Medical examiner: Bodies scattered with no end in sight

“We found that everywhere we were stepping, we were stepping on remains. They were everywhere,” Dr. Kris Sperry testified in the case against former Tri-State Crematory operator Brent Marsh, his late father Ray Marsh and several funeral homes that sent bodies there to be cremated.

Marsh is accused of dumping 334 bodies and passing off cement dust as ashes to families of some of the deceased. In addition to the civil suit in federal court, he also faces 787 state felony charges.

Another witness, gas company employee Gerald Cook, said he reported seeing bodies discarded around the Noble, Ga., crematory as early as October 2000.

“There were skulls, bones, whole bodies and bones with tissue on it,” Cook testified. “Weeds had grown up around it. They had been there a while.”

Cook said he told his supervisor what he had seen, and the supervisor said he would notify Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson.

Authorities did not discover the 334 uncremated remains discarded on the crematory property until Feb. 15, 2002, after Cook had seen remains there on two more occasions and notified his cousin, who worked for the FBI, he testified.

Sperry said within two days, authorities had recovered almost 100 bodies. He said bodies were piled in and around a storage building near the crematory and piled on top of one another inside burial vaults and earthen pits on the 11-acre property.

“Many of the bodies were scattered,” he said. “There were bones scattered all over the surface.”

Marsh listened to the testimony with his head bowed.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers blame funeral directors for not knowing more about what was taking place at the crematory, and the operators for mishandling human remains. Civil lawsuits also are pending in Georgia and Tennessee courts. Trials have not been set in those cases, or in the criminal charges against Marsh.

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Information from: Chattanooga Times Free Press

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