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CNN Live At Daybreak

Hundreds of Families Arrive At Georgia Crematorium for Answers

Aired February 19, 2002 - 05:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Investigators bring in heavy equipment in the search for more corpses at a northwest Georgia crematory. Four more vaults packed with human remains have been found. The crematory operator has been arrested a second time and he faces more fraud charges.

Georgia's chief medical examiner says he can't even begin to guess how many bodies may be decaying at that crematory. As investigators comb the grounds, families are trying to find out if their urns contain the ashes of loved ones or just powdered cement.

CNN's Art Harris reports from Noble.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ART HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It took several days for Bobbi Cann and her brother to face the truth, that her late husband's remains may not be the ashes she'd been sent.

BOBBI CANN: It's just, it's devastating, like I said. He was like, he was my best friend.

HARRIS: Gary Lee Cann, devoted father of two.

CANN: I met him at my best friend's house. They had come there to play music with her brother. And pretty much after the first two weeks we met each other, we moved in together and we were really together for the whole time, like 17 1/2 years.

HARRIS: She'd had other plans than to come here with the ashes, now considered potential evidence.

CANN: I actually had considered going back to Florida or some, you know, somewhere to scatter the ashes. And I just couldn't really let go of them.

HARRIS: More than 100 victims like Cann have arrived in rural north Georgia, many with urns of ashes they were told contained remains of cremated loved ones.

DR. KRIS SPERRY, STATE MEDICAL EXAMINER: We have examined 51 so far and of those 51, we found nine that are not of human origin. And they appear to be, although we're going to have this analyzed, but just a preliminary appearance is that what was represented as being human remains is actually powdered cement.

HARRIS: Ray Brent Marsh, back in jail, facing more charges of theft by deception for promising to cremate bodies sent here by funeral homes then sending families counterfeit remains that could be used as evidence. Authorities have now brought in a special task force of federal forensic experts and heavy equipment to help state and local law enforcement.

Ted Staple, Georgia's state police DNA expert.

TED STAPLE, GEORGIA STATE POLICE: We're getting out of the car and we walked about 10 paces and looked down and there was a rib on the ground.

HARRIS (on camera): A rib bone?

STAPLE: A rib bone. Another 20, 30 paces into some wooded area, three skulls, an arm, skeletonized remains. It was unbelievable.

HARRIS (voice-over): DNA can be extracted from any bones recovered, but not from what he saw.

STAPLE: It was basically a biological soup of remains.

HARRIS (on camera): While DNA is the best hope families and law enforcement have to identify any bodies found, in this case some bodies are so badly decomposed even DNA may not be able to work its magic.

Art Harris, CNN, Walker County, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Hopefully you're not eating breakfast right now.

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