Reform school nightmare haunts Dalton man

The leather strap, a 1⁄8-inch piece of steel embedded in it, lashed across Don Smith’s buttocks. Over and over and over, the strap slammed into him until he couldn’t take any more.

“I started counting, and I got to 97 (lashes) before I passed out,” said the 62-year-old Dalton, Ga., resident. “Last thing I said to myself was ‘Oh, God.’ I woke up three months later.”

He was 16 when that beating took place at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys — also known as the Florida School for Boys — in Marianna, Fla., a small town just west of Tallahasse. It was the second one of the day. The first one was 67 lashes, enough to bloody his buttocks and embed his underwear in his skin. He got the second beating for telling a fellow student about the first one.

“They wanted you to turn loose of the bed and start screamin’, but I didn’t give him that thrill,” he said. “Honest to God, I didn’t.”

Mr. Smith said he is one the White House Boys, a group of former inmates at the school in the 1950s and ’60s who claim they were viciously abused and tortured in a tiny white cinderblock building — the “White House” — next to the school’s dining hall. A number of the White House Boys, including Mr. Smith, joined in a lawsuit against Florida late last year, seeking to make the state pay for their alleged abuses at the hands of school administrators.

Florida investigators believe some of the boys may not have made it out alive. Thirty-two white crosses adorn graves on the grounds of the former reform school. But there are no names and no one knows who lies beneath the crosses.

In December, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the graves to find out who may be buried there.

“I don’t think God would put us in that situation,” said Mr. Smith. “The Devil might have.”

A retired, unmarried plumber, Mr. Smith was close to tears as he talked about being a troubled 16-year-old kid who ended up in the school after stealing a 1953 Chevrolet from a VFW parking lot in Pensacola. Mr. Smith, who has no children, said he spent about 13 months at the school, often skirting death.

He recalls how, after some beatings, his fresh blood would mingle with the dried maroon stains left by the wounds of other boys. The walls and dirty mattresses were splattered with such stains, he said.

Down the hall and to the right black boys took their punishment. The white boys went to the left, inside the White House. A big electric fan in the tiny house drowned out any screams. He never saw the black boys’ side but he heard they had it even worse than the white kids.

Kristen Perezhula, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, declined to go into details of the case, but she said the Executive Division of the Department of Law Enforcement has interviewed about 30 of the White House Boys — but not Mr. Smith — and at least one person who worked at the school during that time. A number of school staff members from those days are now dead.

“This is a unique case,” she said.

Because the case is so old, the investigation will take time, but investigators are prepared to exhume any bodies if necessary, Mrs. Perezhula said. It’s still too early to tell if criminal charges are warranted, she said.

Robert Straley, one of the original four White House Boys publicly to allege abuse at the school, said there are many people like Mr. Smith who have decided to tell their stories. He is not part of the current lawsuit in Florida.

Mr. Straley, one of the organizers of the White House Boys Survivors’ Association, said about 80 people have come forward. Mr. Straley said he suffered abuses on par or worse with what Mr. Smith went through, but he said he couldn’t go into any details because of potential legal action from his own lawyer.

The White House officially was sealed with a ceremony and tree planting in October 2008. The state-operated school now serves male youths 13 to 21 who are referred by the court, according to its Web site.

Mr. Smith said he doesn’t know if the man who beat him is still alive.

“I’d be glad if he’s dead, because he’d be in ... right now, sufferin’,” he said.