Big Daddy Is Missing

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? Looks like an actual Ferris Wheel, the blame game in this family, went round and round. Here's the episode. Hi, I got a feeling I've really hoped that I would just make 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, thinking I'd usual in the last two days I would exchange 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. Where do you live now? I live here on the farm and I live above the board, the apartment.

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.

“And 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? That they don't do, and 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. Gary used to see Pat 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 them? Well, I saw a column of cell phone and my sister saw a column of cell phone. It was going straight to the 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, just being somewhere on this property

and having 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, you know, 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, has a goat died or anything, have you thrown a dead goat?”

Was there a dead animal in the pile? I'm like, "No, I haven't done that." I said, "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 more piece, I turned it, realized it was a skull. I immediately just set it back down gently, I said, "Back up, I'm calling now one more one." Derek, you got it, I want the base of your birth to you. [BEEP]

[BEEP] Point. Uh, my father just came up listening and we just searched the property in a small farm and I just found something near a farm that doesn't-- there was a huge burn in the grass, and now there's something to follow that.

It 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. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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

They learned that the ferrises 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. He's been called the Ferris wheel, and it was bedaillist, our Ferris wheel. This Ferris wheel was powered by distrust over finance, as jealousy, and personal betrayal. Is a real asshole, Barbara?

And now a murder. This is a mother's worst nightmare. 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 ten 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 groomed acreage was lined with a winding black-painted fence and a long gravel road that could take you through the trees, pass 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 were you when you first met, Gary?

16. They met in Florence, Alabama. She first saw him when visiting a church there. He worked at Fuller's Big Star.

“It was a little grocery store that was in there, there in town.”

It's where you would run to to go pick up things. They dated for a few years, and then he loped 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 born 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. They have more memories of that. Bearing that stuff.

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 in Moscow. 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. Booksmart. 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 they're upbringing was special,

especially during the holidays. I understand your big Christmas decorator. I'd love to decorate my home for Christmas. They became more and more, because we would have the Christmas party at our house for the law firm, so we became more and more. One home video shows a Ferris family Christmas that could be a scene from a hallmark movie.

There's the 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 go-t, 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 driveway, smoke a cigarette, and he'll 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 is ready.

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

“To the old person, he makes the last nominal madamey, but I couldn't give you a certain amount”

of what he even made, I'm not pretty to that. While Gary controlled the money, that didn't mean he was holding back dollars from his children. Takeled 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 had a three-interns of dollar. Payable, everyone, he's got, you know, over three hundred dollars, cell phone bills. Now, I don't know where there's just he is or it's him and his two girls. He just finished airline tickets at the end of the day."

Melody said their daughter Emily, who was married and 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 praise." "They weren't pigs up for a minute."

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"Sheimer, are you at the store, or are you at the school? Are you at the store, or are you at the school? Are you at the store, or are you at the school? What 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 3, two days before finding the human remains. We all have an energy to spend a little bit here.

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?

Is that a year old? The year one said together or not? Oh yeah. That's, he left before, so he was already, so he was almost done already. Yeah.

He was almost done already.

“So then he left, and after that, did he say what he was doing the rest of the day?”

I'm waiting, 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. He was 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,

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 let the burn pile. He started it, and then he went up to the very front entrance, and then was Mr. Ren at the And his Gary don't leave that fire, please don't leave the fire. She estimated the last time she spoke with him was around 8 or 8 30 on the evening of

July 3rd. In a final exchange of words, Melody said she warned him not to leave the burn pile burning. Said you are not going to bathe and leave in the fire. How big was the fire when he led it? As massive as the fire might have been, Melody said something else caught her attention that

night.

The horses had escaped the gated pasture.

I had two horses he got out, so I was chasing me.

“She called Scott, who spent the day at his friends Lake House.”

Scott remembered getting back to the farm that night at around 11 or 11 30, when he saw a glow in the distance. Immediately when I pulled in the driveway, I could see the fire going in the woods. 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. He walked it out to me, handed to me up 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 plan and then was heading back to his friends 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 fiancé 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, back at 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 and there's a gun missing.

He took off and went to the house, mandafollowed him immediately, I went on into the house, going, what is he talking about? What did he say? It is not hard to destroy a college. Last season, the podcast campus files brought you stories of fraternity drug rings, stolen

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It's okay, I like it's almost a university on a siege. Listen to and follow campus files, available now wherever you got your podcasts. Give me a sense of how this story started for you. It's a difficult 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 Kirk and all, and we heard the radio call.”

What did it say? That a body was found in a fire. The family had called, and 911, and 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 to somebody's fire, it's already 90 something degrees outside, a medical episode, happening and failing to the fire. They didn't even think the case would take long.

Detective Kirk and all, and I both were, you know, let's go up here and get this knocked out so we can get home and 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. Give me a sense of what you saw as you're walking up to it, describe it for me.

back yard and it was wooded.

“The trees, there was no grass or anything like that, and it was a downhill, a gradual downhill”

slip. And we were taken to this very large pile of debris that was still smothering, it's 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 the side 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? So any sign of a struggle inside that house and 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 a 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 the blood and take a picture of it. If there's blood there, it's supposed to glow.

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 to set suggestivity away 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, you know, kind of sees a shiny object or something. It gets closer and closer 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 were Gary usually parked. The tractor has been moved by someone who blessed their own purpose for got 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 the drops, right? Not much. Yeah.

There was also blood on an RTV. Detectives 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. Chris 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, so might have 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? Not 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 of 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 the cigarettes.

He never leaves his wallet on any cigarettes in the car."

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

“"I gotta 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. Destroying 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 bowl in it.

So the evidence is showing that the remains, if they are in fact your father, has been shot.

"It was in the ribs, not the head."

"Great." "So far, that's what they've found." "Did you ask sirs a house without 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?

“"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. The detectives knew 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 forty-eight hours, this is Blood Is Thicker, the Ferris wheel produced by Sony Music Entertainment.

I'm your host Peter Vansat.

“Judy Tygard is the executive producer of forty-eight hours.”

Original reporting by forty-eight hours producers Betsy Schueler, Ryan Smith, and Hannover. Jamie Benson is the senior producer for CBS News Podcasts, and Mara Walsh 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 Schumman. Stephanie Sorano is our editor. Our executive producer is Shira Morris. Our associate producer is Zoe Kolken. Theme and original music composed by Hans Dale Shee.

Sedrick Wilson is our sound designer and mix the episodes. We also use music from Epidemic Sounds. Fendell Fulton is our fact checker. Production Manager is Tamika Balant's Colassini. 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. This year on NPR Stooline, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. For centuries, America's pursuit has changed the world. Now 250 years later, who are we?

Where are we headed? Join us every Tuesday for a brand new series, America in pursuit. On Thooline, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.