggy swamps and kudzu-covered fields. They alerted their handlers to a variety of spots that will be tested with ground-penetrating radar and an anthropological method known as ground-truthing to determine whether human remains have been buried there.

...Former wards of the scandalous school, which opened in 1900, have reported stumbling onto grave markers or burial depressions on the south side of campus. Family members of boys known to have died in custody have also told the Tampa Bay Times that they recall being shown a cemetery that is not Boot Hill.

"I just want to help find them and get them all," said Marian Beland, who brought her Portuguese water dog Tracer from Connecticut to help search. "And get them all out of there."

The system finally had a deposition with the "one-armed" man described by about 200 former students there as giving them severe floggings in what was called the White House. His name was Troy Tidwell. He said the beatings had been sanctioned by the state, and they called it the Final Disciplinary Action.

Man who flogged the boys at Dozier School, FL says it was "state sanctioned"

.He called it 'spanking,' according to those at his deposition here Thursday. He said it was state-sanctioned discipline, punishment for kids who tried to run away or got caught smoking. He said he hit kids eight to 10 times per infraction with a thick leather strap, but never hard enough to harm them.

....But Tidwell said all discipline was state-approved protocol. They called it Final Disciplinary Action.
'The ultimate issue is: How do you define abuse?' said Masterson. 'He denied that he harmed anybody, but when you have 200 people telling the same story …'

[Kennah]

1. 55 bodies recovered last year

Wonder what this year will bring? Just sick.

http://www.wtsp.com/news/topstories/article/355585/250/Search-continues-for-remains-at-Dozier-school

[Jefferson23]

2. Throw away children after you beat them, bury them like they're garbage.

Poor people do not count..that was the message..given over to sadists to care for them.

No chance of a massive civil suit ?

[riverwalker]

3. I am obsessed by this story

They will have the dogs through Friday. "NecroSearch International is a volunteer multidisciplinary team dedicated to assisting law enforcement in the location of clandestine graves and the recovery of evidence (including human remains) from those graves." Using a team of five dogs, I read. Am wondering how many more they will find. Am haunted by the little boy with the marble in his pocket, age "about six". Who was he? How did he die? Who are his people? These children, some thrown into the garbage pits, forgotten, unknown.
Dr. Erin Kimmerle, leading the USF investigation, is my hero.

[madfloridian]

8. USF has done some great research. The Gulf Oil spill was one of their big ones.

The saddest part is that we knew as children that this was going on. It was well-known. It was like a nightmare we only heard about.

[hollysmom]

4. does it still work after 100 years?

[madfloridian]

6. They finally closed it in 2011. Crist called for the exhumations.

So it's closed. It's a stain on our state.

[hollysmom]

9. there are many states with stains like this even today

Even today there are judges to take money to put kids in jail for minor infractions to meet a quota in private prisons. There are so many people I have to wonder how they sleep/slept at night.

On one hand we are all supposed to love children - but on the others, only if they are yours otherwise they are just fodder. A lot of times it is done under the guise of religious training or disciplined reformatory. They just forget the love.

[JI7]

5. i wonder why this doesn't get much national attention

there was some reporting on it. but when you consider what happened it doesn't seem enough.

especially when you consider all the time they waste on stupid political gossip and miley cyrus type stories.

[riverwalker]

7. the autopsies will be revealing

so far, the stories told by the survivors that no one believed, have proved true. They said there are many more bodies, and there are. They said where to look, and they were there. Will the autopsies reveal bullets in the head (as they say?), the boys killed in the dryer? can the bones reveal traces of that as cause of death? Can the bones reveal the trauma from whippings as cause of death, as claimed? The bones from the 55 found so far are being analyzed in Texas.
This entire country should hang their heads and weep. It took a woman who is a specialist in mass murder and human rights violations in Bosnia and Peru, to push for finding answers in our own back yard.

[madfloridian]

10. They have been proven right on everything.

Last edited Wed Feb 5, 2014, 01:21 PM - Edit history (1)

I think you are right about the autopsies being revealing.