Community shattered after bodies found at crematory

NOBLE, Ga. (AP) -- Like hundreds of residents in this hamlet, Lisa Cash can't understand how anyone could leave her mother's body to rot alongside piles of other human remains.

Cash's mother, Norma Hutton, 55, died Dec. 31 of kidney failure. Based on her deceased mother's wishes, Cash asked for the remains to be cremated. They weren't.

Over the weekend, the Cash family discovered that Hutton's body had been found, still intact, on the grounds of a crematory where up to 200 bodies were decomposing. Investigators believe the crematory had stacked the corpses for up to 15 years.

Now Cash must try to reconcile for her kids the newly uncovered body of their grandmother with the urn that they were told contained her remains.

"They don't understand. How can granny be there and here too?" Cash said of her four children, ages 13, 12, 11 and 8. "I explained: 'Somebody lied."'

Ray Brent Marsh, 28, the operator of Tri-State Crematory, was charged with five counts of theft by deception for taking payment for cremations he didn't perform. Authorities said additional charges are likely.

Marsh was released Sunday after posting a $25,000 bond.

Investigators said Marsh told them the bodies were not cremated because the incinerator was broken.

"They just piled them on top and then piled more on top. And then they just left them," said Dr. Kris Sperry, Georgia's chief medical examiner. "I wish we had a good explanation for this, but we don't."

Authorities said they recovered 97 bodies -- including one infant -- from storage sheds and in the woods behind the crematory. Sixteen have been identified.