The Special Agents | Chapter 2

Summary

Noble Podcast - Episode 2: The Special Agents | Chapter 2

Introduction

In the second episode of the gripping podcast series "Noble," host Sean Raviv takes listeners deeper into the harrowing discovery of over 300 bodies on a single property in Noble, Georgia. Titled "The Special Agents," this episode introduces key figures in the investigation, notably Special Agent Greg Ramey of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and Robin Hedden from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Their combined efforts unravel the dark secrets of the Marsh family's Tri State Crematory.

The Unexpected Call

At the heart of this episode is a pivotal moment when Robin Hedden receives a troubling voicemail. At [04:59], Robin mentions, "It was a female's voice, and she 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." This disturbing message sets the stage for the subsequent investigation, highlighting Robin's commitment to his role despite the seemingly bizarre nature of the complaint.

Robin Hedden: The EPA's Detective

Robin Hedden isn't your typical environmental agent. As he explains at [05:35], "An environmental crime can be dynamic. I can pollute here, and it can affect somebody, you know, 10 miles down the road." His dual expertise as a scientist and a law enforcement officer equips him uniquely for this case. Despite being assigned routine office tasks on February 15, 2002, Robin's dedication leads him to pursue the mysterious voicemail further.

The Journey to Noble

Determined to verify the claim, Robin and his partner Larry embark on a 100-mile drive from Atlanta to Noble. Their mission is shrouded in secrecy to avoid tipping off the Marsh family, known for their reputable standing in the community. As they navigate the expansive and wooded landscapes of Noble, their search initially proves futile, leading them to consider calling it a lost day.

A Chilling Discovery

However, fate has other plans. While regrouping near the crematory, Robin spots something unusual: "I saw this shiny little, kind of a brownish looking, thought it was a rock... It was the upper part of a cranium" ([10:35]). The realization hits hard as both Robin and Larry react in disbelief: "Holy shit. That's a skull." ([11:20]). This discovery transforms their routine investigation into a scene straight out of a horror movie.

Entering the Tri State Crematory

The gravity of the situation intensifies with the arrival of Special Agent Greg Ramey ([13:09]). Greg, with deep roots in Walker County and ties to the Marsh family, brings both expertise and personal connections to the case. His skepticism is evident as he rationalizes the find: "So I'm thinking probably somebody somewhere else, you know, has died. It's been a long time since, you know, the person died." ([13:26]). However, his professional instincts soon override his initial doubts.

Confrontation and Confirmation

Upon reaching the Tri State Crematory, Greg observes Brent Marsh, the crematory operator, displaying signs of fear. As they explore further, Greg discovers multiple bodies in various states of decomposition. Reflecting on his shock, Greg shares at [23:10], "He was already outside... It just wasn't a terrible bad odor," indicating the depth of the concealment. The team uncovers around 40 bodies on the Marsh property within the first day, a revelation that shakes the community to its core.

Unveiling the Atrocities

The Butler building, a substantial metal structure on the property, becomes the epicenter of the grisly findings. Greg recounts the horrifying discovery: "Bodies... just lying about on the floor just everywhere you look." ([22:18]). The realization that a respected family could perpetrate such heinous acts is a significant blow. The lack of immediate odor due to the cool February weather adds to the complexity, allowing the bodies to remain undetected for longer periods.

Interactions with Brent Marsh

Greg's interactions with Brent Marsh are tense and laden with unspoken truths. As they begin identifying the bodies, discrepancies in Brent's knowledge raise red flags. Greg confronts Brent's lack of documentation, leading to further suspicions about the extent of the Marsh family's involvement: "I need your help... I need the book." ([24:22]). Brent's eventual compliance by providing loose sheets of paper only deepens the mystery surrounding the crematory's operations.

The Aftermath and Emotional Toll

By the end of the day, the enormity of the discovery leaves Greg emotionally drained. He confides to his family, "This thing is... This is going to be huge." ([29:14]), highlighting the personal cost of uncovering such a massive crime scene. The community's perception of the Marsh family is shattered, replacing respect with suspicion and fear.

Notable Quotes

• Robin Hedden at [05:35]: "An environmental crime can be dynamic. I can pollute here, and it can affect somebody, you know, 10 miles down the road."

• Robin Hedden at [27:22]: "This looked like a horror movie. That's the first thing I thought. I was like, my God, there's skeletons everywhere."

• Greg Ramey at [13:26]: "So I'm thinking probably somebody somewhere else, you know, has died. It's been a long time since, you know, the person died."

• Greg Ramey at [14:13]: "I had even told my wife, if something happens to me, don't bury me. Just take me up to Morris Crematory, have me cremated, scatter my ashes."

• Greg Ramey at [30:36]: "The biggest betrayal I've ever felt in my life."

Conclusion

Episode 2 of "Noble" masterfully unravels the disturbing layers of the Tri State Crematory case, showcasing the relentless pursuit of justice by dedicated agents like Greg Ramey and Robin Hedden. Through vivid storytelling and firsthand accounts, Sean Raviv paints a comprehensive picture of the complexities and emotional turmoil involved in uncovering one of the most shocking mass fatalities in recent American history. As the investigation unfolds, listeners are left contemplating the depths of human deception and the profound impact on a small, tightly-knit community.

Transcript

[Sean Raviv]

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[Greg Ramey]

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[Sean Raviv]

Just grab Angelsoft. It's simple, soft and strong and for any budget Angelsoft Soft and strong simple. This podcast contains graphic descriptions of death and decay. Please listen with care. It can take hundreds of years for a human body to return to dust. Immediately after you die, the body begins digesting itself. Breathing halts, your blood stops circulating. 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. Small fluid filled blisters form on your organs and skin, giving the body a plastic like sheen. The bacteria in your body, no longer kept in check by the immune system, begin to feast. They consume tissue, releasing methane and other gases in the process. Your body bloats, nearly doubles in size. That unmistakable horrid odor of death grows for several days and soon you can be smelled a quarter mile away. Under certain conditions, a process called called saponification takes place. It turns your fatty acids into something called grave wax. Your body becomes soap and parts of it stay preserved for decades, if not centuries. But more likely, the bugs get you first because death attracts insects to your body. 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. Further up the food chain. Springtails and spiders eat the predators and turn your corpse into just another place to live. Your body, which once contained hopes and dreams and thoughts and memories, becomes simply an ecosystem. 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. Erosion in animals, moisture and changes in temperature finish the job that the bacteria and insects started until you become dust. And so each time a dead body is found or dug up, it looks a little different. 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. From Waveland and Campside Media, this is Noble. I'm Sean Raviv. Episode 2 the Special Agents Robin Headen sits down at his desk, and he sees the annoying red light on his phone. That means he's got another voicemail. He picks up the receiver, taps in the passcode, and hears a message that he can't ignore.

[Robin Hedden]

It was a female's voice, and she 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.

[Sean Raviv]

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. Imagine your chemistry professor becomes a detective. That's Robin. He has similar authority to an FBI agent, just focused on environmental crimes. Like if a bunch of fish are found floating dead in a river near a chemical plant, Robin would be all over that.

[Robin Hedden]

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

[Sean Raviv]

On February 15, 2002, when Robin gets that voicemail about human remains near a creek, he's duty agent in the EPA office in Atlanta. 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. And Robin always takes complaints seriously, no matter how odd. That's just who he is. 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.

[Robin Hedden]

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, but I always listen to what people had to say.

[Sean Raviv]

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. Besides, it's not the job of the EPA to investigate murderers or missing persons. But Robin is a by the book kind of guy, so he looks into it, 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. And something she says in her voicemail gives Robin an excuse to investigate.

[Robin Hedden]

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

[Sean Raviv]

Robin speaks to the agent who took the first call, and I'm like, damn it, man.

[Robin Hedden]

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. That's what he said. 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? That needs to be looked at. I'm gonna go look at it. And he's like, okay, you know, good luck.

[Sean Raviv]

What Robin doesn't know is that the woman who left the message is none other than Aunt Fay, an assistant for the FBI and the aunt of Gerald Cook, the gas man. 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. She doesn't even have a dog. And it just so happens that Special Agent Robin Hedden is the one who hears her message. When Robin decides he's going to drive up to the place, this Tri State Crematory, the first thing he does is pull in another agent.

[Robin Hedden]

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.

[Sean Raviv]

So Robin and Larry Drive the 100 miles northwest from Atlanta. Not having any idea what they're gonna find, they drive north past Lafayette, the seat of Walker county, into Noble. 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. 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. The properties in Noble are big, sometimes many acres. They contain forests and ponds and fields, and the boundaries aren't always fenced off. Instead of knocking on the Marsh's door, Robin and Larry approach one of their neighbors.

[Robin Hedden]

I told the guy, the neighbor, I said, look, I need to walk back in those woods. I showed him my credentials and he says, what are you doing? I said, I just need to walk back there. Could I park here, please? And he's like, well, yeah. So I parked out of the way. 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. 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 how we did it. And we parked there and we walked.

[Sean Raviv]

They leave their car next to a barn, enter the neighbor's yard and head toward the Marsh property. 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. 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 crossed the fence. They are now on 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. They enter the woods and when they come to a creek, they walk up and down the banks looking for human remains like the caller described. But it's February and leaves cover the ground a foot deep. After a while of searching, eventually Robin tells Larry, we're not going to find anything here. They start to loop back toward the neighbor's property where they parked their car and call it a lost day. As they walk in the distance, they can see the crematory and some other buildings on the Marsh family's property.

[Robin Hedden]

There's no trails or anything back there. So we were walking just through the leaves and the brush and 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. 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 little, kind of a brownish looking, thought it was a rock. And I looked at it. 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.

[Sean Raviv]

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

[Robin Hedden]

Holy shit. 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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[Sean Raviv]

This lasagna was so cheesy. My plate was filled with saucy slices. Then a flimsy store brand plate. No, no, no, no. Ruined it. Next time get Dixie Ultra plates three times stronger than the leading store brand. 10 inch paper plate. Dixie, make it right. 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 parked their car. Then they drive to a nearby church parking lot. This is no longer a situation for the EPA, so they call 911. Within a few minutes, a couple of detectives from the sheriff's office show up. The county coroner too. And then the next call, and probably the most important call, goes out to a man named Greg Ramey. Greg is a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the gbi. He's got dark hair and a trim beard. The energy of a friendly but stern when he needs to be, dad. When Greg gets the call, he's at a local field office and he doesn't take it to be a big deal.

[Greg Ramey]

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

[Sean Raviv]

Greg changes into better clothes for walking around in the woods. He lives in Walker county, close to Noble. It's where he grew up. His family there goes back generations to before the Civil War at least.

[Greg Ramey]

My great grandfather was a blacksmith. Had a shop out there and, you know, made tools and stuff for all the local folks. My granddaddy farmed back during the Depression and he said, oh, I was rich, he said, I own two teams of mules, you know, I mean, he, you know, and raised eight kids during the depression.

[Sean Raviv]

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. He and his wife plan to spend their whole lives in Walker county and beyond.

[Greg Ramey]

Really, in all seriousness, I had even told my wife, if something happens to me, don't bury me. Just take me up to Morris Crematory, have me cremated, scatter my ashes.

[Sean Raviv]

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

[Greg Ramey]

No remnants of human flesh on it, anything like that. And at this point, I mean, and everybody's just so nonchalant about it. I mean, nobody's jumping up and down. I had just turned 40 on Wednesday. This was a Friday. It's a Friday afternoon. I said, okay, we're all big pranksters, you know, I'm thinking, they're punking me. Okay, they're gonna walk me out here. Oh, we've got this skull, and then, boom, somebody jumps out of the wood. Oh, I got you. Honestly, I mean, honest guy. That's what I'm thinking.

[Sean Raviv]

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. 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. Brent's a big guy, short hair and a slight mustache. Earlier that year, he joined the Rotary Club in Lafayette. A nice guy, a likable guy, the kind of guy who'd do anything for you. Greg knew of the Marsh family already, like people often know of each other in a small community.

[Greg Ramey]

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 Brent's mama, Clara. Ms. Marsh had had her as a teacher over at Chattanooga Valley High School. So I knew the Marsh family just by reputation, stuff like that. Knew Brent, had played football at Lafayette High School, had been a good athlete, going to utc, where I graduated college from. He played football up there for a short period of time, so knew that about him.

[Sean Raviv]

Your impression of the family was a positive.

[Greg Ramey]

Oh, I mean, everybody in the community respected the Marsh family. They were, they were good folks.

[Sean Raviv]

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, introduce.

[Greg Ramey]

Myself to him, make sure he's good with the fact that we need to be on the property, searching. Yeah, we're good. You know, I don't. Do you know anything, do you know anything about what's going on? I don't know anything about what's going on.

[Sean Raviv]

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.

[Greg Ramey]

Man, there's a skull there. I mean, it's there. There's no doubt. There's a skull laying right there.

[Sean Raviv]

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

[Robin Hedden]

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. It's that deer in the headlights look. It's exactly what it is.

[Sean Raviv]

The county coroner is there with them and he points to a staple in the upper jaw of the skull. 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. That means the skull has gone through a funeral home. The coroner points to some small bones on the ground. He tells Greg they're from human fingers and toes.

[Greg Ramey]

He says, see, there's a bone. There's a bone. I'm like, dude, that could be a chicken bone. You know, I mean, it's tiny.

[Sean Raviv]

They walk around the woods a little, heading towards the storage buildings. Then the coroner sees something else and points it out to Greg. It's a cardboard shipping box. Two feet wide, a foot tall and six feet long.

[Greg Ramey]

So I thought, okay, this is where the punk comes in. This is where they're gonna get me. So we rip the cardboard piece off of it and there's a little elderly black gentleman laying in there. And he is partially mummified. His skin's really starting to dry up stuff. 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. A man's suit coat Starts moving and a rat ran out of his sleeve. A little mouse. Not a rat, but mouse. So at that point I'm like, okay, this is not pumpkin, you know, this, this is for real.

[Sean Raviv]

Greg walks out of the woods and back towards the sort of cul de sac where they'd parked. 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. To the left of the crematory is what some people call a Butler building, Basically a big metal building. The buildings are locked, so Greg approaches Brent again.

[Greg Ramey]

So Brent, you know, we've got a problem. We've got a skull out here and now we've got a full body. It's in a casket back over here. And I said, there's some things going on here. And I said, I need you to open up these buildings for me. And you can kind of see that, you know, it's like this big, huge breath. And then he just lets it out just like, oh, dang.

[Sean Raviv]

So it seems like he was expect. You're expecting something like this to happen and finally happen.

[Greg Ramey]

Yeah, it's, you know, it's, 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.

[Sean Raviv]

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. Something is in the way. Greg pokes his head around the door and shines his flashlight in.

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[Sean Raviv]

This lasagna was so cheesy. My plate was filled with saucy slices. Then a flimsy store brand plate. No, no, no, no. Ruined it. Next time, get Dixie Ultra plates three times stronger than the leading stor 10 inch paper plate. Dixie, make it right. 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.

[Greg Ramey]

And there's just, I mean, it's a room probably 40 to 60ft wide and about that same distance deep. It's just a big metal outbuilding, work building type thing, barn. And just, I mean, you start shining a light just everywhere you look. There was just bodies, just human bodies just laid there and various stages of dress or undress. Just however somebody died at the hospital or at home, that's the way they were.

[Sean Raviv]

Were they in those crates or were they.

[Greg Ramey]

No, no, no, no. They were just lying about on the floor just everywhere you look. So we just start looking, you know, I'm like, brent, what is going on? And he just like, you know, he just kind of mumbled, you know, an unintelligible response. He just kind of.

[Sean Raviv]

The Butler building has another entrance. A tall metal garage door that can be pulled up big enough for a semi trailer. It's about four in the afternoon at this point. And as the men pull that door up, light falls on. The body's lying in the building on the floor. Greg counts about 20.

[Greg Ramey]

It's 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, you.

[Sean Raviv]

Must have been thankful it wasn't a hot day.

[Greg Ramey]

Yeah, yeah. It would have been probably different had it been middle of summertime. But really, realistically was not just, you know, there wasn't a terrible bad odor. Not like I've been in some houses where, you know, it's summertime. The body's been there for a few days and it gets really bad right away.

[Sean Raviv]

Greg recognizes the body, a man named Luther Mason. He was the father of a local accountant. Greg knows Luther Mason died just a couple months earlier, had a funeral and all. Knows his granddaughter was a teacher at Greg's son's school. Greg stares at his dead body in disbelief. 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. They move on to another building behind the crematory.

[Greg Ramey]

There's another body lying in there, just lying there. And I'm like, I just looked at him. I said, brent, what are you thinking? You know, he's just kind of.

[Sean Raviv]

See, he's just like following along.

[Greg Ramey]

Yeah, I mean, he's. Yeah, he's just kind of walking along with us, you know, bump, bump, bump, bum, bum.

[Sean Raviv]

Greg pulls Brent aside at this point, Ask Brent.

[Greg Ramey]

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, do you have Any records that can show who is who? And he said, yeah, I've got, you know, I've got a little notepad. And he said, let me go get it. So he comes back, and he's got this little notepad. There's little greens, just a little spiral top flips open. And so he starts, you know, looking down through there, and he starts helping us identify some of the bodies.

[Sean Raviv]

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

[Greg Ramey]

So five, six, seven, eight bodies into it, he's telling us, you know, this so and so, this so and so. Then all of a sudden, he calls one a name that he's already called out. I'm like, brent, you said that person over there was Mr. So and so or Ms. So and so. Oh, did I? Okay. Well, then that one's so and so. And this is so and so. And I said, brent, how would you know? Well, I just have it up here in my mind. I said, but you have it on paper. And he said, well, I just know in my head. And I said, well, obviously not, because you just told us. And I wasn't trying to be confrontational, but I'm trying to get him to rationally tell me rationally how he knows. Then he finally just said, well, I don't know.

[Sean Raviv]

Did you get the sense that he was rattled?

[Greg Ramey]

He was just overwhelmed? I mean, it was just. And then I said, look. I said. And then he kind of said, well, that's all I can do. I said, wait a minute. We've identified a half a dozen bodies here, and you're telling me this is all you can do? Yeah, this is all I can do. And I said, well, I'm gonna need that book. Well, no, I need to keep it. I said, no, you don't need it anymore. You've done all you can do. I'm gonna need the book. And so I just kind of put my hand on the book. And he was kind of like, uh, okay.

[Sean Raviv]

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. Meanwhile, other officers on the scene keep searching the marsh property. Robin Headen from the EPA walks to the left of the crematory building through the wide gate of a wooden fence.

[Robin Hedden]

And there were bones everywhere on the ground behind this little wooden fence, like the metacarpals, the things in your. In your hands, your feet, the small bones. They were broken bones. They were littered the ground. 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. So Larry and I walked on down there and sure enough, there was a spine and a rib cage. And then there was another. There was a skeleton to the, 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. I mean, guys, this looked like a horror movie. That's the first thing I thought. I was like, my God, there's skeletons everywhere.

[Sean Raviv]

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. The bodies are in every state of decomposition you could imagine but wouldn't want to. 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. 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. All the time that the officers search the property, Brent's parents, Ray and Clara, are inside the house. 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.

[Greg Ramey]

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, 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. We told him, you just go back to your house, you know. And he said, you know, am I under arrest? And I said, no, not right now.

[Sean Raviv]

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. 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 with the EPA leaves the scene. 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.

[Greg Ramey]

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

[Sean Raviv]

On that first day, they find 40 bodies on the marsh property. And word about what they've discovered is starting to get out. There's one thing that Greg dreads most. He would soon need to speak to the families of all these dead people who were supposed to have been cremated. And Greg knows as well as anyone that this is going to tear people apart. Coming up. I'm Noble. You couldn't wrap your head around why.

[Robin Hedden]

This, why did this happen?

[Greg Ramey]

How can somebody have that going on there and you not know that it's going on there? I kind of slid to the floor holding the phone. I just couldn't believe it. I found a wood chipper that had bone fragments into 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. 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. She was caught trying to smuggle a sword into the courtroom disguised in a cane.

[Robin Hedden]

I know why it happened, when it happened. I know exactly where all the bodies were. I know exactly what he did.

[Greg Ramey]

I know everything that he did. And I know the reasons why.

[Sean Raviv]

Noble is a production of Waveland and Campside Media. Noble was reported and written by Johnny Kaufman and me, Sean Ravief. 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 Garrett Tiedemann. Our theme music is La Lucha Esuna Sola by the band Esmerine. Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slaywin, David Eichler, Ashley Warren, Destiny Dingle and Sabina Mar. Jason Hoke is the executive producer at Waveland. The executive producers at Campsite Media are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff and Matt Schaer.

[Amica Insurance]

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[Greg Ramey]

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[Sean Raviv]

At participating McDonald's delivery prices may be higher than at restaurants delivering other fees may apply.