Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys

Located in Florida's Panhandle, Arthur G. Dozier's School for Boys was a reform school for boys who had committed crimes like petty theft and truancy. Only recently, former students, now in their sixties, have been coming forward with stories of torture and murder. 

In early 2008, dozens of former Dozier students began organizing a group online and retelling their stories to one another, as well as to reporters. The men called themselves 'White House Boys' after the building where most of the brutal beatings took place. The men's stories were hard to believe at first, given they had only just now come forward. 

One boy described being beaten with a leather strap forty times on his first day at the school. 'Blood was everywhere,' said Robert Straley, who was beaten for reportedly planning to run away. Another student, Jerry Cooper, said 'It goes beyond beatings; children were murdered  there.' Roger Kiser recalls the time he spent at Dozier, 'I know for a fact that some boys died. Two boys put another boy in the washer an killed him. He was buried in the graveyard.' 

The public was forced to listen to, as well as believe the men's tales of horror after, in 2013, dozens of bodies were exhumed from the the area around the school. An official number of bodies found has yet to be released, but by using ground-penetrating radar, anthropologists has found more then fifty shafts, where bodies would be held.

Dozier has been shut down since 2011 due to a budgetary crisis. One boy has said, regarding the school being shut down, 'It felt like justice at last.' Even after finding out what really happened to their children, there is little closure for the families of the deceased. There will be no trial or convictions, since most involves are dead now, but for the boys who survived, finally being believed is enough.