Tri-State Crematory - Discovery and Identification of The Remains

Discovery and Identification of The Remains

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 the property.

On Feb. 15, 2002, investigators returned, finding piles of rotting human bodies in a storage shed, in vaults and scattered throughout the property. 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.

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 Ronan and informed him something was going on at the Marsh residence and law enforcement were on the way to the scene. Ronan was later issued a subpoena by the presiding Judge James Bodiford over racial remarks a family member made to Marsh, when his defense team moved for a change of venue.

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.

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.