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The Reformatory, the newest novel by celebrated author Tananarive Due, tells the horrific story of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Once the country's largest reform school, Dozier supposedly intended to rehabilitate its students into productive citizens, but instead the boys were terrorized and tortured, and some were even killed (see Beyond the Book for The Nickel Boys). Although deaths at the school were documented between 1914 and 1973, burials at the school's cemetery, known as Boot Hill, were only recorded from 1914 to 1952 and indicate 31 burials on the site during that time. Statements from former inmates, however, suggested that many more boys had died at the school, and in 2011, the state of Florida authorized Dr. Erin Kimmerle to investigate potential additional gravesites on the grounds. Kimmerle, the executive director of the Florida Institute of Forensic Anthropology and Applied Science at the University of South Florida, had experience locating, recovering ...
