dateline nbc 2025 S01 E17
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00:00:00Tonight, on Dateline.
00:00:04My father was larger than life.
00:00:08He was the rock of the family.
00:00:11My sister called and said, Daddy's missing.
00:00:15We started to search him for him.
00:00:17It clicked in my mind that he was going to burn that burn pile.
00:00:22He said he fell in a fire and burned up.
00:00:25I said, there's no way.
00:00:28Melody said that he has what she called spells,
00:00:30where he would feel faint.
00:00:32They found a bullet lodged in my dad's rib bone.
00:00:35Obviously, the direction of the case changed very quickly.
00:00:39Gary had close ties with all the family
00:00:41members related to money.
00:00:43Chris has taken money.
00:00:45He came in and took checks.
00:00:47Gary was a workaholic, and she liked to spend the money.
00:00:51Scott's been making threats against her,
00:00:53saying that he's taking over the estate.
00:00:56It's almost like an Agatha Christie story.
00:00:58You've got a confined space, and all those people
00:01:01are warring amongst themselves.
00:01:03That's exactly right.
00:01:05I have waited for years to make this statement.
00:01:08I want the world to know who did this.
00:01:11A patriarch's body found in a fire,
00:01:14and the smoldering family secrets left behind.
00:01:17I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
00:01:27Here's Keith Morrison with A Little Patch of Perfect.
00:01:34It was the July 4th holiday when the confusion started.
00:01:38The who's where and when's he coming back kind of confusion.
00:01:42They had plans, after all.
00:01:45Here at this place, this idyllic symbol of their success,
00:01:50a 10-acre estate near Alpharetta, Georgia.
00:01:53A Little Patch of Perfect.
00:01:56On the northernmost edge of Atlanta's suburban sprawl.
00:02:01This was their lifetime dream come true.
00:02:05And if they had heard that ancient advice,
00:02:08that fodder for so many tragedies,
00:02:11would they have listened or plowed on
00:02:15to the fate that waited for them?
00:02:18Careful what you wish for.
00:02:26Their name was Ferris, and they hated it
00:02:30when strangers implying dysfunction
00:02:33called them the Ferris Wheel.
00:02:38Still, like spokes on a wheel,
00:02:41they stayed ever connected to this sweet place, this hub.
00:02:47The farm is what they called it.
00:02:50That's Chris, the eldest of the four Ferris children,
00:02:54They are his parents, Gary and Melody.
00:02:57Chris's brother Scott, an Iraq war vet,
00:03:00lived in an apartment above the barn,
00:03:03and he helped run the place.
00:03:05I would run the farm, and I would take care of the property
00:03:09through the week and all.
00:03:11Chris and his two sisters, Emily and Amanda,
00:03:14were like near planets in the farm's orbit,
00:03:17and they gathered often for three-generation family dinners,
00:03:20family parties, grandkids coming and going
00:03:23as they pleased, running amok among the goats
00:03:26and horses and chickens.
00:03:29Watched by their tiny grandmother, Melody,
00:03:32for whom Gary bought the place, really,
00:03:34an old-fashioned family when it came to money.
00:03:37Gary was a prominent Atlanta attorney,
00:03:40gregarious, friendly, and big.
00:03:436'5", 300 pounds.
00:03:45Big Daddy, the family called him.
00:03:48Everybody loved Big Daddy.
00:03:50On July 3, 2018, just before things happened,
00:03:56Chris took his daughter Addison to the farm,
00:03:59said hello to Big Daddy and Melody.
00:04:02We went up to the barn to look at the animals.
00:04:04The barn is about 300 yards away from the main house,
00:04:08and Addison and my mother walked down to the pond
00:04:12to see the new baby ducks.
00:04:14And that was that.
00:04:16The next day, the 4th, Chris was back with Addison,
00:04:19dropped her off for a farm sleepover with a cousin,
00:04:22and the two girls went looking for Big Daddy.
00:04:25Couldn't find him, nor could Melody.
00:04:28She said she hadn't seen him all that day.
00:04:31I mean, it was a large property,
00:04:33and he would, you know, work on projects
00:04:35and things like that, and it wasn't uncommon
00:04:38for my parents to not know where they,
00:04:41where each other were at certain times.
00:04:46But he was still gone the next morning, July 5.
00:04:50Wasn't answering his phone either.
00:04:53Chris found out from his worried sister, Amanda,
00:04:56who'd arrived at the farm that morning.
00:04:58And she said, you know, Daddy's missing.
00:05:01I mean, was that terribly unusual that he wouldn't be around?
00:05:04No, sir.
00:05:06My thoughts were maybe he went to the office,
00:05:08but then when I found out his car was still there,
00:05:13it raised my worry quite drastically.
00:05:18Chris got in his car, drove to the farm,
00:05:21anxiety building with each passing mile.
00:05:24So on the way up, I was, I was frantic.
00:05:27I was calling my other sister, Emily.
00:05:29I was talking with Amanda,
00:05:31just trying to help in the search for him.
00:05:35Chris's brother, Scott, was already looking, of course.
00:05:39At that time, I was thinking he had a heart attack somewhere.
00:05:44Scott checked the trail camera for signs of Big Daddy.
00:05:48Nothing, he said, but images of a few critters.
00:05:51The mood was becoming more and more frantic as Chris arrived.
00:05:55I jumped on that ATV and I drove up to the barn
00:05:59and I searched the barn.
00:06:01On the way back, I looped back around to the house
00:06:04and saw my brother and my mother
00:06:06walking down towards where that burn pile was.
00:06:09And it clicked in my mind that he had told me on July the 3rd
00:06:13that he was going to burn that burn pile on the 4th of July.
00:06:18The burn pile, a common thing on farms like the Ferris's.
00:06:22A place to burn branches and shrubs and whatever.
00:06:26In a controlled, contained place, or sort of contained.
00:06:30Gary loved his burn piles, the bigger the better.
00:06:33By the time Scott got to the pile, it had about run its course.
00:06:38It had been intense, you could see.
00:06:40It burned everything.
00:06:42Or rather, not quite everything.
00:06:46It didn't look like a rock or anything like that.
00:06:50So I grabbed a very, very small piece of it
00:06:53and lifted it up enough to where I saw teeth in the eye socket.
00:06:58A human skull.
00:07:00I'll never forget it.
00:07:02I knew immediately at that time this was a very, very bad situation.
00:07:08Chris saw it too, and they both knew it was their father's body.
00:07:13The little that was left.
00:07:15That image of seeing that is something that...
00:07:23I don't think I'll ever get over.
00:07:26I mean, it's one thing to see something that horrific on TV or in a movie,
00:07:30to see your own father like that.
00:07:34It's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
00:07:37I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
00:07:39By then, the law was on its way
00:07:42to look and poke around and ask awkward questions.
00:07:46How did Gary Ferris end up in his own burn pile?
00:07:51And why, of course.
00:07:53I thought, that's the missing piece to this puzzle.
00:07:56There's an old expression.
00:07:58No secrets in a murder investigation.
00:08:00Not for long, anyway.
00:08:02See, this is where I'm torn.
00:08:03I want to tell you what I know.
00:08:05I don't want to tell you what I think.
00:08:06Not in this family.
00:08:08About to implode.
00:08:11Gary started getting suspicious,
00:08:13and he would put trackers on the car.
00:08:16Crazy, scary things, secrets, aren't they?
00:08:20This is called a Perry Mason moment.
00:08:22Late in the trial, a surprise witness.
00:08:24I don't know that I'll ever experience that again in my career.
00:08:40It wasn't easy to be a Ferris that 5th of July.
00:08:43Imagine, finding your father's charred skull
00:08:47in a pile of ashes.
00:08:49I pretty much blacked out and went into shock at that time.
00:08:52The authorities arrived very, very soon after all this.
00:08:55It was hot. It was, you know, July the 5th.
00:08:57It was so hot outside.
00:08:59This is Sergeant Daniel Hayes of the Sheriff's Department.
00:09:03So we thought a guy was probably cleaning up his yard,
00:09:05burning some things, burning some debris,
00:09:07got hot, passed out, fell into the fire.
00:09:10And when they saw the place?
00:09:12Well, yes, freak accidents happen to rich people, too.
00:09:17I think everyone that arrived on that property
00:09:19probably looked around and thought,
00:09:20man, I'd love to have this.
00:09:22Job to do, though.
00:09:24First, know your victim.
00:09:27Detective Hayes asked the family about Big Daddy.
00:09:31Would you say he was larger than life in every way?
00:09:34Correct.
00:09:36He was a big man.
00:09:37Big man. Very big man.
00:09:39A big man with a big brain, said his brother John.
00:09:43He was always smart.
00:09:45You know, growing up, he kind of set a precedent for our family.
00:09:48The oldest son.
00:09:50Gary John and their two sisters
00:09:52were raised in a middle-class home in Alabama.
00:09:55And so we were very close.
00:09:57We had a lot of fun roaming the neighborhoods.
00:09:59He was always a loving brother.
00:10:01Sister Sherry was 7 years younger
00:10:04than her gentle giant of a brother.
00:10:06I remember he would come in, and he would grab me up,
00:10:09and he would put me on his shoulders.
00:10:11So smart, playful, and very ambitious.
00:10:16He decided early on that he wanted to become an attorney
00:10:19and made it happen.
00:10:21A lot of obstacles he had overcome,
00:10:23and he was so very driven.
00:10:26He had to be driven,
00:10:28because life threw Gary Ferris a little curveball
00:10:31in the form of a pretty young thing named Melody.
00:10:34Still teenagers when they met.
00:10:37They got married very young.
00:10:39Very young, yeah.
00:10:40And he was a sophomore in college,
00:10:42had a child right away.
00:10:45Melody stayed home to raise their son Chris.
00:10:48Gary worked nights to support his family
00:10:50and put himself through law school.
00:10:53And the kids kept coming.
00:10:55After Chris, Scott, Emily, Amanda.
00:10:59Well, Gary rose fast in the legal world.
00:11:03My dad worked a lot.
00:11:05We didn't get to go on all these extravagant vacations.
00:11:10I've never been to Disney World.
00:11:12We went down to either Gulf Shores or Destin
00:11:15because my dad had to do a law seminar.
00:11:17That was our vacations.
00:11:19Even though he was an attorney
00:11:21and had a very important position in his firm,
00:11:24he still made time to coach my baseball teams.
00:11:26He still made time to be at all my school events.
00:11:29He was always there, and my mother was too.
00:11:33So growing up, I would say it was a happy family.
00:11:37We had a, to me, a normal childhood.
00:11:40Gary's firm asked him to open an Atlanta office
00:11:44and that made him managing partner.
00:11:46So in 2013, he could afford to buy that farm
00:11:51Melody had always wanted out near Alpharetta.
00:11:55And now, just like that, he was gone.
00:12:00When John and his sister Sherry got the news,
00:12:03they felt compelled to get in the car
00:12:05and drive from Alabama to Georgia.
00:12:08We thought, we need to be there.
00:12:09I think it was Emily that was texting us.
00:12:11She goes, there's nowhere to go.
00:12:13You can't come here.
00:12:15They won't even let us on the property.
00:12:17And I thought, why?
00:12:19I did not realize that it was this huge
00:12:22police investigation going on.
00:12:24The lead investigator,
00:12:26still trying to find out more about Gary,
00:12:28talked to Melody, his wife of 39 years.
00:12:32She was crying when I first walked up.
00:12:34And when I took her down and sat down,
00:12:35she pretty quickly gathered herself
00:12:37and we started having a conversation.
00:12:39They sat on the patio, Melody and Detective Hayes.
00:12:43He was in the hospital in April,
00:12:45but he's been having these spells
00:12:46and they get more and more and more frequent.
00:12:48She said that he has what she called spells
00:12:50where, you know, he would feel faint
00:12:52and he would be down and out,
00:12:54basically in bed for a couple of days
00:12:56during these spells and, you know,
00:12:58nobody knew what was wrong with him.
00:13:00One thing Melody did know
00:13:02was that her workaholic husband
00:13:04was not taking care of himself.
00:13:06He takes his blood pressure medicine with a Mountain Dew
00:13:08and he said he didn't taste it with a cigarette.
00:13:10She pointed out he smoked two packs of cigarettes a day
00:13:12and, you know, probably drank a 12-pack
00:13:14or more of Mountain Dew.
00:13:16I mean, he was very overweight.
00:13:17He was a smoker, right?
00:13:19Yes, sir.
00:13:20He did not live the ultimate healthy lifestyle.
00:13:23He ate what he wanted to eat.
00:13:25He did not exercise.
00:13:28Made sense then.
00:13:29Some sort of health incident
00:13:31made him fall down into the fire.
00:13:33Except the ash heap itself
00:13:36had a story to tell, too.
00:13:38Almost his whole body was consumed in the fire.
00:13:41Ashley Pope was another sheriff's detective at the time.
00:13:45We have had accidental fires
00:13:47where that situation was similar
00:13:49where people have fell in the fire.
00:13:51It's usually not, the body's not consumed that much.
00:13:54So investigators thought
00:13:56maybe someone had thrown Gary
00:13:58right into the middle of the fire.
00:14:01And then, just as they were mulling that over,
00:14:04another startling discovery.
00:14:07A bullet was found lodged in some meaty flesh on a rib bone.
00:14:10A fragment of a bullet in the rib cage.
00:14:14It was a whole bullet.
00:14:15You could see the back of the bullet.
00:14:17A bullet lodged in Gary's rib cage.
00:14:21Well, that did not seem accidental.
00:14:24How did that change the course of your investigating at that point?
00:14:27So we for sure knew at that point
00:14:28we were investigating a homicide.
00:14:29It was no longer, this may be an accident.
00:14:31It was, this is a homicide.
00:14:34Gary Ferris had been murdered.
00:14:36It wasn't the smoking or the mountain dews
00:14:38or the lack of exercise.
00:14:40Something else had caught up with Gary.
00:14:42Or someone else.
00:14:45But the list of potential suspects,
00:14:47like the crime scene itself, was sprawling.
00:14:49Because investigators would learn that
00:14:51even those closest to Gary
00:14:53might have had a motive to want him dead.
00:14:56In some shape or form, Gary had close ties
00:14:58or disagreements with all the family members
00:15:01related to money.
00:15:16Gary Ferris was a man who lived large.
00:15:19From his marbles, to his mountain dew,
00:15:22to the money he made.
00:15:24Money which he loved to give away.
00:15:27The Big Daddy nickname covered
00:15:29not just his height and girth,
00:15:31but also his deep-pocketed generosity,
00:15:34spreading green to every leaf on the family tree.
00:15:38If someone needed a loan, or more likely a gift
00:15:41to get them through a rough patch,
00:15:43Gary was there with a check
00:15:45or a swipe from a credit card.
00:15:48Now this family's Santa Claus was dead,
00:15:51shot to death, and then cremated
00:15:53at the funeral pyre he himself had built.
00:15:57It was obvious that the body had been burning,
00:15:59in my opinion, for some time.
00:16:01And you've got to figure out what happened here.
00:16:03What is that like? What's that feeling?
00:16:05And especially on an estate like that.
00:16:07It's a lot of pressure.
00:16:09There were a lot of people there,
00:16:10a lot of things to figure out.
00:16:11And they're all looking at you.
00:16:12They're all staring at you,
00:16:13wondering what you're going to say.
00:16:14Yep, as soon as the supervisor says,
00:16:16Hayes, you're lead, everybody's looking at me.
00:16:19Murder.
00:16:21That word changed everything.
00:16:24Detective Hayes asked Melody
00:16:25to join him at the sheriff's office.
00:16:27He would break the news to her there.
00:16:30They've been sifting through the remains
00:16:31and the ashes, and they have found
00:16:33a projectile and some bones.
00:16:36So you were the last one to see
00:16:39Gary alive on Tuesday night.
00:16:41Right.
00:16:42Did you hear any gunshots?
00:16:44No, but there was a ton of, I mean,
00:16:48like fireworks and firecrackers
00:16:50and all kinds of stuff going off.
00:16:54Melody said she and Gary had gotten
00:16:55to a stage in their affluent lives
00:16:58in which the two of them slept
00:17:00not just in separate rooms,
00:17:02but on separate floors.
00:17:04She had the upstairs,
00:17:06while Gary turned the basement
00:17:08into a sprawling man cave,
00:17:11which had a bedroom, a bathroom,
00:17:13office, even a home theater.
00:17:15It was a refuge where Gary could go to ground
00:17:18and get lost in his work or a movie.
00:17:21Undisturbed by all the clatter of life
00:17:23happening above.
00:17:25The only thing he really has to go upstairs for
00:17:26is the kitchen, you know, food.
00:17:28You know, otherwise, he's in the basement.
00:17:31But if Gary's subterranean lair
00:17:33was cozy, contained,
00:17:35the crime scene itself was vast.
00:17:38Gary could have been shot anywhere on their spread.
00:17:41Lots of wide open space for a killer
00:17:43to slip in and out undetected.
00:17:47Well, now we need to know where people were
00:17:49over these last couple of days.
00:17:51Since the last time Gary Farris was seen alive
00:17:53until the day we got there.
00:17:55You know, who was on the property?
00:17:57Who could have done this?
00:17:58Who would want to do this?
00:18:00Prompting Detective Hayes to ask Melody this question.
00:18:04Any feuds with the boys lately?
00:18:06The boys being sons Chris,
00:18:08who lived and worked in nearby Atlanta,
00:18:10and Scott, who ran the farm
00:18:12and lived there in a converted barn.
00:18:15And truth be told, said Melody,
00:18:17Gary had been having problems
00:18:19with both of their sons.
00:18:21Scott, he and Scott would get into it pretty heavily.
00:18:25I mean, you know,
00:18:28I mean, they'd come to blows.
00:18:30I mean, Scott's hot.
00:18:31I mean, he is.
00:18:32He's hot tempered.
00:18:33There is no doubt.
00:18:35He's very hot tempered.
00:18:37And Chris?
00:18:39Melody said he'd been caught stealing from Gary.
00:18:43Chris has taken money.
00:18:45He broke in.
00:18:46I mean, he came in and took checks
00:18:48and, you know, all that kind of stuff.
00:18:51And it wasn't just their own sons who were a problem.
00:18:54Daughter Emily's husband was a thief too, said Melody.
00:18:58Her husband's been in and out of jail for stealing.
00:19:03It appeared that Gary's relationship with everyone
00:19:06was a source of income for all of the kids.
00:19:09So in some shape or form, Gary had close ties
00:19:12or disagreements with all the family members
00:19:15related to money.
00:19:17Melody said daughter Amanda was the only one
00:19:19who wasn't out for Gary's money.
00:19:22She and I are a lot alike.
00:19:24And she said, why do they all hate us?
00:19:28I said, well, you're the only one who didn't steal from him.
00:19:32It's hard to put into words
00:19:33the level of family dysfunction detectives were hearing about.
00:19:37Seemed almost like that movie Knives Out,
00:19:40where after the death of a family patriarch,
00:19:42all the heirs turned out to have a motive for murder.
00:19:45So like the characters in the movie,
00:19:48nearly every Ferris would have to be considered
00:19:50a potential suspect.
00:19:53Oh, and Detective Hayes also had to consider the possibility
00:19:57that money was not the motive.
00:20:00That, well, maybe it was love,
00:20:03which meant he had to ask Melody,
00:20:05who just lost her husband of 39 years,
00:20:07a very uncomfortable question.
00:20:10Had she been sleeping around?
00:20:13Are you currently in an affair with anyone?
00:20:15No.
00:20:17Is anyone pursuing you?
00:20:19No.
00:20:20There's no jealous boyfriends?
00:20:21No.
00:20:22It was by now obvious to Melody
00:20:25that Detective Hayes was looking at her
00:20:27as something other than a grieving widow.
00:20:31I mean, do I need to get an attorney?
00:20:33That's up to you.
00:20:36It's one of your rights.
00:20:38I mean, I would have never, ever hurt you.
00:20:41Never.
00:20:42The unfortunate thing is that somebody did,
00:20:44and we don't know who did,
00:20:45and it's our job to determine that.
00:20:48You know, you're the spouse.
00:20:50We have to do everything in our power
00:20:52to rule you out or to rule you in, you know?
00:20:55Melody felt it was time to set Detective Hayes straight,
00:20:59that she was the last person
00:21:01who would benefit from Gary's death.
00:21:03He had no life insurance,
00:21:05and none of the assets were in her name, she said.
00:21:09With Big Daddy gone,
00:21:10she didn't know what was to become of her.
00:21:13And then, a few hours after this interview,
00:21:15Detective Hayes' investigation took a turn
00:21:18when a fellow detective happened to notice something,
00:21:21and it was nowhere near the burn pile.
00:21:24And Detective Kuykendall looks down
00:21:26and sees something kind of shiny.
00:21:28Upon closer inspection, he discovers a bullet,
00:21:31a spent projectile.
00:21:46Establishing the time of death
00:21:47in a homicide investigation is tricky business.
00:21:51Even more so in the case of Gary Ferris.
00:21:54By the time investigators started sifting through that burn pile,
00:21:58Gary's remains were nothing more than ash and bone,
00:22:02fragments of which were sent to a crime lab
00:22:04to be positively identified.
00:22:07There was no way of telling how long he'd been dead.
00:22:11Hours? Days?
00:22:13No one could say.
00:22:14So investigators tried to narrow down the time of death
00:22:17by talking to the pool of potential suspects.
00:22:20Gary's son, Scott, told Detective Hayes
00:22:22in a recorded interview
00:22:24he saw his dad on Tuesday, July 3rd
00:22:26at the Cherokee Ranch restaurant.
00:22:29Must have been around 1 or 1.30, said Scott.
00:22:32That's the last time I ever saw my father.
00:22:35Gary's other son, Chris, said he saw his dad a few hours later
00:22:39when he, Chris, dropped by the farm
00:22:41with one of his daughters for a quick visit.
00:22:44It was Tuesday, approximately 4.45 p.m.
00:22:49here at the farm.
00:22:51He was outside when we pulled up,
00:22:52and he said he was getting stuff ready.
00:22:54Either he was burning things or was about to burn things.
00:22:58Did you smell any smoke in the air or anything?
00:23:00Nope.
00:23:01So he was collecting stuff for the fire?
00:23:03Yes.
00:23:04And that's what he explained to you?
00:23:06Yes.
00:23:07When you left, to your knowledge,
00:23:09what was your dad going to go do?
00:23:11Keep collecting stuff to probably put on that pile to burn.
00:23:15Chris said he left the farm around 5.30 that evening.
00:23:19Melody, speaking to Detective Hayes,
00:23:21picked up the timeline from there.
00:23:24Had you spoken to Gary after Chris left?
00:23:26Yes.
00:23:27Okay, so Chris left, Gary was still?
00:23:29Yeah, he was still here.
00:23:31So he went down and started the fire,
00:23:33and you said it was, you don't know exactly what time,
00:23:35but it was still daylight, no?
00:23:36I think around about 6 o'clock, something like that.
00:23:40Melody said they had dinner about an hour or two later,
00:23:43and then they went their separate ways for the night.
00:23:47The last time you talked to him Tuesday was around dinner time?
00:23:50Yeah.
00:23:51You'd estimate 8, 8.30?
00:23:52It was not that late that night because he had been here all day.
00:23:56But I told him, I said,
00:23:57you are not going to bed and leaving that fire.
00:24:00How big was the fire when he lit it?
00:24:01Massive.
00:24:02I mean, it was massive.
00:24:05Melody said she figured Gary had gone back to check on the burn pile
00:24:08before heading off to bed.
00:24:10Scott said when he got home about three hours later,
00:24:14the fire was still going, but his dad was nowhere in sight.
00:24:19Scott said he went to bed that night around midnight,
00:24:21but then left early the following morning, Wednesday the 4th,
00:24:25to go golfing and didn't get back to the farm until late that evening.
00:24:29It had been somewhere around 8.30 because it wasn't quite dark yet.
00:24:36On the morning of Thursday the 5th, he said,
00:24:38he was heading off to get his hair cut when his mom stopped him and asked.
00:24:43Have you talked to your dad or seen your dad?
00:24:46I'm like, no.
00:24:47She's like, well, we can't find him.
00:24:50Based on Scott's and Chris's and Melody's accounts,
00:24:54Gary's whereabouts were unknown between the night of July 3rd
00:24:58and the afternoon of July the 5th
00:25:01when his remains were discovered in the burn pile.
00:25:04Except, except that while searching Gary's basement dwelling,
00:25:09an investigator came across this CPAP machine,
00:25:13a life-saving device that helps people who suffer from apnea
00:25:17breathe normally while sleeping.
00:25:19Gary never went to bed without it.
00:25:22And like many electronic devices we now have in our homes,
00:25:25this CPAP machine is programmed to collect user data.
00:25:30And it showed that Gary was usually putting that CPAP on between 11 and 1 a.m.
00:25:35There was no data for the night of the 3rd or past.
00:25:38That led us to believe that Gary was killed before his normal bedtime
00:25:42of between 11 and 1 a.m.
00:25:44And sometime after, Melody said she saw him around 8 or 8.30 p.m.
00:25:50So Gary must have met his death sometime between 8.30 p.m. and 1 a.m.
00:25:55on the night of Wednesday, July 3rd.
00:25:58The only people home then, as far as police knew, were Melody and Scott.
00:26:03And now a CSI team was finding evidence Gary had been killed in his home.
00:26:09There were drops of blood on the carpet, on the stairs,
00:26:12the carpeted stairs leading down to the basement.
00:26:14And at the base of the stairs, something shiny caught the eye of a fellow detective.
00:26:20At the edge of a rug in the basement on the wooden floor, the hardwood floor,
00:26:24upon closer inspection, he discovers a bullet, a spent projectile, in the basement floor.
00:26:30Detective Hayes said a blood-illuminating chemical revealed even more evidence.
00:26:35There was some blood on the wall near the front door.
00:26:38There was some blood droplets that appeared to have been cleaned up.
00:26:41They appeared a bit in a smear pattern in the kitchen near the basement door.
00:26:46Based on the blood drops, Hayes developed a theory that Gary was shot in the kitchen,
00:26:51then fired at again as he ran down the stairs into the basement,
00:26:56where the blood trail continued across the floor and out a sliding door to a patio where it ended.
00:27:02So, two gunshots inside the house.
00:27:06But Melody had told Detective Hayes she didn't hear a thing.
00:27:10So, Hayes asked her once again.
00:27:13Did you hear any gunshots that night?
00:27:15No, but like I said, I mean, there's no gunshots, but there was tons of fireworks going off.
00:27:21Melody said that was it. That's all she knew.
00:27:25But Gary's sons, Scott and Chris, they said they knew a lot and had a story to tell.
00:27:33When I came home, I saw the fire going in the woods.
00:27:37The question was, how much of their story could be believed?
00:27:55For one thing, as the detectives freely admitted, they were not used to this sort of thing.
00:28:01Murder was a rare business around here on the posh, low-crime side of Cherokee County, Georgia.
00:28:07But though the Ferris Estate was idyllic, the family most certainly was not.
00:28:13So, when they interviewed the brothers, they carefully and repeatedly went over their timeline.
00:28:20I'm going to ask you a couple questions.
00:28:22What time did you leave on July 3rd?
00:28:25July 3rd. It was probably, I don't know, 4.30-ish.
00:28:30That was eldest son, Chris.
00:28:33The younger son, Scott, seemed a trickier case.
00:28:36Scott lived right on the property, in his apartment over the barn.
00:28:40He said he'd been gone all day, with friends, out of the lake.
00:28:45And I was up there at the lake house until I didn't leave until about 10.30 at night, roughly.
00:28:54And came back home, and that's when, you know, when I came home, I saw the fire going in the woods and, you know, didn't think of anything other.
00:29:03So, police knew two people were at home that night.
00:29:07Melody and, later in the evening, Scott.
00:29:10Detectives figured Melody was too small to lug her 300-pound husband to the burn pit.
00:29:15But Scott was big enough, and strong enough, to do exactly that.
00:29:19Plus, his behavior seemed curious.
00:29:24Scott told detectives that weeks before the murder, he came across a pistol in the basement.
00:29:30But when he looked for it after the murder, the gun was gone.
00:29:35Useful to know.
00:29:37The only problem was, Scott started searching for the pistol after his father's remains were found, but before anyone knew he had been shot with a gun.
00:29:49Did it seem strange to you that Scott would be going around the house looking for whether a gun was there or not?
00:29:55It was odd.
00:29:57So, that started putting the suspicion in our minds that, okay, maybe that's kind of weird, maybe something's up.
00:30:02A feeling that only grew when they found ammunition in Scott's apartment.
00:30:06The same caliber of bullet found in Gary's body.
00:30:10There was loose .38 ammo in Scott's dresser drawer.
00:30:15So, we found that kind of odd.
00:30:17Yeah, no kidding.
00:30:18Later, we'd ask Scott, you know, why are we finding all this?
00:30:21And Scott tells us, well, I have friends come over.
00:30:24We go shoot at the back corner of the property, and they sometimes leave stuff behind.
00:30:29They also wondered about something Scott did after his father disappeared.
00:30:33His mom had asked him to check the trail camera.
00:30:36I went down there and checked the trail cam, and there's just a couple squirrels and a couple raccoons, and that was it.
00:30:44I deleted everything.
00:30:46Everything?
00:30:47I asked my brother, I said, why would you do that?
00:30:49He said, well, at the time, I didn't know anything was going on.
00:30:54You know, when I checked my trail camera, if there's nothing on there of any significance, I delete the pictures because I'm there.
00:31:00Well, they had to wonder if he deleted evidence.
00:31:03I did ask my brother some very hard questions because I knew he was going to be asked some very hard questions.
00:31:08You know, like what was going on with you and our dad.
00:31:14You know, because they asked me questions about my brother, too.
00:31:17You know, Scott was very much a suspect.
00:31:20We all were.
00:31:22Especially after detectives learned about the family disputes over money, Melody's friend, David Thomas.
00:31:30She felt that a couple of her kids were abusing her husband financially.
00:31:36Melody was upset with both of her sons because it just seemed that it was a financial drain that was a constant thing over and over.
00:31:46Little sister Amanda told police she was worried about Scott and Chris and how they were behaving toward their mother.
00:31:54Scott's been making threats against her, saying that he's going to burn the house down and that we can't stop them from taking over the estate.
00:32:02Because essentially at this point to tell you bluntly, I mean, I just feel like they're after money.
00:32:08I'm just I'm fearing for my safety at this point and I'm fearing for my mother's safety.
00:32:12David Thomas said Melody was increasingly afraid of her sons.
00:32:17She got to a point where she felt like, you know, if she was not on the planet, then whatever was left with the estate, the money would go to the kids.
00:32:27And so they would have a motive to do some harm to her.
00:32:30Exactly. She thought that was a possibility.
00:32:34She thought it was a real possibility.
00:32:37If Scott and Chris were, in fact, suspects, detectives kept that to themselves.
00:32:43Let me ask you a question. What do you guys think happened?
00:32:50See, this is where I'm torn. I want to tell you what I know. I want to tell you what I think.
00:32:55Actually, Chris and Scott Ferris told police exactly what they thought and what they thought was detectives should be taking a long, hard look at mommy dearest.
00:33:08I can't tell you how many times I've heard her say, I can't wait till the day I don't have to live with him.
00:33:13I wish you would just have a heart attack and die.
00:33:29Huddled up in the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, the brothers Ferris were about to display some family laundry, the soiled kind that generally stays politely secret.
00:33:41And in doing so, the brothers revealed they both had a bit of an attitude about their mother, Melody.
00:33:48My dad never talked, said anything negative to me about my mother, except for just like her going out and spending so much money on stuff like that.
00:33:58But my mother, on the other hand, I can't tell you how many times I've heard her say, I can't wait till the day I don't have to live with him.
00:34:05I wish you would just have a heart attack and die.
00:34:08Scott said his mother was difficult sometimes, certainly dramatic.
00:34:13She always watched days of our lives and she always wanted to have her life like a soap opera.
00:34:18So that's what she did.
00:34:21Here's how Chris put it.
00:34:23I was afraid of my mother growing up.
00:34:25There's no way around that statement.
00:34:27A walking on eggshells kind of existence.
00:34:30Yes, did not want to upset her at all.
00:34:32I think the best way to describe it is when, you know, she had four children.
00:34:36And if one child caused a problem, then we all got the wrath.
00:34:43I don't know if my mom did this or not.
00:34:44I don't know.
00:34:45But all she's done for the last 10 years has really added up to like, I mean, what else are we going to look at?
00:35:00Well, what about dredging up a bit of family history?
00:35:04Prompted by the detective's simple question about that missing handgun.
00:35:09There's a firearm missing from the house.
00:35:12So we need a list of everything of a pistol caliber that anybody has ever seen.
00:35:18I'll tell you what I know.
00:35:20That is when Chris mentioned a family friend named Ted Wiley.
00:35:25That son of a bitch kept a freaking, what's the smallest pistol you could find on your ankle?
00:35:30Could be 25.
00:35:32So who was Ted?
00:35:35My long kept family secret, it turned out.
00:35:39More like a soap opera on steroids.
00:35:42Co-starring Gary's sister, Sherry.
00:35:46Ted, we had been together, I guess we were together about a little over 20 years.
00:35:52Ted and Sherry were together until something pulled them apart.
00:35:58Someone, to be clear, someone whose name was Melody Ferris.
00:36:04This one guy came up to me at work and said, hey, I saw Ted and Melody out at a restaurant during lunch.
00:36:11And I confronted Melody.
00:36:12I said, what's going on?
00:36:14People are saying that you and Ted's got something going on.
00:36:17She just laughed.
00:36:18She said, no.
00:36:19She said, to hit Ted?
00:36:21She said, there's no way.
00:36:23But when Gary heard about it, he felt sure she was cheating on him.
00:36:28And Gary started getting suspicious and he would put trackers on the car.
00:36:33Melody actually left Gary and though she denied it, family members believed she was staying at Ted's farm.
00:36:40It was a matter of months when she basically refused to come back to Atlanta.
00:36:45And shortly after he filed for divorce is when she came back and my father called me to tell me I needed to accept my mother back,
00:36:54which I told him that would be a hard thing to do.
00:36:57All she had to do was come back to him.
00:36:58He must have been, he must have still been in love with her.
00:37:02He was in love with my mother till the day he died.
00:37:06And that's how they ended up with the farm in Cherokee County in 2013, five years before Gary's death.
00:37:13He decided to buy the property, the farm, to try to save the marriage because, you know, that's something that she wanted.
00:37:24But Gary was a smart guy.
00:37:26Maybe he loved Melody, but he sure didn't trust her.
00:37:29Not anymore.
00:37:30Big deal was made of that, that he was somehow controlling the amount of money she was able to spend
00:37:35because he could see it when she spent it come out of the bank account.
00:37:39Right.
00:37:40Why did he do that?
00:37:41He had communicated to me that he did not want her spending his money on another man.
00:37:47Hmm.
00:37:48But it was a way for him to keep track of her.
00:37:52And that brings us back to that toxic family situation in which Gary's children seemed to have ready access to his money,
00:38:00but Melody was on an allowance and under surveillance.
00:38:05Gary would get mad at her or suspect her of having an affair and cut the credit card or the debit card off or whatever,
00:38:12or cut her phone off so she couldn't make phone calls and things like that.
00:38:16There was one other thing police couldn't ignore, something they heard time and again.
00:38:20They knew about Gary's unhealthy lifestyle, his appetite for cigarettes and sodas and food,
00:38:26but people close to Gary were wondering about those spells of his.
00:38:32My father had become very lethargic and could not function properly.
00:38:37He was very dizzy, just wasn't feeling very well.
00:38:43One such spell put Gary in the hospital three months before his death.
00:38:47Chris was there, so was Melody, but when she left the room,
00:38:51his dad told him this so-called spell started that day back at home.
00:38:56She had spent the day very angry at him, the way he put it, screaming at him,
00:39:02and all of a sudden she comes walking in with a cast iron skillet full of chocolate chip cookies.
00:39:10I made these for you.
00:39:12But she couldn't resist, of course.
00:39:14No, apparently not.
00:39:17He said he ate the cookies, his throat began to burn,
00:39:23and that's when he began feeling bad.
00:39:27Gary believed something terrible was happening to him, something unthinkable.
00:39:32He said, Chris, I think your mother's trying to poison me.
00:39:36So Gary believed that when Melody prepared his food, she was poisoning it,
00:39:40and that's why he had the spells that he had.
00:39:43Could you prove that he was being poisoned, though?
00:39:47Unfortunately not.
00:39:50The condition of the body, you know, there wasn't much to test for toxicology.
00:39:56Without proof, it could just be an outrageous old accusation from an angry husband.
00:40:02Melody insisted she would never hurt Gary, and she absolutely was not cheating on him.
00:40:09And yet, well, there just might be evidence to the contrary.
00:40:14In Melody's wallet, we found a credit card with a man's name on it that none of us recognized.
00:40:20So who was this new guy, and why was his credit card in Melody's wallet?
00:40:29Melody Ferris was as adamant as a woman could be.
00:40:33No matter the complexities of her long marriage to Big Daddy,
00:40:39she did not, would not, could not ever damage so much as a hair on his lovely big head.
00:40:45I would never do that.
00:40:48Even though Gary gave in to the demands of those children way too often,
00:40:53while making her beg for the money she needed,
00:40:57Melody insisted she would never hurt him.
00:41:01I would never do that.
00:41:04I don't know who did it, but I did not do it.
00:41:08I would have never taken my children's daddy money.
00:41:11Even though Gary gave in to the demands of those children way too often,
00:41:16while making her beg for the money she very much needed.
00:41:19So your statement is you didn't do anything to harm Gary?
00:41:22No.
00:41:24Detectives reviewed what they had.
00:41:26A dead man shot and burned beyond recognition.
00:41:29A marriage that was, well, not exactly joyous.
00:41:33But also children who may or may not have had a motive to murder.
00:41:37And they had those drops of blood, and that spent projectile.
00:41:42So, their theory went, Gary was shot in his own house and then moved somehow to the fire.
00:41:49Oh, and they also had this.
00:41:52A mysterious credit card in Melody's wallet,
00:41:56on which was imprinted the name Roy Barton.
00:42:01So that was the topic of our interview.
00:42:03One of our interviews was, who is this Roy Barton?
00:42:07A lover, perhaps?
00:42:10They danced around the question during Melody's interview.
00:42:14You have not had a sexual relationship with anybody in four years.
00:42:17We're not going to find any evidence of it.
00:42:19When we test your bed sheets, we're not going to find any male DNA in any way, shape, or form.
00:42:23When we test your vehicle, and we swap the seats, and we swap the back seat.
00:42:28Then, they dropped it on her.
00:42:31The name on the credit card.
00:42:34What about Roy?
00:42:36Roy.
00:42:38Last name begins with Bart.
00:42:40Barton.
00:42:41Who's Roy?
00:42:43Well, Roy is my cousin's dead husband.
00:42:48How long ago did he pass away?
00:42:50Four years ago.
00:42:52Melody told them Roy's widow, Martha Jane Barton, gave her the credit card.
00:42:57I had been taking care of her, and so it just got put in.
00:43:02I didn't realize I still had it.
00:43:04Okay, so you're not using it.
00:43:05So when we look at the financial records, it hasn't been used in over four years.
00:43:09And it's going to come back to somebody that's deceased.
00:43:11Right.
00:43:12That apparently established, they moved on.
00:43:16Have you ever had a physical relationship with anyone other than Gary since y'all have been married?
00:43:20No.
00:43:22Of course she'd have that affair with Ted, but she wasn't admitting it.
00:43:27No one that we're going to find in the history of y'all's marriage.
00:43:33I'm talking the whole entire thing.
00:43:35I'm not talking the last five years, ten years, or since I went rocking.
00:43:38I'm talking forever.
00:43:39Long pause.
00:43:41And then, Melody spilled.
00:43:45But not about Ted.
00:43:47Yeah.
00:43:48Who and when?
00:43:50Um, Rusty Barton.
00:43:53Roy was his dad.
00:43:55So Rusty is his son.
00:43:57Where's Rusty?
00:43:58He's in Tallahumma, Tennessee.
00:44:01When was the last time you interacted with Rusty?
00:44:03Oh, it's been months and months and months ago.
00:44:06Okay, but in the last year.
00:44:08So was that physical relationship then in the last year?
00:44:10Oh, no.
00:44:11When was that?
00:44:13I mean, I ended that a good while ago.
00:44:16Ended it a year ago, she said, though she still talked to him on the phone.
00:44:21And when we go get Rusty's DNA, where are we going to find it?
00:44:24Nowhere in my car.
00:44:26Anywhere in your house?
00:44:27No.
00:44:29Up in Tennessee, when I would go up there.
00:44:33Hard to tell how much of that was true or how much of this.
00:44:39Do you have a tattoo?
00:44:40I do.
00:44:41XOXO?
00:44:42Uh-huh.
00:44:43It's just this XO.
00:44:44What is that in reference to?
00:44:46It's just mine and Gary's symbol.
00:44:48Just XO.
00:44:49What did he have to say about it?
00:44:51Oh, he loved it.
00:44:52I mean, that's why I got it.
00:44:54How long ago did you get it?
00:44:55Four years ago, I guess.
00:44:57I got it about the time that we moved into that house.
00:45:00That was our start, our fresh start.
00:45:05Well, seemed more like a false start to the detectives.
00:45:10More likely, they figured the tattoo led back to Rusty, just like that credit card, the one owned by Roy Barton.
00:45:19Because, they learned, Rusty's real name was Roy, just like his late father.
00:45:26So, it was Rusty's credit card in Melody's wallet.
00:45:31Rusty had known about Gary and how controlling Gary was over Melody and the money.
00:45:36And so, she eventually said that she had gotten the credit card from him in case she needed money, in case of emergencies, basically.
00:45:42The credit card wasn't the only thing Rusty gave Melody.
00:45:46As the detectives discovered, he also got her a cell phone, one that allowed them to talk privately.
00:45:55So, of course, they got the records for that phone.
00:45:59And that's when we started discovering the extent of her relationship with Rusty Barton, and how often they were talking.
00:46:06From the moment they woke up, all throughout the day, calling and texting, until the moment they went to sleep.
00:46:11So, we decided it's time to go talk to Rusty.
00:46:14Two days later, detectives were on the road, heading north to Tullahoma and Rusty Barton.
00:46:26TULHAHOMA
00:46:36Chase a lie about love and sex, and who knows what greater sins it might expose.
00:46:43Cherokee County detectives believed that Rusty Barton was key to their murder investigation.
00:46:50He knows more than everyone's let on.
00:46:52We know this relationship's a lot deeper than Melody told us.
00:46:55Detectives wondered what exactly Rusty knew about Gary's death.
00:46:59Maybe he'd even helped Melody move that big body?
00:47:03But when they questioned Rusty with his attorney in Tullahoma, Tennessee, they didn't get much.
00:47:09Not at first.
00:47:11They came at him hard, and he came right back at them.
00:47:15I don't know what happened, or who did it, or nothing.
00:47:20If I did, first of all, I'd have tried to stop it before it ever happened.
00:47:24Because that's the way I was brought up.
00:47:26Second of all, if I knew it after the fact, I'd f***ing be telling somebody already.
00:47:32I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I use the language too often.
00:47:35Look, here's the thing. If we don't do our job by pushing this, then that...
00:47:39Y'all don't know what you're supposed to do.
00:47:40No, hey, hey, hey. I'm not just doing what I'm supposed to do.
00:47:43I'm giving you an opportunity that I ain't gotta give you.
00:47:47Sir, I don't know anything. I didn't help anybody.
00:47:53She has not confided in me.
00:47:56Detective Ashley Polk told Rusty flat out he didn't believe him.
00:48:00After all, Rusty gave Melody that phone so they could have private conversations.
00:48:06Y'all are talking on the phone every single day.
00:48:09You wake up, Melody. Melody and coffee. You go to bed, Melody.
00:48:13She has talked to you beforehand and since then.
00:48:16No, sir.
00:48:17Don't let me find out. I do not believe that. I'm telling you.
00:48:20There's not been a single communication since Thursday morning.
00:48:24Thursday, July the 5th, that is.
00:48:27The day the Ferrises started looking for Gary. The day Scott called 911.
00:48:32The detectives warned Rusty again that if he knew anything about what happened to Gary,
00:48:38now was the time to tell them or possibly face charges himself.
00:48:43So somebody is going to spend the rest of their damn life in prison for this
00:48:47and whoever helped them, if they don't get on the front end of it,
00:48:50they're going to do the same damn thing.
00:48:52You follow me? That ain't speculation, brother. That's a fact.
00:48:56By the end of that interview, Rusty explained to us that he wanted to do anything he could to assist us
00:49:01because he had no part of this homicide.
00:49:05He also gave us information to verify his alibi.
00:49:09They did. It checked out.
00:49:13But then they looked at his cell phone records and discovered he fiddled with his phone after Gary's death,
00:49:20took Melody's name out of his contacts at one point,
00:49:24substituting two letters, XO, the symbol of a beverage they enjoyed together.
00:49:32Whatever. Obviously that was the real reason for Melody's tattoo. It had nothing to do with Gary.
00:49:39We also find out that he is searching things like how to delete your text messages,
00:49:44what can cops find in text messages.
00:49:46That phone was a revelation.
00:49:50As time goes on, Rusty had told us that he had not talked to her on the night of July 3rd.
00:49:56Well, the cell phone data reflected inconsistencies in that
00:50:01and it also reflected that he had lied to us.
00:50:03So that led to Detective Hayes and I going back up there again
00:50:07to conduct an interview with Rusty to challenge him on these lying statements.
00:50:13Back in Tullahoma, back at the table.
00:50:16But then, Rusty and his lawyer stepped out of the room.
00:50:20Rusty's attorney came back into the room during this time and said,
00:50:23he's got something I think y'all want to hear.
00:50:25They did want to hear it. And how?
00:50:28Because it was huge.
00:50:30Something Rusty said Melody told him in a call just hours after the presumed time of death.
00:50:37Probably the last minute of the last conversation, she said,
00:50:42Gary is in the burn pile.
00:50:45No, she said, he is in the burn pile.
00:50:49And I said, what?
00:50:51And she said, he's in the burn pile.
00:50:54And I said, do not say another word and do not tell me anything.
00:51:01I do not need to know.
00:51:03If this statement was true, it is very important because
00:51:07Gary had not been reported missing and had not been located at the burn pile.
00:51:12The 911 call did not occur until July 5th at 1247 p.m.
00:51:18So that's a full day and a half before anybody knew the nature of this crime.
00:51:26The detectives knew they had struck gold, but they wanted corroboration.
00:51:32So they asked Rusty to record his conversations with Melody without telling her.
00:51:38He agreed. They were elated.
00:51:41And it didn't last.
00:51:43We feel like Rusty is going to record the phone conversations and not notify Melody.
00:51:48But we later learned that he, in fact, did tell her.
00:51:51Maybe Rusty wasn't being so cooperative after all.
00:51:54What were they left with?
00:51:56Well, motive.
00:51:58No will was ever located.
00:52:00So who would benefit from Gary's untimely death?
00:52:05Who else?
00:52:07In Georgia, if a husband and wife and one of them is killed or dies,
00:52:10the wife is the immediate heir to the estate.
00:52:14Melody gets everything.
00:52:16So Scott kills Gary and Scott's money's gone.
00:52:20He knows Melody's not going to give him anything.
00:52:23Same with Chris.
00:52:25So why would Chris kill Gary?
00:52:28Same for the girls.
00:52:30Despite what Melody told detectives,
00:52:32Emily and her husband said they never stole from Gary.
00:52:37And neither Emily nor Amanda stood to gain from their dad's death.
00:52:41The only person that benefited immediately from Gary dying was Melody Ferris.
00:52:45Gary's brother was sure from the beginning it was Melody.
00:52:51He just started adding things up.
00:52:53Was that something that you began to think before you heard it from any official source?
00:52:57You know, I hate to say it, but yeah.
00:53:00It took almost a year to get official confirmation of something the detectives were already convinced of,
00:53:07that the bones in the burn pile were indeed Gary's.
00:53:12And days later, the Cherokee County authorities issued a warrant for Melody's arrest.
00:53:17As it happened, she was in Tennessee at the time visiting Rusty.
00:53:21He drove her to a local police station to surrender.
00:53:25And the Ferris family exhaled.
00:53:29It was like, oh my gosh, something's happening.
00:53:33Because we did all these interviews with the detectives and we didn't hear anything for quite a while.
00:53:40Quite a while indeed.
00:53:43It was October 2024 when Melody Ferris finally went on trial for murder.
00:53:52A trial in which jurors would hear a tangled tale as much about the Ferris children as about their mother.
00:54:01My first impression of that case was, this is going to be a tricky trial.
00:54:23When they finally put Melody Ferris in front of a jury, Assistant DA Megan Frankish confronted a few challenges.
00:54:31I mean, it's almost like an Agatha Christie story.
00:54:35You've got a confined space. There's this ranch.
00:54:38There are a few people who are attached to it.
00:54:40And all those people are kind of in some way warring amongst themselves.
00:54:44And the man who controls the money is suddenly dead.
00:54:48That's exactly right.
00:54:49What we know is that he ended up on the burn pile.
00:54:52We know he was at least shot twice.
00:54:54But the rest of that theory just leads us to Melody being the only person that could have done that.
00:55:01But you had no murder weapon.
00:55:03Well, what could you do about that?
00:55:05That was part of what made this prosecution challenging.
00:55:09Not to mention the long delay getting to court.
00:55:12Six years.
00:55:13What with legal delays and COVID.
00:55:16Before Melody cast a baleful eye on Assistant DA Jeffrey Fogus as he addressed the jury.
00:55:23I am representing a voice that has been snuffed out and taken away.
00:55:28Gary's younger brother John would be a constant presence at the trial, sitting with his wife Nancy two rows behind the prosecutor's table.
00:55:36You went to that trial every day, huh?
00:55:38Yeah. I don't think I missed a day.
00:55:40It's not an easy experience, is it?
00:55:42There was a lot of things that came out in the trial that we didn't know.
00:55:45And I wanted to hear that.
00:55:46I wanted to experience it firsthand in the courtroom.
00:55:49But outside the courtroom, he'd find himself coming face-to-face with Melody.
00:55:55She'd been free on bond for years and she took the regular breaks like everyone, passing her late husband's brother in the hallways.
00:56:04How did you feel about that?
00:56:05I didn't like it.
00:56:06You must have carried around a lot of anger about that woman.
00:56:09I don't know that I'm an angry person.
00:56:11It was probably more frustration and the lack of closure.
00:56:14Prosecutors argued that cell phone data and call records told the story of what happened that night.
00:56:20Gary left the farm earlier that evening, returning around 9.30 p.m.
00:56:24And that's when Melody, the only other person on the farm, shot and killed him.
00:56:30He never again sent a text or made a call or checked an email.
00:56:34And he never turned on that CPAP machine.
00:56:38Melody, meanwhile, was a busy bunny that night and the next morning, talking to Rusty, moving around the property.
00:56:46When he was killed and when his body was moved, when things are going on, the only person that's going to be at that house, the only person, is her.
00:56:56The defendant murdered and desecrated her own husband.
00:57:04But how was Melody able to move Gary's heavy body?
00:57:08Well, investigators developed a theory after noticing a tractor on the farm and what appeared to be matching tracks near the burn pit.
00:57:18Brothers Scott and Chris said it seemed out of place at the time.
00:57:22I just found it very, very odd for that tractor to be parked down there.
00:57:26I know my dad wouldn't have just left it there.
00:57:28I mean, the only time he would have left that tractor there is if it was stuck.
00:57:31How well does your mother operate that tractor?
00:57:34She asked me to teach her how to use it.
00:57:36Honestly, that tractor was so easy to operate, I could teach my 13-year-old niece.
00:57:41So maybe Melody used the tractor to move the body.
00:57:45However, she didn't.
00:57:46Prosecutors said Melody figured out a way to get Gary in the fire before Scott came home.
00:57:51And, they said, Melody all but confessed to it when she told her lover, Rusty Barton, that Gary was dead long before anyone discovered his body.
00:58:02To stress this point, they called Rusty as a hostile witness.
00:58:06She said that Gary was on the burn pile.
00:58:09So that puts her right there with knowledge about what happened to his body.
00:58:13And it's definitely an admission that we needed the jury to hear.
00:58:17The whole reason Melody wanted Gary dead, said the prosecutors, was so she could tap into his resources without any restriction.
00:58:26There was only one person who had the emotive means and opportunity to commit this crime.
00:58:31Then, prosecutors told jurors about Gary's suspicions that Melody tampered with his food, something he confided to his legal assistant, Angela Phillips.
00:58:40He said that he thought she was poisoning him.
00:58:44I said, you need to go be tested for poison.
00:58:47And he said, well, you'll know what to tell Dateline if I die mysteriously.
00:58:54One by one, each of the Ferris children testified.
00:58:58Three of the four against their own mother.
00:59:02Can you please introduce yourself to the jury?
00:59:04I'm Emily Ferris Payne.
00:59:06How was your parents' relationship when you were younger?
00:59:09I mean, it was good from my perspective.
00:59:12Do you know what caused that change?
00:59:15Yes.
00:59:17Basically, my mother began having an affair.
00:59:22I think with Emily, the jury got to see a little bit of Gary.
00:59:27Emily seemed like the closest one to him, and she knew a lot of information from her relationship with her father.
00:59:34I just think that he lost trust that was once there.
00:59:41Gary entrusted her with a lot of information about the family and about his financial position with Melody.
00:59:50Including how he didn't want his wife spending his money on other men.
00:59:55She no longer was on the bank accounts, so she couldn't, you know, she didn't have access the way that she did before.
01:00:05And Melody wasn't just preoccupied with Gary withholding funds from her, said the prosecutors.
01:00:10She was jealous of the money her husband gave their adult children.
01:00:15Just days before Gary was killed, Emily told jurors, she received a text from her mother, who seemed to be at a breaking point.
01:00:23Can you read that, please?
01:00:25Chris continues to charge his cable, phone, and airline tickets to Gary's checking account.
01:00:31I have had it. I'm taking measures to stop this insanity.
01:00:35State calls Chris Ferris. If you could please raise your right hand.
01:00:38Which is one of the reasons prosecutors called Chris Ferris to the stand.
01:00:42We needed him to address his financial issues and his relationship with his father.
01:00:47And if those issues led to any conflicts between him and his father, which it did to an extent.
01:00:53Would you and your dad ever get in arguments about money?
01:00:58I wouldn't really consider it an argument. I mean, he'd get mad at me for spending money or asking him for money.
01:01:06But Chris denied stealing from his father.
01:01:09Did he send you a text saying, you know, you got to pay your own way or I'm going to cut you off?
01:01:15I think he said, I'm going to change my account information.
01:01:19And then three weeks later, he's dead.
01:01:21Sure. Yeah. I guess that's a good way to try to create reasonable doubt and create a motive for somebody else.
01:01:31But taking myself out of it, it's kind of like, well, why would anybody do that to somebody who's helping them that much?
01:01:40They were grasping at straws.
01:01:42The jury also heard from Chris's younger brother, Scott.
01:01:45Was it a risk to put him on the stand to be a kind of a pincushion for the defense to go after?
01:01:51We had to put him on the stand. He had a significant role in the investigation.
01:01:56He also had a front row seat to see his parents fighting every single day.
01:02:00And he witnessed his mother threaten Gary as well.
01:02:02She came out of my dad's office doors and screaming and cussing.
01:02:10And she threw a plate up against the wall of the house and she screamed, I can't wait till the day he dies.
01:02:18I can't wait till the day I don't have to live with him anymore.
01:02:21Did you look out at her right there in the courtroom, small courtroom right there sitting in front of you?
01:02:27I looked at her when I was asked to look at her and describe what she was wearing.
01:02:32And she's not my mother anymore.
01:02:36Oh, but Melody's attorneys were not finished with Scott, not by a long shot.
01:02:43Maybe it was he who belonged in the dark, facing life behind bars.
01:02:50You are a mooch.
01:02:51No, I wasn't.
01:02:52And your father saw you as the exact same way, mooching off of him.
01:03:11The state has introduced a case to you and it is so full of holes.
01:03:16The defense of Melody Ferris was certainly robust and nothing if not dramatic.
01:03:22You're getting on the Ferris wheel.
01:03:24Those investigators all but rigged the case against an innocent woman, said defense attorney Michael Ray.
01:03:31From day one, everything was tailored specifically to attempt to convict Melody of the death of Gary Ferris.
01:03:41It was a highly circumstantial case.
01:03:43There was no direct evidence to tie Melody to shooting Gary.
01:03:48There was no gun found in the house.
01:03:50Melody had no accelerants on her hands.
01:03:52There was none of that directly tied back to Melody.
01:03:55It seemed, however, that if you ask the age old question, who benefits?
01:03:59Well, Melody benefits.
01:04:01He controls the money.
01:04:02He's dead.
01:04:03She gets the money.
01:04:04You got to have Gary alive to make the money because it didn't necessarily come out at trial.
01:04:08They weren't really cash rich.
01:04:10If Gary wasn't working, then there is no money.
01:04:14No motive, said the defense, and no actual evidence Gary had even been killed in the house, certainly not by Melody.
01:04:21The blood leading down the stairs, for instance.
01:04:24They never tested any of the drops on the stairs.
01:04:26You had two drops on the basement floor that the crime lab determined that was Gary Ferris' blood.
01:04:31And that blood, said the defense, didn't even come from a gunshot wound.
01:04:35The weekend before, Gary Ferris had been bit by the dog, and he was bleeding when he went down the stairs from his ankle.
01:04:43As for the bullet found in the basement.
01:04:45There is no blood found around the bullet.
01:04:49No impact mark from the bullet on the floor.
01:04:52It is literally like the bullet was dropped and placed on the floor.
01:04:59And the last person who was in the basement prior to law enforcement arriving was Scott.
01:05:07Oh yes, Scott. The defense was getting to him.
01:05:11Like when they repeatedly told the jury Melody wasn't big enough or strong enough to move all that dead weight after Gary was killed.
01:05:20In fact, they took jurors to the farm where they could see for themselves how hard it would be.
01:05:27Here's defense co-counsel John Luke Weaver.
01:05:30How could a 120 pound woman move a 300 pound man down to a burn pile roughly 50 yards below the house in the woods on a relatively treacherous terrain?
01:05:41There is one person that could have done that.
01:05:44And that would have been Scott Ferris.
01:05:46Also, the time of death?
01:05:48No way to know exactly.
01:05:50But the defense argued Gary died later than prosecutors said when Scott was already home.
01:05:57And no one had more motive, the defense said, than freeloading greedy Scott, who'd taken advantage of his parents for years.
01:06:05She thought you were a mooch.
01:06:08I guess in her eyes, yeah.
01:06:10Right. Because you were a mooch.
01:06:12No, I wasn't.
01:06:13And your father saw you as the exact same way, and he kept a very tight rein over you and your mooching off of him.
01:06:21What about Scott? What was your strategy for going after him on the stand?
01:06:25When it came to Scott, I think it was important to show that if his mother is framed with murder, then he always saw that estate as his.
01:06:35And one more Ferris offspring waited in the wings.
01:06:40Amanda, the youngest, supported her mother and told the jury Scott had an unusual fixation with his parents' country estate.
01:06:50He would claim things as his that were not his. That's fair to say.
01:06:55They belonged to my mother and my father. He would say this is my property.
01:06:59I mean, he claimed ownership to it. That's for sure.
01:07:02Well, and what would Scott say about that?
01:07:06We asked him, of course.
01:07:08He never once said, oh, this is going to be my farm one day.
01:07:11If I would have said something like that, it would have been more of the lines of, you know, well, I hope this farm stays in the family.
01:07:18He also said he never threatened to burn the house down and never once stole anything from his dad.
01:07:25In fact, he told us Amanda's testimony was yet another example of their mother's manipulation.
01:07:32It's all because of Melody's brainwashing. She brainwashed Amanda.
01:07:37And it's fair to say that you're biased in favor of your mom.
01:07:41I wouldn't say I'm biased in favor. I believe that somebody is innocent until they're proven guilty.
01:07:47But the defense attorneys still had to tackle their most daunting challenge.
01:07:52That incriminating statement from Melody's lover, Rusty Barton, saying she told him Gary was dead before his body was found.
01:08:00When we first learned about the phone call with Rusty Barton, that was the biggest, most damning piece of evidence.
01:08:09The defense argued Rusty's claim wasn't a big deal because after the interview with police, he called back to say he had the dates all wrong.
01:08:20Melody only told him Gary was dead after his body was discovered.
01:08:25So I need you to explain those words to that jury right there.
01:08:28She said those words to me.
01:08:30But then you tried to explain later that, yes, she told you about that.
01:08:34But that was after Gary was already found, right?
01:08:37Yes.
01:08:38From his testimony, he was under duress and he had to, quote, give them something.
01:08:43He later recanted that statement and said that she told him he was on the burn pile much later after Gary's remains had already been found.
01:08:53There was an audience for all this in the courtroom, of course, but also an audience of one glued to a live stream way off in Tennessee.
01:09:03Someone who knew Rusty and Melody very well.
01:09:07And she had something she desperately needed to share.
01:09:10So she picked up the phone and called the sheriff right in the middle of the trial.
01:09:17You could tell something big had happened and it got us excited.
01:09:20You know, it's like, what is this going to be?
01:09:35The case against Melody Ferris was well underway when it happened.
01:09:39It was a call from out of the blue to the Cherokee County Sheriff's Department from a woman who said she needed to get something off her chest.
01:09:48Judge, as you know, the state was made aware of some newly discovered evidence.
01:09:54Assistant DAs Megan Frankish and Jeffrey Focus were busy arguing their case when the call came in.
01:10:01And I leaned over to my co-counsel and I said, we need to take a break after this witness.
01:10:06In the gallery, Gary Ferris's brother John noticed a sudden flurry of activity.
01:10:11You could tell something big had happened and it got us excited.
01:10:15You know, it's like, what is this going to be?
01:10:17So Martha Jane Barton had called the sheriff's office.
01:10:21Martha Jane Barton, Rusty Barton's stepmom and Melody's cousin.
01:10:27She had watched Rusty's testimony.
01:10:29You didn't have any missing guns that you couldn't account for, right?
01:10:33No, sir.
01:10:34I heard Rusty testify about the guns that his dad owned.
01:10:39And that's when Martha Jane remembered.
01:10:43A .38 caliber, Rusty's late father had given her more than 40 years earlier.
01:10:49He had given me this .38.
01:10:52It's no no special.
01:10:53I think it was 79 for Christmas.
01:10:56But after Melody's arrest, Martha Jane said she realized something was wrong.
01:11:02And I looked and my gun was missing.
01:11:04I thought, Melody has taken my gun.
01:11:08After all, Melody had a key to her elderly relative's house.
01:11:12At first, Martha Jane kept quiet about her misgivings.
01:11:16But while watching the trial, she got worried about what Melody might have done with her gun.
01:11:22And she called the police.
01:11:24And I just said, I have a heavy heart and I want to tell you something.
01:11:29And then I told about my gun being missing.
01:11:33Investigator Daniel Hayes.
01:11:35I thought, that's the missing piece to this puzzle.
01:11:38That's where that gun that Scott Ferris saw in that basement came from.
01:11:43Melody took it from Martha's house without Martha knowing.
01:11:46So you brought her in to testify.
01:11:48We did.
01:11:49How were you feeling when you called that number?
01:11:53Awful.
01:11:54I still love Melody.
01:11:56She was family.
01:11:57It just kills me.
01:12:01And then it was out there for the whole world to know.
01:12:04Martha Jane's suspicion that Melody had taken the .38 and used it to kill Gary.
01:12:12This is called a Perry Mason moment.
01:12:14Late in the trial, suddenly a call.
01:12:17And you call a new witness.
01:12:19A surprise witness.
01:12:20And look at what that witness has to say.
01:12:23I don't know that I'll ever experience that again in my career.
01:12:26How much did you tear your house up and things in the house looking for it?
01:12:29I looked everywhere.
01:12:31Closets, dressers, chests.
01:12:35Defense attorneys Michael Ray and John Luke Weaver tried to dismiss Martha Jane's claims.
01:12:40Saying the devoutly Christian woman only came forward once she learned about her stepson Rusty's affair with Melody.
01:12:47That was what she was most concerned about.
01:12:49That she couldn't show her face in town anymore.
01:12:52So she felt like she needed to say something.
01:12:54They did try to blame it on that.
01:12:57No, my motive was because my gun was gone.
01:13:01And she was the only person that had access to it.
01:13:06That was my only motive.
01:13:10Still, the defense argued there was no proof the .38 in question was the gun used in the murder.
01:13:17Or that Melody ever took anything from Martha Jane's house.
01:13:22Who else has keys other than I assume the cleaning lady, does she have a key?
01:13:26Oh, she may have a key.
01:13:30So Melody's got a key, cleaning lady may have a key.
01:13:34Well, Rusty.
01:13:36Rusty's got a key.
01:13:38Uh-huh.
01:13:39So at least five people.
01:13:41And then the defense put on a little show and tell.
01:13:46A play, as it were, to show that it would have been impossible for Melody to get Big Daddy's body out of the house and way off to that burn pile.
01:14:00Whose idea was it to drag those bags of rock salt or whatever the heck that was out onto the courtroom floor?
01:14:08Well, that was my idea.
01:14:10I was definitely trying to think of what could I use for that demonstration.
01:14:20I think it starts to become clear why I'm doing this.
01:14:23Why am I dropping these bags?
01:14:24These bags are 40 pounds a piece.
01:14:26When I would drop one of the bags, I mean, you could feel the floor shake.
01:14:31And I wanted that to happen because I wanted the jury specifically to know how heavy this was.
01:14:38This is 320 pounds.
01:14:42I am 185 pounds.
01:14:50And that's all I have.
01:14:51The whole trial, we were noting that he was 300 pounds, she was 120 pounds.
01:14:56It was impossible that she could have moved him.
01:14:58But there was a person on the property who could.
01:15:03And that's Scott Ferris.
01:15:05You were literally pointed at by the defense attorney in court.
01:15:08What did it feel like?
01:15:09I mean, that was awkward.
01:15:13I never, ever once have I ever remotely thought of even harming my father.
01:15:21A point the prosecutor drove home in her closing argument.
01:15:25I just kept bringing the jury back to the evidence that was presented at trial.
01:15:30And there was just no evidence that Scott had anything to do with this crime.
01:15:33This case is about Gary Wayne Ferris.
01:15:37And you're here because Melody Ferris shot him.
01:15:43Concealed his death by putting him on a burn pile on their property like he was trash.
01:15:51And then it was in the hands of the jurors.
01:15:54We got very emotional in the jury room.
01:15:57I was in tears.
01:15:59It was hard.
01:16:00It was really hard.
01:16:15It might have been easier if that fire hadn't consumed Gary Ferris' body.
01:16:20Or if they'd found the gun.
01:16:22Or more DNA.
01:16:24But they had what they had.
01:16:26And six and a half years after Gary's murder.
01:16:29Jurors were having a hard time.
01:16:31Cheryl Peoples was one of them.
01:16:34We got very emotional in the jury room.
01:16:37We left early one day because I was in tears.
01:16:40It was hard.
01:16:41It was really hard.
01:16:43Jurors sent notes asking for more details.
01:16:46And they kept talking.
01:16:48For almost three days.
01:16:51And then they sent the judge another note.
01:16:54They just couldn't decide.
01:16:58What was that like?
01:16:59I think my blood pressure went up about 100 points.
01:17:02Because my biggest fear in all of this was that she was going to get out of it.
01:17:09But the judge sent them back.
01:17:12Keep trying, he said.
01:17:14Chris Hyatt, the jury foreman, did his best.
01:17:17We just had one juror that was still undecided.
01:17:21And at that time, the juror was just like,
01:17:24look, I really don't feel like I'm going to come to a conclusion in what I am right now.
01:17:30They talked a couple of hours more.
01:17:32And then...
01:17:35I understand we have a verdict.
01:17:37How were you feeling as you came back into the room with a verdict?
01:17:40Extremely nervous.
01:17:42We, the jury, we find the defendant guilty.
01:17:47Melody Ferris was guilty of murdering her husband, Gary.
01:17:53Where did your thoughts go at that point?
01:17:55To the family, to the children.
01:17:58Immediately.
01:18:00They had been through a lot.
01:18:04I don't think anybody who sat through that could have come to any other conclusion
01:18:09than a guilty verdict.
01:18:12But we wanted to hear that.
01:18:13We wanted to be there.
01:18:15We...
01:18:17We had waited six years.
01:18:21And I just stared at her.
01:18:23I wanted her to show something.
01:18:25Some sort of emotion.
01:18:27Look at your family.
01:18:29And it never came.
01:18:31She was more worried about taking her jewelry off before she went to jail
01:18:35than she was about showing any emotion.
01:18:38Sir, was that your verdict in the jury room?
01:18:41Was the verdict agreed to by you?
01:18:44My heartbeat finally slowed down for the first time in a month.
01:18:47Yeah.
01:18:48You know, I was just ready to get her sentenced and put this all behind me.
01:18:53Oh, yes.
01:18:54The sentencing.
01:18:56A sentencing that was one to remember.
01:18:59It happened about a month after the verdict.
01:19:01And Melody, first time in the trial, decided there was something she wanted to say.
01:19:08Boy, did she ever.
01:19:10I have waited for years to make this statement to everyone.
01:19:17I want the world to know who did this.
01:19:20You could, as the old saying goes, hear a pin drop.
01:19:24What was coming?
01:19:27Not only did I not do this, I know who did.
01:19:33I know Scott killed his father.
01:19:36He took my husband, the father of Chris, Emily, and Amanda, Scott.
01:19:44This is unforgivable.
01:19:47I had no idea that she would start tearing into Scott like that, blaming him.
01:19:54I just can't believe she stooped to that level.
01:19:57Scott himself looked stunned as his mother went on for more than 20 minutes.
01:20:02The judge warned her to stop when she trotted out new allegations, never presented in court.
01:20:08But as she pressed on, Scott Ferris could only shake his head.
01:20:14And it took every bit of me not to stand up in that courtroom and say something to her.
01:20:20I think the expression on your face said a thing or two.
01:20:24You didn't have to open your mouth.
01:20:27Oh, I'm sure it did.
01:20:30I've seen videos of it or anything, but I was—I've never had anything happen like that to me ever in my life.
01:20:41She'll never admit to anybody what she did because she is going to try her best to pin it on somebody else.
01:20:49Melody could have taken the stand, of course, as a witness.
01:20:53It was a strategic decision that was ultimately made.
01:20:56Sure.
01:20:57Yeah, it's very different reading a—essentially a self-prepared speech than it is being under cross-examination.
01:21:07As she was finally wrapping up, Melody pleaded with the judge.
01:21:12Throw out the verdict. Too late.
01:21:15He gave her life.
01:21:17Parole possible after 30 years.
01:21:20She'll be in her 90s by then.
01:21:24And now? Now they'll just have to get used to it.
01:21:28Though Big Daddy's outsized presence is everywhere around here.
01:21:33And it's hard, you know, living in this town, driving by his old office, you know?
01:21:42But he also would want me to be strong.
01:21:53He always stayed strong.
01:21:57He was the one who had his head on his shoulders.
01:22:00He was calming everybody else down.
01:22:04But I miss him dearly.
01:22:10It's hard to imagine how the family will recover.
01:22:14The Ferris wheel has spun off its axis.
01:22:18But then, maybe it did a long time ago.
01:22:24No matter how hard Big Daddy tried to keep it rolling,
01:22:29No matter how hard Big Daddy tried to keep it rolling,
01:22:34He wouldn't be mortified that this has been our lives for the last six years.
01:22:42And while I do get very sad,
01:22:49I'm just thankful that he was my dad.
01:22:57If I could be half the dad he was, I'd be doing a pretty good job.
01:23:08That's all for this edition of Dateline.
01:23:10We'll see you again Sunday at 9, 8 central.
01:23:13And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.
01:23:17I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, goodnight.
01:23:27♪