uuuuhhhhhhhh....

yikes

NOBLE, Ga., Feb. 18 — The operator of a crematory where 100 decomposing bodies were found was back in sheriff’s custody Monday ahead of a court hearing later in the day. Authorities expect to find up to 200 corpses in storage sheds and scattered in woods behind Tri-State Crematory in this hamlet, about 25 miles south of Chattanooga, Tenn.

‘I wish we had a good explanation for this, but we don’t.’

— KRIS SPERRY

Chief medical examiner RAY BRENT MARSH was to appear in court at 3 p.m. ET.

Marsh, 28, was charged Saturday with five counts of theft by deception for taking payment for cremations he didn’t perform.

A magistrate had released Marsh, 28, on Sunday after he posted a $25,000 bond, but he was re-arrested late Sunday and charged with 11 more counts of theft by deception.

When asked by investigators why the bodies had not been cremated, Marsh said the crematory incinerator was not working.

Authorities said they had recovered 97 bodies — including one infant. The final toll is expected to be at least 200, said Dr. Kris Sperry, Georgia’s chief medical examiner. Sixteen people have been identified so far.

“We’re just barely skimming the surface,” Sperry said. “Some of the remains are mummified.”

Officials, who have set up a morgue on the site, said they will also search Marsh’s entire 16-acre property and a small adjoining lake.

More charges are considered likely against Ray Brent Marsh, 28, operator of the Tri-State Crematory.

Officials were requesting federal assistance and equipment to help process the remains, a task that has overwhelmed local resources, Sperry said. Investigators believe the crematory had stacked the corpses for up to 15 years.

“They just piled them on top and then piled more on top. And then they just left them,” Sperry said. “I wish we had a good explanation for this, but we don’t.”

Sperry said authorities suspect Marsh may have provided ashes from wood chips to clients as the remains of loved ones. Authorities have asked families to return ashes for examination and have established an information center.

Sperry said that without a living relative willing to take part in tests, such as DNA comparisons, some bodies would likely never be identified.

Families on Sunday completed Red Cross paperwork to help identify the bodies and several dentists opened their offices to make dental records available.

Pat Higdon of Chattanooga, Tenn., made the drive to fill out paperwork for her husband, Tommy Higdon, who died of lung cancer last fall. She said she chose to cremate his body because she couldn’t afford a burial.

“He looked like a corpse for two months before he died. He just laid there with his mouth open and his eyes open,” Higdon said. “I can’t bear to think he still looks like that, only he’s lying in a shed or a creek somewhere.”

Stanley Payne of Chattanooga said he had believed the Marshs’ crematory would properly handle the remains of his mother, who died two years ago.

“We were childhood friends growing up together,” Payne said of the Marsh family. “We trusted them. Everybody trusts everybody here, and everybody believes everybody.”

Rusty Cash, of East Ridge, Tenn., said he considers himself one of the lucky ones — authorities told him Sunday they had identified the body of his mother-in-law, Norma Hutton.

After the call, Cash opened the urn he had received from the crematory. “It looked like burnt wood chips as far as I could tell,” Cash said.

Lisa Cash said their children — her mom’s grandchildren — were having a hard time dealing with what happened. “They don’t understand. How can granny be there and here too?” Cash said of her four children, ages 13, 12, 11 and 8. “I explained: ‘Somebody lied.’”

OWNERS COOPERATING

The investigation began with an anonymous phone call to the Environmental Protection Agency office in Atlanta. EPA investigators arrived Friday, searched the area and found a human skull, authorities said.

Environmental officials had passed along a similar tip in November. Investigators were sent to the crematory and talked to the operators but did not search the premises.

The crematory owners, Ray and Clara Marsh, turned the business over to their son, Ray Brent Marsh, in 1996. The couple has turned over company records to authorities and was said to be cooperating.

“I have no idea how this happened,” Samuel Marsh, who is Ray Marsh’s brother, said in a telephone interview. “It’s just crazy to me.”

Between 25 and 30 funeral homes in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama routinely sent bodies to Tri-State for cremation.

Tri-State was never inspected because it worked only with funeral homes, and under Georgia law only crematories that deal directly with the public have to be inspected.

Some of the bodies had been delivered to the Tri-State Crematory within the last few days, and some bore hospital toe tags. Others had apparently been there for three years or more, authorities said.

Some bodies were found in rusty coffins, some as much as 10 years old, that had evidently been buried and then later disinterred.

“At one time they apparently were buried in the ground in some other cemetery, and were dug up and taken to the crematory,” said Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead. “We don’t know why that is.”

‘THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN’

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division began testing well water from the area for contaminants on Saturday, but results were not yet available.

Gov. Roy Barnes declared a state of emergency in Walker County. The declaration makes state assistance available to local authorities for the cost of the operation.

“We intend to first try to identify the remains and at the same time keep the investigation going on, and then to fully investigate what went wrong, who’s responsible and prosecute them to the full extent of the law,” Barnes said.

“It is something we have to deal with, and we will,” the governor said. “This should not happen.”

haha... i dont man, shit is kind of funny to me.like, not 'ha ha' funny, but 'wow, thats real.... wow' funny.

my thoughts exactly

that would be a good plot for a horor movie....

crazy shit indeed

they were interviewing relatives on the news, and some some interviewees had weird names, like "rock" and rusty" for example...

i saw one person say, "my grandmother's body was found, i wanna know where the ashes we have came from" or something like that.

god why wouldnt he just have a bonfire or something?

whoa! That place must smell fucking horrible. I almost don't believe it.

What a dead-beat worker...

so, ok, the oven breaks(?) and you can't burn the one you just got in because you need the money for bills instead of oven repair... and maybe it's slow, so you let a couple stack up, telling yourself that you'll get right on it when you get the oven fixed but DAMN!!! There's got to be a point where you just take the old newspapers you've been meaning to recycle and some gas from the lawn mower and at least get something happening in a 50 gallon drum...

yeah thats jsu fukkin weerd. how the hell can you go to work noing that well theres about 200 bodies jus hangin. you gotta no your gonna go down soon.

yes thats a messed up situation , its a good idea , not in the " 'ha ha' funny, but 'wow, thats real.... wow' funny...............

they enbalmed all the bodies though so that they didnt stink at all ........

Meat market mutilation massacre

thats just gross

Originally posted by Smart

so, ok, the oven breaks(?) and you can't burn the one you just got in because you need the money for bills instead of oven repair... and maybe it's slow, so you let a couple stack up, telling yourself that you'll get right on it when you get the oven fixed but DAMN!!! There's got to be a point where you just take the old newspapers you've been meaning to recycle and some gas from the lawn mower and at least get something happening in a 50 gallon drum...

ha ha