In a small town along the Florida panhandle, there is a place called the Dozier school
for boys.
It was actually founded in the year 1900 and it's gone by many different names over the
years.
But even though the name has changed, one thing has remained constant with this small
little school abuse of young boys for decades.
Upon decades, upon decades, young boys who were runaways orphans or boys who just had
run-ins with the law for minor infractions were sent to this home for boys where on the
more than thousand acre property, there was a little house called the white house.
And it was in this room where the boys say that they experienced, experienced unimaginable
torture.
Also on the property are more than 50 unmarked graves of the victims who died at the hands
of these administrators.
These stories have been told partially in recent years, but there is a new 11 part documentary
series that is currently in production.
That is going to tell the whole story to the entire country.
Ring of Fire's Mike Papantonio is featured in the documentary along with his law partner,
Troy Rafferty, the two of them have been to the school.
They've talked to the victims, and again, they are featured heavily in this forthcoming
documentary series, a four and a half minute clip has been put together with some of the
footage that's already been filmed, including brief interviews with some of the people who
survived the torture at this school.
So take a look and make sure you check back with us here at ring of fire for, uh, information
about when this is going to air, how you'll be able to watch it again.
It's currently in production, but take a look so far at how devastating this has been for
the people who are now in their late stages of life, but they still recall with vivid
detail, how horrible their experiences were.
If you were to drive down a long narrow winding grassy road, hidden far from sight, deep into
thick underbrush of the north Florida woods.
What you're gonna find is unmarked graves containing the remains of 52 bodies.
Most likely all boys, some possibly as young as nine, as of now who they are or how they
got there.
Well, it's still a mystery.
A Florida state juvenile facility set up for the safety and rehabilitation of children
went totally awry, right?
Tidwell pulled up in the black car and he stuck his hand down the back of my pants and
pulled up real tight and grabbed me by the back of the neck.
And on my tip toes took me over to the building my first day here.
And they beat me and beat me and beat me and beat me
Virtually from the time the doors open in January, 1900, basically becoming a concentration
camp for wayward boys
Leaving from here, going down to the white house and getting a beating, uh, because me
and another boy had gotten to a fight.
It's only recently that the abuse, physical, mental abuse and sexual abuse suffered by
the boys at the Florida industrial school for boys is being taken seriously.
And they tell you to lay on the cot, which the cot was like you said, it was ding, it
was moly.
It was bloody.
It was snotty.
Whatever you laid on that cot, which you didn't think about at that time.
And they tell you the face wall.
When you hold the, tell you to hold the bed, like you said, you hold the bed.
And when you hold that bed, when you hit you the first time, that's a pain that I don't
think no man can explain.
Now that so many of the survivors have stepped forward finally, and they've banded together.
The insane cruelty and suspected murders have clearly been covered up and ignored by the
authorities for more than 60 years.
But no more.
They told me what to do, hold, hold the rail.
And, and, uh, and I'd tighten up.
And when I would tighten up, he'd hit the, the wall and it'd be real tighten.
Then I'd let out.
And then he'd hit me.
I got about 30 and I, and about mid midway, then he'd go to my legs.
And it just really, really bad.
One of the most horrendous places at the juvenile facility was a building known as the white
house.
It's a building that still stands today.
It's a small, white concrete building where boys were whipped.
They were beaten for trying to run away or for breaking.
One of the many other rules
Brought to this place.
This building was behind us three times, beaten with the leather strap, about eight inches
long, four inches wide with a wooden handle on it with metal at the tip.
End of it.
Not only that I was raped, sexually assaulted in this building.
And when I came in this morning, it was just like it happened yesterday.
The beatings, many of the boys suffered were beyond brutal.
Some were beaten so badly that when they returned from the white house, it was hard to even
tell who they were.
We would sit out on the, on the benches and talk to each other and the screams just went
on.
It wasn't one person screaming or two, it was like five or six or 10 young children.
And, and some of the things you really couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but
the screams just, just set chills up and down.
You
And sometimes boys never made it out of the white house alive, or at least they were never
seen or heard from again by anybody time and time, again, for more than a hundred years
now, efforts to bring justice to the men who were traumatized at the white house have been
halted again.
And again, there's likely only one remaining hope for justice.
And it rests in the hands of the men and the women who represented the citizens of the
state of Florida in the Florida legislature.