TIFTON — It was the day after Valentine’s Day five years ago that the story broke about the atrocities at Tri-State Crematory in Noble. What had happened in Noble was so horrible and so outrageous it became a national, and then international, story that brought shame and ridicule to the entire state of Georgia. John Bankhead with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said, “It was probably one of the biggest news stories in the history of Georgia.”

Eventually 334 bodies were discovered on the crematory property operated by Ray Brent Marsh. The bodies, which had been brought there to be cremated, were found in storage sheds, vaults and strewn throughout the Tri-State property. Marsh was arrested and eventually charged with 787 criminal counts. He pled guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison and 75 years on probation. He will be eligible for parole in July 2008. Families of the deceased sued Tri-State and the funeral homes that had sent the bodies there. The families settled the case for $80 million.

Only recently, Ken Poston, Marsh’s defense attorney, put forward his explanation for his client’s bizarre behavior: Mercury poisoning. “Mercury is a naturally occurring element, but it is well established to be present in high concentrations in the cremation process due to the decades-old practice of mercury dental amalgam being used in patients who pass away and their bodies are subject to cremation,” Poston said.

Poston said, “I believe that Ray-Brent Marsh, while living and working at the crematory, became a modern-day ‘Mad-Hatter.’”

What happened at Tri-State changed the law in Georgia and across the country. Crematories in Georgia must now be licensed and are subject to state inspections twice a year. Rules have been bolstered governing the tagging of cremated remains.

Nationally, approximately 25 percent of the dead are cremated. Locally, although the percentage of cremations is lower than the national average, the number of cremations are increasing each year.

“It used to be we only had four or five cremations a year,” Mike Beaumont with Albritton-Beaumont Funeral Directors, said. “Now cremations account for about 15 percent of our funeral services.”

Beaumont said there are a lot of reasons people choose cremation as the method of body disposal. “Things are tight now,” Beaumont said. “Cremations cost less than burials.”

“The people who choose cremation still want a complete service,” Beaumont said. “We have special cremation caskets that are made of wood and can be burned.”

Beaumont said the services are usually the same with a cremation as a burial, but after the services, rather than taking the body to the cemetery, the body is taken to a crematory in Albany.

“We use Mathews Crematory,” Beaumont said. “We know the people there. It is owned by brothers, Mike and Gary Mathews. They have the crematory on the premises at their funeral home. We stay there until the cremation process starts. Then, we go back over the next day and pick up the ashes.”

Beaumont said, since Tri-State, “It has totally changed the way funeral homes handle cremations — and it has raised our liability insurance.

“In the past, before Tri-State. People didn’t want to hear the details of cremation. Now they do.”

Beaumont said he sits down at the table and he talks with the family giving them every detail and answering all of their questions.

“We try to put them at ease,” he said.

Procedures to ensure proper identification of the remains have changed as well.

“By law now,” Beaumont said, “all bodies must have an ID tag or band attached at the ankle.” He said the caskets also have a “memorial record” where identification is placed, as well as the vaults.

“So, now, when a person is buried, there is identification in three places: On the body, the casket and the vault,” Beaumont said.

In the case of cremation, the identification process is a little different. “There is a titanium disc, about the size of a half-dollar, that is put in with the body in the crematorium. The disc comes out with the ashes. Each disc has a case number on it,” Beaumont said.

Beaumont said he takes an extra precaution and places a card with the persons name, along with the name of his funeral home, in the container the ashes will be placed in.

Beaumont said the ashes can be sent back to the funeral home by parcel post. “We don’t do it that way,” he said. “We go get the ashes ourselves and bring them back.”

Beaumont, who said he had been around the funeral business since he was eight years old, said he has seen many changes.

“I can remember when there was only one crematory in South Georgia,” he said. “It was at Hart’s Mortuary in Macon.”

He said now there are two crematories in Albany, one in Valdosta and one in Waycross.

“I can foresee the day when every funeral home will have a crematory,” Beaumont said.

Beaumont said, whether a family chooses burial or cremation, “The important thing is to recognize that a life has been lived and honor it.”



Tuesday: An exclusive interview with Gerald Cook and Faye Deal who were responsible for exposing the situation at Tri-State Crematory.



To contact reporter Jana Cone, call 382-4321, ext. 208.