MARIANNA: FLORIDA SCHOOL FOR BOYS, ABUSE AND KILLINGS INVESTIGATED

MARIANNA, FLORIDA

Don Stratton says he and others were abused at the Florida School for Boys during the 1960s.

Gov. Charles Crist has ordered investigators to determine who, if anyone, lies beneath these white crosses

Former residents of the Florida School for Boys say beatings took place in building called "the white house."

'Whatever is below those crosses is crying out'

Fri January 30, 2009

By Rich PhillipsCNN 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.

(snip)

"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."

(snip)

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."

READ MORE ABOUT THE INVESTIGATION OF ABUSES AT THIS FLORIDA SCHOOL FOR BOYS IN MARIANNA,FLORIDA...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/30/florida.boys.school/