Former Dozier School student still shudders at memories of abuse

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Childhood memories of abuse and torment are still fresh in the mind of 41-year-old Michael Calhoun. Nine months at the Dozier school for boys in Marianna, Florida, was like prison, but to him, more frightening.

"I would hear young men at night hollering and screaming and stuff, and I had no idea what was going on at that time," said former student Michael Calhoun.

Calhoun thought it was a myth until he was court ordered at the age of 15 to attend the reform school in 1987 to clean up his act.

"I was a disturbed child. I was getting in a lot of trouble due to some things that were going on in my life," said Calhoun.

He said he never got the help he needed, and he knows he was not alone.

Late last year, after allegations of sexual abuse and torture dating back to the 1940s surfaced, University of South Florida researchers uncovered the remains of 55 people while excavating the school's graveyard. On Thursday the identity of one of the boys was finally revealed through DNA testing from a family member. Fourteen-year-old George Owen Smith will finally get a proper burial. What happened to him will remain a mystery.

"They would take and put their knee in the back of your elbow and they would bend your arm up and twist your arm and keep twisting your arm -- you hollering and screaming and saying it hurt, and they're still doing it," said Calhoun.

The school has been shut down for three years now. Researchers plan to spend the next year digging up the truth that remains buried underground.

WJAX