The Reluctant Witness

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Follow us wherever you listen to podcasts." "Can I just say a couple of things to you, sure? Because a wild deer here, but nevertheless, I was just part of the business in all this." On July 24, 2018, nearly three weeks into the investigation of Gary Ferris' disappearance and suspected murder, detective Daniel Hayes and Sergeant Ashley Pope traveled from Cherokee

County, Georgia to Coffee County, Tennessee to meet the traveling country salesman who they thought could break the case wide open. "We kind of viewed this as you're coming on our side at a table, okay, and it may be uncomfortable, but I think it's something that needs to be done for yourself."

This would be the third face-to-face meeting with Rusty Barton, the man who had been

having an affair with Melody Ferris for years, and who investigators believed knew some of her deepest secrets. So far, he'd given them nothing, but this time, Rusty was ready to open up.

“"I feel the best way to do this would be just to let you tell us what you want to tell”

us, and then if we have any questions at the end to fill in, is that fair?" "Yes." For years, Rusty and Melody talked almost every day on the phone, and their phone calls had become a key part of the investigation. "I think there was only one conversation that is what you're looking for, okay."

The one conversation in question between the lovers was around 220 a.m. on the 4th of July,

an unusually late hour for them. Rusty said they'd been talking for quite a while when Melody said something chilling. "Probably, the last minute of the last conversation, she said, "Carey is in the bar bar." "No, she said he isn't the bar bar."

“That was more than 24 hours before Melody and her children would go searching for Gary”

on the property, and discover his charred remains. "And I said, what?" "And she said, he's in the bar and Paul, and I said, did not say another word and did not tell me. I do not need to know." And with that, the phone call ended.

"And that is everything, peer to peer discussed with her, period." It sure sounded like Melody had implicated herself in the murder of her husband. Detective Daniel Hayes told me he had a theory that Rusty knew what was going on. They knew what had just happened, and he either didn't want to know about her, or did it, did not want her to say it on the phone.

Detective's felt they were getting closer to an arrest, but they would need Rusty on their side to seal the deal. "And we talking where I bug or take a phone conversation, maybe?" "I'm Peter Vanset, from 48 hours, this is Blood Is Thicker, the Ferris Wheel." Episode 4, "The Releuctant Witness."

As detective Hayes and Sergeant Pope Prest-Rusty Barton, they zeroed in on what Melody told him during that phone call, 48 hours got access to the full detective interview. "And you said something to the effect, what, when she said Gary's in the burn pot, or he's in the burn pot." "He's in the burn pot," I said, "Don't say nothing else, don't tell me, I don't want

to know." "So I want to get into like your head a little bit about it." "He was in the burn pot, where the specific words used to mind." That's Rusty's lawyer, chiming in. He was also present the day of this interview with the Sheriff's Office.

Rusty told Melody not to tell him any additional information after her big reveal. Sergeant Pope pointed out to him, "Why some people might find that response a bit unusual."

only go with his little friends and we know intimate details each other's left.

“If he called and said something like that to me, there's a couple things.”

If my first instinct was like, "What?

I'm saying anything else." There would have been something that led me to believe that this was an incident on murder. Right? Right? What wasn't Rusty telling them?

"Well, I'm also concerned with two that you're leaving stuff out that money and locate you further in something. Does that make sense?" "We have to think about that too." "Hey, buddy."

"Hey, buddy." "Do you want to talk, Gary, what do I do now?" "Don't talk to these of you all." "Why are you calling me about this? I don't get it."

“"If that is the case, we need to know if that was the case, the lie would tell you."”

At this moment, detective Hayes didn't want to press Rusty too hard so he moved on. And then you had an hour-long conversation whether the next morning at 6.30. Which is not unusual. Not unusual, not just a regular everyday conversation every day. No stranger to talking, Rusty described what a regular conversation with Melody was

like. "Well, what we talked about was the normal we talked about.

We always talked about who we talked about.

You know, the kids and the grandkids." You can probably take a guess at what we just believed. Rusty continued with the timeline saying that Melody texted him at 11am on July 5th. The same day the family began searching for Gary. The last text message was, "We are looking for Gary, call you ASIP."

"Okay." "That was the last community case." "What's that structure?" "Yeah, I'm probably not sure. He told you he's on the burn.

Yeah, I see how hurt he was." The detectives were perplexed. Why would Melody text Rusty that Gary was missing after telling Rusty on the phone that he was in the burn pile? And there was one other curious thing detectives discovered when they reviewed Rusty's online

search history. He had googled whether police could have access to his past text messages. Rusty didn't like it when asked about that search. "I didn't murder nobody or I have nothing to do with it. Again, my whole thing about the worry about was all the pictures and the porn and the talk

of all that kind of stuff." "He used to have all this read that because it bears you." Weeks after finding the human remains, Melody and Rusty had continued communicating, but not on Melody's main phone. "So that is an extraction of your phone, all right, and you can see this is the phone

number that you used to say with egg numbers." "Right, that's your burner phone. That's the one with that was your burner phone." "Okay." That's right.

Melody was using a burner phone to talk to Rusty. Scott had seen her use it and was quick to tell investigators while Rusty wasn't as forthcoming. Detectives wondered what else he might have left out. Before questioning began, detectives tried to intimidate Rusty. They laid out fake, unsigned warrants on the table in front of him, showing potential serious

charges Rusty could face. But if he helped them out, well, that was another story. "You need you for you, record every time you talk to her on the phone." Rusty's lawyer sided with the detectives. "How long did you get it when the interview is interesting?"

"Yes." "You're for this on your sentence." "Yeah." So Rusty took his attorney's advice, and about a week later, he got on the phone with Melody.

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Once Rusty, though, was cooperating with you, tell us how he helped the investigation about the tape recordings. So we got a year's worth of data from him, we were able to install a investigative tool in his phone. I spoke with Detective Hayes in 2024, we sent him a text message and he accepts it and it kind

of a songs your phone, a new phone number. So we had to work in a conversation with her of why Rusty has a new phone number now that she's supposed to call one of us.

You know, he basically told her, "I got this new phone for me and you since all this

other stuff's going on. I'll just call this number." She would.

“Every time Melody would call that phone, detectives, monitored, and recorded the conversations.”

On August 2, 2018, Rusty and Melody were on the phone. She knew that Rusty had recently talked to detectives. They talked about concerns over his possible arrest. "I said that I would be arrested here and then I would have to take me to church." Right.

He sounded worried that they had their eyes on him. You all need to get any information that proves that you were in town. That time.

Rusty was already on top of that documenting his days in Tennessee the week Gary disappeared.

I wrote down and made a timeline, you know, per day of where I was, who I talked to that time of stuff." Melody remained calm as Rusty got worked up about their situation. "But I've been up for a f***ing night." "I know you were, I so am, so am."

“Melody told Rusty that she believed the sheriff's office didn't have any evidence against”

them. She said her attorney thought that detectives were lying. "He said, "All they're trying to do is scare you all. I'll have to know shit. Well, they're doing a good job of it."

Rusty told her what happened during his meeting with detectives. "You know, you know, like I told him, I don't have nothing to hide." Right. "You know, I wasn't there, I didn't have nothing to do with it, I don't know what happened.

I talked to her that night, yes, she called me three times, I talked to her that night. We just talked, it was just normal shit." As you can hear, Rusty left out that he had shared details of what Melody said about the burn pile with detectives. "I didn't tell her that then she didn't tell me that then."

"Yeah, 'cause there was nothing going on." "That balls are running at home, I don't understand, baby." "I know it, I know." Melody then pauses before saying, "I know you were scared to death, and so am I." Then Rusty said, "Something rather curious, maybe are you sure the house is calling?"

"Maybe there's nothing in the house."

“And then, he asked her if she got rid of the gun and here's the thing that he was.”

"There was no gun. There was no gun." "Well, I'm so sure that the cops didn't find it easily." " 'Cause there was no gun in there." But this was Rusty trying to reel Melody in, she didn't seem to be taking the bait, even

when he directly asked her about who killed Gary. "Maybe, do you know who did it?" "No, I do not know." "I mean, somebody killed him." "No.

No." "Who could have done it?" "I don't know." "Then, at about 45 minutes in, Rusty got more specific. He brought up their phone call in the early morning hours of July 4th."

"Listen to me. Okay. Okay. We need to be on the side page." "Okay.

We need to be on the same page. Meaning, we've got to get our stories straight." "All right. And so, I don't want to be confused. He asked her to explain what happened.

At first, Melody was just silent. "I can tell you that there should not have been as much damage as there was done." "Turning a little bit at least." That body should not have been burned up. "So, who burned it up?"

"Thanks, God, Dave." "Thanks, God, Dave." "Thanks, God, Dave."

This was a new accusation that detectives had never heard from Melody.

Yes, she had talked in earlier police interviews about tensions between Scott and his

"Now, I honestly don't know what Scott did or anything.

I don't know." "Oh, do I have speculation?" "Yes, I do." Steve decided to ask Melody yet again if she had told him that he, meaning Gary was on the burn pile.

"I don't remember." "Another long pause."

“"I think all that I remember saying to you is that Gary has started the burn pile."”

"Okay." "Okay." Rusty told Melody that now he wasn't entirely sure because he had a few drinks of crown royal that night and had taken some Advil PM. "Did you ever tell them that you had had drinks under?"

"Yeah." "Okay." That detail seemed important to Melody that Rusty made it known to police that he had been drinking and may have been under the influence of medication during that late night chat.

"Don't give him any more information than, you know." "Oh, of course they're not going to be talking to me." Rusty responded, "Yes, so I just don't know what to say or not to say, you know, if we get, if we both get locked up." "You don't say anything."

"You say nothing."

“Melody and Rusty talked for nearly an hour before finally saying goodbye.”

"Okay." "Okay." "I love you." "I love you." "I love you."

Their phone calls continued in the following days. Detective Hayes told me that Rusty agreed to keep recording, but then learned something rather startling.

Unfortunately within the first few phone calls, we learned Rusty told her that we were

trying to record a phone calls. So we didn't believe what we were here and to be real, as far as genuine, we thought some of it was staged because we know Rusty told her we were trying to record her. So what we just heard from Melody, was that all an act, a means of throwing detectives off her scent?

“Whatever the case, authority still thought Melody was the killer.”

But until the autopsy report provided a positive ID that Gary Ferris was the murder victim, all detectives could do was wait. We have verbal confirmation, we didn't have any documentation yet. There have been times in the past where sometimes the verbal confirmation and the written confirmation don't match.

And in this case, that meant waiting for almost a year. You know, you're still at the same school, you're just at the same school, you're just at the same school, and then you're in the same room. So, you're not at the same school as me? Yes, exactly. So, you're the same type of person who just understands you.

You're the same type of person, you're the same type of person. You're the same type of person. You're the same type of person. You're the same type of person. You're the same type of person.

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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 get your podcasts. The Ferris family was a family divided. As they waited for the official investigation to conclude, the brothers and sisters had made their own conclusions about their mother's potential involvement.

Here's Detective Daniel Hayes. Emily, Scott and Chris, they believed their mother had something to do and she either did it or she had it done.

Amanda did not, Amanda sided with her mother and basically the finisher.

Scott and Chris had even gone down to the sheriff's office and shared additional information that implicated their mother, offering financial motives, revealed her affairs, and disclosed that she might have even tried to poison their father.

Did you ever have a conversation with her and said, "You know, this looks bad for you.

I think you were involved in this.

“Did you ever say anything like that to your mom?"”

No, not directly towards her, so she's, you know, she's kind of like bullet bipolar in a way. Just for a minute and then she'll be your worst enemy, the next. Scott told me that he stayed as far away from his mother as possible while still living on the farm and attempted to make what money he could now that his provider was gone.

Cherokee County froze all accounts. That's because in a homicide, they don't want a potential killer to benefit financially

from that, so they face the assets until the case is adjudicated.

Scott said that Melody made living on the farm extremely difficult after Gary's murder. After all this started, I will be up at the barn working or something. She will come up and just start screaming that thing and threatening me and stuff. About what?

“Oh, about, you know, I should be given her the money that I'm making.”

So you guys would argue, she would try to argue. Over the course of several months, the sheriff's department got multiple calls from the farm for the police to come out to the house. What was the nature of these calls, though, do you know? Melody made allegations that Scott was threatening her, things on those lines.

Melody had told the sheriff's office that Scott didn't want her near the barn or his stuff. Now Scott called 911 on you apparently six different times. What was that about? The, I know two of them, I'm not sure about the others. One was that I had stolen my own trailer.

It was a trailer that we had on the property that we used.

“In one incident report, Melody claimed that Scott told her, quote, "You need to leave”

or I will make sure the same thing that happened to my daddy will happen to you." But for Scott, Melody was the one harassing him. He even turned to detective Hayes for some advice. Well, I call detective Hayes and I'm like, "Look, she keeps doing all this stuff." And how can I protect myself?

Because I know it didn't look good on any of us. Is there a investigating all of us? According to Scott, detective Hayes suggested he start using the voice memo app on his cell phone to record his mother. So that's what I started doing.

And I had a lot of recordings of her harassing me. Scott discovered that someone had broken into his apartment on the top floor of the family's barn. But the lights were on. He saw a drawer in the kitchen and drawers in his bedroom had been left open.

The place looked ransacked and he called the police. The sheriff's office checked the place, but nothing was missing and they couldn't prove who did it. That was April 2019. At this point in the investigation, Melody had lawyerned up and had stopped cooperating

with detectives. But she was already their number one suspect. While everyone awaited the autopsy, detectives spent their time combing through data. And conducting various ballistic tests to see if Melody should have been able to hear a gunshot inside the house.

Finally, after 11 months, the autopsy report was released.

Confirmed, the remains in the burned pile were Gary Ferris. Six days later, the sheriff's office made their move. Melody was in Tullahoma, Tennessee, where Rusty lived. She learned deputies were looking for her. So we had to have Rusty drive Melody to us at the police department of there.

On June 18th, 2019, Melody turned herself in. Melody was charged with murder, concealing the death of another false statements and aggravated

Do you believe that Rusty could have been a motive for her killing her husband?

I absolutely do. She obviously wanted a life with Rusty. They needed Gary's money.

“And the only thing in between, Gary's money and Rusty and Melody was Gary Ferris.”

Shortly after a resting Melody, Detective Hayes decided it was worth talking to Rusty again.

So we went back up to interview him and asked when he told us he was, "Oh, by the way, I was wrong."

Rusty was about to flip again. This time, on detectives and dramatically changed his story. Is it out of love or self-preservation? From 40-it-hours, this is Bloodest Thicker, the Ferris Wheel, produced by Sony Music Entertainment. I'm your host, Peter Vansant.

“Judy Tygard is the executive producer of 48 hours.”

The original reporting by 48 hours producers Betsy Schuler, Ryan Smith, and Hannah Vare.

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. Steven Isthicker was written and produced by Alex Schumann.

Stephanie Sorano is our editor. Our executive producer is Sharamoris. 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. Randall Fulton is our fact-checker. Our production manager is Tamika Balance Colassini. If you're enjoying the show, be sure to rate and review.

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