MARIANNA, Fla. — University of South Florida researchers began exhuming dozens of graves Saturday at a former Panhandle reform school in hopes of identifying the boys buried there and learning how they died.University spokeswoman Lara Wade said in a message Saturday that the work had begun. Researchers are removing dirt with trowels and by hand to find the remains believed to be between about 19 inches to a little more than three feet under the surface.”In these historic cases, it’s really about having an accurate record and finding out what happened and knowing the truth about what happened,” said Erin Kimmerle, a USF anthropologist who is leading the excavation at the school, which opened in 1900 and shut down two years ago for budgetary reasons.Kimmerle says the remains of about 50 people are in the graves. Some are marked with a plain, white steel cross, and others have no markings.Former inmates at the reform school from the 1950s and 1960s have detailed horrific beatings that took place in a small, white concrete block building at the facility. A group of survivors call themselves the “White House Boys” and five years ago called for an investigation into the graves. In 2010, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement ended an investigation and said it could not substantiate or refute claims that boys died at the hands of staff.USF later began its

via Grave excavations begin at Fla. reform school.

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