The Burn Pile Murder: The Death of Gary Farris
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan
CrimeOnline and iHeartPodcasts
4.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2024
⏱️ 44 minutes
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Summary
How does a 130 pound, 58-year-old woman, put her 6'3", 300 pound husband on a burn pile?
When law enforcement was called to a farm outside of Atlanta, they were told a body was found burned up in a burn pile. Taking a quick look around, the body is burned beyond recognition, but it is probably 58-year-old Gary Farris. He and his wife Melody live on the 10-acre farm. Gary Farris is a big man, 6 foot 3 inches tall, 300 pounds, it looks like he might have had a heart attack and fallen into the burn pile, dead. His body is burned to the bone and he is identified by dental records. But before this death can be written up as a natural death, a bullet is found lodged in one of his ribs! Joseph Scott Morgan will unpack what it's like to investigate a death that starts in a burn pile and Dave Mack will share how investigators put together a case that ends up with Gary Farris wife, Melody, convicted for his murder.
Transcript Highlights
00:00.47 Introduction - moving heavy weight
04:31.17 How to move 300 pounds of dead weight
09:45.12 What happens to a body when it is burned
14:06.78 Melody Farris burns body of husband
19:01.72 Can't get a height on a body that's been burned
25:52.49 Collecting body from burned area
30:37.21 How big is a bullet?
34:34.87 What was used to start fire?
39:29.36 Smell of Citronella at burn pit
42:02.85 Conclusion
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| 0:00.0 | Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Moore. |
| 0:05.7 | I've been having these ongoing discussions with my buddy Dave Mac. |
| 0:12.9 | And the one thing that Dave and I have in common other than gray hair is annoying back injuries. It's just one of those things that just |
| 0:25.8 | sticks with you. It's nagging. And just briefly, let me tell you how I wound up with back |
| 0:33.1 | pain. When I was 20 or so, I started working in the morgue. |
| 0:39.3 | And the thing about working in the morgue as an autopsy assistant, back then, I had no help. |
| 0:47.4 | So daily, I would go into the morgue and being young and arrogant and not knowing the limitations of my mortal body, I would move other |
| 0:59.9 | bodies sometimes that outweighed me times two. I literally remember having a 500-pound |
| 1:10.6 | body fall on me one day in the morgue by myself. |
| 1:15.9 | It was terrifying and not in the sense that ghosties and goblins and those sorts of things. |
| 1:21.4 | It was terrifying thinking this is literally dead weight and I am going to have to extricate myself from this body, |
| 1:34.3 | and then once I do, I'm still faced with the prospect of getting the body up off the floor. |
| 1:40.9 | Now, think about that in a sense of you're a hundred and thirty pound woman. |
| 1:48.9 | And for whatever reason, you don't like your husband too much. |
| 1:54.6 | And you decide to take his life. |
| 1:56.6 | The only problem is, once you take his life, what do you do with him? |
| 2:01.2 | How are you going to move him? |
| 2:02.2 | Because this guy is 300 pounds plus. |
| 2:06.9 | What do you do? |
| 2:08.3 | Do you call on help? |
| 2:10.6 | Do you call on adrenaline? |
| 2:13.0 | Or do you wish it to disappear? |
... |
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