Dead And Forsaken

About half the states have some regulations governing crematories--though often not enough inspectors to enforce them. In nine states there are no regulations at all--aside from some limits on emissions. In Maryland the legislature has shot down crematory regulation two years in a row. Steve Sklar, director of the state office of cemetery oversight, hopes it will reconsider now. Solid legislation, he says, for a case like the Marshes' "may not stop the first 10 bodies. But you certainly will stop the next 250."

Back in Georgia, Representative Mike Snow has introduced a bill to require all crematories to be licensed. The irony is acute, since in 1992, Snow had introduced an amendment to exempt the Marsh place from inspection for two years--at Ray Marsh's request. When the coroner complained in 1995 that Marsh wasn't licensed, Marsh's lawyers convinced the state attorney general that Marsh was exempt. The Marsh place only dealt with funeral homes and thus did not fit the state's definition of a crematory as a facility open to the public.

Beyond the bureaucratic lapses, the most baffling question is why the Marsh family went to the trouble of hiring lawyers, lobbying state representatives and allegedly hauling bodies to all corners of their property but never took the simple step of fixing the crematory. "[The repair] is not complicated at all. It's basically a gas flame with a blower," says Charles Kirkland of the Cremation Society of the South. Once the repairs were made, cremating the bodies would have cost only about $25 each. The Marshes were reportedly paid between $200 and $1,500 for each cremation.

For now, Brent Marsh is in jail, under suicide watch, charged with 16 counts of theft by deception. He could face as much as 15 years in prison on each count. Six lawsuits have already been filed by families of the deceased, a few naming some of the 30 funeral homes that sent bodies to the Marsh crematory. Georgia's Governor has asked the President for federal help, and the Federal Disaster Mortuary Response Team that worked on the scene of the World Trade Center attacks has arrived. At least 79 urns of ashes have been tested, and 17 have been found to contain concrete dust or potting soil.