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19 Unmarked Graves Discovered At Shuttered Florida Reform School

//boys school graves florida

Dec. 11 2012, Published 6:00 a.m. ET

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By Breaking Celebrity News Staff

It's horror straight out of the mind of Stephen King - although sadly, none of this is fiction.

A new report from anthropology researchers at the University of South Florida reveals grisly discoveries on the grounds of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a shuttered state reform school. The report finds evidence of 98 deaths and at least 50 graves - 19 more than state authorities identified during an investigation of the grounds two years ago.

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The grim discoveries were made on the 1,400-acre grounds of the school, which is about 60 miles west of Tallahassee, that was purportedly the flashpoint of beatings, rapes and murders dating back nearly a century.

In the report, released Monday, experts said they believe more gravesites linked to the school exist. The current death toll stands at two adult staffers and 98 kids, ages 6 to 18, and all believed to have died between 1914 through 1973.

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"We anticipated finding about 25 to 30 grave shafts, but in fact we found a minimum of 50," researcher Christian Wells said.

In 2008, Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist spearheaded the investigation in response to claims of abuse from ex-students who attended the school in the 1950s and 1960s.

In their 2010 look into the institution, Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials were unable to verify the causes of death, which Monday's report corroborated, although researchers noted diseases, fire and drowning had been documented in some of the cases. Other trends included deaths linked to new