Anthropological investigations of the tri-state rematorium incident

Abstract

On February 15, 2002, a woman was walking her dog in the woods of the small, unincorporated town of Noble in Walker County, Georgia, and discovered a human skull. She called the authorities, who confirmed the skull was human and launched a pedestrian survey of the area. Unfortunately, the skull was just a portent of the macabre scenes awaiting investigators as they walked onto the 16 acres of property owned by the Marsh family, who were, at that time, one of the most prominent African-American families in the county. Three houses, including two inhabited by theMarshes, a spring-fed lake, a crematorium, an adjacent large metal building, and a large storage shed filled a 6-acre section of the property. The rest of the property was wooded (Fig. 5.1). The Marsh family business was the Tri-State Crematorium, which served dozens of funeral homes in Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. An incredible stench drew investigators to the crematorium and adjacent structures, where they found bodies littering the floors.While some were in body bags or cremation boxes, many were uncontained and in various stages of decomposition. As the investigators expanded their search outside the buildings, more bodies were found in abandoned vehicles, open vaults, and coffins scattered across the landscape. Human skeletal remains seemed to be everywhere. The great number of human remains as well as the tremendous variation in decomposition indicated that the process of abandoning bodies on the property had been going on for some time, but for how long and why? While little of this surreal scene made any sense, it was quite clear that the medicolegal infrastructure in this very rural part of northwestern Georgia was about to be overrun by unidentified human remains, international press, and hundreds of betrayed families demanding to know the disposition of their loved ones. The recovery and identification process would require a multidisciplinary team of criminal investigators, identification specialists, and forensic anthropologists.