Chris Ferris

It was Tuesday, approximately 4.45 p.m. here at the farm. He was outside. When we pulled up, he said he was getting stuff ready. Either he was burning things or was about to burn things.

collecting stuff to probably put on that pile to burn.

It clicked in my mind that he was going to burn that burn pile.

July 3rd. It was probably, I don't know, 4.30-ish.

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. You know, when I checked my trail camera, if there's nothing on there of any significance, I delete the pictures because I'm there.

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. You know, Scott was very much a suspect. We all were.

My father was larger than life. He was the rock of the family. My sister called and said, Daddy's missing.

I was afraid of my mother growing up. There's no way around that statement.

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.

has really added up to, like, I mean, what else are we going to look at?

It 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.

He was in love with my mother until the day he died.

Right.

Well, he had communicated to me that he did not want her spending his money on another man. Hmm. but it was a way for him to keep track of her.

My father had become very lethargic and could not function properly. He was very dizzy, just wasn't feeling very well.

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.

No, apparently not. He said he ate the cookies, his throat began to burn, and that's when he began feeling bad.

He said, Chris, I think your mother's trying to poison me.

We went up to the barn to look at the animals. The barn is about 300 yards away from the main house. And Addison and my mother walked down to the pond to see the new baby ducks.

I mean, it was a large property. And he would, you know, work on projects and things like that. And it wasn't uncommon for my parents to not know where each other were at certain times.

And she said, you know, Daddy's missing.

No, sir. My thoughts were maybe he went to the office, but then when I found out his car was still there, it raised my worry. Yeah. quite drastically.

So on the way up, I was frantic. I was calling my other sister, Emily. I was talking with Amanda, just trying to help in the search for him.

I jumped on that ATV and I drove up to the barn and I searched the barn. On the way back, I looped back around to the house and saw my brother and my mother walking down towards where that burn pile was and it clicked in my mind that he had told me on July the 3rd that he was going to burn that burn pile on the 4th of July.

I wouldn't really consider an argument. I mean, he'd get mad at me for spending money or asking him for money.

I think he said, I'm going to... change my account information.

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? They were grasping at straws.

That image of seeing that is something that I don't think I'll ever get over. I mean, it's one thing to see something that horrific on TV or in a movie, but to see your own father like that, it's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

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.

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.

And it's hard, you know, living in this town, driving by his old office, you know? But he also would want me to be strong.

He wouldn't be mortified that this has been our lives for the last six years. And while I do get very sad, I'm just thankful that he was my dad. And if I could be half the dad he was, I'd be doing a pretty good job.

I pretty much blacked out and went into shock at that time. The authorities arrived very, very soon after all this.

Correct.

Big man. Very big man.

Even though he was an attorney and had a very important position in his firm, he still made time to coach my baseball teams. He still made time to be at all my school events. He was always there. And my mother was too. So growing up, I would say it was a happy family. We had a, to me, a normal childhood.

Yes, sir. He did not live the ultimate healthy lifestyle. He ate what he wanted to eat. He did not exercise.