The Special Agents | Chapter 2

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Speaker 24 This podcast contains graphic descriptions of death and decay. Please listen with care.

Speaker 24 It can take hundreds of years for a human body to return to dust.

Speaker 24 Immediately after you die, the body begins digesting itself. Breathing halts.
Your blood stops circulating.

Speaker 24 Your body cools, losing one and a half degrees every hour, until it reaches room temperature. After about two hours, rigor mortis sets in, stiffening your muscles.

Speaker 24 Small, fluid-filled blisters form on your organs and skin, giving the body a plastic-like sheen.

Speaker 24 The bacteria in your body, no longer kept in check by the immune system, begin to feast.

Speaker 24 They consume tissue, releasing methane and other gases in the process. Your body bloats, nearly doubles in size.

Speaker 24 That unmistakable, horrid odor of death grows for several days, and soon you can be smelled a quarter mile away.

Speaker 24 Under certain conditions, a process called saponification takes place. It turns your fatty acids into something called grave wax.

Speaker 24 Your body becomes soap, and parts of it stay preserved preserved for decades, if not centuries.

Speaker 24 But more likely the bugs get you first, because death attracts insects to your body.

Speaker 24 Flesh flies arrive within minutes, and they in turn attract larger predator insects. Ants and wasps come to eat the flies.
Maggots and beetles devour your tissues.

Speaker 24 Further up the food chain, springtails and spiders eat the predators. and turn your corpse into just another place to live.

Speaker 24 Your body, which once contained hopes hopes and dreams and thoughts and memories, becomes simply an ecosystem.

Speaker 24 Soon you're just a skeleton, a weakening one. The collagen in your bones goes first, leaving them prone to cracking and crumbling, like a chocolate cookie.

Speaker 24 Erosion in animals, moisture and changes in temperature finish the job that the bacteria and insects started.

Speaker 24 until you become dust.

Speaker 24 And so each time a dead body is found or dug up, it looks a little different.

Speaker 24 Fresh, bloated, decaying, skeletonized, you can find a body in or between any of these states. Only on rare occasions do you find bodies in all of these states and all in the same place.

Speaker 24 From Waveland and Campside Media, this is Noble.

Speaker 24 I'm Sean Raviv.

Speaker 24 Episode 2, The Special Agents.

Speaker 24 Robin Hedden sits down at his desk, and he sees the annoying red light on his phone that means he's got another voicemail.

Speaker 24 He picks up the receiver, taps in the passcode, and hears a message that he can't ignore.

Speaker 25 It was a female's voice, and she'd said that she's walked her dog, and that she had found, her dog had found a human body part near a creek, and she wanted it to be looked into.

Speaker 24 Robin has a unique job. He works for the Environmental Protection Agency in the Criminal Investigation Division.
So Robin's a scientist and a cop.

Speaker 24 Imagine your chemistry professor becomes a detective. That's Robin.
He has similar authority to an FBI agent, just focused on environmental crimes.

Speaker 24 Like if a bunch of fish are found floating dead in a river near a chemical plant, Robin would be all over that.

Speaker 25 An environmental crime can be a, it's not static, it's dynamic. I can pollute here and it can affect somebody, you know, 10 miles down the road.

Speaker 24 On February 15th, 2002, when Robin gets that voicemail about human remains near a creek, he's duty agent in the EPA office in Atlanta.

Speaker 24 That means it's his turn to basically be an office grunt for a few days. He does things like copying records and responding to all the complaints that come in.

Speaker 24 And Robin always takes complaints seriously, no matter how odd. That's just who he is.

Speaker 24 Like that one time he spent four hours listening to a guy who was sure that little Debbie was putting mercury in his oatmeal cream pies.

Speaker 25 He wanted to get it off his chest, and at the end he said, man, thank you. Nobody else will listen to me.
I says, I heard you, brother. Not much I can do about this.

Speaker 25 But I always listened to what people had to say.

Speaker 24 It would be easy for Robin to just write up a quick memo about the body parts voicemail. It's such a wild thing to find that it's hard to believe.
I mean, body parts? Come on, man.

Speaker 24 Besides, it's not the job of the EPA to investigate murders or missing persons. But Robin is a buy-the-book kind of guy, so he looks into it.

Speaker 24 And it turns out the woman had actually called in before, months ago. Now she's calling for a second time, so it seems like she's serious.

Speaker 24 And something she says in her voicemail gives Robin an excuse to investigate.

Speaker 25 She found body parts next to a creek. Normally that wouldn't trip any triggers with the criminal division, But she said near a creek.
That's a nexus. Okay, that's a possible clean water act nexus.

Speaker 25 And she said it was near a place called Tri-State Crematory.

Speaker 24 Robin speaks to the agent who took the first call.

Speaker 25 And I'm like, damn it, man, don't you think this is something you need to look at? Really sharp, smart guy. He just figured that's something the Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 25 That's what he said, man, Sheriff's Department. I said, dude, it's near a creek.
What if they're dumping body parts in a creek? What if they're dumping formaldehyde in a creek?

Speaker 25 That needs to be looked at. I'm going to go look at it.
He's like, okay, you know, good luck.

Speaker 24 What Robin doesn't know is that the woman who left the message is none other than Aunt Faye, an assistant for the FBI, and the aunt of Gerald Cook, the gasman.

Speaker 24 Weeks earlier, Gerald told his aunt everything he'd seen at Tri-State Crematory, and it was her idea to call the EPA. She just made up the dog walking story.

Speaker 2 She doesn't even have a dog.

Speaker 24 And it just so happens that Special Agent Robin Hedden is the one who hears her message.

Speaker 24 When Robin decides he's going to drive up to the place, this tri-state crematory,

Speaker 24 the first thing he does is pull in another agent.

Speaker 25 Larry was a good shot and fairly tall guy, and if you were going to get in a fight, Larry was a good guy to have with you.

Speaker 24 So Robin and Larry drive the 100 miles northwest from Atlanta, not having any idea what they're going to find. They drive north past La Fayette, the seat of Walker County, into Noble.

Speaker 24 On their paper map, They have trouble locating the crematory, the property owned by the Marsh family. But eventually they spot the headstone sign that says Tri-State Crematory.

Speaker 24 Robin doesn't want to just show up unannounced on someone's property though, so the two men drive on. Noble is not quite farmland, but it isn't a dense suburb by any stretch.

Speaker 24 The properties in Noble are big, sometimes many acres. They contain forests and ponds and fields, and the boundaries aren't always fenced off.

Speaker 24 Instead of knocking on the Marsh's door, Robin and Larry approach one of their neighbors.

Speaker 25 I told the guy, the neighbor, I said, look, I need to walk back in those woods. You know, I showed him my credentials and he says, What are you doing? I said, I just need to walk back there.

Speaker 25 Could I park here, please? And he's like, Well, yeah.

Speaker 25 And I, so I parked out of the way.

Speaker 25 I didn't tell him, Oh, I'm looking at tri-state crematory for body parts because, see, that's going to make them look bad.

Speaker 25 And if there's nothing there, this guy don't know that, and he's going to think bad on them. Treat folks the way you want to be treated.
So that's that's how we did it.

Speaker 25 And we parked there and we walked.

Speaker 24 They leave their car next to a barn, enter the neighbor's yard, and head toward the Marsh property.

Speaker 24 After about half a mile, they come to a fence. Federal law enforcement agents like Robin have the authority to legally trespass on private property under what's called the open fields doctrine.

Speaker 24 As long as they're not entering buildings or areas immediately surrounding buildings where one would expect privacy, they're good to go. So Robin and Larry cross the fence.

Speaker 24 They are now in the Marsh family's land. Back there, the property is heavily wooded.
There's 10 and 20-year-old pine trees and vines to slow your going.

Speaker 24 They enter the woods, and when they come to a creek, they walk up and down the banks looking for human remains, like the collar described. But it's February, and leaves cover the ground a foot deep.

Speaker 24 After a while of searching, eventually Robin tells Larry, we're not going to find anything here.

Speaker 24 They start to loop back toward the neighbor's property where they park their car. and call it a lost day.

Speaker 24 As they walk, in the distance, they can see the crematory and some other buildings on the Marsh family's property.

Speaker 25 There's no trails or anything back there, so we were walking just through the leaves and the brush. And

Speaker 25 we come upon this thicket. I mean, you, if you want to find something anywhere, get in the thicket.
That's where this stuff's at.

Speaker 25 So we circled around, went through this briar thicket, and then there's a little patch of pine trees, and it was pine straw. It's flat.
And that I looked and I saw this shiny

Speaker 25 little

Speaker 25 kind of a brownish-looking.

Speaker 25 I thought it was a rock.

Speaker 25 And I looked at it.

Speaker 25 I went out and I stopped. I said, Ah, that's not a rock.
I turned around, walked over to it, and it was the upper part of a cranium.

Speaker 24 What did you and Larry say to each other roughly around that time?

Speaker 25 Holy shit.

Speaker 25 That's exactly what I said. Like, holy shit, dude, that's a skull.
And Larry goes, Good God, it is.

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Speaker 6 With over 30 years of experience, Rosetta Stone's immersive intuitive method helps you live the language, not just memorize it.

Speaker 9 Choose from over 25 languages, including Spanish, French, Japanese, and more. Their true accent speech recognition technology gives real-time feedback to help perfect your pronunciation.

Speaker 14 No translations, just natural learning that builds from words to phrases to full conversations.

Speaker 11 Whether you have five minutes or an hour, you can learn anytime on desktop or mobile.

Speaker 8 Get a lifetime membership and unlock all 25 languages.

Speaker 16 Learn as much as you want, whenever you want.

Speaker 11 Rosetta Stone, learn confidently, connect authentically.

Speaker 9 Don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential now.

Speaker 17 Listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off.

Speaker 19 That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life.

Speaker 21 Visit RosettaStone.com/slash pod50 to get started and claim your 50% off today.

Speaker 17 Don't miss out.

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Speaker 22 Hi, everyone. I'm investigative journalist and park enthusiast Delia Diambra.

Speaker 22 And every week on my podcast, Park Predators, I take you into the heart of our world's most stunning locations to uncover what sinister crimes have unfolded in these serene settings.

Speaker 22 From unsolved murders to chilling disappearances, each Tuesday we dive deep into the details of cases that will leave you knowing sometimes the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets.

Speaker 22 Listen to Park Predators Now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 24 Robin Hedden and his partner Larry record video of the skull with a little camcorder and then slowly work their way back to where they'd parked their car.

Speaker 24 Then they drive to a nearby church parking lot. This is no longer a situation for the EPA, so they call 911.

Speaker 24 Within a few minutes, A couple of detectives from the sheriff's office show up. The county coroner, too.

Speaker 24 And then the next call, and probably the most important call, goes out to a man named Greg Ramey.

Speaker 24 Greg is a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the GBI.

Speaker 24 He's got dark hair and a trim beard, the energy of a friendly but stern when he needs to be dad.

Speaker 24 When Greg gets the call, he's at a local field office, and he doesn't take it to be a big deal.

Speaker 2 So I'm thinking probably somebody somewhere else, you know, has died. It's been a long time since, you know, the person died.
They brought a skeletonized body down there to be cremated.

Speaker 2 You know, in my mind, I'm trying to rationalize everything.

Speaker 24 Greg changes into better clothes for walking around in the woods. He lives in Walker County, close to Noble.

Speaker 25 It's where he grew up.

Speaker 24 His family there goes back generations, to before the Civil War, at least.

Speaker 2 My great-grandfather was a blacksmith, had a shop out there, and, you know, made tools and stuff for all the local folks.

Speaker 2 My granddaddy, you know, farmed farmed back during the Depression, and he said, oh, I was rich. He said, I own two teams of mules.

Speaker 2 You know, I mean, he, you know, and raised eight kids during the depression.

Speaker 24 In February of 2002, Greg is married and has two kids at home in Lafayette, living right there where his family had lived more than a century ago.

Speaker 24 He and his wife plan to spend their whole lives in Walker County. and beyond really.

Speaker 2 In all seriousness, I had even told my wife, if something happens to me, don't bury me. Just take me up to Mars crematory, have me cremated, scatter my ashes.

Speaker 24 So after he gets the call, Greg meets the EPA agents Robin and Larry, the county coroner and sheriff's detectives in the church parking lot.

Speaker 24 Larry gets his video camera out, flips out a little screen on the side, and shows Greg the recording of the skull.

Speaker 2 No remnants of human flesh on it, anything like that.

Speaker 2 And at this point,

Speaker 2 I mean, and everybody's just so

Speaker 2 nonchalant about it. I mean, nobody's, you know, jumping up and down.

Speaker 2 I had just turned 40 on Wednesday.

Speaker 2 This was a Friday. It's a Friday afternoon.

Speaker 2 Okay. We're all big pranksters.
You know, I'm thinking they're punking me. Okay.
They're going to walk me out here and say, oh, we've got this skull.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, boom, somebody jumps out of the woods. Oh, I got you.

Speaker 2 Honestly, I'm honest guy. That's what I'm thinking.

Speaker 24 But these thoughts in the back of Greg's mind don't keep him from doing his job. And so the men get in their vehicles, pull out of the church parking lot and onto the road.

Speaker 24 They turn past the stone sign that says Tri-State Crematory and go down the driveway. As Greg parks his maroon crown Vic, he sees that Brent Marsh, the man who runs the crematory, is already outside.

Speaker 24 Brent's a big guy, short hair and a slight mustache. Earlier that year he'd joined the Rotary Club in Lafayette.
A nice guy, a likable guy, the kind of guy who'd do anything for you.

Speaker 24 Greg knew of the Marsh family already, like people often know of each other in a small community.

Speaker 2 His sister was my little brother's age. They had gone to high school together and had a homeroom together for a couple of years.
So I knew the family that way. My childhood best friend had had

Speaker 2 Brent's mama, Clara, Miss Marsh, had had her as a teacher over at Chattanooga Valley High School. So I knew the Marsh family just by reputation and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 Knew Brent had played football at La Fett High School. He'd been a good athlete, gone to UTC where I graduated college from.
He played football up there for a short period of time. So

Speaker 2 knew that about him.

Speaker 24 Your impression of the family was a positive thing.

Speaker 2 I mean, everybody in the community respected the Marsh family.

Speaker 2 They were good folks.

Speaker 24 Knowing the family's reputation like he does, Greg doesn't expect any trouble. He gets out of his car and goes up to Brent straight off.

Speaker 2 Introduce myself to him, make sure he's good with the fact that we need to be on the property searching.

Speaker 2 And he's, yeah, we're good. You know, I don't, do you know anything? You know anything about what's going on? I don't know anything about what's going on.

Speaker 24 Greg wants to see where the EPA guys, Robin and Larry, found the skull. So he walks back behind the buildings at the end of the drive.
and into the woods.

Speaker 2 And there's a skull there. I mean, it's there.
There's no doubt there's a skull laying right there.

Speaker 24 Brent is there as all of this is going on. And Robin looks at Brent.
And he sees that Brent looks scared.

Speaker 25 When someone's scared, you start getting pale. Your pupils will dilate a little bit.
You'll get wide-eyed. You know, you'll be able to see the whites around your iris.

Speaker 25 It's that deer in the headlights. Look, it's exactly what it is.

Speaker 24 The county coroner is there with them. And he points to a staple in the upper jaw of the skull.

Speaker 24 He explains that morticians put a staple between the upper and lower teeth to hold the jaw closed when preparing a body for burial. So that at least is some new information.

Speaker 24 That means the skull has gone through a funeral home.

Speaker 24 The coroner points to some small bones on the ground. He tells Greg they are from human fingers and toes.

Speaker 2 He says, see, there's a bone, there's a bone. I'm like,

Speaker 2 dude, that could be a chicken bone. You know, I mean, it's it's tiny.

Speaker 24 They walk around the woods a little. heading towards the storage buildings.
Then the coroner sees something else and points it out to Greg.

Speaker 24 It's a cardboard shipping box, two feet wide, a foot tall, and six feet long.

Speaker 2 So I thought, okay, this is where the punk comes in. This is where they're going to get me.
So we rip the cardboard piece off of it, and there's a little elderly black gentleman laying in there.

Speaker 2 And he is partially mummified. His skin is really starting to dry up and stuff.

Speaker 2 Part of his head had molded, just the moisture content of his body being trapped in that box. He was getting like this white beard and white hair from the mold.

Speaker 2 A man's suit coat starts moving

Speaker 2 and a rat ran out of his sleeve. A little mouse, not a rat, but a mouse.

Speaker 2 So at that point I'm like, oh, okay, this is not punking. You know,

Speaker 2 this is for real.

Speaker 24 Greg walks out of the woods and back towards the sort of cul-de-sac where they'd parked.

Speaker 24 Behind him is the crematory building, which looks like a small cabin you'd rent at a state park. Around a bend from the crematory is the house where Brent's parents, Clara and Ray Marsh, live.

Speaker 24 To the left of the crematory is what some people call a butler building, basically a big metal building.

Speaker 24 The buildings are locked, so Greg approaches Brent again. Mr.

Speaker 2 Brent, you know, we've got a problem. We've got a skull out here, and now we've got a full body that's in a casket back over here.
And I said,

Speaker 2 there's some things going on here. And I said, I need you to open up these buildings for me.

Speaker 2 And you can kind of see that,

Speaker 2 you know, it's like this big, huge breath. And then he just lets it out just like, oh, dang.

Speaker 24 So it seems like he was

Speaker 24 expecting something like this to happen and then finally happen.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's, you know,

Speaker 2 it's,

Speaker 2 you know, in police work, it's just when you know you've caught somebody, they know they're caught, and it's kind of like, oh, this is fixing to get real.

Speaker 24 They walk over to the butler building and Brent unlocks it. Greg starts to push the heavy metal door in, but it won't open.

Speaker 24 Something is in the way.

Speaker 24 Greg pokes his head around the door and shines his flashlight in.

Speaker 19 Planning a trip this year?

Speaker 3 Travel smarter and connect deeper by learning the local language with Rosetta Stone.

Speaker 6 With over 30 years of experience, Rosetta Stone's immersive intuitive method helps you live the language, not just memorize it.

Speaker 9 Choose from over 25 languages, including Spanish, French, Japanese, and more. Their true accent speech recognition technology gives real-time feedback to help perfect your pronunciation.

Speaker 14 No translations, just natural learning that builds from words to phrases to full conversations.

Speaker 11 Whether you have five minutes or an hour, you can learn anytime on desktop or mobile.

Speaker 8 Get a lifetime membership and unlock all 25 languages.

Speaker 16 Learn as much as you want, whenever you want.

Speaker 3 Rosetta Stone, learn confidently, connect connect authentically.

Speaker 8 Don't wait.

Speaker 9 Unlock your language learning potential now.

Speaker 5 Listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off.

Speaker 19 That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life.

Speaker 21 Visit RosettaStone.com slash pod50 to get started and claim your 50% off today.

Speaker 17 Don't miss out.

Speaker 21 Go to RosettaStone.com slash pod50 and start learning today.

Speaker 22 Hi, everyone. I'm investigative journalist and park enthusiast Delia Diambra.

Speaker 22 And every week on my podcast, Park Predators, I take you into the heart of our world's most stunning locations to uncover what sinister crimes have unfolded in these serene settings.

Speaker 22 From unsolved murders to chilling disappearances, each Tuesday we dive deep into the details of cases that will leave you knowing sometimes the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets.

Speaker 22 Listen to Park Predators Now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 24 GBI Special Agent Greg Ramey pushes on the metal door of the Butler building, but something is in the way. He squeezes his head in around the door and shines his flashlight.

Speaker 2 And there's just,

Speaker 2 I mean, it's a room probably 40 to 60 feet wide and about that same distance deep. It's just a big, you know, metal outbuilding, work building type thing, barn.

Speaker 2 And just, I mean, you start shining the light. Just everywhere you look, there was just bodies.
Just human bodies just laid there.

Speaker 2 Various, you know, stages of dress or undress. Just however somebody died at the hospital or at home, that's the way they were.

Speaker 24 They were brought up. Were they in those crates or were they?

Speaker 2 No, no, no. No, they were just lying about on the floor.
Just everywhere you look.

Speaker 2 So we just start looking, you know, I'm like,

Speaker 2 Brent, what is going on? And he's just like,

Speaker 2 you know, he just kind of mumbled you know, an unintelligible response. He just kind of, uh.

Speaker 24 The Butler building has another entrance, a tall metal garage door that can be pulled up, big enough for a semi-trailer.

Speaker 24 It's about four in the afternoon at this point, and as the men pull that door up, light falls on the bodies lying in the building, on the floor. Greg counts about 20.

Speaker 2 It's the middle of February, so it was a cool day. It wasn't cold, but it was a typical February day, 45, 50 degree day, you know.

Speaker 24 You must have been thankful it wasn't a hot day.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. It would have been probably different had it been middle of summertime.

Speaker 2 But really, realistically, it was not just, you know, there wasn't a terrible bad odor.

Speaker 2 Not like I've been in some houses where, you know, it's summertime and the body's been there for a few days and it gets really bad.

Speaker 24 Right away, Greg recognizes the body, a man named Luther Mason.

Speaker 24 He was the father of a local accountant. Greg knows Luther Mason died just a couple months earlier, had a funeral and all.

Speaker 24 Knows his granddaughter was a teacher at Greg's son's school. Greg stares at his dead body in disbelief.

Speaker 24 Greg asks Brent to open the crematory building, which houses the furnace. There are half a dozen more bodies in that building, including one lying unburnt, inside the furnace itself.

Speaker 24 They move on to another building, behind the crematory.

Speaker 2 There's another body lying in there, just lying there. And I'm like,

Speaker 2 I just looked at him, I said, Brent, what are you thinking? And he's just kind of.

Speaker 24 See, he's just like following along.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, he's just kind of walking along with us. You know, I'm going to bump, a bump, bump.

Speaker 24 Greg pulls Brent aside at this point.

Speaker 2 And I said, Brent, I said, here's what we need to do right now. I said, I need your help.
I said, if you have any way to identify these bodies, you have any records that can show who is who?

Speaker 2 And he said, yeah, yeah, I've got, you know, I've got a a little notepad. And he said, let me go get it.
So he comes back. He's got this little notepad.

Speaker 2 It's a little greens, just a little spiral top, flips open.

Speaker 2 And so he starts, you know, looking down through there and he starts helping us identify some of the bodies.

Speaker 24 As Brent identifies a body, Greg puts a little note card on top of that body with a name.

Speaker 2 So five, six, seven, eight bodies into it. He's telling us, you know, this is so-and-so, this is so-and-so.
Well, all of a sudden, he calls one a name that he's already called out.

Speaker 2 I'm like, Brent, you said that person over there was

Speaker 2 Mr. So-and-so or Miss So-and-so.

Speaker 2 Oh, did I? Okay, well, then that one's so-and-so, and this is so-and-so.

Speaker 2 And I said, Brent, how would you know?

Speaker 2 Well, I just have it up here in my mind. I said,

Speaker 2 but you have it on paper. And he said, well, I just know in my head.
And I said, well, obviously not.

Speaker 2 Because you just told us, and I wasn't trying to be confrontational, but I'm trying to get him to rationally and tell me rationally how he knows. And then he finally just says, well, I don't know.

Speaker 24 Did you get the sense that he was rattled?

Speaker 2 He was just overwhelmed. I mean, it was just.

Speaker 2 And then I said, look, I said,

Speaker 2 and then he kind of said, well, that's all I can do. I said, wait a minute.

Speaker 2 We've identified a half a dozen bodies here.

Speaker 2 And you're telling me this is all you can do? Yeah, this is all I can do. And I said, well, I'm going to need that book.
Well, no, I need to keep it. I said, no, you don't need it anymore.

Speaker 2 You've done all you can do. I'm going to need the book.
And so I just kind of put my hand on the book. And he was kind of like, uh,

Speaker 2 okay.

Speaker 24 Greg asks Brent if he has any receipts related to his cremation work. Brent goes into his house and comes out with a couple plastic Walmart bags filled with loose sheets of paper.

Speaker 24 Meanwhile, Other officers on the scene keep searching the Marsh property. Robin Hedden from the EPA walks to the left of the crematory building through the wide gate of a wooden fence.

Speaker 25 And there were bones everywhere on the ground behind this little wooden fence,

Speaker 25 like the metacarpals, the things in your hands, your feet, the small bones. There were broken bones.
They were littered the ground.

Speaker 25 I looked down into the woods and I saw what looked like a rib cage sticking up out of a pile of brush, you know, the side of a rib cage.

Speaker 25 So Larry and I walked on down there, and sure enough, there was a spine and a rib cage.

Speaker 25 And then there was another. There was a skeleton to the right of that.
There was a hole that had been dug out in the woods that was partially filled with water. There were skeletons in that.

Speaker 25 I mean, guys, this looks like a horror movie. That's the first thing I thought.
I was like, my God, there's skeletons everywhere.

Speaker 24 They find bodies in a hearse, another in a van. bodies under pieces of plywood and brush.
Some bodies are just sitting out in the open.

Speaker 24 The bodies are in every state of decomposition you could imagine, but wouldn't want to.

Speaker 24 Some look fresh, like they were just sunbathing. Some are fully embalmed, the putrefaction hasn't begun.
But others are bloated, filled with insects. Some have flesh hanging off the bones.

Speaker 24 Some are just skeletons or scattered pieces. Some of their tissues have liquefied almost completely.
It's like walking into the scene of a long-ago massacre.

Speaker 24 All the time that the officers search the property, Brent's parents, Ray and Clara, are inside the house.

Speaker 24 Clara represents the family, and Greg tells her what they found only 60 or 70 yards from her house on the property that she and her husband own.

Speaker 2 Of course, she said, I don't know anything about it. I said, that's fine.
You know, y'all are free to come and go out of the house,

Speaker 2 but everything from here over is law enforcement. Don't interfere with them.
But there wasn't really, you know, there wasn't a whole lot of issue about that. Same way with Brent.

Speaker 2 We told him, you just go back to your house, you know.

Speaker 2 And he said, you know, am I under arrest? And I said, no, not right now.

Speaker 24 Greg's emotional reaction to what he sees will come later. That day, day one at Tri-State Crematory, he remains focused on all the work that he would have to do in the coming days and weeks.

Speaker 24 The crematory and the Marsh family's property is now a massive crime scene. The most devastating crime scene Greg or any other GBI agent has ever witnessed.
Robin Robin with the EPA leaves the scene.

Speaker 24 His involvement with the case is over. And finally, around 11 o'clock that night, Greg goes home to his two young children and his wife.

Speaker 2 I said, you're probably not going to see me for a while. I'll probably come in at night to sleep, and that's about it.

Speaker 2 I don't know when I'll see you guys. I said, this thing is, this is going to be huge.

Speaker 24 On that first day, they find 40 bodies in the Marsh property. And word about what they've discovered, is starting to get out.

Speaker 24 There's one thing that Greg dreads most.

Speaker 24 He would soon need to speak to the families of all these dead people who were supposed to have been cremated.

Speaker 24 And Greg knows as well as anyone that this is going to tear people apart.

Speaker 2 Coming up on Noble.

Speaker 2 You couldn't wrap your head around why this,

Speaker 2 why did this happen? How can somebody have that going on there and you not know that that it's going on there?

Speaker 26 It kind of slid to the floor holding the phone.

Speaker 26 I just couldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 I found a wood chipper that had bone fragments in it, what seemed to be bone fragments. And I think he was using this as a processor.
I remember when he said he was going to do it.

Speaker 2 Those of us here in the community were not happy about it. We thought it was smell.
Just the biggest betrayal I've ever felt in my life, not just for me, but for my husband.

Speaker 2 She was caught trying to smuggle a sword into the courtroom disguised in a cane.

Speaker 27 I know why it happened, when it happened.

Speaker 2 I know exactly where all the bodies were.

Speaker 27 I know exactly what he did. I know everything that he did, and I know the reasons why.

Speaker 24 Noble is the production of Waveland and Campside Media. Noble was reported and written by Johnny Kaufman and me, Sean Ravive.

Speaker 24 Johnny Kaufman is our senior producer. Sierra Franco is our associate producer.
Editing by Jason Hoke, Johnny Kaufman, and Matt Scher.

Speaker 24 Fact-checking by Kaylin Lynch. Sound design, mixing, scoring, and original music by Garrett Tiedemann.
Our theme music is La Lucha Esuna Sola by the band Esmerine.

Speaker 24 Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slaywin, David Eichler, Ashley Warren, Destiny Dingle, and Sabina Mara.

Speaker 24 Jason Hoke is the executive producer at Waveland. The executive producers at Campside Media are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriadis, Adam Hoff, and Matt Scher.

Speaker 23 Hi, I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast unlike any other. Why? Because every case I cover comes from the heart of my home, New England.

Speaker 23 From the rocky main coast to the historic streets of Boston to the quiet corners of Vermont and beyond, I investigate stories filled with untold twists, enduring questions, and voices that deserve to be heard.

Speaker 23 So, if you're ready to explore the darker side of New England, join me every week for Dark Down East. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.