Signs of More Discarded Bodies

As scores of law enforcement agents scrambled to beat an expected rainstorm, authorities Tuesday discovered what they believe to be yet another cache of discarded bodies next to the grounds of the Tri-State Crematory.

Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said police, executing a search warrant for business records, found a coffin containing human remains and signs that other bodies are buried within a few yards of the home of Tri-State operator Brent Marsh, who faces felony theft charges in the unfolding cremation scandal.

“There are mounds of dirt . . . and it appears that there may be other coffins buried there,” Wilson said. “This is located directly behind his home.”

The discovery is the latest development in a gruesome investigation that began just down the road, near the home of Marsh’s parents, Ray and Clara Marsh. There, police discovered scores of bodies--some dead 10 to 20 years--stacked in pits and crammed into steel vaults at the crematory, about 25 miles south of Chattanooga, Tenn.

Positive Identification Made in Some Remains

Some remains were mummified, others fresh, still dressed in their funeral clothes or hospital gowns.

As of Tuesday, authorities have recovered 191 remains, positively identified 29 and expect to find many more before they are through.

Dr. Kris Sperry, Georgia’s medical examiner, said Tuesday that forensic experts haven’t even started cataloging the bodies found in six vaults. “I would not be surprised that as many as 20 people may be in one of those vaults. . . . It could be well over 100” in all, he said.

Wilson said he was still at a loss to explain why the bodies were tossed aside rather than cremated, especially since it cost the crematory only $25 to perform a service for which the families paid $200 to $1,500.

“It could not be that costly to just fire it up to cremate the bodies,” said Wilson. “That’s the million-dollar question, I guess, as to why did this happen over this period of years when it would seem that to cremate the body would be very minimal.”

The sheriff added that he inspected the cremation furnace and it appeared to be inoperative, as Brent Marsh reportedly told officials when he was arrested last weekend.

Wilson also said his department was investigating reports that the Marshes bought “many 1,000-gallon septic tanks” over the years, but have not substantiated that claim and found the family pulled only permits for four tanks on their property.

The medical examiner said that after examining more than 150 urns supposedly filled by the crematory, 15 were found to contain cement dust and one had potting soil.

Sperry said tests have revealed that one family took home the ashes of an unidentified person while its loved one remained discarded on the Marsh property.

The effort to piece together what happened at Tri-State intensified Tuesday, with more than 125 agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Walker County Sheriff’s Department and federal agencies fanned out over the 16-acre crematory site.

Crime Area Could Become a ‘Mud Bowl’

Police also flew over about six other nearby parcels the Marshes owned, looking for more cadavers.

Authorities concentrated the search on the surrounding woods and other outside areas, hoping to beat an expected rainstorm that would turn their denuded crime scene into what Sperry called a “mud bowl.”

Officials say they intend to search a large lake next to the Marsh property and have advised nearby residents not to drink well water as a precaution.

The macabre saga has shocked residents of this Christian fundamentalist bastion, where the notion of cremation is relatively new. The headline of the Walker County Messenger on Tuesday summed it up: “Horrified, outraged, saddened.”

Federal Forensic Team on the Scene

Brent Marsh, 28, remained in the county jail Tuesday, facing 16 felony theft counts tied to the earlier identification of bodies found at the crematory.

Authorities say he may face even more as they continue to identify remains, a process that is being expedited with the help of a federal forensic task force that worked the scene of the World Trade Center attacks. The elder Marshes haven’t been charged.

The Marshes’ name, however, was invoked during a candlelight church service Tuesday night at the Oakwood Baptist Church in Chickamagua, eight miles north of here, to comfort the families of loved ones sent to the crematory. About 100 people attended. The sermon’s theme: Lazarus, rising from the dead.

Shortly after the service started, five women entered the church and slipped quietly into a row of pews, faces drawn and wearing white T-shirts with the photo of a gray-haired woman over red lettering that said “Victim of Marsh’s Crematory.”

One of the women, Veronica Lively, said the woman depicted on the shirts was her grandmother, who the family thought had been cremated until her body was taken off the crematory grounds this week.

“We know we’re not the only ones going through this,” said Lively. “We have something to be thankful for. She was the second one found and brought out.”