He told police he was forced to stack up the bodies because the furnace had broken down. He has been charged with five counts of theft and fraud and was released on $25,000 bail last night. Authorities are considering further charges.His parents, Ray and Clara – who ran the crematorium for decades but handed over control to Ray in 1996 – have not been charged. Those involved in the investigation, professionals used to dealing with crime scenes and the bodies of murder victims, were staggered at what they found. Some of the corpses still bore toe tags, placed on them at local hospitals or the many funeral homes in the area that sent bodies to the crematorium.

Some embalmed bodies had been pulled from their coffins and left to the elements.Dewayne Wilson, the county coroner, said: '"The worst horror movie you've ever seen? Imagine that 10 times worse. That is what I'm dealing with.''Dr Kris Sperry, Georgia's chief medical examiner, said: "I have to say the utter lack of respect in which they were piled on top of one another was very disturbing."Locals say they knew the Marsh family well Mrs Mason said: "We were friends of them We thought he could not do that to us I have known them all my life My brother graduated [from] college with Brent They're wonderful people. Mrs Marsh was a local schoolteacher and president of a local education committee. She helped hundreds of kids."People living close to the 12-acre crematorium say they never suspected a thing. Thomas Ware, who has lived next door for six years in a house he rents from the Marsh family, said he never noticed any smells or other evidence of mistreatment. His uncle's body was sent there for cremation two years ago."Somebody better be going to jail," said Mr Ware's girlfriend, Britt Simmons.

"You just would never think something like this could happen here It's a little bitty town. But anywhere this happened it would be horrible."Investigators are now trying to identify the corpses and arrange for reburial, helped by the crematorium's records that the Marsh family have handed over. By last night, 13 of the bodies had been positively identified and more are expected.Officials say that, because some of the remains are only partial, the task of identifying each body is going to be a long and arduous one.Vernon Keenan, assistant director of the state's bureau of investigation, told The New York Times: "There were bodies piled like cordwood, just discarded and thrown in a pile. After 30 years in law enforcement, you think you have seen everything. And then you see something like this that you can't even imagine.".

I remember clearly a night in September 1983 I was nine at the time Alex was six Ben, four We were getting ready for bed My mum, Anne, was hurrying us along Perfectly normal Dad was away, working Again, perfectly normal. Then, she told us "Daddy's had a little accident in Lebanon, but they're trying to get him home soon." Again, normal He was always getting himself into tight situations A plastic bullet in the leg in Northern Ireland We helped him dress the wound Arrested in Poland A pretty impressive story to tell friends at school This latest scrape? I don't think we batted an eyelid. A week later, the phone rings and things aren't the same any more. His body has been found in a place called Kfar Matta and there will be a funeral and we will get a week off school... and no matter how often I sit in maths lessons wishing he would stride in and scoop me up in his arms, he is never, ever coming back.For almost two decades, Lebanon and the village of Kfar Matta have never been far from my thoughts.