Crematorium bosses sued over abandoned bodies

IT was a scene too horrible to imagine: heaps of decaying bodies that were supposed to be cremated - many spilling out of a storage shed, scattered around a crematorium and in nearby woods in the United States.

A civil lawsuit against former operator Brent Marsh and the estate of his late father, former owner Ray Brent Marsh, went to trial yesterday, 2½ years after the remains were discovered at the Tri-State Crematorium in Noble, near the Tennessee line. Investigators found heaps of decaying bodies from Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.

Tests revealed the crematory gave some families cement dust instead of their loved one’s ashes. The remains of 334 people were discovered on the property.

Brent Marsh also faces 787 charges in a criminal trial set for October 11.

A separate lawsuit went to trial last spring. It lasted about two weeks before all 58 funeral homes named as defendants for sending bodies to the crematorium during 1988-02 reached settlements totalling $36 million. The latest lawsuit doesn’t specify what amount of money the families are seeking. This trial will only determine liability. If guilty, a second trial a few months later would award damages.