One of the Most Despicable Things That I Have Ever Read

This has got to be one of the worst things that I have ever read. This guy is the lowest of the low...truly despicable.



Crematory operator back in jail
Tue Feb 19, 9:17 AM ET
Larry Copeland USA TODAY

NOBLE, Ga. -- Before the weekend, it would have been hard to find anyone here with an unkind word about the man who ran Tri-State Crematory. Yet Ray Brent Marsh is accused of leaving human remains to decompose in the woods and piling corpses into sheds and concrete vaults.

On Monday, Marsh was arrested for the second time in three days. Authorities filed 11 additional charges of felony theft by deception for accepting money for cremations that were not performed. That brought to 16 the number of counts he faces.

Officials said the number of bodies scattered around the crematory grounds likely will be ''in the hundreds.'' Some bodies have been there for 15 years, they said.

Marsh, 28, took over the business from his parents, Ray and Clara, in 1996. They are not charged with any wrongdoing. Officials say the investigation is continuing.

Marsh was out on $25,000 bond on the initial five felony counts when he was rearrested Monday. He remained in the Walker County jail after he asked that a second bond hearing be delayed until he gets a lawyer. That hearing has not been scheduled.

Authorities say Marsh told them the crematory's incinerator was not working. The official number of bodies recovered climbed to 130 Monday; authorities had identified just 22. They said some corpses will be identified using DNA, but they said others might never be identified.

''It's not like a plane crash, where there are 253 people on board and you know the names of every one of them,'' said Kris Sperry, the state's chief medical examiner.

Walker County authorities said they had opened four more vaults Monday and found them full of bodies. Sheriff Steve Wilson said the bodies are in varying conditions. Some of them were carefully stored in sheds.

''On the flip side of that, we've seen bodies just lying out in the woods,'' he said.

Officials said federal disaster mortuary teams were expected to help recover bodies at a mass portable morgue here. More than 400 people, including several mental health counselors, are working on the case.

Investigators also said Monday that they had examined 51 sets of ashes brought in by family members and found that nine were not of human origin. ''What was represented as human remains was actually powdered cement,'' Sperry said. ''The volume of what we are finding is growing by the hour.''

In ''99.9%'' of the cases, Tri-State workers picked up the bodies from funeral homes and then brought back ashes, Walker County Coroner Dewayne Wilson said.

Families from Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee continued to flock here Monday. They carried what they had been told were the ashes of loved ones. ''It's just disgusting,'' said Betty Macon, 63, of Dalton, Ga. She brought what she hoped were the ashes of her stepson, James Neal, who died in April 2000. ''It's disgusting to think our son was tossed to the side without any regard.''

''I just can't believe anybody would do a thing like this,'' said her sister-in-law, Lugenia Winkfield, 62.

People who live in this tiny community in northwest Georgia, about 20 miles south of Chattanooga, Tenn., say they can't believe it, either.

''Never. I would have never, ever thought it. It was a shock to everybody,'' said Don Westbrook, 64, owner of Westbrook Furniture and Appliance. ''I know this family.''

Cleveland Smith, 58, lives across the street from the Marshes' property and said he has known family members for 45 years. ''It's a puzzle,'' he said. ''I just can't see it.''

The Marsh family matriarch, Clara, was a teacher and educator in Walker County schools for more than 30 years and had been named the county's citizen of the year. Her husband is ailing now but is also well-regarded. Their son, Ray, is the treasurer of his church and a former member of the Walker County Board of Family and Children Services.

For 20 years, the Marsh family operated the Tri-State Crematory, which sits on 16 acres.

Like others here, Roy Newton, 44, said he had no clue of the horror unfolding in the woods behind the crematory. ''I never smelled anything, never saw any buzzards, nothing,'' he said. ''I knew Ray, talked with him all the time. We would just talk about anything any other guy would talk about: Tennessee football, Georgia football, fishing, whatever. They're just a regular . . . everyday, normal, good American family.''

Newton delivered a dump-truck load of dirt to Ray Marsh at the crematory a few years ago. They chatted, he left the dirt and didn't give it a second thought.

''I didn't know what he wanted it for,'' Newton said. ''Now, maybe, I do.''