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- [00:01]
Advertiser 1
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- [00:17]
Narrator 1
Every day our world gets a little more connected, but a little further apart. But then there are moments that remind us to be more human.
- [00:30]
Amica Insurance Representative
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- [00:32]
Accident Caller
Hey, I was just in an accident.
- [00:34]
Amica Insurance Representative
Don't worry, we'll get you taken care of.
- [00:36]
Narrator 1
At Amika, we understand that looking out for each other isn't new or groundbreaking. It's human. Amica empathy is our best policy.
- [00:47]
Butterball Representative
Butterball knows Thanksgiving can bring so much joy, but also so many cooking questions. What size turkey? What's the best way to roast? How do I carve it? Don't panic. Butterball is here to help. Just give us a ring at the Butterball Turkey Talk line. We'll help with what's on the table so you can focus on those around it. Call 1-800-Butchball or text 844-877-3456 to reach our turkey experts. Butterball Today we Turkey.
- [01:19]
Advertiser 1
This lasagna was so cheesy. My plate was filled with saucy slices. Then a flimsy store brand plate. No, no, no, no. Ruined it.
- [01:28]
Amica Insurance Representative
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- [01:35]
Narrator 2
This podcast contains graphic descriptions of death and decay. Please listen with care.
- [01:53]
Advertiser 1
Campsite Media.
- [01:58]
Narrator 2
The founders of the state of Georgia opposed slavery, but not on principle. The Spanish were in Florida at the time and offered freedom to any enslaved person who would fight for them. So the founders believed that bringing enslaved people to Georgia put white colonists at increased risk of attack from the enemies to the South. But that stand on slavery didn't last long. The Spanish were defeated in the mid-1700s, and stolen people were soon imported from Angola, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia. By the time the Civil war started in 1860, nearly half of Georgia's population, almost half a million people, were enslaved. People who were enslaved were forced to work under the threat of violence, rape, and family separation. Conditions were so bad that on one plantation in Georgia, 10% of the people enslaved there died every year. In 1864, a boy named Monroe was born into slavery on a plantation in northwest Georgia. Monroe was listed as mulatto in a later census, meaning the child of one black parent and one white. It's unclear who Exactly. His father was but most likely one of the white men whose family owned the plantation. The war ended a year after Monroe was born. Black people in Georgia were freedom. Slavery was now illegal, but many blacks lived in devastating poverty and still worked on white owned plantations well into the 20th century. Monroe's mother got married and he took his new stepfather's last name, Marsh. Monroe. Marsh later had six children and one of his sons had a boy named Tommy. Ray Marsh, born in 1926. He usually went by Ray. By the time Raymarsh married Clara and they had children of their own, including Brent. The Marsh family was 100 years removed from the Civil War, but some centuries are shorter than others. Ray Marsh's grandfather Monroe was born into slavery and Ray was a full grown adult when his grandpa died. When I started to research the Marsh family's history, I did so because I wanted to get a sense of them as human beings beyond what I'd read in archives and family history books, beyond what appeared in news stories from the early 2000s. Their story in America begins not by choice, but by force at a place that could not be any lower. And I think that history helped shape what happened later at the crematory because a family whose success is hard earned will fight hard to protect it. From Waveland and Campsite Media. This is Noble. I'm SEAN. Revive episode 6 the Marshes. After weeks on the Marsh property, investigators determined that it was between 1997 and 2002 when bodies were not being burned at Tri State Crematory. That window overlaps with Brent Marsh's time in charge when his father, Ray Marsh, was running the crematory that he founded. It seems the operation was above board. But that still leaves open whether the rest of the Marsh family knew what was happening with Brentwood. What about his parents, Ray and Clara? Did they know? And if they knew what Brent was doing, what could possibly motivate them to hide it? To answer those questions, I took a trip to Noble, the very small community where the Marsh family has a long history. And I met a man named Stan Porter.
- [05:40]
Stan Porter
Back up a little bit. Pull over there and turn around. Because cars come over this hill so fast that you would not have a chance if you back down into the tree.
- [05:49]
Narrator 2
Stan Porter grew up in Noble on his grandfather's farm about a mile as the crow flies from the Marsh property and Tri State crematory. Stan is 72 years old, a tall and burly retired banker. He's bald, but with a gray walrus mustache like Wilford Brimley. He's the kind of guy I could imagine sitting at the Dairy Dip Diner in Lafayette with a bunch of other old timers, talking about long ago football games over cheeseburgers and fries. Stan is well known in Noble and in all of Walker County. He was chairman of the local technical college for a while, served on the board of a hospital, and he used to be president of the Walker County Chamber of Commerce. And Stan was kind enough to show me and my producer, Johnny Kaufman, around Noble, where he grew up and where he lives today. So if you want to see Noble.
- [06:33]
Investigator 1
Where should we turn?
- [06:33]
Narrator 2
Left.
- [06:33]
Stan Porter
Turn left.
- [06:34]
Narrator 2
Turn left. As I drive, Stan points out a lot of stuff that used to be around here. Noble is mostly a residential area, a bedroom community for Lafayette, the seat of Walker county, and Chattanooga, the much larger city just north in Tennessee. Noble is like a village without a center or even really a clear gathering place. Even though most of the old businesses in Noble have been torn down, the legacies of Stan's family and the Marsh family are all around, sometimes right on top of each other.
- [07:03]
Stan Porter
That's the store that Ray Marsh built, and that's where my barbecue restaurant was. I'll show you that.
- [07:09]
Narrator 2
To the right or left?
- [07:10]
Stan Porter
Left. I'm sorry. Take a left.
- [07:12]
Narrator 2
A few decades ago, Stan had a little barbecue restaurant in noble on Highway 27. After the restaurant closed, Raymarsh brought the property and built a general store in the same exact spot. When Stan was growing up, his grandparents hosted big barbecues where they'd fry up meat skins in a big lard pot, throw hams in the smokehouse, and put out sweet tea and lemonade. Their family and friends would dance late into the night to the RB tunes of WLAC out of Nashville. There were few if any streetlights in Noble back then, so when families walked home after they did so in the dark. But Stan remembers that as a kid, he could somehow still see at night. As in lots of small towns, kids in Noble had night vision. The center of life for Stan and his family was a little white country church constructed long before Stan was born. It was called New Home Baptist Church. In the late 19th century, freed black people left white churches for their own places of worship across the South. No longer needing to conduct their services in secret, new home began as a brush arbor in 1907, basically a structure made of logs and branches where people could worship together. A couple years later, a cornerstone was laid for the permanent church, and among the 17 attendees that day was its founder, Monroe Marsh, Ray Marsh's grandfather, and Brent Marsh's great grandfather. Who was born into slavery. Stan's grandfather was one of the church's original deacons. And now, more than 100 years later, Stan is a deacon at New Home.
- [08:41]
Stan Porter
This is a church on your left.
- [08:46]
Narrator 2
It's called New Home Baptist Church.
- [08:47]
Stan Porter
Mm. Yeah, just a little, small community church.
- [08:50]
Narrator 2
What's it look like on the inside?
- [08:52]
Stan Porter
Uh, nondescript. Just a. Like an old country church.
- [08:56]
Narrator 2
After the church, Stan directs us to a cemetery, just a couple turns away. It's small and serene, with about 50 or so graves surrounded on three sides by tall trees. It's the Marsh family cemetery.
- [09:09]
Stan Porter
This is still maintained by the Marsh family.
- [09:12]
Narrator 2
Stan has family here, too, because he's not just neighbors with the Marshes, he's also related to them. It's a little complicated, but Stan's mom's sister was married to Ray Marsh's uncle. The point is, the Marshes aren't just friends of Stan's. They're family.
- [09:28]
Stan Porter
This is my aunt and uncle right here. She was my mother's sister. She died in 2002.
- [09:35]
Narrator 2
It's a hot day, late in the summer, but a light breeze makes it feel cool and comfortable at the Marsh family cemetery. So we stand and talk for a while. Stan reads the graves and reminisces.
- [09:46]
Stan Porter
Okay, now that's that. Sam Marsh is the brother of Ray Marsh, the son of the original Sam Marsh. And I don't know where Mr. Sam was buried. I don't remember. I was a child when he died.
- [09:59]
Narrator 2
We leave the cemetery and make a right turn, and Stan takes us by the place that Noble is most known for these days.
- [10:05]
Stan Porter
We're coming up on the Marsh property now, which I'll show you.
- [10:08]
Narrator 2
We pass a house on our left and another on our right, but it's mostly trees on both sides until we approach a street sign that says Clara Marsh Lane.
- [10:18]
Stan Porter
From here on, all this property on both sides of the road is Marsh property.
- [10:22]
Narrator 2
A member of the Marsh family who grew up in Noble wrote about how back in the day, you could walk the equivalent of 50 city blocks in Marshland without having to cross a road. You could leave New Home Baptist Church, stop at Auntie's Yard, play with your cousins, stop in at another Marsh house for a snack, see another aunt for the latest gossip, taste a strawberry from your uncle's crop, and then wander through the woods some more.
- [10:46]
Stan Porter
Marsh family. There. That is not Marsh. It was Marsh property, but they sell it to a friend. That's where the crematorium was.
- [10:55]
Narrator 2
Down this road?
- [10:56]
Stan Porter
Yes, right. This drive, down this driveway.
- [10:58]
Narrator 2
Okay.
- [10:59]
Stan Porter
And it was in that field right there.
- [11:01]
Narrator 2
And out in that field, we drive slowly past the old entrance to the crematory. It looks like a normal driveway. No sign or anything. Where the crematory building stood is now just an empty field. Could you see the crematory building from the road?
- [11:16]
Stan Porter
Yes. Like back if you were right here and there were several buildings, it wasn't just one building. It was several buildings down in the bed. They tore them all down.
- [11:25]
Narrator 2
In this moment, what I really want to do is turn down that drive, knock on the door, and speak to the Marshes who still live there. But I'm still talking to their lawyer, McCracken Poston, about setting up an interview. And so we just drive past. One reason I've tried so hard to interview the Marsh family is because I'm a white man reporting a story with a black family at the center. And I know I'm at risk of diminishing their perspective. I want them to tell their story. Stan tells me he spoke with the Marsh family before agreeing to do this interview. So in a way, he's acting as a proxy or spokesperson, not just as someone who grew up and lives in Noble, but also for the Marsh family. It's not the same as talking to the Marshes themselves. But like I said before, Stan is family and has known them his whole life. So when we go to Stan's house to sit down and talk, I'm hoping that will help me understand who the Marshes are as people. But when we get to Stan's, he tells me even more than I expected.
- [12:37]
Narrator 1
Every day, our world gets a little more connected, but a little further apart. But then there are moments that remind us to be more human.
- [12:50]
Amica Insurance Representative
Thank you for calling Amica Insurance.
- [12:52]
Accident Caller
Hey, I was just in an accident.
- [12:54]
Amica Insurance Representative
Don't worry, we'll get you taken care of.
- [12:55]
Narrator 1
At Amika, we understand that looking out for each other isn't new or groundbreaking. It's human. Amica. Empathy is our best policy.
- [13:07]
Advertiser 1
This lasagna was so cheesy, my plate was filled with saucy slices. Then a flimsy store brand plate.
- [13:14]
Narrator 2
No, no, no, no.
- [13:15]
Advertiser 1
Ruined it.
- [13:16]
Amica Insurance Representative
Next time, get Dixie Ultra plates three times stronger than the leading store brand. 10 inch paper plate. Dixie, make it right.
- [13:24]
Narrator 2
If there is one single person who laid the foundation for the successful family the Marshes would become, it was probably Ray's grandfather and Brent's great grandfather, Munro Marsh. Born enslaved in 1864. Monroe would go on to create a proud legacy for future Marshes and embody the family. Don't look up, you don't look down. You look him straight in the eye. Monroe Marsh never had a formal education, but he learned to read and write and made sure that his children and grandchildren did as well. He opened a lumber company in nearby Chickamauga around the time of World War I and built it into a mini empire in North Georgia. He owned a sawmill, a planing mill and delivery trucks. The mill employed blacks and whites and stayed open for nearly 50 years. The success of the sawmill seems kind of miraculous now. It was owned by a black family in an almost all white county at a time when racial violence was rampant across the South. And it opened around the same time that a black man named Henry White was lynched just down the road in Walker County. But the Marshes were known for their American as can be entrepreneurial spirit. And Ray apparently inherited that spirit from his forebears. Here's Stan Porter.
- [14:35]
Stan Porter
Ray was driven, you know, if he saw a need, he went forward. He did what he had to do to make it successful. He worked very hard. He employed a number of people. Was it easy? I'm sure it was not. But he was a man who was focused in the direction that he wanted to go. Ray was well liked and well respected in this community. And he was light complected, so that probably helped him as well.
- [15:02]
Narrator 2
Like Stan said, Ray had relatively light skin. He was once asked about this in a deposition related to a different case where he served on the jury. And I got ahold of the transcript. For whatever reason, the lawyer questioning him was interested in the color of Ray's skin. And for whatever reason, Ray was feeling surly that day. And all he was interested in was giving the lawyer a hard time. The lawyer asked him, Mr. Marsh, just for the purposes of the record, you're black, is that correct? And Ray said, I don't know. You don't know if you're black or not? I've got a lot of white people that say I'm their cousin, so I don't know whether I'm black or not. You honestly don't know whether you're white or you're black? I don't know. Colors have never bothered me. Would you say that in Walker county that you were perceived as white or black? I wouldn't know. I wouldn't say. I can go anywhere I want to in Walker County. Did it all my life. Ray had a lot of different jobs when he was younger. As a kid he worked in the family sawmill. After high school he was in the army for two years. He had his own construction company for a while. He worked at A TNT plant and at the post office. Even before Ray met Clara, he lived on the land where he would later open Tri State Crematory. And Ray's property was a common place for people and noble to hang out. He owned horses and built a go kart track for kids like Stan to race. Ray even had a real boxing ring, elevated off the ground and everything. And on weekends, there were fights.
- [16:35]
Stan Porter
It would be various men in the community. There was a preacher in Chickamauga. His name was D.B. cheney. He was a very good boxer. And then there were guys from various areas around Somerville, Rome, and even Chattanooga. They would come down here for boxing matches.
- [16:49]
Narrator 2
So it wasn't like some local kids learning to box. These were like actual.
- [16:52]
Stan Porter
These were guys that could box. Yeah, yeah. You didn't mess with these guys.
- [16:58]
Narrator 2
Also on the property, Ray ran something like an elk's lodge, a place where adults could hang out while the kids were racing go karts. But one day, young Stan found his way into the club.
- [17:09]
Stan Porter
We snuck in there one time as little boys, and we snuck a couple of beers out. And next time we went in there, he took them out because he would not allow us to do stuff like that. That was for adults. And he did a lot of things in the community for the kids. I remember as a boy Scout, he would let the black boy scouts come down and camp on his property down there. But sleeping on the ground wasn't for me. My idea of roughing. It's a Holiday Inn and no pool. But yeah, he did all sorts of things like that. He worked with the community to help the youth.
- [17:39]
Narrator 2
And Ray hosted big blowouts.
- [17:41]
Stan Porter
They would sponsor hayrides from Chattanooga to raise on the lake is what they called it.
- [17:47]
Narrator 2
At Ray's on the lake, there was food and drink and sock hops for teenagers to come and dance together by the water. How many people would come to these type of gatherings?
- [17:55]
Stan Porter
Oh, my gosh, it would probably be 100 people or more because they would.
- [17:58]
Narrator 2
Come from Chattanooga and mostly relatives and friends of your family and their family.
- [18:03]
Stan Porter
No, they would advertise it on the radio. And back during that time, they would have. They called it hayrides. And they would have big flat back trucks and they'd load up kids on it, and they would drive from Chattanooga down here and they would get out and there's, you know, there's a lot of land over there. So they would get out and they would dance and all that sort of thing there at the cabin.
- [18:22]
Narrator 2
I wish so bad I could have gone to one of these Raised in the lake parties taken the hayride from Chattanooga with the kids. Stood by the lake under the moonlight. Seen all the people dancing and having a blast in Noble. After all I'd seen in court documents and heard during talks with police and families, this was the first time I could really picture good times. Beautiful times, it sounds like, on the Marsh property. Clara Campbell moved to Walker county in 1960. At the time, schools were still segregated and there was a shortage of black teachers. Clara was from South Carolina, but she came down and taught English at the black high school, Hill High. At some point she met Ray, who would have been a catch, pretty well to do man with a large property, who everyone seemed to think highly of, even white people. Part of the Marsh family that owned the lumber mill. The guy who ran the parties at Ray's and the lake. Clara and Ray got married in 1969. And Clara, now Marsh, was a pretty good catch herself. An educated, attractive and no nonsense young woman, she taught at Hill High until schools were desegregated in Walker county in the mid-1960s. Then she switched to mixed schools where she taught generations of students, black and white. As a teacher, Clara was well liked, even though she had a reputation for being tough.
- [19:44]
Stan Porter
She expected the best from you, that's the thing. And I felt like the black teachers cared more about us. Because all my life I was told I had to be twice as good to get half as far. And black teachers pushed us to do that.
- [20:00]
Narrator 2
Would you say that Clara was an outlier in her being this difficult teacher? Or was that just emblematic of what black teachers had to be like back then?
- [20:09]
Stan Porter
I think it was what black teachers had to be during that time. She was probably a little more adamant at how she did it maybe than some of the other ones, but they all were that way.
- [20:22]
Narrator 2
Clara worked four decades as a teacher, but her influence in Walker county went way beyond that. Her resume was impressive. She was president of the Walker county association of Educators, Chairman of the Walker County Democratic Committee. She worked with the Chamber of Commerce and the Walker County 150 Year Anniversary Committee. And she was a court appointed special advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children. And that's just a partial list. As Clara's lawyer told me, anytime some organization in Walker county needed federal money, they put Clara, a black woman, on their board. I've spoken with a lot of people who have opinions on Clara Marsh. One consistent word they used was matriarch. The other was overbearing, which Stan says is an exaggeration.
- [21:07]
Stan Porter
And I think she gets A bad rap on some of that, to be perfectly honest with you. Yes, she is very aggressive. Yes, she takes no prisoners, but she will do anything for you.
- [21:17]
Narrator 2
When Stan's mother was sick and Stan and his sister were putting in long hours taking care of her, Clara showed up.
- [21:24]
Stan Porter
She called one day and said, we're gonna bring you dinner. And I said, well, great. I said, I'll get the house cleaned up. She said, no, we're not gonna eat inside. We're gonna eat outside. I said, oh, no, it's warm. She said, look, I'm bringing dinner. We're gonna eat outside or we're not gonna eat at all. I said, okay. Yes, ma'am. And it was a wonderful thing. And when it was done, they cleaned up the food and the dishes and everything, and you never would have known it was there.
- [21:52]
Narrator 2
One year, the Marshes held a big family reunion at their church in Noble. Over two days, Marshes from all over the south prayed together, ate ham and macaroni salad together, and celebrated their ancestors together. The reunion was such a big deal that the governor of Georgia wrote a letter commemorating it. I hope it will be an enjoyable and memorable one for all he wrote. Another letter came from Alex Haley, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and the author of Roots and the Autobiography of Malcolm X. Dear members of the Marsh family, Halley wrote, it's most important that reunions include special remembrance and prayer for those ancestors who went before us that we never overlook, never forget, that unless they'd endured the struggles and sufferings which they did, surely we wouldn't now be going about enjoying our possessions, our potentials, our accomplishments, honors and titles. Ever since I started reporting on the Marsh family, I've wanted to learn more about their past to see if it offers any answers to what happened at Tri State. I think the answer is clearly yes. It does. The family seems to have succeeded. Despite coming from Noble, this very small place, despite being descended from people who were enslaved, despite living in a place where schools were only desegregated in the 1960s, and despite being a black family living in a very white county, Ray and Clara Marsh had made it in Walker County. They had kids, good jobs, owned land all over, were prominent members of their church, and were generally cemented as leaders in the community. At one point, Clara Marsh was named Walker County Citizen of the year, and March 12 was declared Ray Marsh Appreciation Day in honor of Ray's service and for being, quote, an outstanding citizen, an honorable man of high moral character and honest business practices, a wonderful husband and father and A beloved friend. For many years, a big part of Ray's service to Walker county and to northwest Georgia and its adjoining states was helping with funerals. And around 1970, he began digging graves.
- [24:10]
Butterball Representative
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- [24:41]
Advertiser 1
This lasagna was so cheesy, my plate was filled with saucy slices. Then a flimsy store brand plate. No, no, no, no. Ruined it.
- [24:50]
Amica Insurance Representative
Next time, get Dixie Ultra plates three times stronger than the leading store brand. 10 inch paper plate. Dixie make it right.
- [24:57]
Narrator 2
When Stan Porter was growing up in Noble and attending New Home Baptist Church, if someone died, it meant there was work to do.
- [25:06]
Stan Porter
The men of the church met and they said, we have to go dig the grave. And they would take lanterns out in the field at night, and they would take them. I mean, he dug a six foot grave, you know, big enough to put a casket in. So it took a while.
- [25:19]
Narrator 2
The men would include young Stan, let him get down in the grave and play with the dirt before they'd pull him out and finish the job. Raymarsh saw the strain that this put on the members of his church, and so he started a grave digging business.
- [25:32]
Stan Porter
He dug graves from here to Alabama, I think as far south as Carnival and all up in Tennessee. He went to a rent hall place and rented his first backhoe and he started going out digging graves. And the business just flourished from that. And so at one time he ran about three or four crews digging graves and putting vaults in. As a matter of fact, he manufactured his own vaults at one time.
- [25:55]
Narrator 2
Ray's involvement in all these funerals sparked another business idea. A crematory. Back then, if you wanted a body cremated, you had to send it to Atlanta. But he knew there would be demand up in northwest Georgia for an option that was far cheaper than a typical burial. So in 1982, Ray bought a $20,000 power pack furnace which weighed approximately 11 tons. He had to leave one wall of the 988 square foot crematory building unbuilt in order to install the thing. He told a reporter back then that he'd have an assortment of urns available for customers. It will be a one man operation, he said.
- [26:32]
Stan Porter
I remember when he said he was going to do it. Those of us here in the community were not happy about it. We thought it would smell and he assured us that it wouldn't. And because he said the temperature was so hot and that other. But again, he saw a need for it, cremations were starting to become popular and so he bought that crematorium and had it installed over there.
- [26:55]
Narrator 2
Was he pretty proud of it?
- [26:57]
Stan Porter
I'm sure he was, yeah. I mean, at that time he had the only crematory around here.
- [27:03]
Narrator 2
For years Ray ran the crematory and 90% of his business came from funeral homes who used Tri state as a third party service. It wasn't always smooth sailing. In 1991, a new Georgia law was passed. It said that if you ran a crematory in Georgia, you had to be a licensed funeral director. That would have required Ray, already in his 60s, to go back to school, get a degree from a funeral service college and apprentice for at least 3,920 hours over a period of no less than two years. In other words, he'd have to train to become a full on funeral director. I don't know what prompted the law, but it smells like classic protectionism to make it as hard as possible for individuals like Ray to compete with bigger businesses. And Ray would have been a victim of the law. But he hired a lawyer and recruited a powerful friend, a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, who tried to get a permanent loophole passed just for Tri State Crematory. Frankly, at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. Why should a nearly 70 year old man spend thousands of hours and dollars just to get a license to do something he already did? In the end, the wording of the new law proved vague enough to grant Ray an exemption anyway. While initially the state tried to shut Ray's business down, in 1996 they dropped their case against Tri State. By then, the crematory wasn't exactly a one man operation as Ray predicted when he opened it. Over the years, he employed a few people, mostly family, to help with the crematory and his grave digging and vault business. Even Clara helped a bit with bookkeeping and answering the phone. And in a pretty typical small business scenario, as Ray's son Brent grew up, he helped out with the crematory 2. By all accounts, Brent was a good, intelligent kid with a bright future. He was a sprinter at Lafayette High School, captain of the track team and alignment on the football team. He had perfect attendance his senior year as a student. Who does that their senior year? And earned a scholarship to play linebacker at UT Chattanooga. Stan Porter has known Brent since he was a baby, and he told me that Brent learned about service from his parents. Stan described Brent before the crematory stuff happened as a pillar in the community and a rising star.
- [29:16]
Stan Porter
He was kind of a guy that when folks needed help, but things he would do that for. He was a very respectful young man. He would have been someone that if I needed help, I would call and he would be here.
- [29:29]
Narrator 2
And Brent apparently made a sacrifice for his family in 1996 when his father Ray, had a series of strokes. Afterwards, Ray suffered from dementia and could no longer walk, much less work. And Clara had to take care of her husband. Brent left college and took over the crematory. The one man operation had a new man. The earliest body that investigators found and identified, a tri state, aside from the one outlier that had been exhumed from his grave, was a person who died on March 31, 1997, well after Brent had become the face of the business. But while Brent was in charge, Clara Marsh was still living in the house with Ray, just a couple hundred feet away from the crematory and from the bodies that eventually piled up. A few weeks after Brent was arrested, the GBI had Clara, Ray and Brent's sister arrested too. It was based on a pretty meager technicality, basically an excuse. They were arrested for falsifying information on death certificates by signing their names under the title funeral director when they weren't officially that. Their lawyer, McCracken Poston, remembered how sad and ridiculous it was to see the deputies attempt to fingerprint Ray Marsh with him in a wheelchair and suffering from dementia. All three of them were let out on bond the same day they were arrested. And eventually a judge dismissed all the charges and none of them were arrested again. It's very unlikely that Ray was aware of Brent's doings, given his health. But that still left open a difficult and ugly question about Clara, who lives so close to the crematory building. I asked a lot of people about this, including Special Agent Greg Ramey.
- [31:12]
Investigator 1
How can somebody have that going on there and you not know that it's going on there? You know, I mean, your kid comes in the house smelling like pot. Well, he's probably been smoking pot. So do you think he grows it or you think he goes out and buys it? I don't know. You got woods behind your house. You see him going out there with a shovel and stuff. Okay. You probably suspect he's growing potential, but you don't know it for 100%, I think she knew what was going on. Can I prove that 100%? No.
- [31:45]
Narrator 2
But does the geography of the property indicate more towards. It'd be really easy for them to know. Or they. Or it's possible they will know.
- [31:58]
Investigator 1
Unless. Unless she got out, walked into the buildings. She could conceivably say, I didn't go in the retort building. I didn't go in that building. I didn't go in this barn. I came here, I parked here, I got out, I went in the house.
- [32:11]
Narrator 2
So that's a possible. That's a possibility.
- [32:13]
Investigator 1
That it's a possibility. I mean, it's possible that she didn't know. I sort of doubt it. But, you know, it's. I mean, I don't know.
- [32:24]
Narrator 2
Greg seems to be split on Clara. Like, as a regular citizen of Walker county, he's of the opinion that Clara knew. But as an investigator, he knows he can't back it up with hard facts. I also put this question to The Marsh's lawyer, McCracken.
- [32:38]
Accident Caller
Everybody that really knows Clara would know that she would not allow that to happen. I will never believe that the family knew things were as bad as they were. Because it took several attempts at getting law enforcement out there that. That nothing panned out.
- [33:02]
Narrator 2
What do you think? This is just theorizing, obviously, but what do you think Clara might have done had she known what was going on?
- [33:09]
Accident Caller
Well, I think she would have whipped things into shape in all likelihood. I don't know how at that point, because once you're behind and haven't given the right body remains to the right person, I don't know what she could have done. I can't imagine that she would have known. But I think they also felt. This is Brent's operation now. We don't need to push him. It's his now. Let's let him feel like it's his. And they pretty much washed their hands of the place and let him operate the whole thing.
- [33:54]
Narrator 2
In the early 2000s, Clara was asked by lawyers in a deposition about her involvement in the crematory. She had a pretty incredible response. Here's what she said to the attorney interrogating her. You're thinking, I'm talking to a lady who taught 40 some years and with a master's degree. So I expect her to be very intelligent about a lot of things. And I promise you that I am about a lot of things. But about my Husband's business. That was my husband's business. Clara denied any knowledge of what was going on at Tristate, of Brent not burning the bodies, of there being bodies on her property, period. If you look at a map of the property and where the bodies were found, none of them are really near Clara's house. The vast majority are behind some buildings opposite Clara's and probably couldn't be seen from her windows or where she parked her car. So, like Greg said, it's possible she didn't know. After learning so much about the Marsh family's history, about their ancestors who started off enslaved and somehow built up a lumber empire, too many other businesses to count, and a church still going today, I took away one big thought, and this is just my own opinion, that this family, this pretty amazing family, had succeeded against all odds. And they had a lot to lose. And like any family that has a lot to lose, they would probably do a lot to protect it. Not just the physical things, gained not just money and land, but reputation and legacy. I asked myself if it were my son or my brother and he did something like what Brent did, something huge and unforgivable. What would I do if I found out? Would I immediately run to the police and make my family suffer the collective punishment, the public shame, the potential ruin of all they'd done over a hundred years? Or would I turn a blind eye and hope he corrects it somehow? I'm not saying this is what happened. I'm just saying I can sort of picture it. The victims of Tri State, the families were so angry because they wanted nothing more than to protect their relatives, to defend them even after they died. If Clara knew what Brent was doing and she kept it a secret, she was probably trying to protect her family too. The living and the dead. To protect their memories and honor, to protect everything they had accomplished if that was the case. To me, this is not a paradox, but a parallel between the families and the Marshes. It's actually something that links them. But as Brent's trial approaches, the families aren't exactly interested in the Marsh's past. They want to know why Brent did this, and they want to hear it from the horse's mouth. But at this point, Brent hasn't said more than a few words in public. And whatever is in his head is still a mystery.
- [36:43]
Accident Caller
Everybody kept saying, we never found out why. And it just seemed like a bit of anger behind that. We never found out. We weren't given the reason why this happened. And I thought, well, here, I'll give you the reason. I'll give you what was going to.
- [36:58]
Narrator 2
Be the defense that's on the next episode of Noble. Noble is a production of Waveland and Campside Media. Noble was reported and written by Johnny Coffee and me, Sean Raviv. Johnny Kaufman is our senior producer. Sierra Franco is our associate producer. Editing by Jason Hoke, Johnny Kaufman and Matt Scherr Fact checking by Kalyn lynch sound design, mixing, scoring and original music by Garret Tiedemann. Our theme music is La Lucha es una Sola by the band Esmerine. Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slaywin, David Eichler, Ashley Warren, Destiny Dingle and Sabina Mara. Jason Hoke is the executive producer at Waveland. The executive producers at Campside Media are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff and Matt Scherr.
- [38:15]
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