Why Don't The Ones Lost at Dozier?
By V. Martin
First, thank you so much for being brave enough to come forward with these heart wrenching experiences suffered by so many children over such a long period of time while in the care of the state of Florida. From what I understand this so called "school" for boys was really a prison for children where even adult prisons took better care of their murderers and rapist. The boys at Dozier were hardly that going in, some justpicked up off the street never to be seen again. Mostly young African Americans living in poverty with little education. For over a hundred years this school was open, just closing in 2011, and yet there are no living surviving workers? Other then the one armed man? This fact alone I find very disturbing or is it fact? Who has tried to track these people down? How can all of them be dead? It doesn't surprise me that there are so few actual survivors from the students that went there. The statistics from that place are probably even more disturbing, better they are all dead or changed their identity maybe even their sex to go undetected. Who knows, clearly I do not but I do know enough to form some pretty good ideas of what went on there.
The small number of survivors that have some how gathered the courage to finally tell what they endured during their unfortunate time there deserve nothing but our admiration and undying gratitude and support. You my friends are so brave to bare your souls so shamelessly when shame parellized you for so long. Not your shame but your abusers, their shame that through their abuse became yours. Thank you for not letting it go on any longer, you have saved countless lives. It seems to me that the state of Florida can and should do better by these families that through DNA lost loved ones at Dozier. It doesn't matter who killed them because the only ones responsible are the grown ass adults that at some point had received training on how to care for these kids. If in fact some of the kids did the killing, I have a feeling they were made to do it by the staff to ensure their silence. Kids are so impressionable especially if put in a place like Dozier where they are told there is only one way out and that is to kill on of the other boys. Or maybe something like that, how else does a place like that stay under the radar for over 100+ years?
These are boys being raped by men hired and paid to care for them by the state of Florida. Parents were made to believe their sons turned killer then had to be killed was at dozier for smoking in the boy's room at school. The survivors referred to orphans that sometimes got sent there simple because there was no other place to put them and probably none of them ever left there. I believe these to be the bones of the ones they hunted like animals and killed then left where they died. Some of the bones where fragments, why would a skull be in so many different pieces? Animals don't do that to a skull except one; man. These are bones that have been exposed to all kinds of elements, sure, but the damage I saw there is no doubt these kids had their faces smashed in. They went from the "White House" to a white cardboard box no bigger then a medium flat rate box at the post office. These families are never going to be made whole nor do they expect to make money off their relatives pain and suffering but what the fuck? Who knows what these young men would have become or how much money they would have been able to earn if not for their untimely death. Why should continue to say the worlds but not back it up with any action?
Isn't it about time we give the same value to all kids, not just the ones that come from wealthy white families. These boys, for the most part, didn't stand a chance one way or another they were going to be made to wish they were dead if they weren't really. Anyway, my point is this, if we as a society continue to claim that black lives matter we better start putting our money where our mouths are and fork over some cash. It may sound materiallistic but damn it that's better then what they got. There isn't that many maybe 14? Their families, the victims whose remains fit in a little box, should not want for anything in the state of Florida. These families had children basicly kidnapped off the street, in some cases, only to be returned to their loved ones 75+ years later in a white card board box no bigger then what you would ship a hat in. This is what we deem fair? Talk about adding insult to injury! SHAME ON FLORIDA!!!! Florida murdered these children just the same as if they kicked the living shit out of them itself and everyone living there is condoning it!! Of, course there were more then 14 unmarked graves if I remember correctly they found over 50 possible grave sights whith how many grave in each we will never know because there are no more survivors to claim or run DNA against to find a match. These are the orphansor foster kids that the state sent to Dozier for no other reason then to be rid of them and Dozier had a great record for making them disappear. It was a win win as they say with the only looser dead at the end of the day killed by one of the boys so no one will want to investigate because it was a disposable child one that won't be missed.
2011 and there are no staff members still alive save one with one arm who claims that the boys killed each other. If they killed someone were they then sent to prison? Was there a trial, who were these child killers and what happened to them and more importantly were are they now? Why would everyone be dead? Especially the kids why would they all have died already if not from suicide in which case the school is still killing its wards. There is no way so many lives were lost without their knowledge. For instance the fire that broke out and killed several of the boys but no guard was injured in trying to save them of put out the fire. Was there even an investigation as to what started it and why some of the boys didn't escape but rather parished in the burning building. Did one of the boys start this fire and if so why? Was there any attempt to even find out? Fire can be a precursor for a future serial killer and imagine Dozier produced a few. It would be interesting to find out the numbers.
What parent doesn’t want to pass on all their knowledge to their children before they die? I assume all of you and even those who have never had children still find themselves wanting to do the same. I am of the latter, childless, but not so in my heart all children are mine. Not in some weird creepy way but in an understanding of what a responsibility it is to be an adult and what that means to a child. Honesty, is the number one characteristic above all others children respond to the most. Even when the news of the situation is negative and dire children respond the way they have been taught to and panicking never wins. Panicking wastes a lot of valuable time and should be avoided at all costs. If panic does set in and talking them out of it sensibly and directly fail a sharp slap in the face or clapping ones hands right in front of their face or ears may bring them around. Most children are far smarter and adaptable then we give them credit for.
Having spent most of my childhood in foster care, in Arizona, I have some intimate knowledge of the child care system and what that can do to a child. For six years I went from foster home to foster home mostly abusive in one way or another but none more then my Momster’s version of a family. Fortunately, for me, I had a father that had custody of me for a short time when I was four, even though his third wife and her daughter hated me and pushed me down the stairs I was my father’s daughter. Level headed, honest, hard headed, smart, and logical. Unfortunately, for me, my father’s third wife had it out for me so when they called telling her that my mother gave me up for adoption she didn’t pass on the message to my father. After a certain period of time and so many attempts to contact him, I entered the foster care system with my half brother, Keven. At first, no I am still in shock that she could do this to us and I am now 53, at any moment now she will come through the door. She would smell of sunshine and cigarettes with some lame excuse as to why she took so long but all was well now that she was there. Of course it was!!!! Gone? You were gone? Hardly even noticed now that you are back but every time it happens I remember more and more of the times you are not there. Now I can hardly remember the times you were there and they all include my brother who is no longer here and I cannot afford to lose those memories since we cannot make more. So more good news from the side effects of being familyless, it’s not even a word so unusual it is to put those two words together.
For as long as I can forget they have been telling me to shut up and put up and for just as long I have been telling them to make me. My brother did when he cut my tongue with the scissors but I’m not sticking my tongue out this time. My ex boyfriend’s campaign to make me negative almost worked in shutting me up but for the fact that it is a negative statement to begin with. Besides the truth is what it is, it’s the people creating the situations that determine wether the out comes are negative or positive. Some people want everyone to win even if it means they lose. So someone is losing but what if none of us are losers? What if all things are relevant they just haven’t found out where they are real yet. To be real the decisions we make must be relevant but what if our timing is all off? Or another way to look at it is, we are not aligned with the rest of the universe, we are trying to fight when we should surrender. We are trying to nurture with a hammer put down the hammer and pick up a gallon of ROh2o and go water a tree that isn’t already dead.
It sounds silly, I know, but if we don’t no one will be laughing for a very long time, if at all ever again. DO YOU NOT GET IT? WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!! We need to set up vertical gardens now, we need to get off the grid and do very little until the planet stabilizes then we need to be very careful how we procede from there. For now we need to put down the hammer and drill, we need to put on the breaks and store our vehicles for a year or two. We need to do a lot less spending on stupid shit that is not necessary. Communities need to be self sustaining and in harmony with Mother Nature. There isn’t anything save but food, shelter, and clean pure water and air that we cannot learn to live without and so we shall. My opinion is that it will be a lot less painful if we voluntarily start giving up some of the things we can live without instead of waiting until it’s too late. Too late in this case will be fatal, not just to me and you but to all living things as we know them.
Has it been so long since the last volcano explosion, the last tornadoes, fires, earthquakes and any other natural disaster that we do nothing about the pending doom heading straight for us? I thought my short term memory was short but societies short term memory simple does not exist. No wonder we are in such trouble, we have no memory at all short or long. We do not want to be bothered by memories when they get in the way of what we think progress is. When it comes to making money, nothing stands in the way. When it comes to flexing our countries muscles no resource is protected not even human beings. When a country puts money before it’s people to the point the people have a price tag and depending on the color of your tag dictates your value within that society.
Unfortunately, having a foster kid in the neighborhood does nothing for the property value just like a black male. We are a high risk factor that should be kept an eye on. When the whole community is on watch it brings them together to have a common enemy and foster kids are an easy target. So I can understand why the surrounding communities knew nothing of what was going on at Dozier and the ones that did were probably related to the staff or part of the staff. It really isn’t surprising that it went on for so long because what else did they have? These are troubled teens on drugs, drop outs, juvenile offenders some with criminal records almost all without a father and some even without a mother. The orphans got it the worst, they were hunted and killed like animals by the other boys made to be there. It is my belief that the staff at that hell hole made those boys kill one another. It is another way they got away with it for so long, turn your victims into the monster they fear; yourself. Everyone wants to pass their knowledge to the next generation. Dozier was a school but not a reform on but one on pain, suffering, serial killing. My belief is that they trained serial killers at that school and harbored them after their killings when the heat was on. It is why serial killers are so hard to catch, they go back to their beginning where they always have plenty of victims. Not as much fun, killing the willing. Well, let’s just say they didn’t put up much of a fight.
The unwanted never want to live not like the loved ones do and even less then the ones that are loving. One even claimed to love him, once. That made him more angry then he had ever been in his life, how fucked up is that? Loving the one who is going to take take your life in the most painful grotesque way? Pretty fucked up, I would say and just did. Ha! Boys, boys and more boys to kill in any and every way he could think of and he has thought of some really beautiful ways.
None more so then what he did to that young doctor and his wife. His wife in the fact she lost her life and the husband in the fact that he got home in the not so nick of time to save his wife but to see a one armed man fleeing the scene. The husband is accused, tried, and convicted of the murder serving years before he is released once DNA proves he didn’t do it. The TV program is close to the story but for the fact that Dr. Shepard goes on the run rather then face life in prison but to try and clear his name by finding the one armed man. My idea is that he couldn’t find him because he was back in the arms of the place that made him, Dozier. A lab for serial killers, a vocational school for mass murders. If you’re not disturbed when you arrive never fear fear will change all that with a lot of terror thrown in for good measure. You will be raped by the staff and other kids, made fun of, laughed at, tortured, starved, beaten, hunted, until you are willing to do anything to make it stop. Anything! That anything was committing crimes against the other boys maybe even murder. You do not want to but if you don’t…
The staff, that let this go on and even participated in the torture and rape of these young men are deplorable and should be tortured in the same way only that is probably why they are the way they are. No one will be held accountable for any of the murders or suicides that went on there nor will we ever know the true number of victims that place claimed. Not just because they didn’t keep any real records but because alligators and crocodiles live in the Everglades and no body, no crime, no child, no justice, no grave, no marker, no name you simply did not even exist. The staff at Dozier knew exactly what they were doing and knew exactly how to get away with it. They turned out more then one serial killer I guarantee it but who is the question. The one armed man was one of them, I believe, he was a resident at the school for most of his life, hiding out there when his acts drew too much attention.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he couldn’t come and go as he pleased without so much as one staff member knowing. There were times when the staff would not be on board with his activities but that would change it always did. People are so susceptible especially the disposable ones they want so badly to be loved they don’t care by who. They not only make perfect victims they make perfect future serial killers. It’s all in the training. It’s not as hard as one would think to create a killer that wants and even likes to kill. Certain things are required but not limited to… what those things are I can only guess. This book explores a little bit of the serial killer phenomenon that seems to have gripped this country.
If need be President Biden should step in to talk some sense into all of us. Or not.
