Search for Bodies Ends at Ga. Crematory; Identification Goes On

After scouring the woods and swamps around Tri-State Crematory for a month, state officials now believe there are no more bodies on the 16-acre grounds and are focusing on identifying as many of the 339 corpses as possible, a Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokesman said Thursday.

Officials fear that many corpses will never be identified and are making plans for a mass burial of unclaimed remains in the late summer or fall. People who think one of their relatives may be among the corpses are being asked to provide DNA samples to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

So far authorities have identified 112 bodies, which funeral homes in three states sent to Tri-State Crematory, run by Ray Brent Marsh. For reasons that remain a mystery, Marsh allegedly scattered the corpses about his property and returned to grieving families urns that contained cement powder and burned wood chips. The first corpse was discovered Feb. 15 by a woman walking her dog near the crematory.

“You know these things happen, but why to us in Walker County?” asked Susie Cannon, who runs the cafe in nearby LaFayette, the county seat. “I guess the main feeling people have is disgust. We’re a small community, and you trust people to do the right thing. When they don’t, you feel betrayed. What got into the mind of a nice young man like Ray Brent Marsh is beyond me.”

Marsh, 28, who dropped out of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 1996 to take over the family crematory when his father fell ill, is in the Walker County Jail, charged with 204 counts of theft by deception. His parents and sister were arrested March 8 and charged with making false statements on a death certificate. They are free on bond.

That the Marshes were one of Walker County’s most respected families--Clara Marsh, 70, the mother, was head of the local Democratic Party and a teacher for 30 years--only adds to the sense of puzzlement and betrayal that has gripped this farming community in the last month. “This was the type of family you’d send your kids camping with,” said B.J. Sherlin, who runs a video rental shop.

On Feb. 16, the day 50 or so bodies were found on the Tri-State property, business at Smokey’s BBQ, near the crematory on land owned by the Marshes, dropped to zero. It has since recovered, but townspeople are still perplexed by unanswered questions: Why did Ray Brent Marsh have pictures of decomposing bodies in his computer? Why did he say the crematory incinerator didn’t work, a claim later refuted when investigators fired it up without a problem? Why were there empty wooden coffins on the property that had apparently been dug up from some cemetery?

“When we look back at the past month, I think Walker County has grown up a little more,” said Don Stilwell, publisher of the twice-weekly Walker County Messenger. “We lost some of our innocence. In a way the big time and the hard times have come to visit. What everyone wants to know now is why. Why would Ray Brent Marsh do this?”

At the Noble Zone video shop, B.J. Sherlin has a theory. “The Marshes are good people, normal people. They didn’t come in renting horror movies. They wanted the latest releases like everyone else. But it’s pretty well known in the county that when the father got sick, Miss Clara tried to get Ray Brent’s older brother to take over the crematory. He turned her down flat.

“So she went to Ray Brent and talked him into it. He had to quit college, and there went his dream of being a businessman or lawyer. He was forced into a business he didn’t want to run, and maybe not cremating the bodies was his way of dealing with his displeasure.”