TRI-STATE CREMATORY

TRI-STATE CREMATORY

The Tri-State Crematory, located in the Noble community in northwest Georgia, United States, was the subject of a national incident in 2002, leading to litigation and criminal prosecution, in which over three hundred bodies that had been consigned to the crematorium for proper disposal were never cremated, but instead were dumped on the crematorium's site.

The Tri-State Crematorium was founded by Tommy Marsh in the mid-1970s and was located in the Noble community in northwest Georgia, north of the city of LaFayette. It provided cremation services for a number of funeral homes in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, and made cremation an option for people in communities where it had previously been difficult to obtain.

Tommy Marsh was a respected businessman. He once ran for Medical Examiner of Walker County, losing by fewer than 100 votes. Marsh also offered tent rentals and vault construction.

Tommy Marsh's health deteriorated in the mid-1990s. In mid-to-late 1996 his son, Ray Brent Marsh, took over operation of the business. During the pendency of the litigation filed against the Marsh family, Tommy Marsh died.

TIMELINE

2000 - October: A gas man claims he first saw bodies scattered around the crematory. Walker County Sheriff’s Office decides the complaint is a regulatory issue, not criminal, and nothing is done.

2001 - November: Environmental Protection Agency in Atlanta receives anonymous tip that there are body parts in the woods near the Tri-State Crematory. Walker County Sheriff’s Office does a routine check and finds nothing.

2002 - Feb. 14: Federal agents receive another anonymous tip that someone walking a dog in the woods on crematory property discovered a human bone.

2002 - Feb. 15: Authorities find 49 uncremated bodies scattered in buildings and on the Marsh property.

In early 2002, the United States Environmental Protection Agency office in Atlanta received an anonymous tip that something was amiss at Tri-State Crematory. The EPA officers sent to investigate the property discovered a skull and some bones that were human in origin. The original human skull and bones went missing later in the litigation and were never offered into evidence.

Previously, a propane delivery truck driver had complained on at least two occasions to the Walker County Sheriff's Department about seeing bodies on the Marsh property. The driver made a fuel delivery and called police. This call resulted in a deputy sheriff being called to the property, who discovered nothing unusual.

On Feb. 15, 2002, investigators returned, finding piles of rotting human bodies in a storage shed, in vaults and scattered throughout the property. Atlanta television station WAGA/Fox 5 and reporter Dan Ronan were the first to break the story after a nearby funeral home director called the station and informed Ronan that law enforcement officers were at the Marsh residence. In his first interview that afternoon with Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson, Ronan recalls the Sheriff told him within a few hours the story would be "on the front page of the New York Times and the lead story on the evening newscasts." Ronan and WAGA's other reporters would spend nearly a month in Walker County before finally going home.

A federal disaster team was brought into the area along with a portable morgue shipped from Maryland. The team began trying to identify the remains, a process made difficult because many of the corpses were in advanced stages of decomposition. Some were little more than skeletons. Experts hired by the Marsh attorneys, Stuart James and Frank Jenkins, were prepared to testify that the methods of recovery were questionable and that the methods were made more difficult because of the lack of trained experts undertaking the investigation on the Marsh property. The experts, however, never testified because the civil cases against Tri-State and the funeral homes that had used Tri-State to perform cremation settled after a second trial had begun in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Between 1996 and the date of the discovery, more than 2,000 bodies had been sent to Tri-State. The search ultimately recovered 339 uncremated bodies. Of the 339 bodies that were discovered, 226 were identified. DNA testing was possible in those cases where a living relative was available, but in other cases, it was considered unlikely officials would ever be able to identify the remains.

At some point after Ray Brent Marsh took over the business, he apparently had issues in performing cremations. It was not clear why this was the case. Out of nearly 2000 bodies received by Brent Marsh, 339 went uncremated. Families of the deceased were given concrete dust instead of cremated remains.

In response to Marsh's claim that the cremation oven, or "retort," was broken, the oven was tested and found to be in working order, although subsequent examinations by experts did find faults. Several crematory operators at the time commented that even if the machine had broken down, proper maintenance would have kept the incinerator working, noting that most oven manufacturers have regular maintenance programs available.

All What's You Should Know— where you'll discover the most interesting things that you Should know