Horror at Ga. Crematory Isn’t Over

The urns rested in places of honor--on the mantel, in the bookshelf. Or they were buried under tombstones kept fresh with flowers year round.

Husbands, wives, daughters, grandsons treated the urns with reverence.

Now they find, the urns were full of burned wood chips. And the loved ones whose ashes were supposed to be inside were instead decomposing unnoticed in the woods, their bodies tossed onto piles of mummified corpses or scattered among hundreds of anonymous bones.

“I thought I was talking to my momma’s ashes,” Barbara Davis said. “But she wasn’t there.”

Davis, furious and grieving anew, brought some of those ashes to the Walker County Civic Center on Sunday, joining hundreds of distraught relatives seeking answers as a macabre investigation unfolded on the grounds of Tri-State Crematory.

As a chill dusk settled over this mountain community in northwest Georgia, authorities said they had recovered 118 decomposing corpses, including an infant’s, from the crematory. Some were in shrouds, others in caskets. One body was in the back of a van. Some were in hospital gowns, with toe tags still attached. Others were laid out in funeral suits. By evening, 16 had been identified.

Forest Believed to Be Site of Many Bodies

Officials expect to discover scores more bodies over the next days and weeks as they comb the pine forest covering the crematory grounds and send divers into a small lake on the property.

“We could find as many as 300 sets of remains before this investigation is over,” said Buzz Weiss of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. “It looks like something out of a Stephen King novel. Nobody has ever seen anything like this.”

The crematory served as many as 30 funeral homes in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, and the state medical examiner said some bodies looked as though they could be two decades old.

The operator of the crematory, Brent Marsh, was released on bond Sunday, to the outrage of many here.

He has been charged with five counts of theft by deception for allegedly taking money for cremations he never performed. Authorities expect many more charges will come as the case unfolds. They said Marsh has been cooperating, turning over all his records, though one official described the crematory’s ledgers as incomplete.

Neither Marsh nor his parents, who have owned the crematory for decades, could be reached for comment.

So far, officials said, the only explanation the Marshes have been able to offer is that the crematory furnace has been broken for some time.

“And that certainly does not excuse what we have here,” Weiss said.

Relatives agreed.

They came to the Walker County Civic Center bearing ceramic urns and haunted memories. They scribbled lists of their loved ones’ distinguishing features, noting a mother’s birthmark, a husband’s scars. They spoke with Red Cross counselors and pounded Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes with questions. He could do little but express his horror.

“I started as a prosecutor 30 years ago, and I thought I had seen everything,” the governor said as he left a private meeting with 150 family members.

“It’s just terrible,” he said.

Those whose relatives had been identified made plans, again, for cremation. Those who could only wonder agonized: Should they dig up the urn in the cemetery? Should they hold a second funeral?

“I just don’t know what to think,” said Tim Mason, a local accountant.

His father’s corpse was the first to be identified at the crematory. But Mason feels sure that his mother, who passed away in 1995, was tossed in the woods to decompose as well. For the last six years, he has visited her grave, set flowers on her tombstone. He has taken comfort in seeing his parents resting side by side in death.

Now, he wonders if they will ever find his mother’s remains.

He wonders what indignities her corpse has suffered.

He can barely process the shock.

“There’s hurt. Anger. You’re sad. The whole range of emotions. Disbelief,” Mason said. “There is no way to describe it.”

Crematory Owners Were Well-Respected

Like others in the community, Mason said he felt doubly betrayed because he considered the Marsh family his friends. Ray and Clara Marsh, the crematory owners, were well-respected as civic leaders, admired as active volunteers. Brent Marsh, who took over day-to-day management in 1996, was the treasurer of his church.

The elder Marshes and their son lived near the crematory, which is in a residential neighborhood. Authorities had conflicting reports about whether neighbors ever complained of a stench from the property.

Because the crematory served only funeral homes and did not deal with the public directly, it was not subject to review or licensing by state inspectors, a loophole that legislators are already moving to address. Sheriff’s deputies first entered the property Friday, after a woman walking her dog nearby reported finding a human skull.

In retrospect, some families now remember suspicious signs.

Davis, for instance, gave the funeral home three small urns for her mother’s ashes, but was told she needed to bring still another because the ashes would not fit. When they received the urns, relatives noticed right away that they rattled.

“It sounded like gravel, like a bunch of rocks,” recalled Reginald Banks, grandson of the deceased. “Ashes shouldn’t make that noise.”

Still, Davis did not raise questions. She had never had a relative cremated before, so she did not know what to expect. She set an urn on her living room mantel and lit candles in front of it every Sunday without fail. She talked to what she thought were her mother’s remains.

“We would tell her how we missed her, how we hoped she was resting in peace,” Davis said. “Now, we come to find out she wasn’t.”

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Stanley reported from Noble and Simon from St. Louis.