A Little Patch of Perfect

29:24But when he looked for it after the murder, the gun was gone. Useful to know. The 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. Did it seem strange to you that Scott would be going around the house looking for whether a gun was there or not? It was odd. So that started putting the suspicion in our minds that, okay, maybe that's kind of weird. Maybe something's up. A feeling that only grew when they found ammunition in Scott's apartment. The same caliber of bullet found in Gary's body. There was loose.38 ammo in Scott's dresser drawer.

30:09So we found that kind of odd. Yeah, no kidding. Later we'd ask Scott, you know, why are we finding all this? And Scott tells us, well, I have friends come over. We go shoot at the back corner of the property, and they sometimes leave stuff behind. They also wondered about something Scott did after his father disappeared. His mom had asked him to check the trail camera. I went down there and checked the trail cam, and there's just a couple squirrels and a couple raccoons, and that was it. I deleted everything. Everything? I asked my brother, I said, why would you do that? He said, well, at the time I didn't know anything was going on.

30:48You know, when I checked my trail camera, if there's nothing on there of any significance, I delete the pictures because I'm there. Now they had to wonder if he deleted evidence. I did ask my brother some very hard questions because I knew he was going to be asked some very hard questions. You know, like what was going on with you and our dad. You know, because they asked me questions about my brother too. Scott was very much a suspect. We all were. Especially after detectives learned about the family disputes over money. Melody's friend, David Thomas. She felt that a couple of her kids were abusing her husband financially.

31:30She 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. Little Sister Amanda told police she was worried about Scott and Chris and how they were behaving toward their mother. Scott'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. Because essentially at this point, to tell you bluntly, I mean, I just feel like they're after money. I'm just fearing for my safety at this point, and I'm fearful for my mother's safety. David Thomas said Melody was increasingly afraid of her sons.

32:12She 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. And so they would have a motive to do some harm to her. Exactly. She thought that was a possibility? She thought it was a real possibility. If Scott and Chris were, in fact, suspects, detectives kept that to themselves. Let me ask you a question. Mm-hmm. What do you guys think happened? See, this is where I'm torn. I want to tell you what I know. I don't want to tell you what I think. Actually, Chris and Scott Ferris told police exactly what they thought.

32:55And what they thought was detectives should be taking a long, hard look. at Mommy Dearest. 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. I wish she would just have a heart attack and die.

33:23Huddled 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. And in doing so, the brothers revealed they both had a bit of an attitude about their mother, Melody. My 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. But my mother, on the other hand, man, 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. I wish she would just have a heart attack and die.

34:01Scott said his mother was difficult sometimes, certainly dramatic. She always watched Days of Our Lives, and she always wanted to have her life like a soap opera. So that's what she did. Here's how Chris put it. I was afraid of my mother growing up. There's no way around that statement. A walking on eggshells kind of existence? Yes. Did not want to upset her at all. I think the best way to describe it is when, you know, she had four children. And if one child caused a problem, then we all got the wrath. I don't know if my mom did this or not. I don't know. But all the shit she's done for the last 10 years, 15, has really added up to like, I mean, what else are we going to look at?

34:54Well, what about dredging up a bit of family history? Prompted by the detective's simple question about that missing handgun. There's a firearm missing from the house. So we need a list of everything of a pistol caliber that anybody has ever seen. I'll tell you what I know. That is when Chris mentioned a family friend named Ted Wiley. That son of a bitch kept a freaking, what's the smallest pistol you could find on your ankle? It could be 25. So who was Ted? My, a long-kept family secret, it turned out. More like a soap opera on steroids. Co-starring Gary's sister, Sherry. Ted, we had been together, I guess we were together about a little over 20 years.

35:45Ted and Sherry were together until something pulled them apart. Someone, to be clear. Someone whose name was Melody Ferris. This one guy came up to me at work and said, Hey, I saw Ted and Melody out at a restaurant during lunch. And I confronted Melody. I said, What's going on? People are saying that you and Ted's got something going on. She just laughed. She said, No. She said, man, Ted? She said, there's no way. But when Gary heard about it, he felt sure she was cheating on him. And Gary started getting suspicious, and he would put trackers on the car. Melody actually left Gary, and though she denied it, family members believed she was staying at Ted's farm.

36:34It was a matter of months when she basically refused to come back to Atlanta, and 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, which I told him that would be a hard thing to do. All she had to do was come back to him. He must have been, he must have still been in love with her. Was he? He was in love with my mother till the day he died. And that's how they ended up with the farm in Cherokee County in 2013, five years before Gary's death. He decided to buy the property, the farm, to try to save the marriage because, you know, that's something that she wanted.

37:17But Gary was a smart guy. Maybe he loved Melody, but he sure didn't trust her. Not anymore. Big deal was made of that, that he was somehow controlling the amount of money she was able to spend because he could see it when she spent it come out of the bank account. Right. Why did he do that? Well, he had communicated to me that he did not want her spending his money on another man. But it was a way for him to keep track of her. And that brings us back to that toxic family situation in which Gary's children seemed to have ready access to his money, but Melody was on an allowance and under surveillance.

37:58Gary would get mad at her or suspect her of having an affair and cut the credit card or the debit card off or whatever, or cut her phone off so she couldn't make phone calls and things like that. There was one other thing police couldn't ignore, something they heard time and again. They knew about Gary's unhealthy lifestyle, his appetite for cigarettes and sodas and food. But people close to Gary were wondering about those spells of his. My father had become very lethargic and could not function properly. He was very dizzy, just wasn't feeling very well. One such spell put Gary in the hospital three months before his death.

38:40Chris was there, so was Melody. But when she left the room, his dad told him this so-called spell started that day, back at home. She had spent the day very angry at him, the way he put it, screaming at him. and all of a sudden she comes walking in with a cast-iron skillet full of chocolate chip cookies. I made these for you. Which he couldn't resist, of course. No, apparently not. He said he ate the cookies, his throat began to burn, and that's when he began feeling bad. Gary believed something terrible was happening to him, something unthinkable. He said, Chris, I think your mother's trying to poison me.

39:30So Gary believed that when Melody prepared his food, she was poisoning it, and that's why he had the spells that he had. Could you prove that he was being poisoned, though? Unfortunately not. The condition of the body, you know, there wasn't much to test for toxicology. Without proof, It could just be an outrageous old accusation from an angry husband. Melody insisted she would never hurt Gary. And she absolutely was not cheating on him. And yet, well, there just might be evidence to the contrary. In Melody's wallet, we found a credit card with a man's name on it that none of us recognized. So, who was this new guy?

40:18And why was his credit card in Melody's wallet?

40:34Melody Ferris was as adamant as a woman could be. No matter the complexities of her long marriage to Big Daddy, she did not, would not, could not ever damage so much as a hair on his lovely big head. I will tell you, honestly, you know, I did not do it. I don't know who did it, but I did not do it. I would have never taken my children's dad away. Even though Gary gave in to the demands of those children way too often, while making her beg for the money she very much needed. So your statement is you didn't do anything to harm Gary? No. Detectives reviewed what they had. A dead man shot and burned beyond recognition.

41:22A marriage that was, well, not exactly joyous. But also children who may or may not have had a motive to murder. And they had those drops of blood. And that spent projectile. So, their theory went, Gary was shot in his own house and then moved, somehow, to the fire. Oh, and they also had this, a mysterious credit card in Melody's wallet on which was imprinted the name Roy Barton. So that was the topic of our interview. One of our interviews was, who is this Roy Barton? A lover, perhaps? They danced around the question during Melody's interview. You have not had a sexual relationship with anybody in four years.

42:10we're not going to find any evidence of it. When we test your bed sheets, we're not going to find any male DNA in any way, shape, or form. When we test your vehicle, and we swap the seats, and we swap the back seat. Then, they dropped it on her. The name on the credit card. What about Roy? Roy. Last name you get to Bart. Bart. Who's Roy? Well, Roy is my cousin's dead husband. How long ago did he pass away? Four years ago. Melody told them Roy's widow, Martha Jane Barton, gave her the credit card. I had been taking care of her, and so it just got put in my mind. I didn't realize I still had it.

42:56Okay, so you're not using it. So when we look at the financial records, that hasn't been used in over four years. No. And it's going to come back to somebody that's deceased. Right. That apparently established, they moved on. Have you ever had a physical relationship with anyone other than Gary since y 'all been married? No. Of course she'd have that affair with Ted. But she wasn't admitting it. Knowing that we're going to find in the history of y 'all's marriage. I'm talking the whole entire thing. I'm not talking the last five years, ten years, or since it went rocky. I'm talking forever. Long pause.

43:34And then, Melody spilled. But not about Ted. Yeah. Who and when? Rusty Barton. Roy was his dad. So Rusty is his son. Where's Rusty? He's in Tallahumontown, I see. When was the last time you interacted with Rusty? Oh, it's been months and months and months ago. Okay, but in the last year. So was that physical relationship then in the last year? Oh, no. When was that? I mean, I ended that a good while ago. Ended it a year ago, she said, though she still talked to him on the phone. And when we go get Rusty's DNA, where are we going to find it? Nowhere in my car. Anywhere in your house? No. Where did y 'all have your relationship a year ago?

44:23Up in Tennessee, when I would go up there. Hard to tell how much of that was true. Or how much of this. Do you have a tattoo? I do. XOXO? Uh-huh. It just says XO. What is that in reference to? It's just mine and Gary's symbol. Just XO. What did he have to say about it? Oh, he loved it. I mean, that's why I got it. How long ago did you get it? Four years ago, I guess. I got it about the time that we moved into that house. That was our start, our fresh start. Well, seemed more like a false start to the detectives. More likely, they figured the tattoo led back to Rusty, just like that credit card, the one owned by Roy Barton.

45:12Because, they learned, Rusty's real name was Roy, just like his late father. So it was Rusty's credit card in Melody's wallet. Rusty had known about Gary and how controlling Gary was over Melody and the money. And so she eventually said that she had gotten the credit card from him in case she needed money in case of emergencies, basically. The credit card wasn't the only thing Rusty gave Melody. As the detectives discovered, he also got her a cell phone, one that allowed them to talk privately. So, of course, they got the records for that phone. And that's when we started discovering the extent of her relationship with Rusty Barton and how often they were talking from the moment they woke up all throughout the day, calling and texting until the moment they went to sleep.

46:04So we decided it's time to go talk to Rusty. Two days later, detectives were on the road heading north to Tullahoma and Rusty Barton.

46:28Chase a lie about love and sex, and who knows what greater sins it might expose. Cherokee County detectives believe that Rusty Barton was key to their murder investigation. He knows more than everyone's let on. We know this relationship's a lot deeper than Melody told us. Detectives wondered what exactly Rusty knew about Gary's death. Maybe he'd even helped Melody move that big body. But when they questioned Rusty with his attorney in Tullahoma, Tennessee, they didn't get much, not at first. They came at him hard, and he came right back at them. I don't know what happened or who did it or nothing.

47:11If I did, first of all, I'd have tried to stop it before it ever happened. Because that's the way I was brought up. Second of all, if I knew it after the fact, I'd be telling somebody already. I'm sorry. You're fine. I'm sorry. I'll use the language. Here's the thing. If we don't do our job by pushing this, then that... Y 'all are doing what you're supposed to do. No, hey, hey, hey. I'm not just doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm giving you an opportunity that I ain't got to give you. Sir, I don't know anything. I didn't help anybody. she has not confided in me. Detective Ashley Polk told Rusty flat out he didn't believe him.

47:52After all, Rusty gave Melody that phone so they could have private conversations. Y 'all are talking on the phone ever since a single day. You wake up, Melody. Melody and coffee. You go to bed, Melody. She has talked to you beforehand and since then. No, sir. Don't let me find out. I do not believe that. I'm telling you. Not been a single communication since Thursday morning. Thursday, July the 5th, that is. The day the Ferris has started looking for Gary. The day Scott called 911. The detectives warned Rusty again that if he knew anything about what happened to Gary, now was the time to tell them.

48:32Or possibly face charges himself. So somebody is going to spend the rest of their damn life in prison for this. And whoever helped them, if they don't get on the front end of it, they're going to do the same damn thing. You follow me? That ain't speculation, brother. That's a fact. By the end of that interview, Rusty explained to us that he wanted to do anything he could to assist us because he had no part of this homicide. He also gave us information to verify his alibi. They did get checked out. But then they looked at his cell phone records and discovered he fiddled with his phone after Gary's death.

49:12Took Melody's name out of his contacts at one point, substituting two letters. X-O. The symbol of a beverage they enjoyed together. Huh, whatever. Obviously that was the real reason for Melody's tattoo. It had nothing to do with Gary. We also find out that he is searching things like how to delete your text messages, what can cops find in text messages. That phone was a revelation. As time goes on, Rusty had told us that he had not talked to her on the night of July 3rd. Well, the cell phone data reflected inconsistencies in that, and it also reflected that he had lied to us. So that led to Detective Hayes and I going back up there again to conduct an interview with Rusty to challenge him on these lying statements.

50:05Back in Tullahoma, back at the table. But then Rusty and his lawyer stepped out of the room. Rusty's attorney came back into the room during this time and said, he's got something I think y 'all want to hear. They did want to hear it. And how? Because it was huge. Something Rusty said Melody told him in a call just hours after the presumed time of death. Probably the last minute of the last conversation, she said, Gary is in the burn pile. No, she said, he is in the burn pile. And I said, what? And she said, he's in the burn pile. And I said, do not say another word and do not tell me anything.

50:52I do not need to know. If this statement was true, it is very important because Gary had not been reported missing and had not been located at the burn pile. The 911 call did not occur until July 5th at 1247 p.m. So that's a full day and a half before anybody knew the nature of this crime. The detectives knew they had struck gold, but they wanted corroboration. So they asked Rusty to record his conversations with Melody without telling her. He agreed they were elated, and it didn't last. We feel like Rusty's going to record the phone conversations and not notify Melody. But we later learned that he, in fact, did tell her.

51:43Maybe Rusty wasn't being so cooperative after all. What were they left with? Well, motive. No will was ever located. So who would benefit from Gary's untimely death? Well, who else? In Georgia, if a husband and wife and one of them is killed or dies, the wife is the immediate heir to the estate. Melody gets everything. So Scott kills Gary, and Scott's money's gone. He knows Melody's not going to give him anything. Same with Chris. So why would Chris kill Gary? Same for the girls. Despite what Melody told detectives, Emily and her husband said they never stole from Gary. And neither Emily nor Amanda stood to gain from their dad's death.

52:32The only person that benefited immediately from Gary dying was Melody Ferris. Gary's brother was sure from the beginning it was Melody. You just started adding things up. Was that something that you began to think before you heard it from any official source? You know, I hate to say it, but yeah. It took almost a year to get official confirmation of something the detectives were already convinced of, that the bones in the burn pile were indeed Gary's. And days later, the Cherokee County authorities issued a warrant for Melody's arrest. As it happened, she was in Tennessee at the time visiting Rusty.

53:13He drove her to a local police station to surrender. And the Ferris family exhaled. It was like, oh my gosh, something's happening. Yeah. Because we did all these interviews with the detectives and, you know, we didn't hear anything for quite a while. Quite a while indeed. It was October 2024, when Melody Ferris finally went on trial for murder. A trial in which jurors would hear a tangled tale as much about the Ferris children as about their mother.

54:04My first impression of that case was, this is going to be a tricky trial. When they finally put Melody Ferris in front of a jury, Assistant DA Megan Frankish confronted a few challenges. I mean, it's almost like an Agatha Christie story. You've got a confined space, there's this ranch, there are a few people who are attached to it, And all those people are kind of in some way warring amongst themselves. And the man who controls the money is suddenly dead. That's exactly right. What we know is that he ended up on the burn pile. We know he was at least shot twice. But the rest of that theory just leads us to Melody being the only person that could have done that.

54:52But you had no murder weapon. Well, what could you do about that? That was part of what made this prosecution challenging. Not to mention the long delay getting to court. Six years, what with legal delays and COVID, before Melody cast a baleful eye on Assistant DA Jeffrey Fogus as he addressed the jury. I am representing a voice that has been snuffed out and taken away. Gary's younger brother John would be a constant presence at the trial, sitting with his wife Nancy two rows behind the prosecutor's table. You went to that trial every day, huh? Yeah, I don't think I missed a day. It's not an easy experience, is it?

55:33There was a lot of things that came out in the trial that we didn't know. I wanted to hear that. I wanted to experience it firsthand in the courtroom. But outside the courtroom, he'd find himself coming face-to-face with Melody. She'd been free on bond for years, and she took the regular breaks like everyone, passing her late husband's brother in the hallways. How did you feel about that? I didn't like it. You must have carried around a lot of anger about that woman. I don't know that I'm an angry person. It was probably more frustration and the lack of closure. Prosecutors argue that cell phone data and call records told the story of what happened that night.

56:11Gary left a farm earlier that evening, returning around 9.30 p.m., and that's when Melody, the only other person on the farm, shot and killed him. He never again sent a text or made a call or checked an email, and he never turned on that CPAP machine. Melody, meanwhile, was a busy bunny that night and the next morning, talking to Rusty, moving around the property. When he was killed and when his body was moved, when things were going on, the only person that's going to be at that house, the only person, is her. The defendant. Murdered. And desecrated her own husband. But how was Melody able to move Gary's heavy body?

56:59Well, investigators developed a theory after noticing a tractor on the farm and what appeared to be matching tracks near the burn pit. Brothers Scott and Chris said it seemed out of place at the time. I just found it very, very odd for that tractor to be parked down there. I know my dad wouldn't have just left it there. I mean, the only time he would have left that tractor there is if it was stuck. How well does your mother operate that tractor? She asked me to teach her how to use it. Honestly, that tractor was so easy to operate, I could teach my 13-year-old niece. So, maybe Melody used the tractor to move the body?

57:36However she did it, prosecutors said, Melody figured out a way to get Gary in the fire before Scott came home. And, 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. To stress this point, they called Rusty as a hostile witness. She said that Gary was on the burn pile. So that puts her right there with knowledge about what happened to his body. And it's definitely an admission that we needed the jury to hear. The whole reason Melody wanted Gary dead, said the prosecutors, was so she could tap into his resources without any restriction.

58:17There was only one person who had the motive, means, and opportunity to commit this crime. Then prosecutors told jurors about Gary's suspicions that Melody tampered with his food, something he confided to his legal assistant, Angela Phillips. He said that he thought she was poison on him. I said, you need to go be tested for poison on him. And he said, well, you'll know what to tell Dateline if I die mysteriously. One by one, each of the Ferris children testified. Three of the four against their own mother. Can you please introduce yourself to the jury? I'm Emily Ferris Payne. How was your parents' relationship when you were younger?

59:01I mean, it was good from my perspective. Do you know what caused that change? Yes. Basically, my mother began having an affair. I think with Emily, the jury got to see a little bit of Gary. Emily seemed like the closest one to him, and she knew a lot of information from her relationship with her father. I just think that he lost trust that was once there. Gary entrusted her with a lot of information about the family and about his financial position with Melody. Including how he didn't want his wife spending his money on other men. She no longer was on the bank accounts, so she couldn't, you know, she didn't have access the way that she did before.

59:56And Melody wasn't just preoccupied with Gary withholding funds from her, said the prosecutors. She was jealous of the money her husband gave their adult children. Just days before Gary was killed, Emily told jurors she received a text from her mother, who seemed to be at a breaking point. Can you read that? Chris continues to charge his cable, phone, and airline tickets to Gary's checking account. I have had it. I'm taking measures to stop this insanity. State calls Chris Ferris. You could please raise your right hand. Which is one of the reasons prosecutors called Chris Ferris to the stand. We needed him to address his financial issues and his relationship with his father, and if those issues led to any conflicts between him and his father, which it did to an extent.

1:00:44Would you and your dad ever get in arguments about money? I wouldn't really consider it an argument. I mean, he'd get mad at me for spending money or asking him for money. But Chris denied stealing from his father. Did he send you a text saying, you know, you've got to pay your own way or I'm going to cut you off? I think he said, I'm going to change my account information. And then three weeks later, he's dead. Sure. Yeah, I guess that's a good way to try to create reasonable doubt and create a motive for somebody else. But taking myself out of it, it's kind of like, well, why would anybody do that to somebody who's helping them that much?

1:01:31They were grasping at straws. The jury also heard from Chris's younger brother, Scott. Was it a risk to put him on the stand, to be a kind of a pincushion for the defense, go after? We had to put him on the stand. He had a significant role in the investigation. He also had a front row seat to see his parents fighting every single day, and he witnessed his mother threaten Gary as well. She came out of my dad's office doors and screaming and cussing, and she threw a plate up against the wall of the house. and she screamed, I can't wait to the day he f***ing dies. I can't wait to the day I don't have to live with him anymore.

1:02:12Did you look out at her right there in the courtroom? Small courtroom. Right there, sitting in front of you. I looked at her when I was asked to look at her and describe what she was wearing. And she's not my mother anymore. Oh, but Melody's attorneys were not finished with Scott. not by a long shot. Maybe it was he who belonged in the dock, facing life behind bars. You were a mooch. No, I wasn't. And your father saw you as the exact same way mooching off of him.

1:03:01The state has introduced a case to you, and it is so full of holes. The defense of Melody Ferris was certainly robust, and nothing if not dramatic. You're getting on the Ferris wheel. Those investigators all but rigged the case against an innocent woman, said defense attorney Michael Ray. From day one, everything was tailored specifically to attempt to convict Melody of the death of Gary Ferris. It was a highly circumstantial case. There was no direct evidence to tie Melody, you know, to shooting Gary. There was no gun found in the house. Melody had no accelerants on her hands. There was none of that directly tied back to Melody.

1:03:45It seemed, however, that, you know, we've asked the age-old question, who benefits? Well, Melody benefits. He controls the money. He's dead. She gets the money. You got to have Gary alive to make the money because it didn't necessarily come out at trial. They weren't really cash rich. If Gary wasn't working, then there is no money. No motive, said the defense, and no actual evidence Gary had even been killed in the house, certainly not by Melody. The blood leading down the stairs, for instance. They never tested any of the drops on the stairs. You had two drops on the basement floor that the crime lab determined that was Gary Ferris's blood.

1:04:21And that blood said the defense didn't even come from a gunshot wound. The weekend before, Gary Ferris had been bit by the dog, and he was bleeding when he went down the stairs from his ankle. As for the bullet found in the basement. There is no blood found around the bullet. No impact mark from the bullet on the floor. It is literally like the bullet was dropped and placed on the floor. And the last person who was in the basement prior to law enforcement arriving was Scott. Oh yes, Scott. The defense was getting to him. Like when they repeatedly told the jury, Melody wasn't big enough or strong enough to move all that dead weight after Gary was killed.

1:05:09In fact, they took jurors to the farm, where they could see for themselves how hard it would be. Here's defense co-counsel John Luke Weaver. How 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? There is one person that could have done that, and that would have been Scott Ferris. Also, the time of death? No way to know, exactly. But the defense argued Gary died later than prosecutors said, when Scott was already home. And no one had more motive, the defense said, than freeloading, greedy Scott, who'd taken advantage of his parents for years.

1:05:55She thought you were a mooch. I guess in her eyes, yeah. Right? because you were a mooch. No, I wasn't. And your father saw you as the exact same way, and he kept a very tight rein over you and your mooching off of him. What about Scott? What was your strategy for going after him on the stand? When 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. Yes, sir. And one more Farrah's offspring waited in the wings. Amanda, the youngest, supported her mother and told the jury Scott had an unusual fixation with his parents' country estate.

1:06:40He would claim things as his that were not his. That's fair to say. They belonged to my mother and my father. He would say, this is my property. I mean, he claimed ownership to it. That's for sure. Well, and what would Scott say about that? We asked him, of course. I never once said, oh, this is going to be my farm one day. If 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. He also said he never threatened to burn the house down and never once stole anything from his dad. In fact, he told us Amanda's testimony was yet another example of their mother's manipulation.

1:07:22It's all because of Melody's brainwashing. She brainwashed Amanda. And it's fair to say that you're biased in favor of your mom? I wouldn't say how I'm biased in favor. I believe that somebody is innocent until they're proven guilty. But the defense attorneys still had to tackle their most daunting challenge, that incriminating statement from Melody's lover, Rusty Barton, saying she told him Gary was dead before his body was found. When we first learned about the phone call with Rusty Barton, And that was, you know, the biggest, most damning piece of evidence. The 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.

1:08:10Melody only told him Gary was dead after his body was discovered. So I need you to explain those words to that jury right there. She said those words to me. But then you tried to explain later that, yes, she told you about that. But that was after Gary was already found, right? Yes. From his testimony, he was under duress and he had to, quote, give them something. He 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. There 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.

1:08:53someone who knew Rusty and Melody very well. And she had something she desperately needed to share. So she picked up the phone and called the sheriff, right in the middle of the trial. You could tell something big had happened, and it got us excited, you know. It's like, what is this going to be?

1:09:24The case against Melody Ferris was well underway when it happened. It 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. Judge, as you know, the state was made aware of some newly discovered evidence. Assistant DAs Megan Frankish and Jeffrey Fokus were busy arguing their case when the call came in. And I lean over to my co-counsel and I said, we need to take a break after this witness. In the gallery, Gary Ferris' brother John noticed a sudden flurry of activity. You could tell something big had happened.

1:10:03And it got us excited, you know, it's like, what is this going to be? So Martha Jane Barton had called the sheriff's office. Martha Jane Barton, Rusty Barton's stepmom and Melody's cousin. She had watched Rusty's testimony. You didn't have any missing guns that you couldn't account for, right? No, sir. And she heard Rusty testify about the guns that his dad owned. And that's when Martha Jane remembered. A.38 caliber Rusty's late father had given her more than 40 years earlier. He had given me this.38. It's never, no special. I think it was.79 for Christmas. But after Melody's arrest, Martha Jane said she realized something was wrong.

1:10:51I looked and my gun was missing. I thought, Melody has taken my gun. After all, Melody had a key to her elderly relative's house. At first, Martha Jane kept quiet about her misgivings. But while watching the trial, she got worried about what Melody might have done with her gun. And she called the police. And I just said, I have a heavy heart, and I want to tell you something. And then I told about my gun being missing. Investigator Daniel Hayes. I thought, that's the missing piece to this puzzle. That's where that gun that Scott Ferris saw in that basement came from. Melody took it from Martha's house without Martha knowing.

1:11:35So you brought her in to testify? We did. How were you feeling when you called that number? awful. I still love Melody. She was family. It just kills me. And then it was out there for the whole world to know. Martha Jane's suspicion that Melody had taken the 38 and used it to kill Gary. This is called the Perry Mason moment. Late in the trial, suddenly a call, and you call a new witness, a surprise witness, and look at what that witness has to say. I don't know that I'll ever experience that again in my career. How much did you tear your house up and things in the house looking for? I looked everywhere.

1:12:21Closets, dressers, chest. Defense attorneys Michael Ray and John Luke Weaver tried to dismiss Martha Jane's claims, saying the devoutly Christian woman only came forward once she learned about her stepson, Rusty's affair with Melody. That was what she was most concerned about, that she couldn't show her face in town anymore, so she felt like she needed to say something. They did try to blame it on that. No, my motive was because my gun was gone. And she was the only person that had access to it. That was my only motive. Still, the defense argued there was no proof the.38 in question was the gun used in the murder, or that Melody ever took anything from Martha Jane's house.

1:13:11Who else has keys other than, I assume, the cleaning lady? Does she have a key? Oh, she may have a key. So Melody's got a key, cleaning lady may have a key. Well, you're Rusty. Rusty's got a key. Uh-huh. So at least five people. And then the defense put on a little show-and-tell. A 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. Whose idea was it to drag those bags of rock salt or whatever the heck that was out onto the courtroom floor? Well, that was my idea. I was constantly trying to think of what could I use for that demonstration.

1:14:08I think it starts to become clear why I'm doing this. Why am I dropping these bags? These bags are 40 pounds a piece. When I would drop one of the bags, I mean, you could feel the floor shake. And I wanted that to happen because I wanted the jury specifically to know how heavy this was. This is 300. and 20 pounds. And I am 185 pounds.

1:14:38And that's all I have. The whole trial, we were noting that he was 300 pounds, she was 120 pounds, it was impossible that she could have moved him. But there was a person on the property who could. And that's Scott Ferris. You were literally pointed at by the defense attorney in court. What did it feel like? I mean, that was awkward. I never, ever once, I ever remotely thought I were even harming my father. A point the prosecutor drove home in her closing argument. I just kept bringing the jury back to the evidence that was presented at trial, and there was just no evidence that Scott had anything to do with this crime.

1:15:23This case is about Gary Wayne Ferris. And you're here because Melody Ferris shot him, concealed his death by putting him on a burn pile on their property like he was trash. And then it was in the hands of the jurors. We got very emotional in the jury room. I was in tears. It was hard. It was really hard.

1:15:56There's always more to the story. To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Dateline series with Keith and Andrea, available Wednesday.

1:16:13It might have been easier if that fire hadn't consumed Gary Ferris' body, or if they'd found the gun, or more DNA. But they had what they had, and six and a half years after Gary's murder, jurors were having a hard time. Cheryl Peoples was one of them. We got very emotional in the jury room. We left early one day because I was in tears. It was hard. It was really hard. Jurors sent notes asking for more details. And they kept talking for almost three days. And then they sent the judge another note. They just couldn't decide. They were hung. What was that like? I think my blood pressure went up about 100 points because my biggest fear in all of this was that she was going to get out of it.

1:17:07But the judge sent them back. Keep trying, he said. Chris Hyatt, the jury foreman, did his best. We just had one juror that was still undecided. And at that time, the juror was just like, look, I really don't feel like I'm going to come to a conclusion than what I am right now. They talked a couple of hours more. And then. I understand we have a verdict. How are you feeling as we came back into the room with a verdict? Extremely nervous. We, the jury, we find the defendant guilty. Melody Ferris was guilty of murdering her husband, Gary. Where did your thoughts go at that point? To the family, to the children, immediately.

1:17:58They had been through a lot. I don't think anybody who sat through that could have come to any other conclusion than a guilty verdict. But we wanted to hear that. We wanted to be there. We had waited six years. And I just stared at her. I wanted her to show something. Some sort of emotion. Look at your family. And it never came. She was more worried about taking her jewelry off before she went to jail than she was about showing any emotion. Sir, was that your verdict in the jury room? Yeah. Was the verdict agreed to by you? No. Is that still your verdict? my heartbeat finally slowed down for the first time in a month.

1:18:46Yeah. You know, I was just ready to get her sentenced and put this all behind me. Oh, yes, the sentencing. The sentencing that was one to remember. It happened about a month after the verdict. And Melody, first time in the trial, decided there was something she wanted to say. Boy, did she ever. I have waited for years to make this statement to everyone. I want the world to know who did this. You could, as the old saying goes, hear a pin drop. What was coming? Not only did I not do this, I know who did. I know Scott killed his father. He took my husband, the father of Chris, Emily, and Amanda, Scott.

1:19:42This is unforgivable. I had no idea that she would start tearing into Scott like that, blaming him. I just can't believe she stooped to that level. Scott himself looked stunned as his mother went on for more than 20 minutes. The judge warned her to stop when she trotted out new allegations, never presented in court. But as she pressed on, Scott Ferris could only shake his head. And it took every bit of me not to stand up in that courtroom and say something to her. I think the expression on your face said a thing or two. You didn't have to open your mouth. Oh, I'm sure it did. I mean, I haven't seen videos of it or anything, but I was...

1:20:35I've never had anything happen like that to me ever in my life. She'll never admit to anybody what she did, because she is going to try her best to pin it on somebody else. Melody could have taken the stand, of course, as a witness. It was a strategic decision that was ultimately made. Yeah, it's very different reading essentially a self-prepared speech than it is being under cross-examination. As she was finally wrapping up, Melody pleaded with the judge, throw out the verdict. Too late. He gave her life. Parole possible after 30 years. She'll be in her 90s by then. And now, now they'll just have to get used to it.

1:21:26Though, Big Daddy's outsized presence is everywhere around here. And it's hard, you know, living in this town, driving by his old office. You know?

1:21:47but he also would want me to be strong.

1:21:54He always stayed strong. He was the one who had his head on his shoulders. He was calming everybody else down.

1:22:09but I miss him dearly it's hard to imagine how the family will recover the ferris wheel has spun off its axis but then maybe it did a long time ago no matter how hard Big Daddy tried to keep it rolling He wouldn't be mortified that this has been our lives for the last six years.

1:22:43And while I do get very sad, I'm just thankful that he was my dad.

1:22:55And if I could be half the dad he was, I'd be doing a pretty good job.

1:23:06That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Sunday at 9, 8 central. And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.