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Corpse Mishandling

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Anonymous

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Ashes to...? Georgia Body Disposal

A report from Atlanta about a rather gruesome find of bodies behind a crematorium...
All of them, at least a hundred, maybe many more, were supposed to have been cremated at the Tri-State Crematory.

Instead, their bodies were discovered strewn in the woods and stacked in storage buildings on the grounds in a residential neighborhood.

Some had been there just days, still dressed in their funeral clothes. Others were so old they had become mummies.
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For more, see here.
Embedded link is dead. The MIA online article can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2002060...essatlanta.com/ajc/metro/0202/0217bodies.html
 
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It gets stranger...

When asked, Mr Marsh told police that the incinerator was not working.
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Do you think this is just a case of someone being particularly rubbish at their job? Or might there be more to it? They have about 200 bodies now, some of which may have been buried, then dug up again.

Yet more news from Georgia.
 
I've heard of office juniors who couldn't be bothered to post the mail and shoved it in the nearest dustbin instead, but that's going a bit too far . . .

Carole
 
It may delay any plans for the privatising of crematoria in the UK.

Not that I know of any such plans but I do wonder if any officials
have been over on freebies to check out the benefits of private
enterprise in this area? :eek:
 
When I first heard this story I didn't think it was particularly Fortean. Then when I tried to think about what's going through this guy's mind, I changed my opinion. I can understand someone taking money and not doing the job they're supposed to, but surely he must have realised he was going to have to dispose of the bodies at some point as they continued to stack up?

Like the Georgia Medical Examiner said "I've stopped trying to make sense of this."
 
This is one story that seems to get stranger and stranger...

First of all, didn't it occur to the man that disposing of the bodies then getting fake "ashes" to put in the urns actually entailed more work than just cremating them in the first place...

Secondly, this has apparently been going on for at least 15 years - long before the current owner took over the family business. Now, I've heard the jokes about American in-bred rednecks, but... :eek!!!!: (no offence meant to our American readers, or anyone else)

Thirdly, nobody noticed! Presumably people have been walking their dogs through those woods since the year dot - did previous finders just throw the odd femur back into the undergrowth (or let the dog chew on it)?

I could go on... :confused:

Jane. (never letting my dog off the leash again... )
 
Ok, let me start by saying that this occured in my state, about an hour and a half drive from my parents house. The entire local media is saturated with this. The amazing thing is no one has even begun to attempt to sum up the horror of what happened. The governor declared a state of emergency for the county because local facilities were overwhelmed.
I can't help but see an endless array of unamble Fortean aspects to this. The grotesque nature and high strangeness of the matter makes it almost sureal. Having been an avid reader and researcher of H.P. Lovercraft, this is sure to inspire some nightmares.
 
Just an update...

Plans are in the works to drain a lake on the property in the next few days. Current estimated cost to clean up the site is around the 10 million (U.S.) mark.

Also, while little has been said about the parents of the suspect (the suspect currently jailed has only be running the place for approx 6 years), it was mentioned on the news last night that adjoining property owned by the mother will also be searched.

20 years its believed this went on. That's 3/4th's of my life. :eek:
 
It sounds like the plot for one of those "A stranger arrives in a small inbred village where they all perform cannibalistic rituals" stories.

If they had gotten rid of the bodies by dumping them in a river or canyon or so I could understand it. But dumping them in a forest? They must have run a large risk, just the smell should have been enough for them to be found. I wonder how many times in the area someones dog came home carrying a human arm.
 
It's particularly disturbing to think that this, er 'habit', has been passed down through a family.

all very strange...:(
 
That's where the inbred thing has come in. They are probably all toothless and banjo playing and enjoy killing cats on saturday nights.
 
Xanatic said:
That's where the inbred thing has come in. They are probably all toothless and banjo playing and enjoy killing cats on saturday nights.
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I doubt if Bitter Monk appreciates the above sentiment. In any case the family involved are African American by the look of the photo, not "rednecks".
Apologies to Bitter Monk- we're not all like this.
 
I was wondering when someone was going to drag the inbred cousin out of the closet. ;)
Seriously though, for someone who has never been to the area, its hard to appreciate the significant differences between life in a major city such as Atlanta, with the differences encountered in the counties that border the foothills of the Appalachia mountains. We're not talking "The Darkness that came over Insmouth" or anything here, but some areas and cultures are still very steeped in older traditions and ways.
 
I can see the behaviour patterns that might lead to this.
The burner breaks down, the family stack the bodies meaning to dispose of them properly later, it becomes a guilty secret, they find they are saving money (no gas is used) and it builds into a reinforcing pattern.

The not finding I can see. British people often underestimate how the size of land holdings in rural America. Also the lots were owned by the crematorium and family. Going near the crematorium is going onto forbiden ground people tend, unconciously to avoid such places.

Not recognising the substitute ashes I do find supprising according to one report plain loam from the grounds was substituted in some cases.

There may even be a beneficial consequence. These remains are going to be examined fairly closely forensically. I wonder whether they'll pick up some murders that the perpetrators thought had been covered up completely?
 
Looks like they're expecting the worst (not sure what the definition of 'worst' should be in this case).
Another grim update.
Link is dead. No archived version found.
 
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I don't mean to offend anyone, I just prefer to laugh than cry. And as far as I know none of his relatives are involved in this.

What about the thing they said with some bodies being buried and taken up again? Doesn't that also seem like strange behaviour?
 
Well, as of today, a gag-order has been put into effect by the courts, effectively shutting off all information currently being released by public officials. Last official body count number was 284 I believe. They were actually in the process of giving a daily breifing when the gag-order was served.

Its absolutely horrible. An initial survey of the lake behind the crematory revealed a skull and torso. Considering the size of the lake, it could potentially hold hundreds of more bodies.

The more I think about it, the more I can't accept the "furnace broke down" excuse. The fact that the gag-order has been enforced only adds a more sinister tone to the whole proceedings.
 
I can't help thinking about the people who thought their relatives had been cremated, only to find they'd been messed about with in mysterious ways. Not that it would really bother me-when they're dead, they're dead, but judging by how people reacted in the UK over the baby organ scandel, there's going to be a lot of trauma.
 
I wonder how many labs are analysing 'ashes' just now? :(

Did the crematorium owners think they'd get away with this indefinitely?
 
Ok, I'm just going to come out and say this. I've been rather reluctant, because its pure speculation, but its been eating at me since the beginning. I only recently figured out what it was about the case that was bothering me.

At no point, and I mean no point, has anyone said anything about the condition of the bodies, other than describing the advanced state of decomposition found in some of the bodies, which points to the length of time this was going on. Why? Why not in the dozens, more likely hundreds, of times this has been reported on, has not one news source mentioned a single thing about the bodies, other than simply stating that they were there? The only refrence I have heard is that some were naked, while others were wearing either burial suits or hospital gowns. Why would such a relevant piece of information be left out?
 
The Daily Mirror reported that some of the bodies in outhouses were mummified , one pic in the paper showed investigators removing a body in a bag in woodland and there was a clean skull just lying around near them . It reported there are quite a lot of scattered clean bones .Some bodies still had hospital tags on their feet . I don't remember too much else , just that there was evidence it had been going on years .
Marion
 
The incinerator 'wasn't working'? More like 'hey, let's not use the incinerator and double our profits!'
 
What strikes me is why no one noticed before! I mean, how are cremations Handled in America, service wise?
I have been to one cremation (Near Chichester I think.). There was a garden of rememberance outside so lots of people walking around already. There was a service with the coffin in the room. As the service ended the coffin went back (? memory again! but was deffinatly covered by...) and curtains closed. OK, so you didn't actually see the coffin enter the incinerator (Ergh, sounds all very morbid this doesn't it?) but it all happened in the same grounds.
Do they have the service away from the crematorium in America?

I read of this story in The Sun. They stated that it looked like some of the corpses had been re-dug. They also said that a person walking their dog had found some bones and called in the police. There was a possibility that a skull also presant was the current owners farther.
So did they guy actually say, "The incinerator broke down"? What kind of mental state would you have to have to be in that kind of environment? I mean, I know there's getting hardened to the job...?
And why the gagging order? Apart from something even more horrific, it leans me to believe that fault will be traced back to an official not doing their job properly, and so covering this up. As is usually the case.:rolleyes:
 
One more thought: Was there not a terrible smell about the place when people went to retrieve ashes? Did nobody notice no smoke ever came from the place?
 
I have to say the gagging order (there's gotta be a dreadful pun there somewhere!) makes the whole thing seem far more creepy.

Could anyone from the US enlighten us as to whether this is normal procedure, as far as that term could be applied to something as bizarre as this?
 
Gag Orders

I think they are fairly common where breifing the press might be seen as predudicing the defence. Here is a similar example from SFgate News in "Breaking News" today.
At the request of defense attorneys, Judge Boren yesterday issued a gag order on attorneys and investigators involved in the case and ordered many court documents sealed until a hearing on March 12.
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Cremation isn't very popular in the States, and less so in the Old South (where this story takes place). In part it's because we've got lots of land, so don't have to worry about where we'll bury someone, and in part it's because it runs contrary to many people's religious beliefs. At any rate, the combined effect is that there just aren't that many crematoria. Because of that, it's not unusual for the service to be held in the town where the deceased lived, and the cremation to take place at the closest crematorium, which might be an hour or so's drive away. The mourners won't necessarily go to the crematorium. The place in question served several counties, I've heard on the news.
 
Thanks for the explaination Windwhistler. :) (Love the unicorn! Or is it a my-little-pony?)
 
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