Investigators have unearthed dozens more corpses scattered around a Georgia crematorium in the United States, bringing the body count to 139.
They have found skeletons sealed in vaults and bodies that had been dragged into a shed.
Forensics teams said they had identified 27 bodies, and agents warned they expected to find many more. "I can't even begin to guess what the total will be," said Dr Kris Sperry, the state's chief medical examiner.
The bodies have been discovered in varying conditions, some estimated to be weeks old and some decayed for more than a decade. Handlers had been "just merely dragging them out there or dropping them out there," Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said.
Mr Ray Brent Marsh (28), operator of Tri-State Crematory in Noble, was arrested for a second time yesterday, and authorities filed 11 new theft-by-deception charges against him, bringing the total to 16.
As investigators combed the grounds, families arrived with urns of ashes, wondering whether loved ones they thought had been cremated were instead among the corpses.
Forensics experts studied 51 urns and said nine probably contained powdered cement rather than human remains, Dr Sperry said. The other 42 appeared to be human remains, but it was not clear whose, he said.
"By the hour, this is getting bigger and bigger and bigger," the medical examiner said. "That's the toughest part. We do not know, and may never find out, the names of many of these people".
As the body count rose, agents said they had begun examining the records of Mr Marsh and his parents, Ray and Clara Marsh, who turned the business over to their son in 1996. The elder Marshes have not been charged, but authorities said it was clear bodies were being dumped before the son took over.
AP