A team of anthropologists from the University of South Florida are exhuming suspected graves at the Boot Hill cemetery at the now closed Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, August 31, 2013. REUTERS/Edmund D Fountain/Pool By Bill Cotterell
MARIANNA, Florida | Sat Aug 31, 2013
(Reuters.com) – Teams of searchers recovered human bones from the sands of Florida Panhandle woodlands on Saturday in a “boot hill” graveyard where juveniles who disappeared from a notorious Old South reform school more than a half-century ago are believed to have been secretly buried.
“We have found evidence of burial hardware – hinges on coffins,” said Dr. Christian Wells, an anthropologist from the University of South Florida, in a briefing about a mile from the closed excavation site near the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.
“There appear to be a few pieces associated with burial shrouds, and there are pins consistent with the 1920s and 1930s, – based on the style of the pins – and they appear to be brass,” he said.