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>https://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/okeechobee-reform-school-victims-heartened-by-investigation-of-alleged/2188161
Sheriff investigates claims of 'torture,' killings at Okeechobee reform school
The sheriff's deputies saw blood on the back of Joseph Johnson's shirt. He was 12, in 1959, walking down a Sarasota street after another beating from his stepmother.
There's no way this is going to happen to you again, one of the deputies told him.
They sent him to live at the Florida School for Boys at Okeechobee, a brand-new state-run facility for troubled kids and orphans and wards of the state, where that deputy's promise fell apart.
The boy was accused of planning to run away. Guards handcuffed him to a cot, he says, and beat him with a leather strap until blood soaked his jeans.
"It was torture, plain and simple," said Johnson, 68, who now lives in Knoxville, Tenn. "They beat us kids. Some of us they beat to death."
Johnson and other men scarred from their experience at the reform school here have prompted the Okeechobee County Sheriff's Office to launch an investigation into a dark period in Florida history. Some say boys were killed by men whose paychecks came from the state. They say there are bodies buried on campus. The Sheriff's Office is taking those claims seriously.
"Any time there's an accusation like this, we have to check it out," said Capt. John Rhoden, who is leading the investigation. "If there's a body out there somewhere, I'd sure like to find it."