Relative Danger | Blood is Thicker: The Farris Wheel

0:00Hello, listeners. It's 48 Hours Correspondent, Peter Van Sant. Today, I have a special episode to share with you from my new podcast, Blood is Thicker, the Ferris Wheel. It's the story of a family caught up in a blame game when their beloved patriarch is murdered. Gary Ferris went missing and was later discovered dead on his 10-acre Georgia property. Who would want to kill him? Much like an actual Ferris wheel, the blame game in this family went round and round. Here's the episode. You know it's still under criminal investigation, right? The Georgia Guidestones may be America's answer to Stonehenge.

0:43The county administrator says there were conspiracy theories. Let's not forget that crime was committed here and somebody got away with it. I'm Tyler McBrien. Join me as we take a wild ride through granite quarries, graveyards, cults, small town southern lore, and a lot of explosives. In the new AJC original podcast, Who Blew Up the Guidestones? Follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. This is horrible to have to put on all the secrets out on the table. Melody Ferris was upset that her family's private lives were now public record. She was talking to detectives Daniel Hayes and Trent Kuykendall in Cherokee County, Georgia.

1:29And just so you know, I am sincerely sorry for you and your family's loss. I don't know what to say. It was on the morning of July 6, 2018, the day after Gary Ferris' remains were found. Melody was at the local sheriff's office. Unlike her earlier conversations with the detectives, this one would go on for nearly eight hours as Melody spun stories of intrigue and suspicion. I had nothing, nothing to gain by him dying. I had everything to lose. Everything to lose. Almost as soon as they started recording, Melody didn't hesitate to point fingers. The only thing I found odd was that he wanted to leave immediately.

2:26Melody was talking about her oldest son, Chris. He had left the farm not long after investigators arrived. Melody said she didn't trust him.

2:40And he left and came back. He came back after Emily got there. I forbid him for being in my house without me being there. The two had been feuding for at least a year. Melody would go on to share disparaging details about more of her children that day. And that's the worst part of it is how I used to. Tensions were high. Midway through her marathon interview with detectives, Melody casually alluded to a parent's worst fear. I'm sitting there thinking last night, you know, couldn't wonder if my children had done it, which is the worst nightmare. It's the thinking that one of them could have done it.

3:26That's my worst nightmare. I'm Peter Van Sant. From 48 Hours, this is Blood is Thicker, the Ferris Wheel. Episode 2, Relative Danger.

3:52Okay. Peter, we're pulling up now. This is the Ferris property here on the right. Right here? It is. That big house off in the distance there? Yes. This is beautiful. When I pulled up to the Ferris property with Detective Daniel Hayes, it was hard to believe it had been a crime scene just a few years earlier. We believe Gary was shot and killed by all the evidence, and we know he was burned. What we don't know is exactly when those two things occurred. Based on a few drops of blood in the house, this is what Detective Hayes believed happened to Gary Ferris. First, he was shot in the kitchen. Wounded, Hayes said Gary then ran downstairs, where he was likely shot a second time.

4:37He believed Gary didn't try to fight with his attacker. He was trying to take the path of least resistance to get out of that house, which at the time was down the stairs and out those side doors that led to the backyard. Investigators found blood both upstairs and downstairs, and they discovered Gary's DNA on a bullet they found in the basement. Which told you what then about what may have happened in that room? That told me that that bullet went through some portion of Gary Ferris' body. And if he was shot in both that kitchen area and also in the basement, there would have been, I would think, an enormous amount of blood loss.

5:20That's part of the mystery to me. Is it to you? Yes. Again, we get a lot of our, a lot of people get their information from Hollywood, you know, watching the movies. And of course you want a lot of blood coming out, but the same, on the same token as the bullet being in the floor and not being lodged in something. Not every scene that you expect to be that way is that way. Gary was a large guy. We know at least one bullet didn't come out of him because we found it in his ribs. So investigators believed they knew where Gary was shot. But what about the when? Starting out all the evidence was a daunting task for Detective Hayes.

5:54We don't have a lot of homicides and murders in Cherokee County, so this was my second one being named lead detective. This is your case. Just your second murder investigation. Second one ever, and this is the first case I've been involved with with so much electronic forensic data. You know, the cell phones, the computers, cell phone tower dumps, all these big words that I've had to research to figure out even what they were and how to utilize this data that we got to our analyst. Interestingly, one of the most critical bits of information came from the breathing device Gary kept on his bedside.

6:32Another detective with different experience than me overheard us talking about Gary sleeping with a CPAP every night. He actually brought up, he's like, you know those record data, right? I actually wrote another search warrant and went back to the house, took the CPAP, learned, you know, technology's updated. It's just got an SD card in there. So we were able to take the SD card and get the data off of it that we were looking for. Hayes was interested in the data from the evening of July 3rd, the last day anyone saw Gary alive. That's when we determined that Gary always went to bed around midnight, and he hadn't gone to bed that night.

7:10He had never put on the CPAP. We know he was killed that night.

7:16But who pulled the trigger? And where was the gun? Was a murder weapon found? No. And you guys looked, right? We did. What do you think happened to that gun? That's the million-dollar question. Another million-dollar question. How did Gary's body get from the house, where he was presumably shot, onto the burn pile more than 50 yards away? We don't have any evidence directly stating when he was put on that fire, so it's possible he laid in the backyard or wherever he expired for quite some time while someone made the decision to put him on the fire and dispose of the body. Gary weighed nearly 300 pounds and was 6 '4".

7:59How exactly can someone move a man of that size such a distance? Is there any blood that was discovered going from the house to the burn pile? None that we found. Any drag marks? None that we saw. Any vehicle tracks whatsoever? There were tracks in the area. You could tell they were well-traveled paths, usually, that people often would drive the RTV or the tractor or something, but nothing that was definitive. It went from that area of the basement straight to the burn pump. Detective Hayes figured there was a chance one of the vehicles was used. This family has utilized both of those machines to move dead horses, pull stumps out of the ground.

8:41So anyone who's been on the property that saw knew the capabilities of these machines. Investigators found drops of Gary's blood on both the family's tractor and RTV, the rough terrain vehicle. But who had a motive to kill him? And in the weeks and months leading up to Gary's death, is it accurate to say that there was a lot of bickering, a lot of fights over money in that family? A lot of bickering, a lot of fights over money, a lot of jealousy. Do you have any idea what he was totally worth? I believe at some point we added it up to around$4.5,$5 million is what someone would stand to inherit.

9:24That would be Gary's personal investments, including life insurance and the value of the property. Melody claimed ignorance when it came to the family's finances. But she asserted that her children, Chris, Scott, and Emily, relied heavily on their father's money. Evidence shows it made Melody turn against her children because the children were spending money. Melody strongly felt her children needed to grow up and be financially independent. She told investigators that Gary was about to make a big change in their lives that would largely turn off the money spigot. I mean, my world is literally falling apart in the last move of a while.

10:10Literally. I'm going to have four kids. Yeah. Kristen's got to have their demons. They do. Emily's got hers.

10:23USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usaa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. We've spent a lot of time talking about suspicions within the Ferris family, but what about outside? It's something I asked Detective Hayes about. Are you wondering, did someone come in from the outside? Perhaps someone he competes with in business or a financial problem that he's had, that he may have an enemy who came onto property and killed him.

11:06Sure. You know, when you get to a homicide, it starts. Everyone in the world is a suspect, and you narrow that down, right? You have to keep an open mind. But according to Gary's family, he didn't have any enemies. Here's Scott. He had no enemies. I mean, I'm sure the detectives will say, probably say, we couldn't find a single person that hated your dad. And Scott's right. The data investigators collected backed that up. So Detective Hayes focused on each family member, not just what they were telling him in interviews, but the actual evidence. What were they all doing on July 3rd?

11:50Let's start with eldest daughter, Emily. From what I knew about her, she had moved away from Georgia. She lived in Franklin, Tennessee, which is up near Nashville, in a home with her husband. Emily was 30 then. Gary gave her money, helped fund part of her lifestyle in Tennessee, helped them get the house. Hayes said around the time of Gary's murder and on the day when the remains were discovered, Emily had an alibi. She arrived after I did. I recall her arriving and trying to speak to her, and she just basically said, I don't know anything. I live in Tennessee. I'm here because my family called me and told me what was going on.

12:28No way she could have been involved. No way she could have been involved. As for the youngest, 29-year-old Amanda, detectives were certain she wasn't at the farm that day. The people who were at the farm on the 3rd were her mother, Scott, and Chris. As we know, Chris stopped by the farm with one of his daughters late that afternoon and talked to Gary as he was preparing the burn pile. In 2018, Chris was 38 and had moved back to Georgia after living in Maine with his first wife. They had two daughters before getting a divorce. When his mother, Melody, was talking to detectives on the second day of the investigation, she alleged that Chris wasn't showing very much emotion for someone whose father's remains had just been discovered.

13:19You know, and Amanda said, you know, I found it very odd that he did not see what he said. It was just like, you know, nothing had really happened. Detective Hayes also noticed that Chris kept his distance. He was kind of hands-off in the beginning of the investigation. He didn't know much. Some people had some suspicions about him early in the investigation because he didn't want to stick around. He didn't want to be involved with it. Melody told detectives that Chris struggled with both his temper and his alcohol. Could that dangerous combination have led to Gary's death? I believe there were some threats made by Chris when he was intoxicated.

14:03Detective Hayes was talking about a time back in the summer of 2017 when Chris, who had been drinking, was ready to drive his daughter's home. Melody said she confronted Chris about being drunk, telling him he wasn't going to drive off the property with the girls. That's when, Melody said, Chris flew off the handle. He's standing in my driveway. You know, I will beat you beyond recognition. And the next time I see you, they put you in the grave in a box. Chris later testified that there was indeed a confrontation because Melody wasn't giving his children back to him. but he said that he didn't know why Melody would say it was over his drinking.

14:51During the confrontation, Melody said that she threatened to call the police. Instead, she called Gary. I know that Chris absolutely despises me because I'm the one who preaches to him all the time about taking money. His mother believed that he was stealing money from his father. His father believed that, you know, Chris was using him for the money, but he wasn't stopping it, and he was allowing him to do so. Chris had his own painting company. There were some indications that he was not as successful as I'm sure any businessman would want to be. Investigators discovered that Chris did have money troubles.

15:33Chris was having to borrow money and float checks is what I would call it, write people checks and tell them not to cash it until later or whatever. In a text message on June 12, 2018, three weeks before the murder, Gary wrote to Chris, Your stealing money is out of control. I will change my accounts tomorrow. But while there was evidence Gary was upset about Chris's spending, there was no evidence detectives concluded that Chris killed his father. According to digital records, the night that Gary was shot, Chris was 40 miles away at his Atlanta home. This meant there were likely only two family members left to investigate, Melody and her son Scott.

16:20Law enforcement had thoroughly searched the property's main house that Melody shared with her husband. They'd also searched the barn, including Scott's apartment on the top floor. That's where investigators made an intriguing discovery.

16:42It is not hard to destroy a college. Last season, the podcast Campus Files brought you stories of fraternity drug rings, stolen body parts, campus cults, and more. And now Campus Files is back for another season. There's a guy screaming into his phone. He's like, I just saw Charlie Kirk get assassinated right in front of me. Every week is a new episode and a new story. It's so chaotic. It's almost like a university and a siege. Listen to and follow Campus Files. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.

17:17I wake up and work, feed all the animals, start doing, you know, my daily chores around the farm. Scott Ferris had been working on the family farm for nearly five years before his dad was killed. But his own mother saw Scott as a failure. I talked to Scott in 2024. You've been characterized as a mooch, as a leech, as somebody who could never hold down a job and that your father was incredibly disappointed in you. No. Is that true? No, it's not true because I served in the military. I served in the Army. I got released back in 2012-2013 time frame, and it was a reduction in force, so that's why I got released from the military.

18:16This gunfire is from a Facebook post Scott made in 2009. In the video, he's got on his Army combat uniform and sunglasses, standing and shooting at targets. The post reads, Having fun with my M249 saw. His original plan, once he was out of the military, was to enter law enforcement. But that didn't quite work out. I came back into an economy that nobody was really hiring at the time. So, yeah, I went back into selling cars, and at the time, nobody had money, and I wasn't making a lot of money doing that. And whatever jobs I was able to find were, you know,$8 to$10 an hour. And, you know, when you're in your 30s, it's kind of hard to, you know, live on your own off of that.

19:09Gary threw his son a financial lifeline. We sat down and talked, and we arranged for me to manage the property and take care of the farm. Part of the arrangement was free room and board in that apartment above the barn. He didn't cut me a paycheck. He basically, he gave me a credit card or he gave me a debit card. So I used the card to buy horse feed and goat feed and, you know, the hay and fertilizer for the pastures. And then, you know, I would use the same card to, you know, go get lunch and go get dinner. Scott told Detective Hayes that his father kept a close eye on his spending. He kept control of all the banking.

20:01I mean, he watched everything. Scott said sometimes he'd be out with friends, look down at his phone, and there would be a text from his dad. I could get a text message from him saying, okay, you spent enough money at this, you know, for tonight or something like that. I'm like, really? It's like I work for you 24-7, you know. I don't take a day off. I don't ask for much. Just go out every once in a while. Scott relied on his father for just about everything. Here again is Detective Hayes. When he needed something or wanted something or wanted to go out, he had to go to Gary and ask, hey, can I have some cash to spend or can you put some money on this card or can you unlock the credit card, whatever it was.

20:44And he's an adult, right? He's a war veteran. He'd served in the Middle East. And he's talking to his dad like he's getting his allowance all the time, like he's 12 years old. That must have been humiliating for him. At the time, he didn't seem humiliated. He very much seemed like he enjoyed the lifestyle of being there and taking care of the farm. But Melody told me that Scott's leisurely lifestyle was about to end. Gary had made it very well known that Scott needed to get a job. Things were fixing to change on that property. Scott knew the end was coming. He was just letting me know, hey, things are going to change around here.

21:24You need to probably pursue another job. Could this sudden change have been a motive for murder? There were certain things that happened the day Gary Ferris' remains were found that raised suspicion. When family members first began their search for Gary, Melody asked Scott, an avid hunter, to go check his trail camera. It's used for tracking deer. I was looking at that trail camera to see if there was any clues to where my dad could have gone. But just out of habit that I've done hundreds and thousands of times before, I checked it and just hit clear all because I didn't see my dad on there. He just hit clear.

22:10Claims there's nothing on it and deletes the memory card. It seemed fishy. But then the sheriff's office was eventually able to recover some of the images from that memory card. There was no picture of Gary. Then there was the question of the gun. Scott Ferris had flagged that there was a.38 snub-nosed revolver that had gone missing in the basement. And detectives had found a bullet of the same caliber on the basement floor, as well as the bullet pulled from Gary's rib. Some people thought, wow, Scott found a gun and now there's one missing. And other people think immediately, why is he telling us this?

22:51He may be responsible. Investigators then checked Scott's apartment above the barn, where they opened his dresser drawer.

23:06Scott had some.38 caliber rounds in one of his dresser drawers. Which member of the Ferris family at the farm is most familiar with firearms? That would be Scott. That would be Scott. Scott, which family member has been trained by the United States Army to kill? Scott. Which family member at the farm has the physical strength to lift a 300-pound man into that fire pile? It would be Scott would be the most likely. I'm not sure if he's strong enough to do that or not. Scott defended himself when we spoke in 2024. Did you murder your father? did you shoot him and put his body on a burn pile? No. There's no reason why I would...

23:55There's no... There's not an absolute reason why I would want to murder my father. He was the backbone of our family. Why would I kill the man that I'm trying to be? Detectives determined that while the bullets found in Scott's drawer were.38s, they were a different version than the recovered bullets that had Gary's DNA on them. Technically, they were not a match. That left only one other person for investigators. The only person who hated him was Melody. The only person who was having affairs and, you know, spending all his money was Melody.

24:44From 48 Hours, this is Blood is Thicker, the Ferris wheel produced by Sony Music Entertainment. I'm your host, Peter Van Sant. Judy Teigard is the executive producer of 48 Hours. Original reporting by 48 Hours producers Betsy Shuler, Ryan Smith, and Hannah Ver. Jamie Benson is the senior producer for CBS News Podcasts, and Mara Waltz is the senior story editor. Recording assistance from Alan Peng and Alana Myers. Special thanks to CBS News Podcast Vice President Megan Marcus. Blood is Thicker was written and produced by Alex Schumann. Stephanie Serrano is our editor. Our executive producer is Shira Morris.

25:41Our associate producer is Zoe Culkin. Theme and original music composed by Hans Dale Shee. Cedric Wilson is our sound designer and mix the episodes. We also use music from Epidemic Sounds. Fendel Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Tamika Balance-Kolasny. If you're enjoying the show, be sure to rate and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting. Thanks for listening.

26:29It is my great honor to welcome you all to Starfleet Academy. There's never been a better time to enroll in Star Trek. It's our job to prepare you for the unimaginable. To the night, cadet! In high-pressure situations, positive reinforcement is crucial to one's success. You're doing a great job. This is what we train for. These friends of mine, they all live for something bigger than themselves. And that's Starfleet. Starfleet Academy. New series now streaming on Paramount+. I remember thinking, God help us all. A new Paramount Plus original docuseries. My phone goes off one night. We're getting ready to take down John Gotti.