Mother sensed ‘strong danger’ from son-in-law weeks before daughter’s murder during camping trip

Joseph Ferlazzo had abruptly returned without his wife from what was supposed to be a Vermont camping trip to mark their first wedding anniversary.

The 41-year-old told his in-laws that he had gotten into an argument with his spouse, Emily Schwarz Ferlazzo, 22, and that she had headed back home to New Hampshire.

Emily’s mother and stepfather weren’t buying it.

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“When he handed me her license, that was very strange,” her mother, Adrienne Bass, told Fox News Digital.

“I interpreted his shivering and shaking as if he’d been cold because he was riding his motorcycle from Vermont to New Hampshire. It was a three-hour drive in the middle of October. But thinking back on it now, I think he was probably having anxiety lying to our faces. . . . And when he left, his whole demeanor was threatening and cold. The feeling I got was, ‘Don’t question him.’”

The case is being explored on Investigation Discovery’s (ID) true crime series, “Fatal Destination,” which is executive-produced and narrated by Jessica Biel. It profiles stories where “idyllic getaways unravel into haunting mysteries.” It features interviews with friends, family, locals and law enforcement, among others.

In the episode titled “Where’s Emily?” Bass said “We were all afraid of him,” referring to Ferlazzo. She told Fox News Digital that the family suspected Ferlazzo had been abusing his wife behind closed doors.

“Emily would come to us asking for help, and then she’d go back to him, and it would backfire and cause more problems,” said Bass. “. . . The weekend before they left, I had feelings, senses that there was something wrong with him. I didn’t like their relationship, or how it was going. I felt, as a mom, my daughter was not safe.”

“The weekend before they went away, we were sitting at a restaurant having lunch with them to celebrate their anniversary,” Bass added. 

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“I can’t describe his behaviors or his mannerisms, but I froze. There was a very strong, overwhelming feeling that my life was in danger from him. I tried to figure out how to talk to her about it before they left. But I wasn’t ever able to come up with a way that I could talk to my daughter, who’s loyal to her husband, and say, ‘Hey, I think he’s dangerous.’”

“I wasn’t correct that it was my life that was in danger – it was my daughter’s,” Bass said. “But I could sense a strong danger from him.”

Ferlazzo, a tattoo artist, married Emily, a nurse, during the pandemic. Bass admitted that she had been perplexed that the couple had said, “I do.”

“Part of the reason we were surprised that they got married was because they seemed to be going back and forth… She had difficulty talking to him about when they were going to get married,” Bass said.

“And then on New Year’s Eve, they had a physical altercation,” Bass said. “She reached out to me asking for support. He would accuse her of cheating, and she would feel exasperated and confused about how to help him believe her.”

The family said that after the couple married, they witnessed bruising and “physical injuries” on Emily’s body. According to the episode, Emily blamed her injuries on “rough sex.”

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“It put us in an awkward situation,” David Bass, Emily’s stepfather, told Fox News Digital. “If we tried to talk to her about getting help or getting out, she would immediately tell him everything that was said. . . . We had to sort of not talk to her about things out of fear of making things worse. We had to be careful about what we said [with] very coded language.”

“She didn’t want to talk about the bruising,” Adrienne Bass reflected. “I think [months before their trip], Emily filled out paperwork for a divorce. He ended up doing it at the same time. . . . I don’t know all the details, but there were moments where things happened that I feel she wasn’t even really sure what happened.”

Things looked hopeful on Oct. 15, 2021. That day, the couple drove on a converted bus that was also their home, where they lived on the parents’ property, Rolling Stone reported. 

According to the outlet, they traveled a little more than two hours to Bolton, Vermont, a rural town in the picturesque western foothills of the Green Mountains, 30 miles east of Burlington and the shores of Lake Champlain. Nearby, Ferlazzo’s sister and her boyfriend had rented an Airbnb. Emily sent videos of what appeared to be a scenic drive to her family.

But on Oct. 18, Ferlazzo had returned home without Emily. According to Ferlazzo, he restrained her when she tried to leave during their argument, but she kicked him in the groin. He went on to tell Emily’s parents that after the fight, he had left to go to the store. That’s when Emily vanished, he insisted.

Adrienne and David Bass reported Emily missing. They told police there was a history of domestic violence and Emily had been seen with scratches and bruises.

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Adrienne Bass was hopeful that her daughter had managed to finally escape her tumultuous marriage without telling anyone.

That hope quickly faded.

“As soon as he left, I realized there were only three things that could have happened,” said Bass. “One, she’d been abducted. Another, she lost her memory for some bizarre reason. Or, she’s no longer alive.”

“I finally let it out,” she said. “I cried and just let the moment hit me.”

Prosecutor Sarah George later said that because Gabby Petito’s investigation had just happened, police were quicker to investigate Ferlazzo, CourtTV.com reported.

Like Emily, Petito’s case started as a search for a missing person after her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, returned from a road trip in a converted van without her. A police video showing Petito crying after a physical altercation with Laundrie raised questions about domestic violence.

Petito, 22, was found strangled to death near a Wyoming campground site weeks later. Laundrie was a person of interest. After he went missing for over a month, his remains were found in a Florida park that October.

With the police closing in, Ferlazzo confessed. 

Ferlazzo told investigators he and his wife had been arguing inside their camper, and it turned into a physical altercation. A few minutes later, he took out a handgun and shot her twice in the head, according to the affidavit.

The following morning, Ferlazzo said he took the camper from Bolton to a friend’s house in St. Albans. About 12 to 15 hours after the shooting, he dismembered Emily and placed her remains in garbage bags, which stayed in the camper and were found by police. The weapons believed to have been used in the killing were also retrieved by investigators.

Fighting back tears, Adrienne Bass said it was “excruciating and nauseating” listening to the horrifying details in court.

A jury convicted Ferlazzo of first-degree murder in December, CourtTV.com reported. In April, a judge sentenced him to 42.5 years to life in prison.

Emily’s family has been trying to heal. They take comfort in listening to recordings of Emily singing. Music was her true love.

“Emily would want to be known as a singer,” said David Bass. “She loved singing. She loved performing. Her voice is the most important thing. She would be incredibly upset at what had happened to her and Gabby Petito.”

Today, Adrienne Bass hopes that in sharing her daughter’s story, victims will be compelled to seek help before it’s too late.

“Try to listen to your gut,” she said. “If they don’t feel it’s safe to get out, wait until they find the time to try to find someone that they can trust to confide in. It doesn’t matter how old you are. . . . Anyone could be a victim of domestic violence. It doesn’t mean something is wrong with them as a person.”

“If you’re being abused in your relationship, call a crisis center, make a plan, talk to an expert,” urged David Bass. “Help is out there. You’re not alone.”

The “Fatal Destination” episode “Where’s Emily?” airs June 10 at 10 p.m. The Associated Press contributed to this report.