Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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?
Much like an actual Ferris wheel, the blame game in this family went round and round. Here's the episode.
You know it's still under criminal investigation, right?
The Georgia Guidestones may be America's answer to Stonehenge.
The county administrator says there were conspiracy theories.
Let's not forget that a crime was committed here and somebody got away with it. I'm Tyler McBrien. Join me as we take a wild ride through granite quarries, graveyards, cults, small-town southern lore, and a lot of explosives. In the new AJC original podcast, Who Blew Up the Guidestones? Follow us wherever you listen to podcasts.
I got a feeling, dude. And I really hope I'm rolling. But I just, I expect foul play out of this.
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Chapter 2: What happened to Gary Ferris and when was he reported missing?
Scott Ferris was worried. No one had seen his father, Gary, in two days.
Have you noticed anything odd at the house? Anything unusual in the last two days? Anything strange?
Any unusual visitors, activity? Nope. 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 Farris' beautifully manicured family farm.
And where do you live at? I live here on the property. I live above the barn in an 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? I'm like, no.
Apparently, no one in the family had.
Were there any July 4th plans? They don't do, he doesn't, he doesn't have a very social life.
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Chapter 3: What clues did Scott Ferris find on the property?
He's got, you know, over a $300 cell phone bill. Now, I don't know whether that's just his or it's him and his two girls. I mean, there's airline tickets out the yin-yang.
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, except for Amanda.
As detectives worked 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 y'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.
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Chapter 4: How did the family react to Gary's disappearance?
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 evenings. In the Ferris family, that was just normal for Gary.
After spending the Fourth 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, about that time, Scott showed up at the house, and I said, hey, have you seen your dad over at the barn? His 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. It was a 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 Kuykendall and we heard the radio call. What did it say? That a body was found in a fire. The family had called 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.
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Chapter 5: What evidence was found in the burn pile?
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.
You went past their three-car garage and a big chicken coop, and we walked through the backyard. It was wooded. You know, the trees, there was no grass or anything like that, and it was a gradual downhill slope. And we were taken to this very large pile of debris that was still smoldering. It was 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 fall into the fire and burn 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? No. Any sign of a struggle inside that house, that a battle had gone on there?
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.
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Chapter 6: What led detectives to suspect foul play in Gary's death?
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.
Chapter 7: How did the Ferris family dynamics contribute to the investigation?
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 a piece of ribs and it has a bullet in it. So the evidence is showing 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 y'all search that house for about 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 right around 33, 34 pounds, I believe, is what was recovered of him.
And why would somebody want to burn a body?
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