A gas delivery man testified Monday morning in Rome, Ga., that he became sick after spotting bodies lying on the grounds of the Tri-State Crematory on Oct. 3, 2000.
And Dr. Kris Sperry, Georgia chief medical examiner, testified that when he was first called about the discovery he was told, "You are not going to believe this."
Gerald Cook said he told his boss of the gruesome findings and he went to Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson, but he said there were more bodies when he went back over a year later so he took it himself to the FBI.
The LaFayette, Ga., man testified in the civil trial against crematory operator Brent Marsh, the estate of crematory founder Ray Marsh and five funeral homes.
Federal Judge Harold Murphy is overseeing the case in which a jury is being asked to determine liability, but not damages. Over $20 million in settlements has already been paid out in the case involving the discovery of 334 uncremated bodies at the crematory at Noble, Ga., in mid-February, 2002.
Mr. Cook was asked about overhearing a statement made by Ray Marsh about 20 years ago, but defense attorneys objected and it was not allowed. In opening statements, attorneys said Ray Marsh had talked about cutting up bodies.
Mr. Cook said hearing the comment by Ray Marsh "made me uncomfortable" about going on the property on Center Point Road. But he said he did service worker on gas heaters there in the early 1990s for Blossman Gas Company.
He said he later switched to doing propane deliveries. He said the man who had the Marsh route asked him to go in his place because "he just didn't like to go there."
Mr. Cook said he drove up to the crematory on Oct. 3, 2000, and found it cluttered and junky. He said, "There was a lot of trash and debris. . . just clutter, a lot of junk. It was scattered everywhere."
He said he saw a propane tank, but knew it would not hold his 200-gallon delivery. He said he got out looking for a larger tank.
Mr. Cook told the jury he walked around a building and "I saw the first skeletal remains" about 10 feet away. He said it appeared that a small backhoe had been used to push some debris along with the bodies into a heap.
He said he saw some skulls, some bones and "one whole body with a little skin clinging to it."
The witness said, "I just stood there looking at it a couple of minutes. That's not the normal thing you see."
He said he then heard Brent Marsh yell out twice, "Gas man. Gas man." in what he said was a "loud, panicked" voice. He said he then ran to the edge of the building so Marsh would not know he had seen the bodies.
He said, "I didn't want him to see me looking at them."
Asked if he told Marsh he had seen the bodies, he said, "No. I was scared."
He said he drove around afterwards and was sick. He said he didn't do his other deliveries that day.
He said, "I just really didn't know what to do. I knew that it wasn't right."
Mr. Cook said he told his manager, and the next morning the manager said he had not been able to sleep and was going to Sheriff Wilson with the information that morning.
Mr. Cook said he had another gas delivery at the crematory on Oct. 23, 2001, and after he drove up he saw a body 20 feet from the propane tank. He said it "was not covered up or anything. It was totally exposed lying on the ground."
He said it was decomposed. "There were no distinctive features. It looked like it had just melted. But I could tell it was a body that shouldn't be there."
He said Marsh told him at one point that "business had been real good. He had been up in Tennessee soliciting business. He had more bodies to take care of." He said Marsh said it required 75 gallons of propane for each cremation.
He said Marsh, when it was time for deliveries, would call the office to make sure to know when he was coming. He said he would call that day, and the office would call to say Marsh was waiting for him.
Mr. Cook said he made two more deliveries to the Marsh property in December 2001. He said on one occasion he saw a large blue tarp. He said Brent Marsh, without being asked, said it was put there because he had septic problems. Mr. Cook said he did not see any piles of dirt that indicated it was a septic dig.
He said on his last visit "I didn't look (for bodies). I was very worried."
He said at that point "I figured if I had told my boss and he had gone to the sheriff and nothing was done about it, I had better tell somebody else." He said he went to his aunt, Faye Deal, an administrative assistant at the FBI office in Rossville.
Asked his response when news of the finding came out, he said, "I was glad that it had been found, but I was surprised at how many bodies there were."
Defense attorneys tried to keep the jury from seeing photos of the bodies, saying it would be inflammatory. But Judge Murphy allowed a number to be entered, while ruling some out.
He said he agreed the pictures show "absolute horror." He said, "I agree with you 100 percent that they are shocking. But you are overlooking one thing, the mishandling of the corpses is what this case is all about."
Dr. Sperry said he was at a convention in downtown Atlanta on Friday afternoon, Feb. 15, 2001, when he received a call from Walker County Coroner Dewayne Wilson. He said he was told a skull had been found at the crematory. Dr. Sperry said he told Mr. Wilson to "treat it as evidence and send it down to my lab in Atlanta."
He said Mr. Wilson called back 20 minutes later and said he was standing at the scene looking at the skull. Dr. Sperry said there then came a third call in which he was told, "You need to get up here right now. You are not going to believe this." Dr. Sperry said, "I started mobilizing."
He said he drove to the home of a GBI agent and they arrrived at the Marsh property about 8:30 p.m. He said 15-20 people were already on the scene, including agents of the GBI, Walker County Sheriff officers and then Georgia Emergency Management Agency director Gary McConnell.
He said, "Everyone was standing around in the parking lot. I was asked, 'Doc, what do we do?"
He said an effort was begun to rope off the area and to begin recovering bodies and trying to identify them and then return them to their families.
Dr. Sperry described the site as "very junky. There were things piled up, old farm equipment rusting."
Dr. Sperry said there was no discernible odor that cold night. But he said it warmed up over the next few days, and the odor of decaying bodies became so strong that it was found necessary to move a tent where food was being served to the workers.
He said that night he learned that bodies had been found in the crematory building, in a Butler-type building near it and in the woods.
He said one body was in the incinerator, one was outside the unit, and two more were in a back room of the crematory building.
He said the "family waiting room" at the Tri-State Crematory was filthy with rodent droppings on the furniture. "There was dust and mildew all over the place."
Dr. Sperry said other bodies were found stacked in the Butler building, which had been locked when the first investigators arrived.
He said there were five heavy vaults in that building and one vault outside and all turned out to be "piled high with bodies."
The medical examiner said bodies were found in seven pits in nearby woods. He said they were stacked one on top of the other. He said dirt was not pushed on any of the bodies until all were in, then an effort was made to cover them.
But he said body parts could be seen sticking up out of the pits.
He said a casket was opened on the property "and rats ran out." He said animals had gotten into the bodies and moved the bones around while gnawing on them.
The witness said, "We began to find there were hundreds more bodies than we could ever conceive of. As we walked along everywhere we stepped we were stepping on human bones."
He said he determined that "if we called in every medical examiner in the state it was more than we could handle." He said he decided to ask for help from the federal Disaster Mortuary Operation Recovery Team - the same one that responded to the World Trade Center disaster and to many plane crashes. The team was getting set up by Tuesday, putting out one large tent for the bodies and another for the ID process.
The bodies were each given numbers. Dr. Sperry said 334 bodies were eventually found, and 226 have been identified. He said the identification process is ongoing, saying he expects it will be continuing "long after I retire." He said he just got a lead from a family member recently, though he said those have cut way down.
Dr. Sperry said he cannot say that some of the bodies found were not brought to the crematory prior to 1997.
Dr. Sperry said Brent Marsh went around with GBI Agent Gerald Ramey to try to make some identifications. He said the only records found at the crematory consisted of a small spiral-bound notebook dating back to October 2001. He said some of those entries were found to be incorrect.
He said an expert tested the retort and found it was not in working order because of a faulty timing mechanism. He wired around the part and made it fire up.
Marsh faces 787 felony criminal courts. His attorney said he will take the Fifth Amendment at the civil trial.