Prosecutors urge jurors to find Georgia woman guilty of murdering, burning husband

CANTON, Ga. (CN) — All of the evidence points to her guilt, prosecutors said Wednesday to the jury that will decide the fate of a Cherokee County woman accused of murdering her husband and burning his body.

Prosecutors initiated their closing statements by showing jurors a photo of Gary Farris’s burned skull that was retrieved from a burn pile on his property in 2018. Gary Farris was a prominent Atlanta-area attorney for the firm Burr and Forman and was married for 38 years to Melody Farris, who is on trial for his mysterious death.

Cherokee County Assistant District Attorney Meaghan Frankish pointed to Melody Farris’s secret affairs with at least two known men, Roy “Rusty” Barton and Ted Wiley, as proof of her dishonesty and lack of feelings toward her murdered husband.

“She despised Gary. That’s no secret," Frankish told the jury.

She urged the jury to recall recorded phone conversations they heard between Melody Farris and Barton, who testified that they planned on getting married once Gary Farris was out of the picture.

“Are you sure the house is clean?” Barton asked her during a call after Gary Farris’s remains were discovered.

“I know you’re scared shitless darling and so am I. There’s nothing there,” Melody told Barton.

Melody Farris was arrested for lying to authorities about having any extramarital affairs and ending her relationship with Barton — with whom she was found in Tullahoma, Tennessee, after her husband’s death.

Frankish noted that Melody deceived her own daughter, Amanda Farris, by lying about going to Minnesota in 2018 when she was actually on a secret trip at a hedonism resort in Jamaica with Barton.

She also recalled testimony from Melody Farris’s granddaughter, Addison, who said her grandmother told her “not tonight” when she asked to spend the night at her home on July 3, 2018 — the same night prosecutors and law enforcement contend when Gary Farris was murdered.

Prosecutors added that a text message Melody Farris sent to her friend and neighbor, Terry Braswell, saying of Gary Farris, “I hope he dies alone and a gruesome death,” proves she intended to kill her husband so she could go live with Barton.

“She never once encouraged law enforcement to find the person who actually did this,” Frankish said.

However, defense attorneys highlighted that there are many unanswered questions that remain in the case, including how Gary actually died and how a tiny, 64-year-old Melody Farris could have moved her husband, who was 6’3 and over 300 pounds, onto the burn pile.

Melody Farris’s other attorney, Michael Ray, told jurors that authorities did a poor job of collecting evidence from the Farris family’s massive 10-acre property in Alpharetta.

Forensic pathologist Dr. Jonathan Arden testified Tuesday that it is impossible for the bullet found in Gary Farris’s rib cage to have been the sole cause of his death.

While another bullet was found inside Gary Farris’s bedroom in the basement with his DNA on it, there was no blood around it.

There were a few tiny blood droplets belonging to Gary Farris found in the home, but no evidence of any drag marks between the home and the burn pile outside. A murder weapon was never found.

Ray said that investigators never collected any evidence or searched for any invisible blood traces from the room of Scott Farris, Melody and Gary’s adult son who lived on the property. He told the jury that Scott Farris’s room was filthy and even had dog feces, but his bathroom was spotless with a magic eraser left out.

Throughout the three-week trial, defense attorneys have pointed to Scott Farris as the likely murder culprit. They noted he said his gun was missing and was the only one who possessed the same kind of bullets as the one found in Gary Farris’s ribs and one found on the floor of his bedroom.

It was also unusual that Scott Farris deleted footage of himself on a trail camera located on the property at the same time his family was searching for his father, defense attorneys argued. His sister, Amanda Farris, also testified of Scott Farris having few friends and bouts of aggression after returning home from the military.

Scott Farris was the first to notice the human remains in the burn pile and to report it to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office on July 5, 2018.

He was present in the courtroom Wednesday along with his other siblings, Chris and Emily Farris. Their sister, Amanda Farris, was not.

Prosecutors contend that Scott Farris had no motive to kill his father because he was completely reliant on him financially and testified through tears that he loved his father. Meanwhile, Melody Farris refused to take the stand.

Melody Farris is charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, concealing the death of another and making a false statement in the death of her husband. The jury began deliberating late Wednesday afternoon.

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