Men who were once at Florida's School for Boys...still waiting for justice.

[madfloridian]

They left much undone and left unanswered many of the most serious aspects of this issue of the Florida Schools for Boys, the beatings, and the unmarked graves. Governor Crist had ordered an investigation...I would say he basically got a whitewash.

The worst part of it all are the things they failed to do.

They did not exhume remains or use ground penetrating radar to determine how many bodies are in the ground or where they are placed.

Last month, the state-run reform school was the subject of a St. Petersburg Times special report, "For Their Own Good," about dozens of men who said they were severely beaten there as boys in the 1950s and '60s in a cinder block building called the White House.

In recent weeks the Times has also spoken with two men who say they were forced as boys to dig child-sized holes on the campus. These men, suspicious of authority, would not cooperate with investigators, fearing they would destroy evidence.

Mark Perez, FDLE chief of executive investigations, said "hundreds" of witnesses "did not provide any first-hand knowledge . . . that would refute the information provided in these records."

But investigators did not talk to several people who claim to have knowledge of suspicious deaths. They did not talk to Roger Kiser, a founder of the White House Boys, the group featured in the Times report. They didn't talk to Johnnie Walthour, a 73-year-old Jacksonville man who told the Florida Times-Union a friend died after a beating in the early 1950s.

And they did not talk to Ovell Krell.

EDMUND D. FOUNTAIN | Times
Ovell Krell’s brother George Owen Smith was sent to the Florida School for Boys in the 1940s. He never made it home. Krell, 80, believes Owen was shot by guards as he tried to escape. Ovell Smith is Ovell Krell now. She was a Lakeland police officer for two decades, one of the first female officers in Florida. She still doesn't understand what happened to her brother. Why would he crawl under a house? Why would he not come out, even if he were starving or ill? Why would a 14-year-old boy just lay down and die?

Here is more on the efforts of the Smith family to find this boy. Notice the involvement of a priest in notifying the family. How could they call an investigation closed when they did not even talk to this lady.


George Owen Smith, shown in what his sister says is one of the last photos of him alive, makes a face for the camera in an undated photo. Smith died at age 14 under murky circumstances at the Florida School for Boys in 1941.

Frances Smith wrote to the school's superintendent, Millard Davidson, in December of 1940, asking about her son. Davidson wrote back saying no one knew where Owen was.

"So far we have been unable to get any information concerning his whereabouts,'' said his letter, dated Jan. 1, 1941. She wrote back, telling him she would be at the school in two days to search for her son.

That letter apparently arrived in Marianna around Jan. 23, 1941. That's when the Smiths heard the news from an Episcopal priest in Auburndale. He was apologetic. Said the school had found Owen. A friend drove them to Marianna. The school's superintendent told the family that Owen's remains were found under a house in Marianna. They identified him by his dental records and the markings on his laundry.

The superintendent led the family through the woods to a clearing, to a patch of fresh-turned earth.

There was a recent St. Pete Times article called For Their Own Good

Florida governors of both parties let this all slide by. One governor even said he sort of agreed with the whippings, and did not investigate. That was surprisingly Leroy Collins. Governor Claude Kirk later in 1968 did sound shocked at least.

There is a group that remembers the little white house where the beatings were administered. They have banded together now as older men, and call themselves the White House boys.

For their own good: a St. Petersburg Times special report on child abuse at the Florida School for Boys

MARIANNA — The men remember the same things: blood on the walls, bits of lip or tongue on the pillow, the smell of urine and whiskey, the way the bed springs sang with each blow. The way they cried out for Jesus or mama. The grinding of the old fan that muffled their cries. The one-armed man who swung the strap.

They remember walking into the dark little building on the campus of the Florida School for Boys, in bare feet and white pajamas, afraid they'd never walk out.

For 109 years, this is where Florida has sent bad boys. Boys have been sent here for rape or assault, yes, but also for skipping school or smoking cigarettes or running hard from broken homes. Some were tough, some confused and afraid; all were treading through their formative years in the custody of the state. They were as young as 5, as old as 20, and they needed to be reformed.

It was for their own good.

They have sealed up the White House now.



This is not over. A group of these men have joined together to continue this investigation.

From the News Herald:

Digging for truth

It's never too late for justice, nor does the search for truth come with an expiration date. That's why it's important to get to the bottom of the "White House Boys" story.

More than 200 men have joined a class-action lawsuit claiming they were physically abused while serving at the state-run Florida Industrial School for Boys in Marianna in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. They were juvenile delinquents sent there to be straightened out, but they allege that they received treatment that in no way could be characterized as strict discipline or "tough love." It was torture.

The group's name, the "White House Boys," references the white cinderblock building on campus where they say most of the abuse occurred. Their accounts of savage and sadistic beatings at the hands of adult employees are graphic and stomach-turning. One boy allegedly was killed after having been placed in an industrial-sized clothes dryer as punishment.

For years they have been Waiting for Justice

[madfloridian]

1. They only relied on so-called "official" evidence.

They did not listen or take seriously anything else. That is a whitewash. It truly is.

FDLE: No evidence of coverup in beatings at boys' school

'We found no student who had specific knowledge of any unexplained death or burial at this site,'' Bailey said. ``We found no evidence to suggest that this was a secret or hidden cemetery. In our quest to determine the identify of the individuals buried at the grave site we conducted an extensive and exhaustive review of available records.''

But both Bailey and the investigator in charge of the report, Mark Perez, said that their investigation relied extensively on official records -- school records, death certificates, news reports, coroners and medical records, obituaries and aerial photographs.

Investigators did not exhume the bodies or do an analysis of the site to determine if there were more than 31 bodies buried there, Perez said.

And when asked why they relied on official documents when there are allegations that school officials may have tried to hide the beating deaths of students by failing to record it on official documents, Perez said: ``There is nothing to refute the information that is provided in that information.''

Of course if they only believe official records, there will be nothing to refute it because they don't believe anyone else.

[madfloridian]

2. Forgot the link to the St. Pete Times in the OP

http://tampabay.com/news/politics/state/article1001505.ece

Well, actually didn't forget it, left out a bit of html which would keep it from showing.

Sorry about that.

[Canuckistanian]

3. This place was Hell on Earth

I read about this earlier. I regard it as nothing more than an Abu Ghraib for children.

It's outrageous that nothing has been done to bring those sadists to justice.

[madfloridian]

5. Too many governors ignored it.

They just pretended it was not there, not happening. Those of us who are oldtimer Florida natives, we knew all about it...almost like folklore we knew was true.

[Mythsaje]

4. Another way that dangerous sociopaths have flown below

the radar for so long--as part of institutional constructs like "corrections," "intelligence," and the "military." Would Ted Bundy et al have been condemned had he been part of something like this? Maybe... and maybe not.

[madfloridian]

6. They got away with it there for years.

No one spoke up, and now it is getting swept under the rug.

[riverdeep]

7. These were the 'good old days'.

How's that Billy Joel song go?

"The good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems"



Horrible horrible stuff. I hope the case is closed...properly.

[madfloridian]

8. Link to their website called The White House Boys.

I am very sure they did not consider those good old days so very good.

http://www.thewhitehouseboysonline.com/

It took them years to get together, get organized.

Here are some of their stories at the website.

http://www.thewhitehouseboysonline.com/VICTIMSSTORIES.HTML

They are heartbreaking.

Those good old days....not good for them at all.

[Wednesdays]

9. K&R

:kick:

[madfloridian]

11. Thanks for the k & r

Not too many people want to hear about this story. It needs to be told. :hi:

[madfloridian]

10. Their attorney has scheduled a deposition of one house father involved.

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/school-17353-tidwell-one.html

"Attorneys in the White House Boys abuse lawsuit have scheduled a four-hour deposition of a former cottage father who still lives near the site. Troy Tidwell, 85, of Marianna, will be questioned and videotaped for a four-hour session May 21, attorney Greg Hoag confirmed.

"I anticipate this is only going to be one of two depositions on him," Hoag said. "Obviously, we're going to discuss allegations in the complaint."

The allegations include beatings and lashings at the Florida Industrial School for Boys in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, many of them allegedly under Tidwell's watch.

Some 220 men have joined the class-action lawsuit, all claiming they were abused during stints at the Marianna reform school. Tidwell has said the abuse claims are exaggerated and fall decades past the statute of limitations for battery. But he has become a central figure in the case, known in many accounts as the "one-armed man" who administered whippings in a small cinder-block building known as the White House.

Tidwell is required to participate in the deposition."

[madfloridian]

12. The deposition is Thursday.

I doubt they will get any results, but glad they are organized enough to push.

[Swagman]

13. very depressing to read about horrible physical punishments metered

out to children. This must be exposed. Psyochpaths given free reign to abuse and even kill. I was also saddened to see recently a ten year old Texan boy was taken into court in shackles !

We are judged by the way we treat our children.

[madfloridian]

14. It is very sad to think about it.

There was a new boy to our school in junior high (now called middle school). He said he had been there and had scars to prove it. We did not believe him I guess because he was new, and was not pleasant to be around.

We perhaps should have listened.

[madfloridian]

15. The report shocked many people and brought their stories of relatives

who had been there.

http://www.thewhitehouseboysonline.com/ARTICLE-SPECIALREPORTBEN.HTML

"Many readers were astonished that the abuse had continued for years, through several public scandals and the
ensuing political outrage.

"I can't begin to express my gratitude for the effort you put into researching this story and the gifted way in which
you presented it," wrote Frank Smith, from Bluff City, Kan.

For some, the story answered deep questions.

Agnes Carter-Rush was sobbing when she called.

"Now I know what happened to my brother,'' she said. "When he came back home, he never was the same. He threw
himself out in the middle of the street, screaming and yelling for a truck or car to hit him.''

Ten years later, her brother Ulysses Harvey committed suicide by jumping off the Sunshine Skyway bridge. He was
24 and left two young children behind.

Others were reminded of their own time at the school.

"It brought back memories,'' said Frankie L. Williams, 66, who lives in St. Petersburg. He worked in the shoe repair
shop, where the leather straps used for the White House floggings were made. He says he helped to make the
straps.

"It was like a belt, but wider and about 3 feet long. Nothing but pure leather," Williams said.

He, too, remembered trips to the White House.

"They put you in that room. Tell you to hold your legs close together and turn your face close to the wall."

David Dixon, of Springfield, Mass., was there in 1963. He recalled seeing a worker sewing what the boys called
"silver dollars'' — some sort of slugs — into the leather straps used for the beatings."

[madfloridian]

16. I thought of this today when reading some of the abuses at Irish juvenile schools.

I read that the names of those involved in the torture like punishments were not names. I see also that the girls who were treated like this long ago are now in their 70s or 80s.

That is a long time for justice to happen.

This is just one page from that report. You read it and feel their pain.

http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/03-09.php

The page about the treatment of the boys has one paragraph that sounds almost like what we have done to prisoners in our care in our name. The mentality of being cruel.