Tennessee funeral home fined for using Marsh crematory

<p>Overseers of Tennessee's self-policing funeral industry handed out their first punishment _ a $1,000 fine _ to a funeral home for using the Tri-State Crematory in northwest Georgia where corpses were neglected.</p><p>Robert Gribble, director of the Tennessee Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers, said the "disciplinary" action against Cumberland Funeral Home at Monteagle was not final and he could not comment about the penalty or the reason for the fine.</p><p>Gribble said Thursday that the board also could suspend or revoke licenses, but rarely took such actions.</p><p>Records show more than 257 bodies from Tennessee were taken to the crematory in the two years before Feb. 15, 2002, when investigators first discovered corpses strewn on the wooded grounds.</p><p>Gribble said the board has received just three related complaints against Tennessee funeral homes that used the former crematory. He said anyone who feels wronged "can still go ahead and file a complaint."</p><p>The board acted on a complaint by James Gipson of Sewanee, whose mother was taken to the crematory. Gipson said Thursday he was told the board assessed the maximum $1,000 fine on the funeral home and its owner, Dean Lay. Gipson said he was first told by the funeral home that his mother's body was taken to Chattanooga to be cremated.</p><p>Lay did not return a telephone message seeking comment.</p><p>Former crematory operator Brent Marsh, accused of allowing 334 corpses to pile up on the property while accepting payments for cremations, is to go on trial Oct. 11 in LaFayette, Ga., on 787 state felony charges of theft, fraud and abuse of a body.</p><p>Many of the recovered bodies remain unidentified.</p><p>Marsh also is charged in Tennessee with six felony counts of abuse of a corpse. He is accused of transporting bodies to the crematory, then returning to Bradley County funeral homes what were purported to be those cremated human remains.</p><p>In some cases the urns contained cement dust, dirt, or unidentified cremated human remains, forensics investigators have said.</p><p>An Aug. 23 federal court trial is set in Rome, Ga., on a class-action lawsuit against Marsh.</p><p>Funeral homes in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama also are being sued.</p><p>Gribble said the other two complaints to the board against Tennessee funeral homes would likely be considered soon. He said the panel, six licensed funeral directors or embalmers and one public member, next meets Aug. 3.</p><p>Georgia officials had no reason to punish any funeral homes for using Tri-State Crematory, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state said.</p><p>Gribble said he was unsure why the Tennessee board did not act more quickly on the three complaints, all received more than a year ago, unless families affected by the crematory case possibly decided to sue instead.</p><p>"I think the board takes the attitude that any funeral home dealing with a third party, they should know the business practices of that third party," Gribble said. "What I've heard expressed by board members ... it's incumbent on them (funeral directors) to know what is taking place."</p><p>Gribble said that since the discovery of corpses at Tri-State Crematory, Tennessee has changed laws so that funeral directors must use only licensed crematories and must notify families of the name and location of any crematory that is used.</p><p>Gipson, whose mother's remains were recovered, described the Tennessee Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers as the "foxes guarding the henhouse."</p><p>Gipson said he couldn't believe there weren't more complaints against funeral homes that used the crematory.</p><p>"These people, they entrusted their loved ones to a funeral home and a funeral director," Gipson said. "The funeral homes should have known what was going on."</p><p>He described the $1,000 fine as a "sin and a crime but it's probably better than mountain justice."</p><p>___</p><p>On The Net:</p><p>Tennessee Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers:</p><p>www.state.tn.us/commerce/boards/funeral</p>

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