The Reluctant Witness

Summary

Podcast Summary: Blood is Thicker: The Farris Wheel

Episode 4: The Reluctant Witness
Date: April 1, 2026
Host: Peter Van Sant (CBS News, 48 Hours Correspondent)

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Overview

This gripping episode delves into the turning point of the Gary Farris murder investigation, zeroing in on Rusty Barton, the longtime secret lover of Gary's wife, Melody Farris. As detectives work to break through Rusty's reluctance and unravel the family's web of secrets, listeners are given exclusive insight into the key interviews, secret recordings, and the mounting pressure inside the Farris home. The episode highlights the critical moment when Rusty, prodded by both law enforcement and his own fears, becomes a pivotal, if hesitant, witness in the case.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Breakthrough Interview with Rusty Barton

Timestamps: 01:49 – 08:56

• Detectives' Approach:
  Detectives Daniel Hayes and Ashley Pope travel to meet Rusty Barton in Coffee County, Tennessee, marking their third face-to-face meeting as they hope to finally get him to talk.

  • “We kind of view this as you coming on our side of the table. Okay. And it may be uncomfortable, but I think and something that needs to be done for yourself.” (Interviewer/Detective, 02:18)

• Rusty Reveals a Chilling Conversation:
  Rusty recounts an early-morning phone call with Melody Farris on July 4, 2018.

  • “She said, ‘he is in the burn pile.’ And I said, ‘do not say another word and do not tell me anything.’” (Rusty's Lawyer retelling Rusty's words, 03:29)
  • This was over 24 hours before Melody and her children "discovered" Gary's body, suggesting Melody already knew where the body was.

• Detectives’ Suspicion:
  Detectives challenge Rusty’s apparent lack of curiosity or urgency upon hearing Melody’s potentially incriminating statement.

  • “If my first instinct was ‘don't say anything else,’ there would have been something that led me to believe that this was an incident of murder.” (Sergeant Pope, 06:15)
  • Detectives suspect Rusty is leaving out information that could incriminate him.

• Melody’s Use of a Burner Phone:
  After Gary’s remains were found, Melody continued using a burner phone to contact Rusty, complicating the investigation and raising suspicions about further deceit.

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2. Rusty's Cooperation & Secret Recordings

Timestamps: 09:44 – 19:04

• Police Persuade Rusty to Cooperate:
  Detectives lay out unsigned warrants, suggesting he faces serious charges if he doesn't assist them. Rusty agrees to record his calls with Melody.

  • “I'm telling you that it would be in your best interest.” (Detective Daniel Hayes, 09:52)

• Technical Tactics:
  Detectives install an investigative tool on Rusty’s phone to monitor conversations. They orchestrate an explanation to Melody for why Rusty is calling from a new number.

• Key Recorded Conversations:

  • Melody is determined to remain calm as Rusty grows anxious about being implicated.
  • Rusty seeks reassurance: “Maybe, are you sure the house is cleaned? … Did you get rid of the gun?” (Rusty Barton, 14:11-14:20)
  • Melody: “There was no gun. There was no gun.” (14:20)

• Deflecting Responsibility:
  Rusty hints at Scott (Melody’s son) as the possible culprit:

  • “I think Scott did. I think Scott did.” (Rusty Barton, 16:16)
  • This marks the first direct accusation from Melody (according to detectives) implicating her son, possibly as an attempt to deflect blame.

• Questions Around Memory and Intoxication:
  Both Rusty and Melody discuss Rusty’s mental state during the crucial conversation, emphasizing his drinking and medication, perhaps to sow doubt.

  • “I had a few drinks of Crown Royal that night and had taken some Advil PM. We're just kind of in and out.” (Rusty Barton, 17:26-17:39)

• Concealing and Coordinating Stories:
  The duo discusses sticking to a consistent story, expressing mutual fear of incarceration.

  • “You say nothing.” (Melody to Rusty, 18:18)

• Staged Conversations:
  Detectives soon realize Rusty tips Melody off about the recorded calls, which casts doubt on the subsequent conversations’ authenticity.

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3. The Fractured Farris Family

Timestamps: 20:27 – 24:39

• Division Among Siblings:
  The children are split: Scott and Chris believe their mother, Melody, is involved in the murder, even providing police additional information about her financial motives, affairs, and alleged attempts at poisoning Gary.

  • “They believed their mother had something to do with it. She either did it or she had it done.” (Sergeant Pope, 20:46)

• Scott’s Difficult Home Life:
  Scott describes a tense, sometimes hostile, coexistence with Melody on the property after Gary’s death.

  • “She’d be nice one minute and then she’ll be your worst enemy the next.” (Scott Ferris, 21:32)
  • Financial hardship sets in as all family accounts are frozen due to the homicide investigation.

• Multiple Police Calls:
  Melody and Scott regularly call the police on one another, with accusations ranging from threats to theft of personal property.

  • Melody's report: “You need to leave, or I will make sure the same thing that happened to my daddy will happen to you.” (Incident report cited by Narrator, 23:41)

• Scott Records Melody:
  On law enforcement’s advice, Scott begins recording his interactions with his mother to document her harassment and to protect himself from suspicion.

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4. Melody’s Arrest and Rusty's Surprising Turn

Timestamps: 25:56 – 26:46

• Arrest:
  After waiting almost a year for the autopsy report to confirm Gary’s identity, Melody is charged with murder and other related crimes. She is arrested in Tennessee, where she is staying with Rusty.

  • “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 Farris.” (Sergeant Pope, 26:23)

• Rusty’s Flip-Flop:
  After Melody’s arrest, Rusty changes his story yet again in a follow-up interview, casting his credibility, and perhaps his motivations, further into question.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “She said, ‘he is in the burn pile.’ And I said, ‘do not say another word and do not tell me anything.’”
  — Rusty's Lawyer quoting Rusty Barton (03:29)
  A chilling moment that becomes a focal point for the investigation.

• “If that was the case, I would tell you.”
  — Rusty Barton to detectives, denying knowledge or involvement (06:58)

• “Maybe, are you sure the house is cleaned?”
  — Rusty Barton (14:11)
  Suggests awareness that police might be looking for hidden evidence.

• “I think Scott did. I think Scott did.”
  — Melody Farris (as recounted by Rusty, 16:16)
  The first time Melody is heard explicitly accusing her own son of the murder.

• “You say nothing.”
  — Melody to Rusty, on what to do if arrested (18:18)

• “So I will go and find work, you know, under the table type pay work.”
  — Scott Ferris (21:58)
  Illustrates the hardships faced by family members under investigation.

• “She would come up and just start screaming at me and threatening me.”
  — Scott Ferris on living with Melody post-murder (22:36)

• “She either did it or she had it done… Amanda did not. Amanda sided with her mother and basically defended her.”
  — Sergeant Pope, on the family’s divisions (20:46)

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Important Timestamps/Summary Table

| Timestamp | Content/Event | |--------------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 01:49 | Detectives meet Rusty Barton in Tennessee | | 03:29 | Melody’s alleged confession: "He is in the burn pile"| | 05:33–08:56 | Detectives probe the implications of Rusty's story | | 09:44 | Rusty agrees to record calls with Melody | | 14:11 | Rusty questions if Melody has cleaned the house/removes the gun | | 16:16 | Melody implicates her son Scott | | 20:46 | Family splits over belief in Melody’s guilt | | 21:32 | Scott describes tense coexistence with Melody | | 25:56 | Melody arrested after autopsy confirms Gary's identity | | 26:46 | Rusty changes his story again with detectives |

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Tone & Atmosphere

The episode is marked by tense interrogations, fraught family dynamics, and the constant shifting of suspicion. The language is investigative, with moments of disbelief, frustration, and incredulity seeping through as detectives and family members grapple with lies, half-truths, and the grinding pace of official procedures. Listeners are left with an unsettling portrait of a family torn apart by secrets and mistrust.

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Conclusion

"The Reluctant Witness" masterfully documents the critical, messy, and often heartbreaking process of extracting the truth from unwilling participants in a familial homicide. As Rusty's uncertain testimony, secret recordings, and the deeply fractured Farris family story converge, the circle of suspicion seems endless—much like the titular Ferris wheel—conveying the dizzying, unending search for justice when blood is truly thicker than water, and secrets refuse to stay buried for long.

Transcript

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[Interviewer/Detective]

Can I just say a couple of things to you?

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Sure.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Took us a while to get here, but nevertheless that's just part of the business.

[Narrator]

And I want you on July 24, 2018, nearly three weeks into the investigation of Gary Farris 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.

[Interviewer/Detective]

We kind of view this as you coming on our side of the table. Okay. And it may be uncomfortable, but I think and something that needs to be done for yourself.

[Narrator]

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.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

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.

[Rusty Barton]

Okay.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

Is that fair?

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Yes.

[Narrator]

For years, Rusty and Melody talked almost every day on the phone. And their phone calls had become a key part of the investigation.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

I think there was only one conversation. That is what you're looking for.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Okay.

[Narrator]

The one conversation in question between the lovers was around 2:20am 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,

[Rusty's Lawyer]

probably the last minute of the last conversation. She said, gary is in the burn pile. No, she said, he is in the burn pile.

[Narrator]

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?

[Rusty's Lawyer]

And she said, he's in the burn pile. And I said, do not say another word and do not tell me anything.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

I do not need to know.

[Narrator]

And with that, the phone call ended.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

And that is everything, Period.

[Interviewer/Detective]

She discussed with her.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Period.

[Narrator]

It sure sounded like Melody had implicated herself in the murder of her husband. Detective Daniel Hayes told me he had

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

a theory that Rusty knew what was going on, that he knew what had just happened, and he either didn't want to know about it or did not want her to say it over the phone.

[Narrator]

Detectives felt they were getting closer to an arrest, but they would need Rusty on their side to seal the deal.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

Are we talking wear a bug or take a phone conversation?

[Interviewer/Detective]

Maybe.

[Narrator]

Guys, I'm Peter van Sant from 48 Hours. This is Blood is Thicker Than the ferris wheel. Episode 4 the Reluctant Witness. As Detective Hayes and Sergeant Pope pressed Rusty Barton, they zeroed in on what Melody told him during that phone call. 48 hours got access to the full detective interview.

[Interviewer/Detective]

And you said something to the effect, what, when she said, gary's in the burn pile or he's in the burn pile.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

He's in the burn pile. I said, don't. Don't say nothing else. Don't tell me. I don't want to know.

[Interviewer/Detective]

So I want to get into, like, your head a little bit about that.

[Narrator]

He is in the burn pile. Were these specific words she used. 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.

[Interviewer/Detective]

My question would be if I'm just going to play this out. If Daniel, me and him are not only co workers, but we're friends and we know intimate details of each other's lives. If he called and said something like that to me, there's a couple things. If my first instinct was like what? Don't say anything else. There would have been something that led me to believe that this was an incident of murder.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Right, Right.

[Narrator]

What wasn't Rusty telling them?

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

Well, I'm also concerned with too that you're leaving stuff out that might implicate you further in something. Does that make sense?

[Interviewer/Detective]

We have to think about that too.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

Hey baby.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

I shot Gary. What do I do now?

[Interviewer/Detective]

Go throw Diesel if you want.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

Why are you calling me about this?

[Interviewer/Detective]

I don't want to know if that is the case. We need to know that.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

If that was the case, I would tell you.

[Narrator]

At this moment, Detective Hayes didn't want to press Rusty too hard, so he moved on.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

And then you had an hour long conversation with her the next morning at

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

6:30, which is not unusual.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

Not unusual. And that was just a regular everyday conversation?

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Every day.

[Narrator]

No stranger to talking, Rusty described what a regular conversation with Melody was like.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

All we talked about was the normal. We talked about, we always talked about.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

We talked about,

[Rusty's Lawyer]

you know, the kids and the grandkids.

[Narrator]

You can probably take a guess at what we just bleeped. Rusty continued with the timeline saying that Melody texted him at 11am on July 5. The same day the family began searching for Gary.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

The last text message was, we are looking for Gary. Call you asap.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

Okay.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

That was the last communication which.

[Interviewer/Detective]

That's strange. She already told you he's on the burn pile.

[Narrator]

Yeah, she knew where 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.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

I didn't murder nobody or have nothing

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

to do with it.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

Again, my whole thing about what worried about was all the pictures and the porn and the talk of all that kind of stuff.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

You just didn't want us reading that

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

because it embarrassed you. Yeah.

[Narrator]

Weeks after finding the human remains, Melody and Rusty had continued communicating. But not on Melody's main phone.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

So that is an Extraction of your phone. All right. And you can see this is the phone number that she looks.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

678 numbers.

[Commercial Narrator]

Right.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

That's her burner phone. That's the one we know is her burner phone. Okay.

[Narrator]

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 to

[Interviewer/Detective]

for you record every time you talk to her on the phone.

[Narrator]

Rusty's lawyer sided with the detectives. I'm telling you that it would be

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

in your best interest.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Yes. If this doesn't make sense.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Yeah.

[Narrator]

So Rusty took his attorney's advice, and about a week later, he got on the phone with Melody.

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[Narrator]

Once Rusty, though, was cooperating with you, tell us how he helped the investigation about the tape recordings.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

Um, so we got a year's worth of data from him. You know, we. We were able to install a investigative tool on his phone.

[Narrator]

I spoke with Detective Hayes in 2024.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

We sent him a text message, and he accepts it, and it kind of assigns 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 it on. She knows about. And, you know, he basically told her, I got this new phone for me and you. Since all this other stuff's going on, just call this number. She would.

[Narrator]

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.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

They said that I would be arrested here, and then they would have to take me, extradite me to Georgia.

[Rusty Barton]

Right.

[Narrator]

She sounded worried that they had their eyes on him.

[Rusty Barton]

You all need to get any information that proves that you were in town that time.

[Narrator]

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

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

I wrote down and made up a timeline, you know, per day of where I was, who I talked to, that kind of stuff.

[Narrator]

Melody remained calm as Rusty got worked up about their situation.

[Rusty Barton]

But I've been up front dying. I know you are I. So am I.

[Narrator]

So am I. Melody told Rusty that she believed the sheriff's office didn't have any evidence against them. She said her attorney thought the detectives were lying.

[Rusty Barton]

He said, all they're trying to do is scare you. All I said, no. Well, they're doing a good job of it.

[Narrator]

Rusty told her what happened during his meeting with detectives.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Well, you know, like I told him, I don't have nothing to hide.

[Rusty Barton]

Right?

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

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. We just talked. It was just normal shit.

[Narrator]

As you can hear. Rusty left out that he had shared details of what Melody said about the burn pile with detectives.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

I didn't tell her nothing. She didn't tell me nothing.

[Rusty Barton]

Yeah, because there was nothing going on.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Eyeballs are running. I plumb out on the stem.

[Rusty Barton]

Baby, I know it. I know.

[Narrator]

Melody then pauses before saying, I know

[Rusty Barton]

you are scared to death, and so am I.

[Narrator]

Then Rusty said something rather curious.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Maybe. Are you sure the house is cleaned?

[Rusty Barton]

Maybe there's nothing in the house.

[Narrator]

And then he asked her if she got rid of the gun.

[Rusty Barton]

And here's the thing of it is, there was no gun. There was no gun.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

What makes you so sure that the cops didn't find anything?

[Rusty Barton]

Because there was no gun in there.

[Narrator]

If 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?

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Baby, do you know who did it? Who killed.

[Rusty Barton]

No, I do not know.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Somebody killed him.

[Rusty Barton]

No. No.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Who could have done it?

[Rusty Barton]

I don't know.

[Narrator]

Then, at about 45 minutes in, Rusty got more specific. He brought up their phone call in the early morning hours of July 4th.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Listen to me. Okay. We need to be on the same page.

[Rusty Barton]

Okay.

[Narrator]

We need to be on the same page. Meaning we've got to get our stories straight.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

All right?

[Narrator]

And.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

And so I don't want to be confused, but I remember you telling me he's on the burn pile.

[Narrator]

He asked her to explain what happened. At first, Melody was just silent.

[Rusty Barton]

I can tell you that there should not have been as much damage as there was done.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

I don't know what that means.

[Rusty Barton]

That body should not have been burned up.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

So who burned it up?

[Rusty Barton]

I think Scott did. I think Scott did.

[Narrator]

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 father over money, but she hadn't been this explicit about Scott killing his father.

[Rusty Barton]

Now, I honestly don't know what Scott did or anything. I don't know. Do I have speculation? Yes, I do.

[Narrator]

Rusty decided to ask Melody yet again if she had told him that he, meaning Gary, was on the burn pile.

[Rusty Barton]

I don't remember.

[Narrator]

Another long pause.

[Rusty Barton]

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

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Okay. And I don't remember. I was trying to put it all together and that was what I was coming up with.

[Narrator]

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.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

We're just kind of in and out.

[Rusty Barton]

Did you ever tell them that you had had drinks and. Yeah, Advil to him. Okay.

[Narrator]

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.

[Rusty Barton]

Don't give him any more information than you know. Of course they're not going to be talking to me.

[Narrator]

Rusty responded.

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Yes. I just don't know what to say or not to say. You know, if we get. If we both get locked up,

[Rusty Barton]

you don't say anything. You say nothing.

[Narrator]

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

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

Okay. Okay. I love you.

[Rusty Barton]

I love you.

[Narrator]

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

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

Unfortunately, within the first few phone calls, we learned Rusty told her that we were trying to record her phone calls. So we didn't believe what we were hearing 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.

[Narrator]

So what we just heard from Melody was that all an act? A means of throwing detectives off her scent. Whatever the case, authorities still thought Melody was the killer. But until the autopsy report provided a positive ID that Gary Farris was the murder victim, all detectives could do was wait.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

We had 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.

[Narrator]

And in this case, that meant waiting for almost a year.

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[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

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[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

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[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

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[Narrator]

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.

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

They believed their mother had something to do with it. She either did it or she had it done. Amanda did not. Amanda sided with her mother and basically defended her.

[Narrator]

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. Yet for the next several months, Scott continued to live on the same property as his mother. 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?

[Scott Ferris]

No, not directly towards her. So she, you know, she was kind of like bipolar in a way. She'd be nice one minute and then she'll be your worst enemy the next.

[Narrator]

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.

[Scott Ferris]

Cherokee county froze all accounts. Mom, my dad's, my sisters, they froze them all. So we had no access to money whatsoever. So I will go and find work, you know, under the table type pay work.

[Narrator]

That's because in a homicide, they don't want a potential killer to benefit financially from that, so they freeze the assets until the case is adjudicated.

[Rusty's Lawyer]

Yeah.

[Narrator]

Scott said that Melody made living on the farm extremely difficult. After Gary's murder, after all this started,

[Scott Ferris]

I will be up at the barn, working or something. She would come up and just start screaming at me and threatening me and stuff.

[Narrator]

About what?

[Scott Ferris]

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

[Narrator]

So you guys would argue?

[Scott Ferris]

She would try to argue.

[Narrator]

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?

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

Melody made allegations that Scott was threatening her. Things along those lines.

[Narrator]

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?

[Rusty Barton]

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.

[Narrator]

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.

[Scott Ferris]

Well, I called 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 because they're investigating all of us.

[Narrator]

According to Scott, Detective Hayes suggested he start using the voice memo app on his cell phone to record his mother.

[Scott Ferris]

So that's what I started doing, and

[Detective Daniel Hayes]

I had

[Scott Ferris]

a lot of recordings of her harassing me.

[Narrator]

Scott discovered that someone had broken into his apartment on the top floor of the family's barn. 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 lawyered 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. It confirmed the remains in the burn pile were Gary Farris. 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,

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

so we had to have Rusty drive Melody to us at the police department

[Narrator]

up there on June 18, 2019, Melody turned herself in. Melody was charged with murder, concealing the death of another, false statements and aggravated assault. Do you believe that Rusty could have been a motive for her killing her husband?

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

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 Farris.

[Narrator]

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

[Sergeant Ashley Pope]

So we went back up to interview him and that's when he told us. He's like, oh, by the way, I was. I was wrong.

[Narrator]

Rusty was about to flip again, this time on Detectives, and dramatically change his story. Was it out of love or self preservation? From 48 hours, this is blood is Thicker, the Ferris Wheel, produced by Sony Music Entertainment. I'm your host, Peter Van Sant. Judy Tygard is the executive producer of 48 Hours, original reporting by 48 Hours producers Betsy Schuller, Ryan Smith and Hannah Vehr. Jamie Benson is the senior producer for CBS News podcasts and Mara Waltz is the senior story editor. Recording assistance from Alan Peng and Alana Myers. Special thanks to CBS News podcast Vice president Megan Marcus. Blood is Thicker was written and produced by Alex Schuman. Stephanie Serrano is our editor. Our executive producer is Shera Morris. Our associate producer is Zoe Culkin. Theme and original music composed by Hansdale Shee. Cedric Wilson is our sound designer and mix the episodes. We also use music from Epidemic Sounds. Fendal Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Tamika Balance Kolasny. If you're enjoying the show, be sure to rate and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting. Thanks for listening. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? Throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

[Scott Ferris]

It effectively turned day into night and

[Narrator]

how it shaped the world. World now time travel with us every week on the Throughline podcast from NPR

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