PANAMA CITY — The remains of the first child positively identified among scores found in unmarked graves at the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna will be turned over to surviving family members without a confirmed cause of death, medical examiners said Tuesday.
George Owen Smith, who was 14 when he disappeared from Dozier in 1940, was the first student of the notoriously unsanitary and decrepit school to be identified by University of South Florida researchers using DNA and other tests late last week. However, because of the time that has elapsed since his death and his burial conditions, how Smith died could not be determined by the end of the Bay County Medical Examiner’s Office evaluation Tuesday.
Researchers and investigators will now turn to more than 70-year-old anecdotal evidence if a cause of death is to be determined, said Whit Majors, director of operations in the 14th Judicial Circuit Medical Examiner’s Office.
“Because of the poor condition of the remains, examinations failed to provide evidence of cause and manner of death,” Majors said. “We will continue to work with others to locate information about the circumstances surrounding the death in 1941.”
A pending death certificate for Smith was issued Tuesday, and his remains were turned over to the University of Florida pending their release to a funeral home chosen by Smith’s sister, Ovell Krell.
Smith was sent at age 14 to the Florida Industrial School for Boys for car theft, according to official records. Krell never saw him again, and her family was told he died of pneumonia after running away from the school and hiding under a house in town.
Researchers said he was found in a hastily constructed grave, wrapped only in a burial shroud.
Smith’s remains were exhumed in September 2013 and identified Aug. 7, the first of several unmarked graves. Official records indicated 31 burials at the Dozier School for Boys, but researchers found the remains of 55 people during their four-month excavation last year. His DNA matched two samples taken from his sister.
After more than seven decades, the 85-year-old Krell hopes to lay him to rest at the Auburndale cemetery, where their parents are buried.