Now what in the world was he going to do with all those bodies?

[Honeykiss1974]

Legal Settlement Reached in Crematory Case
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ATLANTA (Reuters) - An insurance company and 58 funeral homes in the South have agreed to pay nearly $40 million to the relatives of more than 300 people whose bodies were found scattered on a Georgia crematory's grounds, a law firm representing the families said on Thursday.

The relatives filed a class-action lawsuit in 2002 after hundreds of corpses meant for cremation were found dumped on the grounds of the Tri-State Crematory in Noble, Georgia. They will receive $36 million from a group of funeral homes in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, according to a news release from Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein.

The funeral homes had sent the bodies to the crematory, about 100 miles northwest of Atlanta.

Georgia Farm Bureau, which had provided an insurance policy to Ray and Clara Marsh, the owners of the crematory, has agreed to pay $3.5 million to the plaintiffs. Crematory land also will be sold and the proceeds given to the relatives.

Ray Brent Marsh, who operated Tri-State on behalf of his parents, was arrested and charged with theft by deception in February, 2002 after 334 bodies were found in the woods and in storage sheds on the crematory property.

Investigators suspect that Tri-State, which had been in business for about 30 years, was forgoing cremations and passing off wood chips and other substances, including powdered cement, as human ashes to the families of the deceased.

Marsh's trial is expected to begin later this year. If convicted, he could be sentenced to between one and 15 years in prison for each of the hundreds of counts of theft he faces.