'White House Boy' claims startling find
Have boys' graves been found?
Updated: Tuesday, 27 Dec 2011, 6:22 PM EST
Published : Tuesday, 27 Dec 2011, 6:22 PM EST
Tanya Arja
FOX 13 News reporter
MARIANNA - Among the weeds, pine trees, and brush, Jerry Cooper made a startling discovery.
"I was having a hard time because I didn't know if I was in a cemetery," he recalled. "I couldn't find anything. Then
all of a sudden I spotted a slab that was covered with leaves and barely one corner of it sticking out. Then I started
looking around and I saw more and more."
Cooper saw small bricks, with what looked like letters or names on it. He found a headstone.
His stomach dropped as he looked around.
"My heart jumped. The adrenaline hit me then: I'm in the right place."
Jerry says the former campus of the Florida School for Boys is just a stone's throw from the cemetery property.
And while he has no idea who is buried here, he wants to know more.
Cooper is one of 300 men now in their 50's and 60's. They say they were beaten here as children.
They're known as the White House Boys, named after a little white concrete building they all called the White
House. That's where they say they were beaten by staff members.
Cooper says on one occasion he got 135 licks after the staff thought he lied.
"The strap itself was three inches wide, a half-inch thick," he remembered.
He says the smell of the room was sickening.
"It was nasty. It smelled. A good word for it would be vomit. The cot I was strapped to had a mattress but no sheets
and the pillow was God-awful filthy and stinky."
Cooper drove to Marianna to look for the cemetery.
"I can't say what's in there, we don't know that yet."
The state of Florida investigated two years ago but said they found no evidence of abuse. But now the U.S.
Department of Justice is doing their own investigation.
They only looked back to the 80's, but say they did find evidence of excessive force used by guards on the boys.
And they said the state of Florida failed in their job to detect and resolve the problems.
Cooper is thankful the federal government is looking into this.
"The state right now is under the watch. We don't know what's going to happen. But I feel since the White House
Boys have gotten involved [exposing] what it's really like at some of these institutions in the state of Florida, and
now the Department of Justice has proved it."
Have boys' graves been found?
Updated: Tuesday, 27 Dec 2011, 6:22 PM EST
Published : Tuesday, 27 Dec 2011, 6:22 PM EST
Tanya Arja
FOX 13 News reporter
MARIANNA - Among the weeds, pine trees, and brush, Jerry Cooper made a startling discovery.
"I was having a hard time because I didn't know if I was in a cemetery," he recalled. "I couldn't find anything. Then
all of a sudden I spotted a slab that was covered with leaves and barely one corner of it sticking out. Then I started
looking around and I saw more and more."
Cooper saw small bricks, with what looked like letters or names on it. He found a headstone.
His stomach dropped as he looked around.
"My heart jumped. The adrenaline hit me then: I'm in the right place."
Jerry says the former campus of the Florida School for Boys is just a stone's throw from the cemetery property.
And while he has no idea who is buried here, he wants to know more.
Cooper is one of 300 men now in their 50's and 60's. They say they were beaten here as children.
They're known as the White House Boys, named after a little white concrete building they all called the White
House. That's where they say they were beaten by staff members.
Cooper says on one occasion he got 135 licks after the staff thought he lied.
"The strap itself was three inches wide, a half-inch thick," he remembered.
He says the smell of the room was sickening.
"It was nasty. It smelled. A good word for it would be vomit. The cot I was strapped to had a mattress but no sheets
and the pillow was God-awful filthy and stinky."
Cooper drove to Marianna to look for the cemetery.
"I can't say what's in there, we don't know that yet."
The state of Florida investigated two years ago but said they found no evidence of abuse. But now the U.S.
Department of Justice is doing their own investigation.
They only looked back to the 80's, but say they did find evidence of excessive force used by guards on the boys.
And they said the state of Florida failed in their job to detect and resolve the problems.
Cooper is thankful the federal government is looking into this.
"The state right now is under the watch. We don't know what's going to happen. But I feel since the White House
Boys have gotten involved [exposing] what it's really like at some of these institutions in the state of Florida, and
now the Department of Justice has proved it."
