Big Daddy Is Missing | Blood is Thicker: The Farris Wheel

Hello 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?

Just like an actual Ferris wheel, the blame game in this family went round and round.

Here's the episode.

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Hi, I got a feeling I'm not really hoping wrong, but I just, I expect foul play out of this.

Scott Ferris was worried.

No one had seen his father, Gary, in two days.

We noticed anything odd at the house, anything unusual in the last two days, anything strange,

any unusual visitor activity, everything that I found unusual was today.

It was July 5th, 2018, a hot and humid Thursday in Cherokee County, Georgia, just outside

Atlanta.

Scott was talking to Detective Daniel Hayes on the Ferris' beautifully manicured family

farm.

Scott was in his mid-30s, ex-military and a big guy like his dad, six feet, six inches tall.

He managed the farm for his parents.

On that Thursday, he was heading out to get a haircut when he saw his sister sitting

on the front porch of the main house with his mother-melody.

She was out there with my sister and she's like, have you seen your father?

Have you talked to him or am I now?

Apparently, no one in the family had.

Were there any July 4th plans?

No, they don't do, he doesn't, he doesn't have a very social life.

Scott noticed that Gary's Mercedes was still parked at the farm.

He then ticked through the other clues that might indicate Gary was somewhere on the property,

beginning with his dad's wallet.

When Gary was home, he'd leave that on his dresser in the master bedroom.

But it wasn't there.

He thought about what else Gary would have taken if he left on a trip or was staying

safely somewhere else.

He used a CPAP machine every night for his sleep apnea.

And Scott knew his father wouldn't spend the night anywhere without it.

So the CPAP machine was there?

Yes.

Did you all look for a cell phone or anything?

Or did he carry that with him?

Well, I saw a column of cell phone and my sister saw a column of cell phone and it was

going straight to voicemail.

But with Gary's car and CPAP machine all on the property, he had to be nearby.

At this point, Scott's brother Chris had joined the search.

Scott wondered if his father had fallen somewhere.

I've always worried about him having a hard time.

I mean, just being somewhere on this property and him have a hard time.

They searched the more than 8,000 square foot main house, the barn and surrounding woods.

I was going to start walking down into the woods to see if he went off down in there and

then I saw my sister Amanda and my mother standing by the fire.

The fire was a smoldering burn pile.

It's where they'd burn yard waste.

She guys, as a goat died or anything, have you thrown a dead goat?

Was there a dead animal in the pile?

I might know why I haven't done that.

I was like, are we having any goats to die?

She thought we'll come over here and look at this.

Scott moved down for a closer look.

I picked up one little piece, I turned it and realized it was a skull.

I immediately just set it back down gently.

I said, back up, I'm calling out one more.

Jeric, you got it now, we'll want the place to be burnt to you.

Boy, my father has come up listening and I'm...

We just searched the properties of a small farm and I just found something near the farm

that doesn't.

It was that he was burning the brush and now there's something to find that they could

be him.

I don't know.

Scott was horrified and certain he had just picked up human remains.

Remains he believed could be his father.

All right, sir, I've got him on the way out there for you.

Sheriff's deputies and detectives quickly realized that what had happened that day at the

Ferris family farm was no accident.

They learned that the Ferris' were a dysfunctional family.

Accusations went round and round like a sinister Ferris wheel.

Investigators now had to figure out if any of those arguments pushed one of Gary's own

kin to kill him.

It has been called the Ferris wheel and it was, but it was, our Ferris wheel.

This Ferris wheel was powered by distrust over finances, jealousy and personal betrayal.

It's a real off-so, Barbara.

And now a murder.

This is a murderous life, maybe.

A nightmare that would go on for years, dragging them through a carnival of lies, turning

into a murder case, the likes of which I have never before experienced.

I'm Peter Van Satt.

From 48 hours, this is Blood Is Thicker, the Ferris wheel.

Episode 1, Big Daddy is Missing.

When Gary and Melody Ferris bought their 10-acre property in 2013, it was meant to be the

beginning of a new era.

The two had raised four kids, Chris, Scott, Emily and Amanda, and were now grandparents.

The idyllic well-grumed acreage was lined with a winding black painted fence and a long

gravel road that could take you through the trees, past the pond, the main house, and

all the way up to a huge horse barn.

By 2018, Gary and Melody had owned the place for five years.

They were in their fifties and had known each other for most of their lives.

And how old are you when you first met Gary?

Sixteen.

They met in Florence, Alabama.

She first saw him when visiting the church there.

He worked at Fuller's Big Star.

It was a little grocery store that was there in town.

It's where that you would run to to go pick up things.

They dated for a few years and then eloped in 1979.

Gary was a sophomore at the University of North Alabama, studying finance.

Melody also studied there for about a year, but dropped out to start working.

Chris was more and when I was days before I was 20 years old.

She ended up working at her parents' hardware store.

I could take Chris to my parents' hardware store.

He grew up in a hardware store.

Did you have more memories of that?

Very much so.

Three and a half years later, they had their second, Scott.

Scott was a handful, but you loved him anyway.

Precious little boy.

Meanwhile, Gary decided to study law.

We had Emily one month to the day before he graduated law school.

We moved to Birmingham.

We had Amanda.

Gary practiced commercial real estate law and quickly climbed the ladder at his firm.

Melody said Gary was smart.

Book smart.

Workaholic.

An absolute workaholic.

When Gary opened the firm's office in Atlanta, Melody was a full-time mom.

She took charge of the home and the kids and made sure their upbringing was special,

especially during the holidays.

I understand you're a big Christmas decorator.

I love to decorate my home for Christmas.

They can't became more and more because we would have the Christmas party at our house

for the law firm, so we became more and more and more.

One home video shows a Ferris family Christmas that could be a scene from a hallmark movie.

There's a tall Christmas tree covered in ornaments, overlooking a happy family ripping open

their gifts.

Gary was the provider and patriarch of it all, and he was a big presence.

The people closest to him even called him Big Daddy.

The nickname made sense.

After all, he was about six foot four and nearly three hundred pounds.

Gary had gray hair, a goatee, and this deep, gregarious voice with a southern draw.

You could read my dad like a book.

Scott talked about his father to investigators in 2018.

He's very, very predictable.

He will come in from work.

Usually he will stand in the driveway, smoke a cigarette, and he will go from his bedroom

back to the garage, grab a mountain to, grab his briefcase, and go down to the basement

in his office.

And he will stay there until dinner's ready.

The family revolved around Gary, both as their father and financier.

The central axle, if you will, in this Ferris wheel.

The whole person, he makes the astronomical amount of money.

But I couldn't give you a certain amount of what he even makes.

I'm not privy to that.

While Gary controlled the money, that didn't mean he was holding back dollars from his children.

Take old a son, Chris.

He was married to his second wife and had kids from his first marriage.

But Melody said Gary helped him out.

I mean, he's got a three hundred and something dollar cable bill.

Every month, he's got, you know, over three hundred dollar cell phone bill.

Now, I don't know whether that's just he is or it's him and his two girls.

Just, I mean, there's Carolina tickets out the game yet.

Melody said their daughter, Emily, who was married in living in Tennessee,

also counted on her dad for help.

Same goes for Scott.

The only adult child who Melody said wasn't depending on Gary,

was their youngest daughter, Amanda.

As detectives put it, Gary was giving away money like it grew on trees.

It sounds like everybody was suckling on the teeth for a farm phrase.

They were except for a man.

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As detectives work to figure out what had happened in the days leading up to Gary Ferris' murder,

they took a deeper look into the family.

There was Chris, the oldest.

Back in 2018, he was 38, married, and had two daughters.

The second oldest, Scott, turned 35 two days after the remains were discovered.

He was single, living and working on his parents' property, and didn't have any children.

Scott and Chris looked like they could be twins, even though they're three years apart.

Emily, their third child and first daughter, was 30, married with one young daughter,

and she was the only sibling who lived out of state, building a life in Tennessee.

And finally, Amanda, their youngest.

At the time, she was 29 and engaged.

Her wedding was set for the upcoming spring.

The last time Amanda and Emily saw Gary was the weekend before he disappeared.

The whole family had gotten together to celebrate Gary's 58th birthday.

They had a cookout at the farm.

Scott told detectives that the last time he saw his father was at a restaurant called

Johnny's Cherokee Ranch, not far from the farm.

This was on July 3rd, two days before finding the human remains.

Were you all having dinner or did you just run into him there?

I was actually having lunch.

I was having lunch with my mother.

He was there already.

This is from an interview with Detective Hayes.

My dad, he's there, lunch.

Is that a year old?

Yeah, one said together or not.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, he left before, so he was already waiting.

So he was almost done already?

Yeah, he was almost done already.

Okay.

He was in he left, and after that, did he say what he was doing the rest of the day?

I didn't.

I mean, we see each other so much.

We don't always talk to each other.

He said that he and his mom didn't stay much longer before heading their separate ways.

Later in the day, his brother Chris stopped by the farm with his daughter.

She wanted to see Big Daddy.

Here's Chris talking to detectives in 2018.

We pulled up and he's, you know, I'm working and he said, he's like, I would hug you,

but I'm all hot and sweaty.

I'm just going to kiss you and tell my daughter and she said, what are you doing?

Gary was in the midst of collecting items for the burn pile.

We were there for maybe 20 to 30 minutes.

After Chris and his daughter left, Melody told Detective Hayes that Gary lit the burn pile.

He started it and then he went up to the very front entrance and was messing around

at the end of the scary.

Don't leave that fire.

Please don't leave the fire.

She estimated the last time she spoke with him was around 8 or 830 on the evening of

July 3rd.

In a final exchange of words, Melody said she warned him not to leave the burn pile

burning.

I said, you are not going to bathe in leaving that fire.

How big was the fire when he lit it massive?

As massive as the fire might have been, Melody said something else caught her attention

that night.

The horses had escaped the gated pasture.

She called Scott who spent the day at his friend's lake house.

Scott remembered getting back to the farm that night at around 11 or 1130 when he saw

a glow in the distance.

He assumed Gary was being irresponsible.

Early the next morning, Scott said he 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 to me, handed it to me off the door and I went, got some cash out of

the ATM, came back, gave her the card and I left, I went to go play golf.

He had a 730 AM round of golf planned and then was heading back to his friend's lake house.

Melody was heading to the same lake as Scott, but a different area.

She was going to spend the day with her daughter Amanda, along with Amanda's fiance and

his daughter.

According to Amanda, Gary didn't accept an earlier invitation to join in the holiday

fun.

Melody said they didn't see him when they returned in the evening.

In the Ferris family, that was just normal for Gary.

After spending the 4th of July at the lake, two of the Ferris grandchildren slept over

at the farm.

By the time Amanda showed up at the house the next morning, the grandkids were asking Melody

if they could see their grandpa, Big Daddy.

And they said they couldn't find him.

Well, that time Scott showed up at the house and I said, hey, have you seen your dad

over at the barn?

He's a immediate reaction, there's a gun missing.

He took off and went into the house, Amanda followed him immediately.

I went on into the house going, what is he talking about?

What did he say?

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Give me a sense of how this story started for you.

This typical day at the office for me, we had just finished lunch.

In 2024, Detective Daniel Hayes drove us to the Ferris' family property.

He told me about the moment he got that call.

I believe I was in the car with Detective Kikandall and we heard the radio call.

What did it say?

That a body was found in a fire.

The family had called and 911 said they had just found their father and his remains in

the fire.

He was familiar with this affluent part of Cherokee County and figured what happened here

was an accident.

It was a hot day in July.

We thought from what it sounded like, sometimes it happens, somebody's by fire is already

90-something degrees outside, a medic left, so it happened and he fell into the fire.

They didn't even think the case would take long.

Detective Kikandall and I both were, you know, let's go up here and get this knocked out

so we can get home in time for dinner.

Once he drove up the Ferris' long driveway, Detective Hayes got out of his car and made

his way to the burn pile.

Let me a sense of what you saw as you're walking up to it, describe it for me.

You went past their three-carter rod and a big chicken coop and we walked through the

backyard and it was wooded, you know, the trees, there was no grass or anything like that

and it was a downhill, a gradual downhill slope and we were taken to this very large pile

of debris that was still smoldering and still smoking.

And while Detective Hayes had never investigated a body found in a burn pile before, one thing

was certain.

This guy didn't have a heart attack or a heat stroke and fallen to the fire and burned

inside of his arm.

This guy's been in this fire burning for quite some time in my opinion.

Which suggested someone must have placed him there?

I found it hard to believe that he could be missing from this property with this affluent

family for any length of time back there burning, you know.

So that indicated to me that someone likely possibly knew that he was back there burning

and was helping it continue to burn.

What Detective Hayes first thought could have been a tragic accident now looked like a murder.

They brought in canines to help search the property.

Detective Hayes went inside the house.

Any evidence whatsoever in the house of a break-in?

No.

Any sign of a struggle inside that house that a battle had gone on.

The house was other than a few visible drops of blood that were left on the floor.

The house was in pretty immaculate condition.

Investigators then checked if there was more blood invisible to the naked eye by spraying

a special chemical across the floor.

You spray it on blood and take a picture of it.

If there's blood there, it's supposed to go up.

They found some on the floor upstairs.

They found some on the floor downstairs in the basement.

They found some on the stairs leading down to the basement on the carpet.

There was blood evidence.

And does that suggest any way some sort of progression of an attack on Gary?

That's what we interpreted as as we started looking at it.

Spots of blood weren't the only things they found in the basement.

One of Detective Hayes' colleagues later noticed something on the floor.

He sees it.

He kind of sees a shiny object or something.

It gets close to look so that's the bullet.

Outside Sheriff's deputies found more evidence.

It was pointed out to us that the tractor was parked in an area, a position that is uncommon.

Scott told detectives that the tractor Gary regularly used was parked in the yard and

not under the shed, where Gary usually parked.

This tractor has been moved by someone who left it there on purpose, forgot that Gary's

rules about it.

Once detectives got a closer look, they noticed something.

Gary's blood was found on the tractor, around one of the steps.

We're talking about a couple of drops, right?

Not much, yeah.

There was also blood on an RTV.

Chris talked to the oldest, Chris Ferris.

Chris was already in route to pick up his daughter from her sleep over at the farm that morning

when Amanda called with news that their father was missing.

Chris recounted his movements in an interview with detectives a few weeks after the remains

were discovered.

I was mad because nobody seemed to have any sense of urgency about this.

He said that he was on the RTV, looking for his father, when he spotted melody walking

towards the burn pile.

He was suspicious no one in the family had checked that area until after he arrived.

It's like, well, somebody about to find 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 like, why, why did it take

me getting there for the staff?

Scott also told detectives about something he thought was strange.

Back on the first day of the investigation, Scott noticed more than just his father was

missing.

A few weeks before Gary disappeared, Scott said he saw an unfamiliar 38 snub nose revolver

in a basement drawer.

It wasn't a gun that I've grown up seeing.

However, when he searched the house the day of his father's disappearance, the gun was

gone.

Later he told detectives that during that same search, melody walked up to him, holding

something that belonged to Gary.

She came back out with his wallet.

That didn't sit right with Scott.

He had looked earlier for that wallet because he said his father only kept it in two places,

a dresser or his back pocket.

I'm like, where did you get this?

Well, it was in the car.

It was underneath his cigarettes.

He never leaves his wallet underneath cigarettes in the car.

Detectives spoke to Scott that night until the early morning of July 6th.

That's when Detective Hayes decided to let Scott in on a major new discovery.

I got to tell you something and it's not easy, but there's no good way to say it.

Detective Hayes told Scott that investigators had recorded a temperature of 230 degrees

Fahrenheit in the spot where they found the remains.

Destroy a ton of DNA, but the extreme heat hadn't destroyed an ominous object.

They've been excavating and sifting the ashes they found the piece of ribs and it has

a bolt in it.

So they have an answer to show one that the remains, if they are in fact your father's,

has been shot.

It was in the ribs, not the head.

Correct.

So far, that's what they found.

Did you all search the house for that 38?

They're doing it right now.

Due to the conditions of the remains, the autopsy report would take almost a year to

confirm it was Gary Ferris, who had been shot and killed, and that it was his body placed

in that burn pile.

He weighed 300 pounds, but when the bones were actually, the skeletal remains were actually

removed, how much did they weigh, do you remember?

It was around 33, 34 pounds, I believe, is what was recovered of him.

And why would somebody want to burn a body?

Cover up a crumb, destroy evidence.

He was new for sure they were dealing with a murderer, a missing murder weapon, and

that a killer was on the loose.

The Ferris wheel was spinning.

Melody told detectives she worried one of her children might be the killer.

That's next time on Blood Is Thicker, The Ferris wheel.

From 48 hours, this is Blood Is Thicker, the Ferris wheel produced by Sony Music Entertainment.

I'm your host, Peter Van Sant.

Judy TaiGuard is the executive producer of 48 Hours.

Original reporting by 48 Hours producers Betsy Schuller, Ryan Smith, and Hannah Verr.

Jamie Benson is the senior producer for CBS News Podcasts, and Mara Walz is the senior

story editor.

Recording assistance from Alan Pang 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.

Our associate producer is Zoe Culkin.

Theme and original music composed by Hans Dail Shea.

Cedric Wilson is our sound designer and mix the episodes.

We also use music from Epidemic Sounds.

Fendle Fulton is our fact checker.

Our production manager is Tameka Balance Colacity.

If you're enjoying the show, be sure to rate and review.

It helps more people find it, and here are reporting.

Thanks for listening.

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