As Brent Marsh’s court case winds up, one victim of Tri-State Crematory has a remarkable change of heart, even after seeing her husband’s mummified corpse. Other families are not so forgiving.
This podcast contains graphic descriptions of death and decay.
Please listen with care, Campsite Media, Walker County, Georgia, and Noble.
They're places where people and families are entangled.
Where if a store closes, your neighbor might be the one to reopen it.
Where your high school teacher knows you before you actually sit at a desk in their classroom because they also taught your parents and your cousins.
So imagine how it was when the bodies were discovered at Tri State Crematory.
It must have been impossible for the families to go to the grocery store or the bank or the Dairy Dip diner without someone asking them how they were doing and reminding them again about the horrible thing that had happened.
But some families, the lucky ones, do eventually get some relief.
Like Sheila Manus, the independent, loyal wife of Ira Manus, who died in August 2000.
Sheila loved her husband so much that she unwrapped Hershey kisses for him before his hunting trips.
In September 2002, seven months after the bodies were discovered, Sheila learns that Ira's body has been found.
I was just laughing, and I was just so glad that they had found him because I had no idea what I would have done if I had not got a body.
You know, I couldn't have lived with that.
I don't think you had immediate elation, yes, immediate happiness.
Just thank God, you know, there's an end for me, you know?
Ira's body is first identified through DNA samples taken from Sheila's daughter and with the help of some of Ira's old X rays.
Sheila calls Special Agent Greg Ramey to thank him, and he tells her a little bit more about the condition of Ira's remains.
It's not pretty.
Brent had put a tarp over him.
He was outside, and at some point in time, the animals had kind of dragged that tarp kind of half off of him.