Researchers to Exhume Bodies at Troubled Fla. Boys Reform School

Try to identify remains at school where accusations flew of physical and sexual abuse

Saying it was time to provide answers from a painful period in the state's past, Florida's top officials voted Tuesday to let researchers dig up and try to identify remains buried at a closed reform school for boys.

Former students have accused employees and guards at The Dozier School for Boys of physical and sexual abuse, so severe in some cases it may have led to death. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated, but in 2009 the agency concluded it was unable to substantiate or dispute the claims.

Later this month, researchers at the University of South Florida hope to start exhuming bodies from unmarked graves, and perhaps return them to family members for a proper burial.