Bodies found in sheds, woods behind rural Georgia crematory

NOBLE, Ga. -- Authorities arrested a man Saturday who operated a crematory where dozens of decomposing corpses were found stacked in storage sheds and scattered in nearby woods. Some of the bodies were in coffins that appeared to have been buried and disinterred.

When investigators asked 28-year-old Ray Brent Marsh why the bodies weren't cremated, he told them the crematory's incinerator wasn't working, said Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead.

"The worst horror movie you've ever seen -- imagine that 10 times worse," Walker County Coroner Dewayne Wilson said. "That is what I'm dealing with."

Officials said the number of bodies found could be in the hundreds. They broke off the search of the woods Saturday night and planned to resume Sunday morning.

"All we know for sure right now are the 80 bodies, and 13 of those have been identified," Bankhead said. "But they've found so many other partial skeletal remains and evidence of graves, we don't know how many more are out there."

Bankhead said some of the bodies were found in rusty coffins, some of which could be up to 10 years old.

"At one time they apparently were buried in the ground in some other cemetery and were dug up and taken to the crematory," he said. "We don't know why that is."

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

Marsh was charged with theft by deception, a felony. His parents, Ray and Clara Marsh, who own Tri-State Crematory, turned over their records to authorities and were cooperating, Walker County chief deputy Hill Morrison said.

The discoveries began Friday when a woman walking her dog found a skull.