00:00:05
[music] >> All right, I got a feeling and I really hope I'm wrong, but I just I expect foul play out of
00:00:13
this. Scott Ferris was worried. No one had seen his father Gary in 2 days. >> [music]
00:00:21
>> Did you notice anything odd at the house? Anything unusual in the last 2 days?
00:00:26
>> No. Anything strange, any unusual visitor visitor activity? Nope. Everything that I found unusual was
00:00:31
today. It was July 5th, 2018, [music] a hot and humid Thursday in Cherokee County, Georgia, just outside Atlanta.
00:00:41
Scott was talking to Detective Daniel Hayes on the Ferrises' beautifully manicured family [music] farm.
00:00:48
And where do you live at? I've lived here on the property. I live above the barn, the apartment.
00:00:55
Scott was in his mid-30s, ex-military, and a big guy like his dad, 6 ft 6 in tall. He managed the farm for his
00:01:05
parents. On that Thursday, he was heading out to get a haircut when he saw his sister
00:01:11
sitting on the front porch of the main house with his mother Melody. And she was out there with my sister and
00:01:17
she's like, "Have you seen your father? Have you talked to him?" I'm like, "No."
00:01:21
Apparently, no one in the family had. Were there any July 4th plans? No, they don't do He doesn't
00:01:30
He doesn't have a very social life. Scott noticed that Gary's Mercedes was still parked at the farm.
00:01:37
He then ticked through the other clues that might indicate Gary was somewhere on the property, beginning with his
00:01:44
dad's wallet. When Gary was home, he'd leave that on his dresser in the master bedroom.
00:01:51
But it wasn't there. He thought about what else Gary would have taken if he left on a trip or was
00:01:57
staying safely somewhere else. Gary used a CPAP machine every night for his sleep apnea,
00:02:05
and Scott knew his father wouldn't spend the night anywhere without it. So, the CPAP machine was there? Yes.
00:02:14
Did y'all look for a cell phone or anything? Or does he carry that with him? >> Well, I I started calling his cell phone
00:02:19
and my sister started calling his cell phone. It was going straight to voicemail.
00:02:23
But with Gary's car and CPAP machine all on the property, he had to be nearby. At this point, Scott's brother Chris
00:02:32
[music] had joined the search. Scott wondered if his father had fallen somewhere. I've always worried about him
00:02:38
having a heart attack. I mean, just being somewhere on this property and him having a heart attack.
00:02:43
They searched the more than 8,000 sq ft main house, the barn, and surrounding woods. I was going to start walking down
00:02:52
into the woods to see if, you know, >> [music] >> he went off down in there, and then I
00:02:57
saw my sister Amanda and my mother standing by the fire. The fire was a smoldering burn pile.
00:03:05
It's where they'd burn yard waste. She goes, "Has a goat died or anything? Have you thrown a dead goat?" Was there
00:03:12
a dead animal in the pile? I'm like, "No, I haven't done that." I was like, "We haven't had any goats to
00:03:17
die." And she's like, "Well, come over here and look at this." Scott moved down [music] for a closer look. I picked up
00:03:25
one little piece. I turned it and realized it was a skull. >> [music] >> I immediately just set it back down
00:03:31
gently. I said, "Back up. I'm calling 911." Cherokee County 911, what's your emergency?
00:03:45
Blaine. Uh My father has come up missing and I We just searched the property. It's a
00:03:55
small farm and I just found something near the fire that doesn't It was that he was burning brush and I
00:04:02
there's something in the fire that it could be him. I don't know. Scott was horrified and certain he had just picked
00:04:09
up human remains, remains he believed could be his father. All right, sir. I've got them on the
00:04:16
got them on the way out there for you. Sheriff's deputies and detectives [music] quickly realized that what had
00:04:26
happened that day at the Ferris family farm was no accident. [music] They'd learn that the Ferrises were a
00:04:33
dysfunctional family. Accusations [music] went round and round like a sinister Ferris wheel.
00:04:41
Investigators [music] now had to figure out if any of those arguments pushed one
00:04:47
of Gary's own kin [music] to kill him. It has been called the Ferris wheel. And it was, but it was our Ferris
00:04:54
[music] wheel. This Ferris wheel was powered by distrust over finances, jealousy, and personal betrayal.
00:05:03
It's a real life soap opera. And now, a murder. This is a mother's [clears throat]
00:05:08
nightmare. A nightmare [music] that would go on for years, dragging them through a carnival
00:05:14
of lies, turning into [music] a murder case the likes of which I have never before experienced.
00:05:23
I'm Peter Van Sant from 48 Hours. This is Blood is Thicker: The Ferris Wheel. Episode [music] 1,
00:05:32
Big Daddy is Missing. When Gary and Melody Ferris bought their 10-acre property in 2013, [music]
00:05:45
it was meant to be the beginning of a new era. The two had raised four kids, Chris,
00:05:52
[music] Scott, Emily, and Amanda, and were now grandparents. The idyllic, well-groomed acreage was
00:05:59
lined with a winding black-painted [music] fence and a long gravel road that could take you through the trees,
00:06:06
past the pond, the main house, and all the way up to a huge horse barn. By 2018, [music] Gary and Melody had
00:06:16
owned the place for 5 years. They were in their 50s and had known each other for most of their lives.
00:06:24
And how old were you when you first met Gary? 16. They met in Florence, Alabama.
00:06:30
She first saw him when visiting a church there. He worked at Fuller's Big Star. It was a little grocery store that was
00:06:37
there there in town. It's where that you would run to to go pick up things. They dated for a few
00:06:43
years and then eloped in 1979. Gary was a sophomore at the University of North Alabama studying finance.
00:06:53
Melody also studied there for about a year, but dropped out to start working. Chris was born when I was days before I
00:07:01
was 20 years old. She ended up working at her parents' hardware store. I could take Chris to my parents'
00:07:08
hardware store. He grew up in a hardware store. Did you have warm memories of that? Very
00:07:13
much so. 3 and 1/2 years later, they had their second, Scott. Scott was a handful, but you loved him
00:07:21
anyway. Precious little boy. Meanwhile, Gary decided to study law. We had Emily 1 month to the day before
00:07:29
he graduated law school. Uh we moved to Birmingham. We had Amanda. Gary practiced commercial real estate
00:07:37
law and quickly climbed the ladder at his firm. Melody said Gary was smart. Book smart.
00:07:45
Um workaholic. An absolute workaholic. When Gary opened the firm's office in Atlanta, Melody was a full-time mom. She
00:07:55
took charge of the home and the kids and made sure their upbringing was special,
00:08:01
especially during the holidays. >> [music] >> I understand you're a big Christmas
00:08:07
decorator. Love to decorate my home for Christmas. Think it became more and more
00:08:12
cuz we would have [music] the Christmas party at our house for the law firm. So,
00:08:15
it became more more and more. One home video shows a Ferris family Christmas that could be a scene [music] from a
00:08:22
Hallmark movie. There's a tall Christmas tree covered in ornaments overlooking a happy family
00:08:33
ripping open their gifts. Gary was the provider and patriarch of it all, and he was a big presence. The
00:08:46
people closest to him even called him Big Daddy. The nickname made sense. After all, he
00:08:53
was about 6 ft 4 and nearly 300 lb. Gary had gray hair, a goatee, and this deep, gregarious voice with a Southern
00:09:04
drawl. You could read my dad like a book. Scott talked about his father to investigators in 2018. He's very, very
00:09:12
predictable. He will come in from work. Usually, he will he will stand in the driveway, smoke a cigarette, and he will
00:09:19
go from his bedroom back to the garage, grab a Mountain Dew, grab his briefcase, and go down to the
00:09:26
basement and his office. And he will stay there until dinner's ready. The family revolved around Gary, both as
00:09:37
their father and financier, >> [music] >> the central axle, if you will, in this
00:09:43
Ferris wheel. He's the only person. He makes that astronomical amount of money. But I couldn't give you a certain amount
00:09:50
of what he even makes. I'm not privy to that. >> [music] >> While Gary controlled the money, that
00:09:56
didn't mean he was holding back dollars from his children. >> [music] >> Take oldest son Chris. He was married to
00:10:02
his second wife and had kids from his first marriage. But Melody said Gary [music]
00:10:08
helped him out. I mean he's got a $300 cable bill. Every month he's got, you know, over
00:10:16
$300 cell phone bill. >> [music] >> Now, I don't know whether that's just his or it's him and his two girls. He
00:10:21
just I mean there's airline tickets out the ying yang. [music] Melody said their daughter Emily, who
00:10:26
was married and living in Tennessee, also counted on her dad for help. >> [music]
00:10:31
>> Same goes for Scott. The only adult child who Melody said wasn't depending [music] on Gary was
00:10:38
their youngest daughter Amanda. As detectives put it, Gary was [music] giving away money like it grew on trees.
00:10:48
It sounds like everybody was suckling on the teeth for a farm phrase. They were, except for Amanda.
00:11:06
>> [music] >> As detectives worked to figure out what had happened in the days leading up to
00:11:11
Gary Ferris's [music] murder, they took a deeper look into the family. There was Chris, the oldest. [music]
00:11:19
Back in 2018, he was 38, married, and had two [music] daughters. The second oldest, Scott, turned 35 two
00:11:28
days [music] after the remains were discovered. He was single, living and working [music] on his parents'
00:11:33
property, and didn't have any children. Scott and Chris [music] looked like they could be twins, even
00:11:40
though they're 3 years apart. Emily, their third child [music] and first daughter, was 30.
00:11:46
Married with one young daughter, and she was the only sibling who lived out of state, building a life in Tennessee.
00:11:55
And finally, Amanda, [music] their youngest. At the time, she was 29 and engaged. Her wedding was set for the
00:12:03
upcoming spring. [music] The last time Amanda and Emily saw Gary was the weekend before he disappeared.
00:12:15
The whole family had gotten together to celebrate Gary's 58th birthday. They had a cookout at the farm.
00:12:23
Scott told detectives that the last time he saw his father was at a restaurant called Johnny's Cherokee Ranch, not far
00:12:31
from the farm. This was on July 3rd, two days before finding the human remains. Were y'all
00:12:38
having dinner or did you just run into him there? Um Were y'all having lunch? I was actually having lunch. Uh
00:12:43
I I was having lunch with my mother. He was there already. This is from an interview with Detective Hayes. My dad
00:12:51
eats there lunch. Is that unusual that y'all wouldn't sit together or not? >> Oh yeah, I mean it's
00:12:56
yeah, that's He left before. So, he was already >> was almost done already. >> Yeah, he was almost done already. So,
00:13:02
>> Okay. So, then he left and after that, did he say what he was doing the rest of
00:13:07
the day? >> I didn't I We didn't I mean we see see each other so much, we don't always talk to each other. He said
00:13:13
that he and his mom didn't stay much longer before heading their separate ways. Later in the day, his brother
00:13:20
Chris stopped by the farm with his daughter. She wanted to see Big Daddy. Here's Chris talking to detectives in
00:13:28
2018. We pulled up and he's, you know, I'm working and he said, he's like, "I'm I would hug you, but I'm all hot and
00:13:35
sweaty. I'm just going to kiss you." And told my daughter and she said, "Well, what are you doing?"
00:13:40
Gary was in the midst of collecting items for the burn pile. We were there for maybe 20 to 30
00:13:47
minutes. After Chris and his daughter left, Melody told Detective Hayes that Gary
00:13:54
lit the burn pile. He started it and then he went up to the very front entrance and was messing
00:14:00
around up there. And it's Gary, don't leave that fire. Please don't leave the fire.
00:14:06
She estimated the last time she spoke with him was around 8:00 or 8:30 on the evening of July 3rd.
00:14:14
In a final exchange of words, Melody said she warned him not to leave the burn pile burning. I said, "You are not
00:14:22
going to bed and leaving that fire." How big was the fire when he lit it? Massive.
00:14:28
>> the fire might have been, Melody [music] said something else caught her attention
00:14:32
that night. The horses had escaped the gated pasture. I had two horses who got out, so I was
00:14:40
chasing them. >> [music] >> She called Scott, who spent the day at his friend's lake house. [music]
00:14:46
Scott remembered getting back to the farm that night at around 11:00 [music] or 11:30
00:14:52
when he saw a glow in the distance. Immediately when I pulled in the driveway, I could see the fire going in
00:14:58
the in the woods. He assumed Gary was being irresponsible. Early the next morning, Scott said he
00:15:10
called Melody. He needed the debit card. He and Melody used the same card that had Gary's name on it. She walked it out
00:15:19
to me, handed it to me out the door, and I went, got some cash out of the ATM, came back,
00:15:27
gave her the card, and I left. I went to go play golf. He had a 7:30 a.m. round of golf planned
00:15:34
and then was heading back to his friend's lake house. Melody was heading to the same lake as
00:15:39
Scott, but a different area. She was going to spend the day with her daughter Amanda, along with Amanda's fiance and
00:15:47
his daughter. According to Amanda, Gary didn't accept an earlier invitation to join in the
00:15:54
holiday fun. Melody said they didn't see him when they returned in the evening. In the Ferris family, that was just
00:16:03
normal for Gary. >> [music] >> After spending the 4th of July at the lake, two of the Ferris grandchildren
00:16:11
slept over at the farm. By the time Amanda showed up at the house the next morning, the grandkids
00:16:17
were asking Melody if they could see their grandpa, >> [music] >> Big Daddy. And they said they couldn't find him.
00:16:26
Well, about that time Scott showed up at the house and I said, "Hey, [music] have
00:16:29
you seen your dad over at the barn?" His immediate reaction, there's a gun missing.
00:16:34
He took off and went to the house. Amanda followed [music] him uh immediately. I went on into the house going, "What is
00:16:42
he talking about? What did he say?" Give me a sense of how this story started for you.
00:16:56
Um it was a typical day at [music] the office for me. Uh I We had just finished lunch.
00:17:01
In 2024, Detective Daniel Hayes drove us to the Ferris's family [music] property.
00:17:07
He told me about the moment he got that call. I believe I was in the car with Detective Kuykendall and we we heard the
00:17:13
radio call. What did it say? Um that a body was found in a fire. Uh the family had called uh 911 and said
00:17:21
they had just found their father and his remains in the fire. He was familiar with this affluent
00:17:26
[music] part of Cherokee County and figured what happened here was an accident. It was a hot day in July. We thought,
00:17:35
from what it sounded like, sometimes it happens, somebody's by a fire. It's already 90-something degrees
00:17:40
outside. [music] A medical episode happened and he fell into the fire. >> [music]
00:17:45
>> They didn't even think the case would take long. Detective Kuykendall and I both were,
00:17:53
you know, let's let's go up here and get this knocked out so we can get home in time for dinner.
00:17:57
Once he drove up the Ferris's long driveway, Detective Hayes got out of his car and made his way to the burn pile.
00:18:06
Give me [music] a sense of what you saw as you're walking up to it. Describe it for me. You went past uh their three-car
00:18:12
garage and and uh a big chicken coop and we walked through the backyard. It was wooded.
00:18:17
>> [music] >> Um you know, the trees There was no grass or anything like that and it was a a
00:18:21
downhill gradual downhill slope. Uh and we were taken into this very large pile of shrub of debris
00:18:28
>> [music] >> um that was still smoldering. It's still smoking. And while Detective Hayes had never
00:18:34
[music] investigated a body found in a burn pile before, one thing was certain. This guy didn't have a heart attack or a
00:18:42
heat stroke >> [music] >> and fall into the fire and burn the side of his arm. This guy's been in this fire burning for
00:18:48
quite some time, in my opinion. Which suggested someone must have placed him there? I found it hard to believe that
00:18:53
he could be missing from this property with this affluent family [music] for any length of time
00:18:59
back there burning. You know, um so >> [music] >> that indicated to me that someone likely
00:19:06
possibly knew that he was back there burning and was helping it continue to burn.
00:19:10
What Detective Hayes [music] first thought could have been a tragic accident now looked like a murder.
00:19:17
They brought in canines [music] to help search the property. Detective Hayes went inside the house.
00:19:24
Any evidence whatsoever in the house of a break-in? No. >> [music] >> Any sign of a struggle inside that
00:19:30
house, that a battle had gone on there? The house was other than a few visible drops of blood that were left on the
00:19:36
floor, the house was in pretty immaculate condition. Investigators then checked if there was
00:19:42
more blood, invisible to the naked eye, by spraying a special chemical across the floor.
00:19:49
You spray it on blood and take a picture of it. If there's blood there, it's supposed to glow. They found some on the
00:19:53
floor upstairs. They found [music] some on the floor downstairs in the basement.
00:19:57
They found some on the stairs leading down to the basement on the carpet. [music] There was blood
00:20:02
evidence. >> And does that suggest in any way some sort of progression of an attack on
00:20:07
Gary? That's what we interpreted as as we started looking at it. Spots of blood [music] weren't the only
00:20:16
things they found in the basement. One of Detective Hayes's colleagues later noticed something on the floor.
00:20:24
He sees it. He kind of sees a shiny object or something. [music] Gets closer, looks at it, says, "That's a
00:20:28
bullet." Outside, sheriff's deputies found more evidence. It was pointed out to us that
00:20:36
the tractor was parked in a area, a position that is uncommon. Scott told detectives that the tractor
00:20:44
Gary regularly used was parked in the yard and not under the shed where Gary usually parked. This tractor has been
00:20:52
moved by someone who um left it there on purpose, forgot that, you know, Gary's rules about it. Once
00:20:59
detectives got a closer look, they noticed something. Gary's blood was found on the tractor
00:21:05
around one of the steps. We're talking though a couple of drops, right? Not much. Yeah.
00:21:11
There was also blood on an RTV. Detectives talked to the oldest, Chris Ferris. Chris was already in route to pick up
00:21:20
his daughter from her sleepover at the farm that morning when Amanda called with news that their father was missing.
00:21:28
Chris recounted his movements in an interview with detectives a few weeks after the remains were discovered.
00:21:36
I was mad because nobody seemed to have any sense of urgency about this. Chris said that he was on the RTV
00:21:43
looking for his father when he spotted Melody walking towards the burn pile. He was suspicious no one in the family had
00:21:51
checked that area until after he arrived. >> [music] >> It's like, well, somebody about to find
00:21:59
something out. So, let's get it over with. You know, that's I don't I mean, that's just what pops into my mind.
00:22:04
Like, why >> [music] >> why did it take me getting there for this to happen? Scott also told detectives about
00:22:12
something [music] he thought was strange. Back on the first day of the investigation, Scott noticed more
00:22:18
[music] than just his father was missing. A few weeks before Gary disappeared, [music] Scott said he saw
00:22:24
an unfamiliar .38 snub-nose revolver in [music] a basement drawer. It wasn't a gun that I, you know, grown
00:22:33
up seeing. However, [music] when he searched the house the day of his father's disappearance, the gun was gone.
00:22:41
Later, he told [music] detectives that during that same search, Melody walked up to him holding something that
00:22:48
belonged to Gary. She came back [music] out with his wallet. That didn't sit right with
00:22:53
Scott. He had looked earlier for that wallet because [music] he said his father only kept it in two places, a
00:23:00
dresser or his back pocket. [music] I'm like, "Where did you get this?" "Well, it was in the car. It was
00:23:06
underneath his his cigarettes." [music] He never leaves his wallet underneath cigarettes in the car.
00:23:12
>> [music] >> Detectives spoke to Scott that night until the early morning of July 6th.
00:23:17
That's when Detective Hayes decided to let Scott in >> [music] >> on a major new discovery. I got to tell
00:23:24
you something and it's not easy, but there's no good way to say it. Detective [music] Hayes told Scott that
00:23:30
investigators had recorded a temperature of 230° Fahrenheit [music] in the spot where they found the
00:23:37
remains, destroying a ton of DNA, but the extreme heat hadn't [music] destroyed an ominous
00:23:45
object. They've been excavating and and sifting the ashes. Mhm. They found a piece of ribs
00:23:53
and it has a bullet in it. >> [music] >> So, the evidence is showing that your the remains, if they are in fact your
00:23:59
father's, >> [music] >> has been shot. And it was in the ribs, not the head? Correct. So far, that's what they found.
00:24:12
Did y'all search the house for that .38? >> They're doing it right now. >> [music]
00:24:19
>> Due to the conditions of the remains, the autopsy report would take almost a year to confirm it was Gary Ferris who
00:24:28
had been shot and killed and that it was his body placed in that burn pile. >> [music]
00:24:35
>> He weighed 300 lb, but when the bones were actually the skeletal remains were
00:24:41
actually removed, how much did they weigh? Do you remember? It was uh right around 33, 34 lb, I believe, is what was
00:24:46
recovered of him. And why would somebody want to burn a body? Cover up a crime. Destroy evidence.
00:24:53
Detectives knew for sure they were dealing with a murderer, a missing murder weapon, and that a killer was on
00:25:00
the loose. The Ferris wheel was spinning. Melody told detectives she worried one
00:25:07
of her children might be the killer. That's next time on Blood is Thicker: The Ferris Wheel.
00:25:25
>> [music] >> From 48 Hours, this is Blood is Thicker: The Ferris Wheel produced by Sony Music
00:25:31
Entertainment. [music] I'm your host, Peter Van Sant. Judy Tygard is the executive producer of
00:25:39
48 Hours. Original reporting by 48 Hours producers [music] Betsy Shuler, Ryan Smith, and
00:25:47
Hannah Vere. Jamie Benson is the senior producer [music] for CBS News podcasts and Mara
00:25:55
Waltz is the senior story editor. Recording [music] assistance from Alan Peng and Alana Myers.
00:26:04
Special thanks [music] to CBS News podcast vice president Megan Marcus. Blood is Thicker was written [music] and
00:26:13
produced by Alex Schuman. Stephanie Serrano is our editor. Our executive producer is Shera Morris.
00:26:22
Our associate producer [music] is Zoe Kolkin. Theme and original music composed by
00:26:29
Hansdale She. Cedric Wilson [music] is our sound designer and mixed the episodes.
00:26:37
We also use music [music] from Epidemic Sounds. Fendel Fulton is our fact-checker.
00:26:42
[music] Our production manager is Tamika Balance Kolasinac. If you're enjoying the show, be [music]
00:26:52
sure to rate and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting. Thanks for listening.