none whatsoever. and as they awaited the verdict, it might be an understatement to say that gabriel ferris and his defense attorney were anticipating good news. you thought you nailed it? i really did, yes. this moment? what is ferris feeling at this moment? he was talking about buying a sailboat. so after all this time, he thinks that he s going to be out of prison? yes. like that day? yes. i will announcement the verdict of the jury. yes, your honor. the find the defendant gabriel ferris guilty of felony murder. guilty. i think i gave a yell out of me. and the tears began to come down my face. thank god, that s what was going through my mind, thank god. 30 years after the murder of cheryl miller, a jury found gabriel ferris guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. ferris maintains his innocence. however, his latest appeal was denied in october 2006.
believe that someone else did it that i think it s very likely that gabriel ferris is completely innocent of this crime. coming up, could someone else have gotten away with murder? because of the government politics, we can t go back and get him now.
for his testimony against ferris. the rest of the case was similar smoke and mirrors. not pretty but the point i want to make. now ferris had another chance to convince a jury of his innocence, and they believed that the jury could only concluded that ferris was not guilty. why? a lack of physical evidence. was there any of gabe ferris hair found at the crime scene? none. semen? none. blood, skin tissue? nothing. what does that say about this case? i think it s a very weak case. a weak case, the defense argued, even though ferris fingerprint was found on a dresser a few inches from the victim s head. ferris said they had sex all over the bedroom and fingerprint analysts forced to admit they couldn t prove the prints were left the night of the murder.
proven that ferris was a man capable of leaving his honeymoon bed on the shores of lake huron and driving 65 miles for a rendezvous with ex-girlfriend, cheryl miller, a meeting that ended in murder. over time, years, evidence keeps pointing to gabe ferris. not tony alvarez. not abbass esfehani. gabe ferris. but the defense disagreed and insisted that the prosecution s theory made no sense. that even though admittedly ferris has been a scoundrel, sleeping with cheryl miller in the days before his wedding to another woman, there was no evidence that he killed her. it s a sleazy thing to do. but it doesn t amount to murder, people. soon the fate of gabriel ferris was in the hands of the jurors. among them, a retired mechanical engineer, a pipe fitter, and a marketing executive. what was that first, two undecided, four not guilty, and six guilty. and you were among those undecided. some wondered how so much of
the jury also heard from a jailhouse snitch that said ferris confessed to him. the snitch, like some other trial witnesses, did not wish to be photographed. he said he killed a woman, he said he strangled her. prosecutors called an ex-girlfriend who said ferris made strange statements while riding in a car in 1976, two years after cheryl miller was killed. he just kept saying, i didn t mean to do it. i didn t mean to do it. was gabe ferris his own worst enemy? well, i think there s no question about that. gabe ferris told enough people, enough things, to allow us to present evidence that would be corroborated in his own words. he was, in fact, the best evidence against him. but what physical evidence was there to back up those claims? how could prosecutors prove to the jury that ferris was the man who on june 15th, 1974, was in cheryl miller s bedroom with his hands around her neck squeezing the last breaths from her dying body?