'White House Boys' win inquiry of reform school graves

[samanthajane13]

By Rich Phillips
CNN Senior Producer

MARIANNA, Florida (CNN) -- Four men, now in their 60s, met over the Internet, shared stories about the darkest days of their pasts and spurred an investigation into 32 graves at a reform school.

Roger Kiser, Michael McCarthy, Bryant Middleton and Dick Colon talked about whippings and beatings and other boys who disappeared.

They discussed the 32 crosses marking the graves of persons unknown on the grounds of the former Florida Industrial School for Boys.

They called their group the White House Boys, taking the name from the single story concrete building where, they say, boys were beaten and tortured decades ago.

The White House Boys believe that delinquents and orphans sent to the concrete White House were killed and their remains buried to cover up the brutality.

This week, the four called on Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to investigate. Crist agreed and asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to search for remains, identify them and determine whether any crimes were committed.

The department agreed to look into the mystery of the 32 crosses on the grounds of what is now known as the Dozier School, in Marianna, just south of the Alabama state line. Video Watch how the White House Boys dug into the past »

Two of the White House Boys, Middleton and Colon, spoke with CNN. The stories they told were chilling.

Middleton said he was "an incorrigible youth of 14 or 15" when he was sent to the reform school for breaking and entering. During a 30-minute phone interview, he recounted story after horrific story about his time there.

Middleton said he took six trips to the concrete White House, where he endured brutal beatings. He says boys were regularly struck with a metal-reinforced double strap with a long wooden handle.

"You could hear it coming through the air, and when it hit your body, the pain was unbelievable," he recalled. "They just beat you to the point of unconsciousness, or you could no longer understand what was happening to you."

He recalled another occasion in which he and another boy decided to get drunk. They mixed orange juice with rubbing alcohol. It make Middleton sick and his friend intoxicated.

A guard confronted the other boy and began to treat him roughly, Middleton said.

"He dragged him to the administration building, and I never saw him again. He never came back to work or to the cottage," Middleton said. "He literally disappeared off the face of the Earth."

Colon is an electrical contractor in Baltimore, Maryland. But in the 1950s, he acknowledged, he was a wayward youth who gritted his teeth through 11 beatings inside the White House.

Colon said he remembers entering the laundry one day, and his life has never been the same.

Inside a large tumble dryer was a black teen.

The White House boys, who are all white, said black kids at the school were beaten even more savagely than white kids.

"I said to myself, 'What's going to happen to me if I take him out?' " Colon said.

He recalled being about 15 feet away from the boy in the dryer. He thought about helping him but was afraid.

"I said to myself, 'I can't do it, 'cause I'm gonna be the next one in the God------ dryer if I take him out,' " he said.

"I turned my back and walked out, and it torments me every day of my life."

So far, all authorities have are allegations and the collective memories of the White House Boys. But they say it's worth looking into the case.

"Questions remain unanswered as to the identity of the deceased and the origin of these graves," Crist wrote in his letter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

"The main goal is to determine the location of the graves, who owned the property at the time, and determine if any crimes were committed," agency spokeswoman Kristin Perezluha said.

Authorities are only now beginning their investigation, so no one can say for certain who, if anyone, is buried under the 32 white metal crosses.

Middleton learned about the investigation from a CNN producer.

"My God! That's remarkable. My God! That's all I ever wanted," he said. "That will begin a lot of the healing for those that survived that school.

"Some of us will never get over the brutality, the sexual assaults and the fear. But this is a major step in the right direction," he added.

Colon has established an educational trust fund at the same campus, the Dozier School for high academic achievers, today operated by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.

At least one former student says the school was strict but fair.

"They were justified in giving me these paddlings, because, hey, I was wrong," Phil Hail of Anniston, Alabama, told The Miami Herald.

Hail told the Herald he remembers going to the white building once for getting low grades in 1957. "Was [the school] run with a very strict hand? Yes, it was ... Were the paddlings very severe? Yes, they were," he told the newspaper.

There are lingering questions no one seems able to answer: Why was there no outcry from the parents of boys who disappeared? Why did no one look for them?

Colon and Middleton say they're valid questions. They firmly believe that bodies will be found and that they will be the bodies of both black and white boys.

"I believe, in my own heart, that there has been a coverup," Middleton said.

Added Colon, "White, African-American, they're all there ... I believe they will find crushed skulls, and broken bones -- and hopefully, one day, the murderers."


http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/09/...ef=werecommend

[samanthajane13]

'Whatever is below those crosses is crying out'
By Rich Phillips
CNN Senior Producer

TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- Don Stratton says he's just a good ol' boy. He's simple and plainspoken. But he has a painful past he can't leave behind. When he talks about it, the old emotions surface.

Stratton attended a Florida reform school as a teenager in the early 1960s. Nearly half a century later, he's telling a chilling tale of alleged beatings, sexual abuse and violent death at the hands of reform school workers.

He said he believes the bodies of slain boys are buried in unnamed graves on the grounds of the former reform school in Marianna, Florida.

"These men are animals and need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Stratton told CNN in an interview at his attorney's office in Tampa.

Stratton wore a black cowboy hat with a Harley Davidson logo. Despite his tough exterior, he fought back tears as he recounted how he was physically and sexually assaulted.

Stratton is among a group of men, now in their 60s, who are suing state agencies in Florida as well as two former reform school workers over alleged abuse they received as teenagers. The suit was filed this month.

"At 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, you'd hear a boy crying," Stratton told CNN. "And then the door would open and you'd see these guys come in and come up to somebody they liked, and they'd just tell you, 'Come on with me, you're mine for tonight. You're my boy for tonight.' And they would take you and do what they wanted to do with you."

"They would take a leather strap, six inches wide and three feet long," he added, swinging his arm in a downward motion. "It's like a shotgun going off. And they beat you until you're bloody."

Stratton's attorneys said they've interviewed 80 former students who say they were abused. Stratton and the other alleged abuse victims who spoke with CNN all said the beatings took place in a small white cement building they called "the white house."

Gov. Charlie Crist has ordered an investigation into the alleged abuse. He has asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to uncover records, interview students and find former administrators. The agency also was asked to determine who, if anyone, is buried beneath the 31 rusting white crosses on the school grounds.

"Whatever is below those crosses is crying out -- and it's screaming for us to bring justice," Stratton said.

The truth of what happened at the Florida School for Boys may ultimately be lost to time. But investigators said they're making progress.

"There are challenges due to the length of time that has passed," said Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Heather Smith. "We are confident that we can conduct a thorough and methodical investigation and establish, as much as we can, what happened here and what lies beneath in those grave sites."

Smith said it was much too early in the investigation to say whether there would be an exhumation.

Investigators said that, so far, the search for records from 50 years ago has been productive. They also have met with many of the men who have come forward.

When they meet with Stratton, they will hear his claim that he witnessed the violent death of one boy who exposed himself to reform school workers on a dare. The boy was taken to "the white house."

Stratton said that later, while he was working in the kitchen, he saw a brown 1949 Ford pull up. "They opened the back door and they carried him out and threw him in the back of the car," said Stratton, fighting tears.

"They took him out there and buried him in the woods," he said. "I know they buried him somewhere, 'cause he never showed up again."

Investigators will also hear Stratton's claim that he and many of the other boys were sexually assaulted. His story is so graphic that it cannot be repeated. He tearfully apologized to CNN.

"I don't pull no punches, but it's hard doing this on camera. See what I'm saying? This is tough, fellas," he said. "We're all men here, know what I mean? I'm not ashamed of it, but I was 13 years old and I had no choice ... and it haunts me today."

CNN has tried to find many of the men who are alleged to have committed the beatings and sexual assaults. Some have died.

The lawsuit names former worker Troy Tidwell, a one-armed man who still lives near the reform school grounds in Marianna. It alleges he participated in physical assaults and failed to report the abuse.

Tidwell refused to meet with CNN in December to respond to the allegations, but he recently told the Miami Herald that the boys were "spanked" but not injured.

''Kids that were chronic cases, getting in trouble all the time, running away and what have you, they used that as a last resort,'' Tidwell told the Herald. "We would take them to a little building near the dining room and spank the boys there when we felt it was necessary."

Tidwell, in his 80s, has hired a law firm to represent him in the lawsuit. In court filings, his lawyers are trying to get the suit thrown out. His attorney did not return CNN's calls for comment.

"You've got to realize what these guys did," Stratton said. "They mentally abused us, and they beat us. Is that something you should say: 'I'm sorry fellas. You're an old man now, live out the rest of your life in a rocking chair.' Well, no way."


http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/30/...ool/index.html