Evidence of 98 deaths at Florida reform school found But the team of anthropologists from the University of South Florida said they had verified the deaths of 96 children, mostly African-American boys ranging in age from six to 18, and two adult staff members, between 1914 and 1973. The reform school in Marianna, Florida, which was the largest in the state, opened in 1900 and closed in 2011. Records indicated that 45 were buried on school grounds from 1914 to 1952. The new grave sites were found in an area known as "Boot Hill," but the anthropologists said there may be more elsewhere on the 1,400-acre campus. Charlie Crist, the state's then governor, ordered the police investigation in 2008 after former students from the 1950s and 1960s claimed they and other inmates were beaten and abused. They called themselves "the White House boys" because they said the abuse took place in a small white, 11-room building. The anthropologists have recommended the exhumation of remains for skeletal autopsies to determine causes of death. Among those who died at the school in 1934 was Thomas Varnadoe, just one month after he was remanded there aged 13 when he was accused of "malicious trespassing" through a woman's yard on the way home from school. His nephew Glen Varnadoe said: "We as a family are eternally grateful. We really have no idea where Thomas is buried, on the north side or the south side of the campus.