Out of today's New York Times:February 17, 2002
Scores of Bodies Strewn at Site of Crematory
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
NOBLE, Ga., Feb. 16 — Every funeral director for 100 miles did business with the Tri-State Crematory on the assumption that the owners were doing their job of transforming dead bodies into ashes. But today, horrified authorities discovered decomposing evidence that the furnace at the crematory had not worked for years.
After a dog walker stumbled over a skull on Friday, law enforcement officers discovered at least 120 rotting corpses in sheds and on the ground near the crematory, and state officials said that that figure could double by the time the area is fully examined. Some of the bodies had been there for years and were nearly skeletal, while others, fresh from the funeral home, still bore toe tags.
Human bones, weathered white, were scattered through the woods like leaves, skulls mixed with leg bones in a ghoulish jumble that one state trooper compared to a scene from a Stephen King novel. An infant's body was found in a box in the back of a rusting hearse.
Some bodies had become mummified and may have been at the site more than 20 years, said Dr. Kris Sperry, Georgia's chief medical examiner. Nearly two dozen coffins that had once been buried were also found on the ground, Dr. Sperry said, and in some cases their embalmed contents had been dragged out and left exposed to the elements for years. It was unclear why those bodies were at the site.
Officials said there was apparently no foul play involved with any of the bodies. But even hardened law enforcement officers were left shaken and nauseated by what they saw in the sheds.
"There were bodies stacked like cordwood, just discarded and thrown in a pile," said Vernon Keenan, assistant director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. "After 30 years in law enforcement, you think you've seen everything. And then you see something you can't even imagine."
Dr. Sperry, who deals with corpses every day, said nothing had prepared him for what he saw today.
"I have to say, the utter lack of respect in which they were piled on top of one another was very disturbing," he said.
State officials declared Walker County a disaster area to enable state funds to be spent on the cleanup. They said that apparently the furnace had broken down several years ago and the owners could not afford repairs. The crematory's manager, Ray Brent Marsh, 28, was charged with five counts of theft by deception and was in the county jail tonight. His parents, Ray and Clara Marsh, who own the business, were not charged.
Mr. Keenan said the fraud charges were brought in the absence of any state laws barring inappropriate treatment of corpses.
"We have laws against desecrating graves, but we can't find one against desecration of bodies," he said. "I guess nobody in the Legislature ever thought something like this could happen."
In many cases, families who thought their relatives had been cremated received urns containing what they believed were ashes, but were in fact a mixture of burned wood chips and dirt, officials said. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation urged any families who had received urns through Tri-State to bring them in for examination.
By nightfall, officials had tagged and numbered 80 bodies; they planned to continue their task throughout the week. Earth-moving equipment was ordered, and there was talk of draining a lake on the crematory's property to see what might be on the bottom.
Thirteen bodies were fresh enough to be identified, and some of the families who were notified gathered at a nearby church to exchange tales of shock.
Neva and Tim Mason, accountants who live in nearby La Fayette, were told on Friday night that the body of Mr. Mason's father, Luther P. Mason, had been found. Luther Mason died on Dec. 19, Neva Mason said, and the family believed he had been cremated and his ashes buried at La Fayette Memory Gardens, just down Highway 27 from Noble.
They had had a ceremony at the cemetery, she said, and were shocked to hear that his body had been found at the crematory.
"He was stacked in a barn," Mrs. Mason said. "We don't know if he was stacked on top of people or with people stacked on top of him. We don't know if he was wearing clothes.
"I don't know what's worse, him dying, or this."
The Masons, like almost everyone else in this small town in northwest Georgia, 17 miles south of Chattanooga, knew the Marsh family and never had reason to suspect that anything was awry at the crematory.
"I've known the Marshes all my life," Mrs. Mason said. "My brother graduated college with Brent. They're wonderful people. Mrs. Marsh helped hundreds of kids in this area."
Clara Marsh, a schoolteacher, was president of the Walker County Association of Educators and chairwoman of the Walker County Democratic Committee. Ray Brent Marsh was active in civic affairs, and Sheriff Steve Wilson said he served with Mr. Marsh on several boards and commissions.
The authorities set up a makeshift morgue on the site today, and began moving the newer bodies to a nearby site where families could come and identify them.
At least 20 funeral homes that may have sent bodies to the Tri-State Crematory over the last six years were contacted and asked to review their records in hopes of identifying many of the corpses, but Mr. Keenan said he believed many of the remains would never be identified.
Although all crematories and funeral homes are supposed to be inspected regularly, state officials said Georgia has only two inspectors, and could not provide records today of the last inspection of Tri-State.
W. E. McGill, who was the elected Walker County coroner for 23 years, until his retirement in 2000, said that Tri-State Crematory had operated illegally for a decade by not having a licensed funeral director on its premises during business hours, as required by a state law passed in 1992. He said the crematory also failed to meet state sanitation requirements.
"I filed complaints, but nothing was ever done about it," Mr. McGill said.
Mr. McGill said that Mr. and Mrs. Marsh had started out in the businesses of grave digging and burial vault supply, and that Tri-State had been the only crematory in the county when they founded it three decades ago. (The family lives next to the crematorium.) In those days, he said, a decision to cremate was rare.
"This is the Bible Belt South, and everybody had their own community or church cemetery," he said. In recent years, however, cremation has become more common, and several more crematories have begun operating in the area, he said.
"Cremation was not popular down here until six or seven years ago," Mr. McGill said, adding that the change " has to do with the economy — it's so much cheaper."
Sheila Horton, the niece of the elder Ray Marsh, said greed was to blame for the ghoulish scene.
"His wife and son just didn't want to spend the money to fix it up," said Mrs. Horton, who grew up in Noble and now lives in Atlanta. "Lord Jesus, I don't know how they could go to bed at night with all that outside their window."
Sick