FL: More allegations of abuse, beatings at state school for boys

Last Edited: Wednesday, 10 Dec 2008, 7:14 PM EST
Created: Wednesday, 10 Dec 2008, 7:10 PM EST

MARIANNA -- More and more men are coming out, talking about the abuse they endured a state-run reform school.

They are all former students of the Florida School for Boys in Marianna.

"That kind of fear, it lives in you forever, I guess," said Buddy Suggs.

Suggs, from Hudson, was just 12 when he went to Marianna. He's now 63, but the memories still haunt him.

He says he watched as boys, as young as 9 years old, were led to what they called "The White House." It was a two-room building where they were beaten. Suggs saw them walk into the building, not knowing who the boys were.

"Yeah, you didn't know them but you knew them. You knew the pain, the fear they had every day of their life," he recalls.

Suggs said he saw the proof of the beatings. Working in the laundry room, he had to clean the sheets from the cots, where the beatings took place.

"We got the bloody sheets in there. And we know someone had a beating."

He remembers not wanting to touch the sheets. But he had to clean them.

"It was full of blood, pillow cases. It was more red than white, I'll tell you. It gives you a feeling you never had," he says.

Suggs was never beaten at the school, and considers himself lucky.

But he wonders about the boys who were.

The state is now investigating the allegations of abuse.

And they are investigating a cemetery on the school site with 32 unmarked graves -- graves former students believe are those of young boys beaten to death.

Roger Kiser is a former student. He's leading the charge against the school, starting a group called "The White House Boys."

He said he's been trying to get attention to this for 20 years, but no one believed him.

Now that people are listening, he doesn't plan to give up the fight.

"I'm going to keep throwing gas on the fire. I'm sure they want us to go away," Kiser said.