The truth is always worth defending. That's why this is such a good example of a scandalous story, a believable one, getting repeated sans facts. And the Tampa area media has been the worst. I have no connection to the school, other than it's in a town near where I grew up. Why would I need to have a connection?
The story you linked simply repeated the claims from earlier (like I said in my other post). The USF digs reports did NOT say anything about graves found under roads. And of course, that was never expanded upon. Neither was the fact that there were no segregated graveyards, another of their pre-dig claims.
As for being "unmarked...." The graves were from the EARLY 1900's, and had been marked with WOODEN crosses. Later, I think in the 90's, the approximate locations were marked with metal crosses. The locations were not known so they were placed as best they could.
As for their being "additional" graves, yes, there were more graves than the official records of the school. HOWEVER, all of those were accounted for prior to the digs, by the FDLE.
This thing has been ripped to shreds by a former high school classmate of mine, a local historian, who has written a sort book where he accounted for every single death that occurred at Dozier. Most were from either influenza or a dormitory fire. Many of those deaths were Dozier employees. When I asked him specifically about this story, way back when it first came out, this is what he had to say:
