To the editor:

I recently read the article which told of the discovery of dead bodies surrounding Brent Marsh’s funeral home. He worked in a crematorium, but never cremated any bodies. He just piled them up around his property. The investigators have found over 100 corpses in different stages of decomposition. What bothers me the most is that the crematory wasn’t licensed and didn’t have a licensed funeral director there. That was brought to the attention of the authorities many times before.

I find it amazing that after countless complaints to the police about the crematory not having a license, no one did anything about it. Bill McGill stated he “repeatedly complained to state officials in the early 1990s.” They let this go on for almost 10 years! The dead bodies had been there for weeks up to years. How could no one have smelled that? He supposedly had been doing this since 1996. Some bodies were even rotten down to the bone. The families were devasted to hear they received wood ashes instead of the loved ones’ ashes. I can’t imagine the horror of knowing the remains are just decomposing into the ground. The individuals that used that crematory are probably now wondering where their family members really are.

The authorities didn’t investigate the crematory after all the complaints. I think they need to take more action in such cases and should follow up on the protests. If not, something like this will happen again.

Sara Spratt,

Lawrence