Murdered attorney's wife blamed son who found remains in burn pit before suspicions led to her

The wife of a prominent Georgia attorney was found guilty of his murder this week, more than six years after her husband’s body was discovered in a burn pit. 

On Monday, Melody Farris was found guilty of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, concealing the death of another and making a false statement, the Cherokee County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. 

The mother of four showed no emotion as the verdict was read in Gary Farris’ killing, Fox 5 Atlanta reported. 

“I’ve seen my mother cry hundreds of times throughout my life, and it appeared to me to be fake,” her son, Scott Farris, told jurors, according to the Tribune Ledger News.

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Prosecutors argued Farris was the only person with a motive and the opportunity to kill her husband, noting she was the beneficiary of his $2 million life insurance policy.

According to the Tribune Ledger, they showed the jury that there had been a trail of blood in the couple’s home that spanned from their kitchen, down a set of stairs to the ground level.

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Farris’ attorneys tried to pin the crime on her son, Scott Farris, who discovered his father’s burned body in a pile of ashes on their 10-acre Purcell Lane property in Alpharetta.

They noted that Farris’ son was the only person in their household who owned .38-caliber ammunition, Fox 5 reported, and questioned how the 130-pound woman could have moved her husband’s 300-pound body onto the burn pile alone.

But the younger Farris denied killing his father or helping to dispose of his body.

Originally, investigators believed Gary Farris had a medical emergency, fell into the fire and died, according to the Tribune Ledger. But a bullet lodged in one of his rib bones launched a homicide investigation.

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The remains of Gary Wayne Farris were found in a burn pit on the Purcell Lane property he shared with his wife in Alpharetta in July 2018. (Cherokee County District Attorney’s Office)

The younger Farris testified in court that his mother only showed emotion when police told them that the remains found in the pit were human, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.

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Although Farris was married to her husband for more than three decades, prosecutors argued that they had marital issues regarding finances around the time of the killing.

It was also revealed in testimony that Farris had an affair with another man in 2009. The defendant’s daughter, Emily Farris, said her parents’ relationship never fully recovered despite her father’s attempts to reconcile. 

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In June 2019, nearly a year after the remains were found, Melody Farris was arrested in Tullahoma, Tenn., and taken into custody in Cherokee County. (Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office)

Farris initially told investigators she never had an affair. However, she changed her statement to say she had ended an extramarital relationship with a different man in 2017, People reported. 

Farris was removed from joint bank accounts after the affair, the daughter testified, but she still had financial control and influence over family decisions.

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A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for December, according to Fox 5.