On Tuesday, remains of 55 people were found at the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a school that was notorious for boys going missing in addition to reports of beatings, torture and sexual assaults. 

According to the Los Angeles Times, researchers and forensic anthropologists found the remains of 55 people on the school grounds in Marianna, Fla. The researchers found five more than in previous field work, and indicated 24 more than were listed in school records. 

"Locating 55 burials is a significant finding, which opens up a whole new set of questions for our team,'' said Erin Kimmerle, a University of South Florida associate professor and forensic anthropologist who is leading the two-year project to uncover mysteries at the school.

The school was in operation from 1900 to 2011. 

From September to December of 2013, researchers led excavations near Boot Hill, which is an unmarked cemetery on school grounds. Thirty-one white crosses were put on the burial ground in the 1990s to commemorate the boys buried there. 

Using radars, DNA samples and search dogs, researchers looked for unmarked graves of boys who went missing when the school was in operation. The researches found bones, teeth and other artifacts on the 55 bodies. Bones and teeth will be submitted for DNA testing. 

Researchers are also trying to collect DNA from family members of boys who were sent to the school for truancy or petty crimes. So far, DNA has been collected for 11 surviving family members of former Dozier residents. 

"All of the analysis needed to answer these important questions are yet to be done. But it is our intention to answer as many of these questions as possible,'' Kimmerle said.

Survivors who went to the school described beatings, torture, rapes and the disappearance of boys. 

Roger Dean Kiser, who is now 67, of Brunswick, Ga., said he was sent to the school at age 12 in 1959 and stayed there for two years. He wrote a book about the school called "The White House Boys," which is the name for the house on school grounds where boys were beaten. 

He says he was beaten twice with a leather whip that was reinforced by a slab of sheet metal. He said that many were sodomized or forced to perform oral sex on staff members. Boys were reportedly beaten for spitting, cursing or talking back. Kiser said staff members took bets on who could draw blood first. 

He added that some of the bodies of the boys were burned in the incinerator. 

"They're going to find a lot of bodies out there, and there are a lot more bodies they'll never find,'' Kiser predicted in October.

Records at Dozier show some students died of the flu, pneumonia, tuberculosis and knife wounds, and some perished in a 1914 fire. Documents show that more than 100 boys died at the school. 

An investigation by the U.S. Justice Department documented the abuse that led to the school's closure. However, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded in 2010 that there was not enough evidence to pursue criminal charges, despite the discovery of human remains.