50-year-old boys' school torture, murder probe opened

Story here. Utterly shocking, almost beyond comment. Excerpt:

'Thirty-one crosses made of tubular steel and painted white line up unevenly in the grass and weeds of what used to be the grounds of a reform school in Marianna, Florida. The anonymous crosses are rusting away but their secrets may soon be exposed.

When boys disappeared from the school, administrators explained it away, said former student Roger Kiser.

They'd say, "Well, he ran away and the swamp got him," Kiser recalled. Or, "The gators got him." Or, 'Water moccasins got him."
...
Colon recalls his visits to the white house as if they were yesterday:

...
He said he was forced to lie face down in a blood-soaked pillow -- a pillow with small pieces of lips, tongue and skin on it from the previous boy. He'd clench the metal bar of the bed. The ceilings were low. He would hear the strap hit the ceiling and make a "tick" sound before it swung down on him.
...
Kiser, a fellow White House Boy, said the beatings provided entertainment for the guards and administrators.

"There were bets, and money changed hands on who could draw blood on the first blow," he said. He recalled his reaction when he went into a bathroom to clean up after enduring another beating.
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Colon said his reaction was to bury the pain inside. He told a story about how another boy's terror left him wrestling with his own best and worst instincts even to this day.'