Victims Recount Reform School Horrors
Early Show Exclusive: "White House Boys" Divulge Fla. School's Deep, Dark Secrets
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Dick Colon and Roger Kiser (CBS/EARLY SHOW)
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Interactive Children In Danger Warning signs, state-by-state child services information and a history of child welfare reforms.
"It was beautiful and it looked like driving onto any college campus in America," said Roger Kiser, who was an orphan and around 12 years old when he was sent to the Florida School for Boys at Marianna.
"I thought nothing could be worse than the orphanage in Jacksonville, Fla., where I lived, Kiser said. "But little did I know that I was jumping out of the fire into the frying pan."
He is still haunted by a building at the school called "The White House," where he says students were beaten and abused.
"This was a concrete and steel building and when you walk in there it is like -- a dungeon," Kiser said. "They beat me so badly, when I came out of the white house and came to the main office, I was beaten so bloody they couldn't tell who I was."
Now 63, Kiser formed a group called "The White House Boys" and revealed another hidden memory of the school's past -- a cemetery.
"It's deep, way back in the Florida woods. Hidden far from public view, has been for many years," Kiser said. "You come up on 32 metal crosses stuck in the ground, no markers, no names, no nothing."
Kiser says a deadly fire took some of the students, while others died from influenza, but he wants to know exactly who is buried there and how they died.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has called for an inquiry into the claims of The White House Boys.
"If there is an opportunity to find out exactly what happened there," Crist said. "We have the duty to do so."
"Where are the records, why was there no names placed on these graves?" Kiser asked. "They were just forgotten."
Kiser and Dick Colon, another man who resided at the Florida School for Boys at Marianna, sat down for an emotional, exclusive interview on The Early Show with co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez. The two men recounted some of the horror stories from their stay in Marianna and urged others to come forward and visit the White House Boys Web site. Kiser and Colon's experiences are being made into a movie by SilverCreek Entertainment. See the interview below
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."





Adn, you know, I never knew his first name was Troy, until I jumped on Google, after I saw that on CNN. I have done a lot of research, since then, and read the History of children's justice in Fl.
I am sure that sort of treatment, and abuse, was more prevalent Nationwide, than people realize. I 'went down' 14 times, because I pretty much was a 'Grub' the whole time I was there...
Ok, move on, nothing to see here.
Just a bunch of dead children.
So what.
At lest they weren''t aborted.
Right?
This is sooo confusing.
Anyway, no one got in trouble so
no lesson to learn here.
Everyone back to ordering pizza.
The state I came from at the time had a law that if you were under 18 that if warranted they can send you to one of these places no matter what. It was changed in 1975 much to my delight.
- by tbird6740 December 15, 2008 1:52 PM EST
- There are schools/homes like this ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES! Where has the media been since the closing of New Bethany Homes for Boys and Girls that operated from monetary donations from churches and private individuals for almost three decades? Google "Survivors of New Bethany" and "Mack Ford" and "L. D. Rapier" and "Olin King". Don''t fool yourselves into thinking this is an isolated incident.
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