PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA—The search for the remains of boys who died at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, has moved to Old Cathedral Cemetery in West Philadelphia. In 1925, Thomas Curry, aged either 15 or 17, was reportedly found dead from a crushed skull on a railroad bridge after he ran away from the notorious school. He may have been hit by a train. A casket was shipped from Florida to Philadelphia for a funeral and burial in his great-grandparents’ graves. Forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle of the University of South Florida has found 55 graves in the woods at the school and is working to identify the remains through DNA analysis. She and her assistant went to Pennsylvania to look for Curry. They unearthed the casket, which had thumbscrews that resembled those from the Florida graves. When they opened it however, they found only wood—no evidence that it had ever contained a body. “It is sad and disappointing. Rather to be able to shed light, it just raises so many more questions,” she told The Philadelphia Enquirer.
