Credit: Amazon
Renowned forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle released a new book last week detailing her experiences as she led the investigation and dig at the now-infamous Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.
Established in 1900, the juvenile reform school accepted children as young as six years of age. Some of the children institutionalized at the school were sent by courts after committing serious crime, while others were sent as punishment for minor infractions, such as shoplifting or trespassing. Most of the boys sent to the school, which was state-run, were Black and from families with few resources.
In the wake of the school’s shutdown, Kimmerle stepped in to locate the school’s graveyard to determine the number of graves and who was buried there, thus beginning the process of reuniting the boys with their families through forensic and DNA testing. The school’s poorly kept accounting suggested 31 boys were buried in unmarked graves in a remote field on the school’s property.
Kimmerle used ground penetrating radar, historical imagery analysis and traditional excavation techniques to find the real number—almost double that. She and her team exhumed the remains of 51 boys—previously listed as “missing”—from unmarked graves.
Her research, including skeletal analysis of human remains, ethnographic interviews and examination of archival documentation, revealed that the children at the school suffered beatings, forced labor, sexual abuse and malnutrition. Collaborating with a multidisciplinary team of more than 65 volunteers from 12 law enforcement agencies and universities, Kimmerle positively identified 8 of the bodies using DNA, and another 14 using demography and the location and date of burials.
We Carry Their Bones is a detailed account of the years Kimmerle spent trying to bring justice to the boys murdered at the school, and reunite them with their families.
“With We Carry Their Bones, Erin Kimmerle continues to unearth the true story of the Dozier School, a tale more frightening than any fiction. In a corrupt world, her unflinching revelations are as close as we'll come to justice,” said Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer-Prize Winning author of The Nickel Boys, the true story of the Dozier Boys School.
We Carry Their Bones is available now on hardcover or Kindle eBook from Amazon.
Other recent forensic anthropological research by Kimmerle:
Forensic Team Discovers 45 Unmarked Cemeteries Throughout Tampa Bay
Museum Exhibit Shines Light on 20 Cold Case Homicide Victims
Bonus Book Recommendation: Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights
Just in time for Pride Month, Valena Beety, founder of the West Virginia Innocence Project, has released a book centered on the failures in America’s criminal legal system—particularly with regards to women, the queer community, and people of color.
The book centers around Leigh Stubbs, a young, queer woman in Mississippi who was convicted of a 2001 aggravated assault based on faulty bite mark analysis and her sexual orientation. Prosecutors at the original trial relied heavily on the testimony of local dentist, Dr. Michael West, who became the first member ever suspended by the American Board of Forensic Odontology.
In 2012, Stubbs was eventually released from prison when a judge vacated her conviction. Drawing on Stubbs’ story, interviews with innocence advocates, tales from other wrongfully convicted women, along with Beety’s own experiences as an expert litigator and a queer woman, Manifesting Justice provides a unique perspective.
“Beety expands our notion of justice to include not just people who are factually innocent, but those who are over-charged, pressured into bad plea deals, and over-sentenced. The result is a riveting and timely book that not only advocates for reforming the conviction process—it will transform our very ideas of crime and punishment, what innocence is, and who should be free,” reads the book description.
Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights is also available on hardcover and Kindle eBook from Amazon.