The Murder of Kent Heitholt ft. Robin Warder

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Riddle Me That is a true crimepodcast that deals with adult themes. Some
episodes explore disturbing topics such as murder, abuse, sexual violence, drug abuse,
suicide, and self harm. Pleaselisten at your own risk. Theories
disgusting episodes may not be the opinionof the host. Welcome back to the

(00:25):
show. I'm Jules and this hasRiddle Me That true crime. So I'm
again joined by my path. WhenChilly, co host and host of the
trail went called Robin Warder, welcomeback to the show. Robin, Hello,
nice to see you again. Wereyou haven't spoken in two days?
I know it's been like a goodforty eight hours. I've missed you.
Oh I know. So today's casethat Robin is bringing to me is a

(00:49):
surprise. Well, it's sort ofa surprise because it's my mind exactly what
case it is, and I toldhim please don't remind me because I want
to be surprised. So which caseare we going to be talking about today,
Robin? Well, I think webriefly talked about it on previous recordings,
but we've never gone in depth toit, so I thought we would
cover it on this one. Andthat's the wrongful conviction of Brian Ferguson for

(01:11):
the murder of Can't Heitlt. Andit's also a wrongful conviction where we have
one person who's been exonerated and anotherman, Charles Erickson, who was convicted
of the same crime, but he'sstill in prison and the murder is technically
still unsolved because everyone believes that Charlesinnocent is innocent. So sorry, Charles
Erickson is innocent. This is goingto be a really good episode because I

(01:32):
know you love is the wrong word. We both are very interested in wrongful
conviction cases because the more you talkabout them, there is that potential that
there could be some traction, youknow, the right ears listen to it,
and you know, maybe they're theperson that writes to the senator or
maybe they have some polls. SoI think the more that we talk about
these cases where it's very obvious thatthere's a wrongful conviction at play here and

(01:55):
the system isn't doing what it needsto be doing in order to allow this
person to be free and to reclaimtheir life, then you know, you
talking about it here today with meis just one step in the right direction.
Yeah. I think I first gotinterested in this case maybe over ten
years ago when Ryan Ferguson was stillin prison, but it seemed pretty obvious

(02:15):
he was innocent, and thankfully hehas been exonerated and release. But the
battle is only half over because there'sanother innocent man likely staying in prison right
now. This case has been coveredon a number of true crime shows like
forty eight Hours Dateline, and there'sa documentary about it on Netflix called Dream
Killer. And I just want toknow, have you seen any of these

(02:35):
or seen the documentary or any ofthese true crime segments. I don't think
that I have it, Like thenames are so familiar, and I know
you've referenced this case before in previousrecordings, but it's not one that's like
top of mind that I can remembera bunch of details. So maybe I
watched like a Dateline or forty eightHours years ago and it's just not,

(02:59):
you know, really registering with thevery specific details of the case. But
yeah, I'm going to be learningabout it along with the listeners today,
Okay, so that's good. Thisis one of those cases I have encyclopedic
knowledge of, so I'll have alot to talk about. And I also
have a personal connection to this case, which I'll share later on. All
right, let's get into it,Okay. So the victim in this case

(03:22):
was Kent Hidehold. He was theforty eight year old sports editor at the
local newspaper in Columbia, Missouri,the Columbia Tribune. The crime is going
to take place during the early morninghours of November the first, two thousand
and one, which is just afterHalloween. And by all accounts, Kent
Heidehold was a very nice, wellliked guy who was very well respected by

(03:43):
his co workers. He had awife and a son and a daughter,
and even though he was a largeman, he was described as kind of
a gentle giant and a teddy bear. In fact, he had this habit
apparently of how a stray cat wouldcome around into the parking lot of the
Columbia Tribune any of what. Alwaysstopped to feed it whenever he saw it.
But it's kind of tragic because it'sbelieved that this cat might have shown

(04:04):
up on the night of the murdererand that Kent was attacked while he was
in the midst of feating it.No, I know, you're an animal
lover. In most of the listeners, like everybody who seems to consume true
crime is a big animal lover,so to think that the cat might have
been kind of the catalyst not tolure him there, but maybe it was

(04:26):
just like a happy accident for whomeverdecided to attack him. That's really heartbreaking
for him and for this poor cat. Exactly. Well, the cat gets
survived, and I do believe thatKent's wife several months later actually tried to
find it and adopt it because itkind of reminded her of her late husband.
So it did kind of have ahappy, bittersweet ending. So she
did adopt the cat or she justtried to. I'm not entirely sure.

(04:48):
I've heard conflicting sources on that,but I think she did eventually find it
and take it home. That's reallysweet. She sounds like a wonderful woman.
Yeah, So the timeline here isreally important because of the exact times
are pretty much helped break down whenthis crime took place. But the actual
nine one one call to report whathappened took place at two twenty six am.

(05:11):
The police were informed that Kent hadbeen brutally attacked and was lying dead
in the parking lot outside the ColumbiaTribune. When the police arrived, they
found he was lying next to hiscar in the parking lot. He had
been struck on the head eleven timesthe blunt object, and he had also
been strangled to death. The actualmurder weapon was never found, and they
found Kent's belt buckle lying near hisbody, but the actual belt itself was

(05:35):
missing, So it's believed that thekiller got into a struggle with him,
took his belt off and used itto strangle him, which is very unusual,
and they obviously took the belt withhim that On the surface, it
looked like it was going to bea robbery because his keys and his watch
were missing, But then they foundout that his wallet was on the front

(05:56):
seat inside of his car, andthe watch he had been wearing was a
very cheap TIMEX, so it seemedlike if the killer attacked him to rob
him, they really didn't get anythingout of it, so they were instantly
thinking there's a lot more to thiscrime. It kind of seems like it
was some sort of thrill kill ora crime of passion. What really strikes
me about that is hitting him eleventimes with a blunt object, Like we've

(06:18):
seen cases where somebody's hit once inthe head and they're hit hard enough that
it results in death. Like we'vetalked about the John Maine Ramsey case and
whether it was the garat or thehit to the head with whatever object it
was. You know, it seemsdepending on whatever expert it is, one
will say that one killed her andone will say that the other one did.

(06:39):
But I think that they would allagree on even if the garat hadn't
been used, that head injury wouldhave resulted in her death. So eleven
times that seems like a lot.Like you'd think he would have been incapacitated
at that point, was it,like? Did he was he strangled and
then somebody decided to hit him overthe head just to make sure that he

(07:00):
was dead type of a thing.It's my assumption that they probably hit him
several times and found out that theycouldn't kill him. He was still alive,
and that's why they decided to takehis belt off and strangle him with
it. It must have been adesperation thing where they're like, well,
we can't kill him, we needsomething to finish them off, and then
they just removed his belt. Andthat's what makes me think this was some

(07:20):
spontaneous, unplanned crime, because noone is going to approach a victim and
then decide I'm going to remove theirbelt and strangle it with them. It's
very strange. It doesn't really haveany sophisticated killer hallmarks to it, Like
I don't we don't know what bloodobject they used and if they brought it
with them or if it was aweapon of opportunity. But obviously the belt

(07:42):
was a weapon of opportunity, andthat doesn't scream like very prepared or organized
killer. It's just like you're panickingand floundering at that point in time,
so you remove the belt of thevictim. So yeah, I'm with you
on it looks to me like thiscould just be the spontaneous thrill kill and
it really does not seem like robberywas the motive. And I think they

(08:03):
just decided to remove his watch,thinking that well, if we take the
watch, maybe we'll think it's robbery. But it's like, nobody is going
to approach a guy and say I'mgoing to rob a guy and kill him
by using his own belt to stranglehim. And honestly, if you're going
to be if robbery is your primarymotive for a crime, Are you really
going to target somebody that works fora paper, like are there not known

(08:24):
to be the most affluent people?I mean? And also wouldn't you think
that there's a good chance that therecould be some type of security out there
for reasons like journalists do get attacked, right exactly, But if you wanted
to rob someone, can't Heidehold wouldnot be an ideal target because he was
a really large man. So helooks like someone who's gonna put up a
fight if you try to attack him. So he just does not seem like

(08:46):
someone you would just attack at random. Yeah, if you're gonna even if
you're gonna do a random thrill kill, it seems like unless you tossed a
coin or unless somebody else picked yourvictim for you, it seems like an
odd choice no matter what the motivewas, unless it was personal type of
the thing. So this particular crimewould have two very important eye witnesses who
worked as custodians at the Columbia Tribune. One of them was named Shauna Arrant

(09:11):
and the other person was her supervisornamed Jerry Trump. And I just want
to clarify right now, no relationWe're going to say the name Trump a
lot in this episode, but thisguy isn't connected to that other Trump.
But what happened is that at atwo twenty one am, Shauna Warrant went
outside for a smoke break and shesuddenly noticed a white male in the distance
who was ducking behind the driver's sidedoor of kent't Heyol's car, And so

(09:35):
she decided to go back inside andget Trump. And when they both went
back out, Trump yelled over atthe vehicle. Two white male stood up,
and one of them actually yelled somebody'shurt before they ran off and disappeared
din an alley. And that's whenthey Trump and Arrant decided to call the
police. So he was described asbeing in his early twenties having blonde,

(09:56):
spiky hair, so they were ableto get a comp posit sketch for them,
but they were unable to get enoughdetails to get a composite sketch for
the other one. And there wasa ton of physical evidence at the crime
scene. There were unidentified fingerprints,shoeprints, and Can't also had a strand
of hair clutched in his hand whichdid not belong to them. But even
though they had a lot of evidenceto work with. This case would run

(10:18):
cold for the next two years andthey were never able to find any solid
suspects. I mean, even thoughthey don't have any solid suspects, it
seems like they've got to have apretty good DNA profile. If ken't pulled
that hair out at the route andwas at the case, were they able
to get DNA from that hair?Yes, they were. And that's what's
so weird about this case. I'lltalk more about it momentarily, is that

(10:41):
right from the outset the people thatthey charged with this crime, the DNA
they knew it did not match them, yet they still wound up going on
trial. But I'll explain why momentarily. All right, let's go, let's
get to it. Then. Well, as you can imagine, like if
you're gonna kill a sports editor froma newspaper, a really wild liked guy,
then this is going to get aton of coverage in the area because

(11:03):
all that the media is like prettymuch pushing to have these killers brought to
justice. So it pretty much tookeveryone by surprise that the case remained unsolved
for over two years and that theywere unable to find any suspects, So
the police were under a ton ofpressure, but it was in early two
thousand and four that they finally gota good break when the friends of a

(11:24):
nineteen year old kid named Charles Ericssonstarted contacting him and said that he had
been going around town like saying somevery weird things that seemed to indicate he
might be involved in Ken Heighold's murder. It was apparently after a two year
anniversary article ran about the case inNovember of two thousand and three, Charles
started telling people that he was havingthese vivid dreams about being involved in the

(11:48):
crime, and he apparently saw thecomposite sketch of the unidentified white male and
was struck by how much he resembledhim. And I mentioned earlier. Technically
the crime took place right after HalloweenKnight, so Charles had spent Halloween Night
in two thousand and one like partying, doing a lot of drugs and alcohol.
And he was also doing a lotof drugs and alcohol many years later,

(12:11):
he said he was a marijuana addict. He did a lot of adderall
in cocaine, and he was tryingto think back and what he was doing
on Halloween Knights two years ago,and he remembered he had been doing a
lot of drugs. But he wentto a bar called by George with a
seventeen year old friend of his namedRyan Ferguson, and even though they were

(12:31):
both under age, Ryan's sister Kellyknew one of the bouncers and they were
able to get them in there,and as far as Charles could remember,
he and Ryan they left together andwent back home, but he says that
he pretty much blacked out for mostof the night. So he had been
going around telling people that there wasa possibility that he could have been involved

(12:52):
in Kent's murder. Yikes, thatseems really problematic. It's almost like what
we deal with with eyewitness sightings.It's like he saw this sketch and it
somehow resembled him, and that plantedthe seed in his mind because of because
of the night being so close toHalloween and what he was doing, that
it was possible that he had somethingto do with it. So this seems

(13:15):
pretty troublesome right from the get go. Pretty much. Yeah, and as
you can understand, the police,we're going to jump right all over it
because they were pretty much at adead end here. They did not have
any suspects, so they decided tobring in Charles and for questioning and see
what he knew, if there wasany legitimate seed to what he was saying.
And in most investigations, like people, they would probably have spoken with

(13:37):
Charles and thought, well, hedoesn't seem to know any details about the
crime which are not public knowledge,and he seems to and he isn't providing
any details that are accurate. Butthis is another one of those cases where
if you watch his confession video,it's one of those things where it looks
like the investigator is leading them onwhere he can't. They asked Charles,

(13:58):
like, what did you use tostrangle Kent? Then he'll say something like
a rope, a rope or somethinglike that, and then they'll says,
no, it was a belt,and then he goes, oh, yeah
it was a belt. Oh no, yeah, exactly, which you're not
supposed to do if you're an investigatingofficer. And this eventually paved the way
for Charles making a full confession.He said he finally remembered what happened.
He said that when he and Ryanwere at the bar on Halloween night,

(14:22):
they ran out of money, sothey decided to leave the bar with the
idea of robbing someone to get somemore cash. And this bar they went
to it was called the by George. It was only a couple blocks away
from the Columbia Tribune parking lot,so they said they walked in that direction,
cross passed with Can't Hiholt and thisis when Charles hit him with a
tire iron while Ryan strangled him todeath, and then they decided to rob

(14:46):
him and go back to the barto purchase more drinks. Wow, now
it's getting very specific, like thestory seems to be fleshing out. And
I'm sure that the investigators that wereinvolved, given the time period and how
little how little we actually knew aboutfalse confessions at the time versus now,

(15:07):
they were likely using the read technique, which is, you know, we
talked about that plenty, which isgreat forgetting confessions from those who are guilty,
but the unfortunate side effect is itcan also elicit confessions from innocent parties.
And it sounds like this story wasbuilt by the investigators, and I'm
sure that while they were doing it, they thought, like, this kid

(15:28):
has to be guilty, let's justhelp him along with the story like there
wasn't any malice in it, butin the end, it's like, there
isn't any DNA that matches. Didnobody consider that perhaps this was a false
confession. Yeah, that's what I'mthinking. It's like I can understand investigating
him because you're you've hit a deadend and he's supposedly telling stories that he

(15:50):
was involved in the crime, butlike, none of the shoeprints, none
of the fingerprints, none the DNAmatches him. And I don't know if
you noticed yet, but there's alreadya big hole in Charles's story because he
says that the mode was that theyattacked Kent and robbed him and went back
to the bar to purchase more drinks. But as you recall, Kent's wallet
was found in the front seat ofhis car, so it was not actually

(16:11):
taken, And then later on Charleswould change a story you account for that
and say, oh, when wegot back to the bar, Ryan suddenly
found a twenty dollars bill folded intohis pocket that he didn't notice before.
So that's what we used to purchasedrinks. Oh, come on, Like
this guy was wearing a crappy timex watch. He didn't even have his
wallet on him. He's a hugeguy. If you're going to target somebody

(16:34):
in the mode of his robbery soyou can go get a couple more drinks,
surely there has to be a bettertarget, do you know what I
mean? Oh exactly. I mean, like, if you're going to attack
someone to rob him, you're notgoing to go after like a very large
guy who works in a newspaper,who even if you're targeting him two on
one, Like he seemed like abig enough guy that he could take two

(16:55):
scrawny teenage boys. So it reallydoes not seem like a believable story at
all. But they did finally bringRyan in for questioning, and as you
could imagine, he was just takingby complete surprise because his story, which
he has never changed, is thathe and Charles left the bar together sometime
between one fifteen one thirty. Hedropped Charles off at his place and then

(17:17):
went straight home, and this wasabout an entire hour before Kent was murdered.
So he was thoroughly interrogated, buthe never cracked. He never changed
his story. He adamantly denied thathe was involved, but nevertheless because Charles
told this story, which the copsfound so believable they decided to arrest Ryan
and charge him with Kent's murder,and Charles actually agreed to a plea deal

(17:40):
in which he would plead guilty tosecond degree murder in exchange for testifying against
Ryan at his trial. Oh mygod, Ryan must have been like wt
at, like, what's actually goingon here? They don't have any footprints
a match, There isn't any DNAthat matches. The motive seems like complete
and Utterbs then had to go andbe like, oh, yeah, there

(18:02):
was a twenty dollar bill who wasin the pocket. We use that for
more drinks. So essentially a murderwas committed for nothing. None of this
makes sense. And he asked tobe pulling his hair out of his head,
going does nobody else see what's goingon here? Exactly? And that's
why the documentary on Netflix is titleddream Killer, because this whole investigation essentially

(18:22):
started because Charles had a dream whereRyan is being like in a lot of
these cases where people are wrongfully convictedthat they have maybe troubled backgrounds or their
minorities, or their hail from poverty, or Ryan was just an ordinary kid
from like the suburbs, a whitekid with a close family, and he
had very close relationships with his mother, father, and sister, so he

(18:44):
did not seem like a candidate tobe caught up in something like this.
But he's like learning that you're essentiallybeing brought in for questioning for a murder
because a friend of yours said thathe had a dream that you committed this
murder together, and now he's actuallybeing charged for it without any evidence.
I mean, it is very,very strange the way our brain works with
dreams and memories. I recall havingthis dream as a child where my dad

(19:07):
made me eat these like, youknow, dried crickets. Oh really,
yeah, I was convinced that thislegit actually happened, that my dad had
made me eat dried crickets when Iwas like four or something, and it
never happened. But it's like inmy brain like a memory. But I
know that it never happened because,for one, where I lived at the

(19:27):
time, there wasn't dried crickets.We weren't living in Southeast Asia, so
it just wasn't a thing. Andit's such a bizarre thing to have this
memory that you know isn't real.So it's obvious that this dream just somehow
probably triggered by that poster where hesaw that person that looked like him,
and then it planted that seed inhis mind, like what if I had

(19:49):
something to do with it? Andthen it's further reinforced by that dream because
that seed's already planted, and thenat that point he thinks, like,
gosh, darn it, I musthave done it, even though none of
the evidence supports it. Pretty much, yeah, like even though he was
told that none of the DNA orthe evidence matsks. You can tell that
for many years Charles was genuinely convincedthat he was involved in this crime.

(20:12):
So I think he did not justthink it was a dream. I think
he really thought he had killed someoneand was looking to atone by testifying even
though he wasn't actually involved. Andthat's what's so weird about this entire case.
So the trial would begin in Novemberof two thousand and five, and
this is one of the most frustratingaspects. The prosecutor on this case was

(20:33):
ken. His name was Kevin Crane, and during his opening statement to the
jury, he flat out admitted thatnone of the DNA, none of the
fingerprints, none of the hair,none of the shoeprints match Ryan Ferguson.
But that doesn't matter because the evidencewe're going to present is so compelling you
are still going to find him guilty. And as you can imagine, this
made appealing Ryan's conviction later on verydifficult because when you've already acknowledged in aren't

(21:00):
at the trial that none of theDNA matched him, and the jury still
found him guilty, you can't usethis as grounds to overturn his conviction.
Oh my gosh, that is Imean, it's a great strategy, right.
It's like, find all the faultsin your argument with your evidence,
present it at the beginning, andyou know, be kind of cavalier about
it and say, yeah, Iacknowledge this, because then you get to

(21:23):
control the narrative with regards to whatyou're lacking and what you do. Have
you put it in the hands ofthe defense, then you're kind of screwed,
right, because you're at the mercyof how they choose to present that
evidence. But if straight up you'resaying it then and you're going we don't
have this, we don't have thatit's not so incendiary, and the jury's
kind of already at that place whereyou're getting them used to the idea that

(21:48):
there isn't any DNA, there isn'tany physical evidence, but it's okay because
we've got other things that are compelling. Pretty much. Yeah, like you
pretty much got it out of theway right away, because I know we've
always taught about the CSI effect,where juries will sometimes not feel like that
the physical evidence is strong enough inorder to convict someone because they're so used
to seeing TV shows like CSI wherethey find the perfect physical evidence to match

(22:11):
someone. But that isn't the case, and it sometimes make convictions like more
difficult. But here they're just pushingthat out of the way, saying that,
yeah, we know the physical evansdoesn't match, but don't worry about
that. We have evidence that's muchmore compelling. So I will say right
up front that the prosecutor in thistrial, Kevin Crane, he seems like
a major jackass. I've seen himin interviews. He comes across as very

(22:34):
arrogant and calendescending, and everyone who'sinteracted with him describes him as a bully
and a jerk, and as I'mgoing to talk about he did a lot
of immoral things to get this conviction. But I think the problem is that
in this particular trial, he reallywas the better lawyer. He was a
lot more confident about presenting his case, whereas the defense attorney that was hired

(22:56):
for Ryan was a guy named CharlieRodgers who really didn't look like nope,
looked like he knew what he wasdoing. He looked so unprepared, and
there were parts where he was likestumbling over He's giving like these presentations with
slides, and he's getting the locationsof downtown Columbia wrong and stumbling over his
words. And there's one point wherehe wants to present Charles Ericson's confession to

(23:18):
the jury to show that he wasbeing coerced and he was being fed details,
but apparently, like the quality ofthe recording and the acoustics in the
courtroom were so poor that the juryjust didn't have any clue, couldn't even
understand what he was saying, soit didn't really register for them. So
this is pretty much a case whereif Ryan had gotten a competent defense attorney,
they probably would have blown holes inthis case. And torn it apart,

(23:42):
but he was just stuck with thisguy, Charlie Rodgers, who looked
like he really didn't know what hewas doing. Sounds like a horrible trial
lawyer, just in the sense thathe doesn't have that showmanship. And I
think it's who puts forth the beststory, right. And if the story
you're telling is not being able toremembers and times you're stumbling over your words,

(24:03):
you present things like you're going tolose the jury if they can't hear
what's going on. Do you thinkthis is so compelling and you're going to
show it, will provide a transcriptfor the jury or something, do something
so that they're engaged, because atthis point, you know, the crane
guy is probably keeping their attention andthey're probably like, okay, like this
guy tells a good story, whereasyou know this it was he court appointed,

(24:29):
he wasn't actually like That's the thingis Ryan came from a very well
to do family, and his fathersaid that they paid a lot of money
to hire this Charlie Rodgers guy.He wasn't just a public defender yet.
I think his father, Bill,when he was watching the trial, was
just aghast at how terrible. Rogerswas well, I'm sure that he didn't
get any other high profile criminal casesafter that mess. Definitely not. He

(24:52):
looked like he should have retired atthat point because he looked I can't imagine
this guy ever being that good.But on the basis of his performance in
this trial, he was not veryimpressive. Was he a newbie or was
he like an older guy? Oh? No, he was an older guy.
Oh that makes it even worse.He looked like he might have been
passed his prime or something like he'dbeen doing it for way too long.
Okay, Yeah, So there werebasically only two pieces of evidence against Ryan

(25:17):
at the trial. One of themwas Chuck Ericson himself, who agreed to
testify against Ryan. Like I mentioned, he had agreed to a plea deal,
so he was going to get atwenty five years since in exchange for
testifying against Ryan. And I cankind of unsunderstand the jury's perspective here because
you watch Charles's testimony, he looksreally believable in convincing while sharing this story

(25:40):
about committing this murder together. AndI'm sure they're thinking of themselves, this
guy is going to face twenty fiveyears in prison no matter what, Like,
why would he confess to a crimehe wouldn't commit. Why would he
lie about this? And I haveto think that this probably like overrode the
need for stuff like DNA and physicalevidence when they're seeing this guy flat out
in that they committed the murder togethereven though he's facing serious prisons time.

(26:03):
Yeah, I think the time perioddefinitely worked against them. I think if
that trial was today, I thinkthe general public has a greater understanding that
people do make false confessions. Thisis a phenomenon that is very, very
real. But I think that evenlike ten years ago, there was less
understanding of that. People thought nobodyconfesses who didn't commit the crime. So

(26:29):
if this person confessed, it's betterthan DNA, it's better than physical evidence.
But we know more now and thatjust isn't necessarily the case pretty much.
Yeah, Like I know, wasstuff like making a murderer and the
West Memphis three case. We've seenso many cases going to the mainstream about
false confessions, and I'm just thinkingthat most of the jury members on people

(26:49):
who are on the jury for thisparticular prole probably weren't aware of the phenomenon
of false confessions and probably had nevercan cross their minds that Charles could have
been comletely fabricating this story. Butthe other key eye witness was the supervisor
of the custodians from the Columbia Tribune, Jerry Trump. As you recall,

(27:10):
he originally said that he had notgotten a good look at either of the
two white nails that he saw inthe Powerking lot standing over Ken's body,
but then he changed his story yearslater. Believe it or not, I
don't know the details of this,but he wound up going to prison for
endangering the welfare of a child,and he was technically a registered sex offender
and he would have violated the termsof his parole. But a Trump's story

(27:34):
is that he was being released aftergoing back to prison and that his wife.
But while he was incarcerated, hiswife sent him a copy of a
newspaper article about the arrests of RyanFerguson and Charles Ericsson, and after taking
a closer look at their photographs,he became convinced that bees were the same
two young men he saw in theparking lot that night. So he came

(27:55):
forward to the authorities and Kevin Cranepremped him to testify. He was pretty
much a witness who backed up Charles'sstory. So Trump, the sex offender,
is backing up the story here,Yes, exactly, the sex offender
who is the star witness. Yeahike, that's always problematic when you the best
witness you've got as a sex offendernamed Trump, exactly. Yeah, that's

(28:18):
kind of ironic. Yeah, Butwhat's funny is that the other custodian who
was there, Shauna Orren't. Shewas called upon to testify at but believe
it or not, she was notspecifically asked to identify or say if the
white male she saw was Ryan orCharles. And the whole thing was pretty
much a farce because she was puton the stand, she was asked questions,

(28:41):
but no one actually asked her doyou see the man you saw in
this courtroom? She was just askedto share her story and dismissed. And
it was not until after the trialwhen she spoke to Ryan's father when she
said, when she finally confirmed tohim that, yeah, the man that
I saw was not Ryan Ferguson.But I never said at in court because
no one asked me that question.And it seemed obvious that Kevin Crane,

(29:04):
the prosecutor, he probably knew thatshe was going to say that the man
she saw wasn't Ryan, so henever asked her the question. And Charlie
Rodgers, the defense attorney, wasso unprepared that he was paranoid that she
would identify Ryan, so he didn'task her the question either, So she
was called upon to give testimony withouteven being asked the one question which would

(29:25):
pretty much make or break the entiretrial. I'm literally pulling out my hair
right now. I'm so frustrated.How did Charlie not think? Okay,
So Kevin Crane over here isn't askingShanna ort about if it was Ryan or
not. So the fact that heisn't asking should then inform him that maybe

(29:48):
Sean is going to say that itwasn't because we know if it was indeed
Ryan that Shauna saw, then Cranewould be all over that pretty much.
Yeah, exactly, But he didn'tpick up on that. From what I
can tell, he just did notdo his due diligence and his research.
So for all you know, hecould have legitimately believed Ryan was guilty,

(30:08):
but didn't wanted to prevent him frombeing identified in court, but he didn't
realize that if you had just askedor that question, then she could she
could have said that was not him, and then Ryan would have been acquitted.
Can you imagine what the judge wasthinking, like, is literally nobody
going to ask this woman if itwas Ryan Ferguson? Exactly? Yeah,
it's just the whole situation. Evenif I was on the jury, I

(30:30):
would have those questions. Is like, she was there, she was the
one who provided the description for thecomposite sketch. Why isn't anyone asking her
this question? Yeah, you'd belike raising your hand, excuse me?
Is someone going to ask her ifit was Ryan Ferguson or not? Why
is she even here If she's notgoing to tell us if it was him
or not. That's probably why theydon't put true crime podcasters like us on

(30:53):
juries. We need to ask meany questions. Yeah, I'm pretty sure
we'd be excused from jury duty atany murder. Yeah, pretty much so.
Sadly, Charles's testimony and the testimonyof Jerry Trump, it looked like
it was strong enough evidence to convincethe jury, because they wound up finding
Ryan guilty on the charges of seconddegree murder and first degree robbery, and

(31:15):
he wound up being sentenced to fortyyears in prison. And unfortunately, under
normal circumstances, this case might havebeen forgotten and languished in obscurity. But
this is where we get to oneof the most remarkable aspects of this story,
and that's Ryan's father, Bill Ferguson, who was pretty much a rock
star and a hero for what hedid in this case. He seems like
the most amazing father ever. Asthey were going up, Bill and Ryan

(31:38):
just had a very close relationship andnot at any point did Bill believe that
his son was guilty of this crime. And for what I could tell,
he was very proactive and did alot more preparation into preparing for the trial
than Charlie Rodgers did, and hedid everything in his power to try to
get his son out of prison.He was spreading the word about the case.
He did a whole bunch of bootsto the ground investigation, interviewing new

(32:02):
witnesses, digging up new evidence.And he was the fun one who finally
got in contact with Shanna Oorrenton asked, did you see my son in the
parking lot that night? Was hethe killer. When she finally said no,
she prayed and said thank you.I've been wanting to hear this for
so long. Oh my god.Like what an advocate. He is out

(32:22):
there, boots on the ground,you know, shaken trees and shook the
biggest tree and got the best answer. Your son isn't the one that I
saw. I cannot believe that thatwasn't asked in court like that is the
single most important question. And it'sso nice that the family had the resources
to be able to fight this.It's just really unfortunate that good old Charlie

(32:45):
didn't seem to be at his peakin his performance or his career, that
he actually did the research and wasable to be a very good showman,
because it seemed like you could haveblown holes all over this case, and
yet he just didn't. And they'vepaid a pretty penny for that. And
that's a really really unfortunate thing.Oh pretty much. Yeah. I mean

(33:07):
I always thought that Bill probably shouldhave been the lawyer for his own son,
and he might have been able toget an acquittal because he was so
well prepared to fight this conviction.And he's a very endearing guy as well.
I know that many years ago.The Generation Wide podcast covered Ryan's case
when he was still in prison,and Aaron got to meet Bill Ferguson and

(33:28):
have a chat with him, andhe seems like such a cool dude,
and he doesn't he doesn't interview inthe Dream Killer documentary where he actually says,
Yeah, I've always been interested inthe law. I watched a lot
of Perry Mason, so he's almostlike he's trying to he's outliving this childhood
fantasy by being Perry Mason and tryingto find the real killer. Oh my
gosh, I love that. It'sjust so good to have a situation where

(33:51):
you've got a parent who genuinely believesthat their child didn't do it, and
it's very clear that he's right,you know what I mean, Like,
oh, none of the evidence supportsit. So except for Charles Ericson's confession,
that's the only thing that they've got. They don't have any physical evidence
or eyewitnesses or what did the oneeyewitness did he say that he saw it

(34:12):
was Jerry Trump, who initially saidthat he didn't get a good look at
the two males, but then suddenlychanged his story years later and said that
it was Ryan and Charles. Yeah, so it was a shifting narrative there.
So it's like, you're a sexoffender with a shifting narrative, you
don't seem very credible. But SeannaOrn't the one who does seem to be
more credible. Isn't even directly askedthat. So I can see why he
had that coolhearted, steadfast belief inhis son's innocence. And it's so nice

(34:37):
to hear because you see some ofthese stories where people don't have the resources
to fight it, or they believethat the state doesn't get it wrong because
they believe in the justice system andthe fact that it gets it right more
often than not. And as weknow, because we've covered enough of those
cases, that isn't always true.Exactly. Yes, And I think Ryan

(34:58):
was kind of lucky here because dadwas involved in real estate, so they
did have a decent amount of money. But I do know that he had
pretty much had to spend a lotin order to release his son and do
stuff like cash in its four Oone K, So it was kind of
lucky. We're going to talk abouther momentarily that Kathleen Zelner soon came along
and agreed to take Ryan's case probono. Well, whenever Kathleen Zelner comes

(35:19):
on the case, you know thatthe person is likely innocent, and there's
some pretty good evidence to prove thatexactly. But before I talk more about
Kathleen Zellner, I wanted to talkabout some of the holes in charles story
that Bill wound up uncovering. So, as you recall, his story is
that they went out because they ranout of money to buy drinks, so
they decided to commit robbery. That'swhen they killed Kent, and then they

(35:42):
didn't seal his wallet. They returnedto the bar and found a twenty dollar
bill that Ryan had forgotten about,and then they purchased more drakes. So,
but the big hole in that storyis that Kent's murder took place at
around two twenty am, But theBy George bar where Ryan and Charles had
been that night, had closed atone thirty because they had a city ordinance
that all downtown bars had to closeby one thirty. So how could they

(36:07):
return to the bar and purchase moredrinks an hour after the bar closed.
It doesn't even make sense. It'ssort of like, oh, we went
to go kill somebody to rob them, but then we found twenty bucks in
our pocket. I think, ifyou're desperate enough to have a couple more
drinks, you're going to check yourpockets and see if you've got any cash
before you then go and decide tocommit a murder. Exactly. Yeah,

(36:29):
it's true. And it's like youthink that Charlie Rodgers could have found that
out before the trial, that thebars closed at one thirty, But I
guess not, because that could havegotten a lot of reasonable doubt in the
minds of the jurors. So,and there was another big hole in Charles's
original story. He claimed that whenhe drove back home, when him and
Ryan drove away from the murder sceneand oh sorry, they were walking back

(36:52):
to the bar from the murder scene, and they passed at a red light
where a friend of theirs named DallasMallory was parked, and this would have
been around two thirty eight, andhe claimed that they had a brief chat
with Mallory before they went back tothe bar. Well, Dallas Mallory was
questioned about this by Bill and hedenied this exchange ever took place. And
there were two crucial pieces of evidenceto support this Mallory said, this particular

(37:15):
point in time, my license hadbeen revoked because of a DUI conviction,
So I would not have even beendriving a car or stopping at a red
light at this point. I didnot even own a car. And Bill
also noticed that this particular intersection duringthe early morning hours, they would always
not they wouldn't have red lights.They was always have flashing yellow lights because

(37:36):
there wasn't any traffic. So there'sno way someone is stopping at a red
light at two thirty at this intersectionto stop to chat with Ryan and Charles.
So this completely blew the whole DallasMallory story that way, and just
created another sizable hole in Charles's story. It's like, so they saw Dallas
Mallory at an intersection where he wouldn'thave been stopped because there was no red

(37:58):
light, on their way back toa bar that was already closed, like
because none of it is lining upat this point pretty much. No.
And also when Bill was speaking toShauna Orrnt, she said that when she
was called upon to testify beforehand,that Kevin Crane, the prosecutor, kept
bullying her and pushing her. Ineed you to identify Ryan as the guy

(38:20):
you saw, but she said,nope, he was not the guy I
saw, and that's why she refusedto do it. She stuck to her
guns, and, like we mentionedearlier, when she went on to the
stand actually testified, Crane never actuallyasked her if Ryan was the guy who
saw it. So it became prettyobvious ahead of time that Kevin Crane knew
he had the wrong guys, butwas doing these dirty tricks to ensure that

(38:42):
he's still got conviction. And sureenough, a couple of years later,
Crane would wound up becoming a judge. So getting the conviction in this case
helped launched his career, and he'snever suffered any serious consequences for his actions.
I was going to ask you thatquestion before you pretty much answered her
for me. If you thought thatKevin Crane genuinely believed that they did it
and so he was pushing, orif it was just about winning for him,

(39:06):
Yeah, that's pretty much it.He seems like the ultimate terrible prosecutor
who he doesn't care if it's aconviction, if he's got the right person,
or if he's sending like an oran innocent person to prison. All
he wants is to get a convictionand get a win in order to enhance
his career. That's so unfortunate becausesomebody, you know, with his intellect,
you would hope that they would lookat the evidence to go, why

(39:27):
the f are we actually bringing thisto trial. There's no evidence to support
this. The eyewitnesses. One saysthey didn't see or get a good enough
look at them. The other onesays it's not them, So you really
have nothing. And there's hair clutchedin his hand. And usually if somebody
is murdered, it's going to beby the person whose hair is being clutched,

(39:47):
you know what I mean. Sohow did he even try to explain
that away? I mean, itjust it seems like he went above and
beyond what is generally what we seeof unethical behavior by pro shooters and just
like took it to like one extranotch further. That's pretty much it.
But a funny story here is manyyears later, because he was a judge

(40:08):
and he was this respected figure inthe community, he was actually called upon
him to speak at the graduation ceremonyat Missouri State University. And this was
when Ryan was still in prison.So Bill actually arranged for a plane to
fly over the ceremony, which happenedin big lettering free Ryan Ferguson, Oh
that's interesting, Yeah, exactly,just how deliberate message that crane. This

(40:29):
corrupt judge is not the most appropriateperson who should be speaking two young graduates.
That's never a good thing. Definitelynot No, So I think it
was in two thousand and eight Ryangot a new evidentiary hearing based on this
new evidence that Bill had uncovered,and these witnesses like Seanna Warrent and Dallas
Mallory were called upon to testify andgive their new stories. But it was

(40:52):
determined that the evidence wasn't strong enoughto overturn the conviction and grant Ryan a
new trial, so he continued toland Wish in prison. But it was
around this time period the case startedgetting a publicity on shows like forty eight
Hours in Dateline, and I knowthat people like Aaron Moriarty and Keith Morrison
were becoming huge advocates for Ryan becausethey legitimately believed he was innocent. And

(41:15):
that's when the case finally got theattention of Kathleen Zellner. And I'm sure
many of you listening know who sheis. She was featured in Making a
Murderer, and she's known for beingpretty much the most prominent wrongful conviction attorney
in the country. That if sheagrees to take your case, then there's
a very good chance you're innocent,because she vets the hell out of people

(41:36):
and she makes sure like there's noevidence pointing to you. But she didn't
have to look at Ryan Ferguson's casevery long before she realized that a travesty
of injustice had taken place here,and she made it her goal to get
him out of prison. Do youknow who she's representing right now? I
literally just read this morning. BesidesStephen Avery, Yeah, Johnny Depp in
that defamation case like between him andAmber Heard. I didn't think, oh

(42:00):
wow, wow. I've never seenher do that before, take like a
case where someone has not actually beenconvicted. I thought it was just people
who were in prison. So that'spretty crazy that. I think it says
a lot for Johnny Depp that she'swilling to represent him. So as Zelder
took on the case, of course, she agreed to do it pro bono
so he wouldn't have to pay anything, and then all of a sudden,

(42:22):
Ryan received a letter in prison sayingthat from Charles, saying that she wanted
he wanted to talk with Ryan's newlawyer. So Kathleen Zellner went to visit
Charles in prison, and he saidhe finally changes his story and says,
yes, we both committed the murder, but this time Ryan was just president
and stood around and I'm the onlyone who attacked Kent. But Kathleen is

(42:45):
like, well, that doesn't reallyhelp my case because we're trying to say
that Ryan was never actually there.So it seemed like Charles was starting to
doug his own story, but hestill didn't believe that he did not wasn't
involved in the murder at some point. But as time went on, Charles
was given like more information about thecase and learned that Kevin Crane prior to
the trial, had lied to himabout a number of things. Surprise,

(43:07):
surprise, he had actually presented Charleswith falsified police documentation where he said that
Dallas Mallory is going to claim thathe saw you near the murder scene that
night and he is going to testifyabout it, which was not true at
all, because Dallas said that hewas never there. He was not going
to do any testimony at all,but Crane had convinced Charles that was the

(43:28):
truth, and he also told Charlesthat if he was convicted of first degree
murder, he could face the deathpenalty because Missouri has the death penalty,
but if he pleads guilty to seconddegree murder and testifies against Ryan, he'll
only get twenty five years and won'thave to worry about being executed. So
that's when Charles pretty much convinced thattestifying against Ryan was the right thing to

(43:49):
do. But as time went on, he realized he had been lied to
and finally recanted his entire confession andsaid that I still don't have any memory
of that night, but I nowwanted to present certain that we weren't anywhere
near that murder scene. This isjust so sad because it's just like the
reason that Charles Ericson said this.It just highlights like the fallible nature of

(44:10):
our human memory and of our psyche. And because of that, it put
this major well, it fractured,it broke apart the relationship that he had
with Ryan Ferguson, because on theother hand, Ryan's going he's accusing me
of a murder that I had nothingto do with, and I wholeheartedly believe
that I'm innocent, And yet whyis he doing this? I bet that

(44:32):
it merely made them go on somekind of crazy journey in their friendship where
I hope that they eventually got toa point where there was an element of
understanding or forgiveness. Well, Idon't think that they're close friends anymore.
I think Ryan still has some resentment, but he's also been one hundred percent
supportive of Charles and has been partof the movement to get Charles out of
prison because he believes he's innocent too. He doesn't deserve to be locked up,

(44:57):
so he's in spite of what happenedto he still is hoping that the
right thing will happen and that Charleswill be exonerated as well. Well,
he sounds like a really good person, he does. Yeah, Sadly I
didn't get the chance to meet Ryan. He was going to. He was
at Crime Con twenty eighteen in Nashville, but I was on my booth on
podcast road during the time period ofa session, so I didn't get the
chance to meet him. But maybehe'll come another year. Well, I'm

(45:20):
sure he'll get a chance to meethim one year. Yeah, definitely,
I'm looking forward to that. Soand surprise, surprise, it would turn
out that Jerry Trump, the otherwitness who placed Ryan and Charles in the
parking lot that night, he alsolied when he testified. Bill Ferguson became
suspicious when he spoke to Trump's wifebecause, as you recall, Trump had
claimed that his wife had sent hima copy of the Columbia Tribune newspaper while

(45:45):
he was in jail on those childmolestation charges, and that he saw the
photos of Ryan and Charles, andthat's when he realized that those were the
too many saw. But Trump's wifeclaimed, I never saw sentiveness newspaper,
and Bill also found out that thisparticular prison did not allow newspapers to be
mailed to the inmates, so itturned out that story wasn't true, and

(46:07):
so Zellner finally started started questioning Trumpagain, and he finally admitted that.
When he was released on prison onhis sex offender charges on probation, he
was approached by Kevin Crane, whopressured him into identifying Ryan at trial,
pretty much implying that if you crossme, I can have you sent right
back to prison. So that's whyTrump appeared in court and identified Ryan as

(46:29):
the man he saw. Ooh,surprise, surprise. It sounds like it's
pretty much on Brian for Kevin Craneat this point. Pretty much. Yes,
it's like they pretty much. Itseems like everything he's done in this
thing is like course witnesses cover upevidence. So now that like Charles's Recandidas
story and Trump is Recandidas story,there is literally zero evidence against Ryan.

(46:51):
Like at this point, he soundsmore like a mob boss than he does
a prosecutor. Pretty much. Yeah, it's like he's intimidating people to do
what he wants, regardless what theactual truth is. So based on this
new evidence, Ryan got another evidentierhearing in court in twenty twelve in front
of a judge named Daniel Greene,and that's when Charles appeared in order to

(47:13):
recant his story and actually say thathe was not his confession was false,
he had nothing to do with themurder, that Ryan was completely innocent.
And Trump also appeared on the standand said that I also lied in court.
And what's interesting is both Trump andCharles pretty much stated that we are
aware that we could potentially face perjurycharges and get additional prison time now that

(47:36):
we're admitting that we lied under oath, but they didn't care. They only
wanted to see Ryan released from prison. So of course they had a lot
of confidence that Ryan would finally gethis conviction overturned to get a new trial.
But this judge, Daniel Greene,actually upheld Ryan's conviction, and it
sounds like it was particularly cruel becausehe held on to this decision for months

(47:57):
and he finally announced this decision onOctober the thirty first, twenty twelve,
which was the eight or the elevenyear anniversary of the murder. And it's
been speculated that because Kevin Crane wascalled upon to testify it that hearing and
that he was now a judge,that Judge green didn't want to rock the
boat and undermine his conviction, andit was kind of the good old boys

(48:19):
system in place, so he didnot overturn Ryan's conviction and he upheld it,
and everyone just pulled their hair out. Again. That's so frustrating,
and we see that happen again andagain because nobody wants to undermine their colleague's
convictions. It's sort of like,Okay, well, we're just going to
maybe agree to disagree privately, butpublicly I'm going to support them because it

(48:42):
isn't necessarily a good look to goagainst one's colleague. That's what's so difficult
to boat the justice system is itrequires so much for judges to say that
another judge or another prosecutor got itwrong. Yeah, and it's a pretty
vivid moment in the Dream Killer documentarybecause Kathleen's elder once the decision came in,
actually says, for the first timein my career, I was legitimately

(49:05):
ashamed to be a lawyer and haveany connection to the legal system because this
decision was one of the biggest travestiesshe had ever seen. Yeah, it's
really really sad because she's presented,you know, this airtight case and it's
like they've obviously mucked it all upfrom the get go, and there's many,
many, many reasons why. Butthe driving force was Kevin Crane.

(49:28):
But yet the judge doesn't want,like you said, to rock the boat
because you know, it could couldbe some issues, and you know,
you do it to somebody, thensomebody might do it to you later.
You know, I don't know.I think you're right. It's that good
old boy system where people are lookingout for their own and they do not
like to undermine the decision of somebodyelse who's, you know, their colleague.

(49:50):
It's so unfortunate, but it happensin wrongful conviction cases all the time.
Yeah, pretty much. And that'swhy it's good to have people like
Kathleen Zelner who are working to remedythis. Because in spite of this decision,
she did not give up. Shefiled the habeas corpus petition with the
Missouri Western District Court of Appeals,alleging that the prosecution had to commit in

(50:10):
numerous Brady violations by withholding key piecesof evidence from the defense. And this
time it finally paid off, becauseon November the fifth, twenty thirteen,
the Court of Appeals finally ruled tobay Kate Ryan's conviction, and one week
later he was finally released from prisonafter serving over nine years, and because
there was literally no other evidence againsthim because Charles and recanted his confession,

(50:36):
Trump had recanted his confession, thestate decided that they were not going to
take him to trial again for thecrimes, so they finally dropped the charges
against him and he was exonerated forgood. Well, thank Kathleen Zelner.
I was going to say thank theLord, but you know, really thank
Kathleen Zelner here because and thank hisparents and all of those people who fought
for Ryan, because it couldn't havebeen an easy road, and I'm sure

(51:00):
they faced so much adversity every stepof the way because correcting those decisions by
the legal system and professionals within itis such an arduous task because it requires
the system saying that it got somethingwrong, and the system doesn't like to
admit when it gets things wrong.Oh exactly. That's the problem, is

(51:20):
that nobody wants to admit that theymade a mistake because from what I can
tell, like the Columbia Police Departmentstill maintains to this day that Ryan and
Charles were guilty of this crime andare not trying to launch a new investigation
to try to find the real killer. And it actually paid off for Ryan
because she eventually filed a civil rightslawsuit against the state of Missouri and wound
up getting an eleven million dollar judgment, which was one of the highest payouts

(51:45):
I've ever seen for a wrongful convictioncase. But when you just look at
all the corruption in this, allthe misconduct, he definitely deserved every penny.
They took nine years of his life, Like, how do you put
a monetary amount on that? AndI know they look at like, oh,
how could somebody have earned during thosemissed years? But it's like the
trauma and like somebody losing their goodname for all of those years, and

(52:07):
the amount of stress inflicted upon allof their loved ones and then having people
do unscrupulous things like Kevin Crane did. And you like to think that the
people who are going to be investigatingand prosecuting these crimes are out to get
the truth, but in this case, it just seems like they were out
to get a win, because itis so ridiculous to me that they still

(52:29):
think that Charles and Ryan did this, so they're not looking for other suspects,
Like it's so beyond clear that theseguys did not commit this crime.
Pretty much, Yeah, but it'sjust kind of like a tunnel vision thing
where that's the thing with the legalsystem and police officers is that they often
just cannot admit when they were wrong. But I want to talk about my

(52:50):
kind of personal connection to this casebecause, as you might know, many
years before I started the trail withCole Podcast, I was a freelance writer
who would publish articles forcrack dot comand list first dot com, and at
list first in particular, I oftenlike published ones about true crime and unsolved
mysteries. And I think it wasMay of twenty thirteen, when Ryan was

(53:12):
still in prison, when I decidedto write an article called ten Wrongful ten
Convictions involving controversial confessions, and Idecided to feature Ryan and Charles's story on
that list. And then the dayit was published, I found out that
someone had shared it with the Facebookpage Free Ryan Ferguson, which had thousands
of thousands of members, and theyactually shared it on the page, and

(53:35):
I commented on at saying thank youfor sharing my article. I do believe
Brian is innocent. I support you, and I got so many compliments and
people thanking me for giving attention tothis case, and it was kind of
a moment where I'm like, maybewriting and covering true crime might be a
thing I should do in the future. And so you could almost say it
paved the way for me becoming atrue crime podcaster. I really love that
I didn't know that story. Ithink that's really cool because you're obviously everybody

(54:00):
who's listening is listened to the TrailUncolder. If you haven't, please go
and do so. Now there's hundredsof episodes. What are you almost at?
Four hundred episodes now? Yeah?Pretty odd? Just over three hundred
episodes. And I've also done anepisode about this case as well. Yeah,
so there's so many different episodes ofpeople can dig into. But your
writing and your research is just headand shoulders above what other what most other

(54:24):
people do, and the amount ofheart and soul that you put into these
cases because I know, being yourfriend, how much you care about cases
like you know Ryan Ferguson's case,in about Tommy Ziegler's case, and how
much effort you put into that.So I think that's a really cool story.
And I didn't really know that wassort of like the genesis to you,

(54:45):
thinking hey, maybe I should makethis like a side career, side
hustle type thing. Pretty much.Yeah, So it's kind of an interesting
turning point in my career as atrue crime writer in a podcaster, But
I'm pretty proud of it. Andwhat's funny is that the the manner in
which I found out about Ryan havinghis conviction overturned is because I would always
checked the free Ryan Ferguson Facebook page. But then one day in November of

(55:08):
twenty thirteen, I look at itand they've changed the name to Freed Ryan
Ferguson with a D, and theyfinally announced that his conviction had been overturned
and that he was going to bereleased. And I spent a lot of
time hanging around that page because Ryanhimself would come to chat with people,
which was kind of a weird thingfor him because he had been in prison
for nine years and at the timehe was arrested, there was no Facebook,

(55:30):
so this was a completely different worldfor him, so he was just
it was kind of adorable the wayhe was leaving these comments about how wow,
I've never used this before, thisis pretty cool. And I even
chatted with him a few times.We just shared a few comments, though
he didn't really know who I was, and it was kind of funny to
see him post stuff like yet tonight, I'm going to see the Wolf of
Wall Street. It's the first timeI've seen a movie in a cinema in

(55:52):
ten years. So it was kindof cool to see this real time updating
of a wrongfully convicted man who isnow adjusting to life in society again as
a free person. I can't evenimagine what it would be like, like
just exploding social media. Everything isdifferent, cell phones are different, all
of the technologies advanced so far.But it's so amazing to know that in

(56:15):
this specific case, because of thehard work of all of those people that
loved Ryan, Ryan himself, hisparents, Kathleen Zelner, they were able
to correct the injustice pretty much.Yeah, and it seems like he's a
guy who's living his best life sincehe's been released. He was the host
of a true crime TV show calledUnlocking the Truth about Wrongful Convictions, and

(56:37):
this past year he was actually acontestant on The Amazing Race because he's in
phenomenal physical shape. He actually spenthis time in prison lifting a lot of
weights and doing a lot of physicalactivities, so he's a very muscular guy
in great shape. And of coursehe's an advocate for the wrongful convicted now
and he's trying really hard to getCharles out of prison, and that's kind

(56:58):
of the catch twenty two of Charlesis because he pled guilty and accepted this
Blea deal. It's been like kindof like moving mountains trying to get the
conviction overturned because even though he's recantedhis confession, they've already acknowledged that none
of the DNA and physical evidence matcheshim. They've already acknowledged that the witnesses
have admitted they perjured themselves. Sowhat new loopholes can you found in the

(57:21):
law to get him out of prison? But thankfully, one of our friends,
Maggie Freeling is on his case becauseshe has spoken with Charles and cover
his story on her podcast, Unjustand Unsoul, So she is working diligently
to try to get him out ofprison. Well, if you're going to
have somebody on your side, KathleenZelner or Maggie Freeling are some pretty good
people to have in your corner.Oh exactly, yes. So now I'm

(57:45):
going to talk about about the personthat a lot of people believe is actually
the real killer in this case,and that's a guy named Michael Boyd,
who was a sportswriter at the ColumbiaTribune at the time that Kent was murdered.
It's interesting if you watched the dreamKiller documentary on Netflix, they don't
mention Boyan at all, possibly forlegal reasons, but he has been interviewed

(58:07):
on forty eight Hours in Dateline,and he was also mentioned as an alternate
suspect in the civil lawsuit that Ryanfiles. So I'm going to talk about
some of the evidence against him rightnow, which does not look good for
him. But I know that Boydwas not considered to be a particularly great
writer. He had apparently wound upat the Columbia Tribune because he had been

(58:29):
fired from his previous newspaper writing jobfor plagiarism. And you know how much
I love plagiarists. Oh yeah,You've got a real soft spot for plagiarists
exactly. Yes, So it makesme dislike this guy even more. And
just for any of the listeners ifyou don't know, I won't name names
here, but Robin, because he'ssuch a great writer and researcher, has

(58:50):
definitely been plagiarized by a very popularpodcast. Yeah not just that podcast,
spot by many people who have plagiarizedmy articles for like listpers and stuff.
And I've even talked about it inThe New York Times, But that's a
subject for another podcast episode. Buthere's the thing with Boyd is that he
apparently did not get along with KentHedholt because he apparently Kent was very critical

(59:12):
of his work, and it doesn'tsound like Boyd was very well respected,
and he was going through a lotof stress at the time. He was
suffering from financial problems and the gigwith the Columbia Tribune was only part time,
but because of the poor quality ofhis work, he was apparently like
he apparently there wasn't any plans tomake him full time, and apparently they
had gotten into an argument a shorttime before Kent's murder, and on that

(59:35):
very same night, Boyd had actuallyspoken to Shauna Warrant and complained about the
fact that Kent was always riding hisback. And you hear all this,
and you might be wondering, whywasn't this guy looked at as a suspect
from the very beginning. Well,the problem is that Boyd, I don't
know if I would describe him asblack or a biracial, but he's definitely
dark skinned. And because Seanna Warrantand Jerry Trump saw two white males in

(01:00:00):
the parking lots and your Kent's body. I think they automatically assumed these two
had to be the killer, andso they never looked at Michael Boyd.
That's so unfortunate, right, It'slike he's literally right there, just a
stone throw away, and yet noone's looking into him because they've got a
confession. Pretty much. Yeah,and I mean this one. Give us

(01:00:21):
two years before they even had theconfession, and they never even really thoroughly
looked into him, Like to thisday, they have never tested his DNA
against the physical evidence or the fingerprintsor the hair, even though like there
was like a two year window beforethey even found Charles and Ryan. And
I think it's because they figured,well, it must have been the white
males who did the crime, andit couldn't have been Boyd because he's a

(01:00:42):
stocky, dark skinned guy. Butthe thing is is that I'm not entirely
convinced that those two white males couldbe the killers, because, as you
recall, when Jerry Trump yelled atthem, they yelled, hey, there's
someone hurt over here before they ranaway. So it's entirely possible that they
just stumbled upon Kent's body after you'vebeen murdered, and that for their own
personal reasons, they just have neverwanted to come forward and speak to the

(01:01:06):
police. And I think a possibleexplanation for that is that Columbia is a
big college town. It was Halloweennight. People were out drinking and doing
drugs, So for all we know, if they were involved in underage drinking
or drugs that night, they mightnot have wanted to speak to the police,
even if they were completely innocent andhad no involvement in the murder.
I can't imagine if you're completely outof your mind. It's Halloween night,

(01:01:30):
you're drunk, maybe on drugs,under the influence of the lord knows what,
and then you stumble upon a scenewhere somebody's been attacked and it looks
like they may have been murdered.I think if you're not in your right
mind, you could go, ohGod, we'd better get the heck out
of here, because if we don't, we could be fingered for this murder.
Or you may not be accurately perceivingwhat's going on at all. So

(01:01:52):
yeah, I think you're right.It doesn't necessarily mean that just because two
people were seen running away from themurder scene. Those people did it given
the specific night that it was andhow everybody was kind of in the party
spirit and out really really late.That's what I'm thinking as well, is
that maybe when they saw the compositesketch of the white male and the newspaper,
they were like, oh, thiskind of looks like b if I

(01:02:14):
come forward, they'll probably railroad beand falsely accused me of the crime.
And it's when you see what happenedto Charles and Ryan. They probably would
would have been right if they hadcome forward. For all we know,
they could have been falsely charged withthis murder. I think it two ever
came forward first, right, Andthat's why it was like, Okay,
whoever comes forward first. Kevin Crane'sall over that and he's gonna make it

(01:02:35):
fit pretty much. Yeah, Andso now I'm going to talk about the
timeline here and why there's some thingsabout Michael Boyd that looked really suspicious because
he has changed his story about whathappened that nice numerous times. Apparently,
he first he claimed that he firstlearned about Kent's death because he left the
parking lot a short time before Kentwas murdered. And he received a phone

(01:02:57):
call at home at around three thirtyfive am, about an hour after Kent's
murder, because police wanted to talkto him. And his original story is
that after he left the building,he spoke to another janitor in the parking
lot for about ten to five toten minutes until he saw Kent look outside,
and then Boyd said that he walkedover to Kent, briefly spoke to
him before he drove into climbed intohis car, and drove away at two

(01:03:20):
twenty And apparently he got the twotwenty time because he looked at the clock
on his car. And that's avery important detail because Shauna Ort went outside
and said she saw the two mailsstanding over Kent's body at two twenty one.
And you're starting to think to yourself, if Boyd left at two twenty
and Shauna Orn saw these two whitemales at two twenty one, how was

(01:03:40):
that enough time for them to goand murder Kent? And only like a
minute's time if Boyd didn't report seeingthem. So that makes you think is
he lying about his story about whattime he left? I mean, it
sounds like he has to be eitherthat or he's just wrong or he's mistaken
about the time, because it justdoesn't seem to line up exactly. And

(01:04:02):
what made what became even more suspiciousis that this was just the original phone
interview, and the following evening,Boyd was brought in for a more formal
second interview with another detective, andthis time, even though he originally said
that he spoke to a janitor,he didn't mention this in this story.
He just said that he left thebuilding at two ten and climbed into his
car and just spent the next severalminutes adjusting the radio, and then when

(01:04:26):
he saw Kent Eggs of the building, he pulled up deside him to speak
to him, and that briefly beforehe drove away. And that's kind of
weird, is like, it's onlybeen like like twelve twenty four hours since
you last spoke to the police.Why are you changing details of your story?
Yeah, that doesn't sit right withme either. The first time he
was interviewed, he said that hewas asked, did you ever return to

(01:04:49):
the Tribune building after the murder tookplace that night? And he said no.
But then they looked at a crimescene photograph which was taken and they
saw Boyd in the background peering outfrom behind lying a door, and it's
like, wait a minute, yousaid you weren't here when after the murder
took place. Why are you inthis photograph? And then he changed his
story again and said, oh yeah, I did return to the scene at

(01:05:10):
around four or fifteen four thirty amafter I was told about Kent's murder,
and when I arrived, I sawKent's body lying face down in the parking
lot with a paramedics standing over him, and that's when they took the ficture,
and they must have got me inthe background. But the problem is
that Kent's body was taken away likeat around two thirty two forty five,
not four or fifteen four thirty whenBoyd said that photograph was taken. And

(01:05:34):
what's also weird is that he specificallysaid when he saw Kent's body it was
lying face down in the parking lot. But Chahnah Warrenton Jerry Trumps said that
when they found Kent's body he waslying face down, but they turned him
over to check on him and hewas lying face up by the time the
paramedics arrived. So they're just moreand more holes popping up in his story

(01:05:56):
and that he's like creeping around adoor in a photograph, Like it just
sounds so weird, like why areyou even there at that point, and
why are you appearing to hide?And then it looks like you may have
seen the body before, you know, Trump and Seanna orren't got a chance
to get there and turn over thebody, because if nobody else had seen
the body before that, and noone else would have known that he was

(01:06:19):
faced down, So it seems likea strange detail that he knows. And
I just I'm so troubled by thefact that law enforcement didn't investigate him more
thoroughly or at all exactly at all, Like they interviewed him a few times,
but they didn't really like pick upon the inconsistencies in his story.
And this is the part that bothersme the most is that near Kent's body

(01:06:40):
they found a schedule for the HickmanHigh Schools girls basketball team, and also
some schedules and programs for Columbia Collegebasketball, and they were wondering, why
are the easy near Kent's body.He doesn't really cover high school or college
athletics, but yes, you didn'tcover high school and college athletics. Michael,
Why, yeah, exactly. Soyou're wondering, did he attack Kent

(01:07:01):
and then accidentally leave these schedules behindand when he fled in a panic.
It's like you'd think that if theyfound that evidence, they would go directly
after the guy from the paper whocovered those events, But it seemed they
just kind of ignored this evidence andI never even found out about it until
Ryan's civilossuit was filed like fifteen yearslater. Yeah, this is so weird,

(01:07:23):
Like it's almost like leaving your cellphone behind or a business card.
It's very clear you're the one thatcovers you know, these types of sporting
events and not Kent. So Ijust don't get how they made all of
this other stuff fit with Ryan Fergusonand Charles Ericson. But yeah, they
didn't even bother with Boyd. Likewhy have they still to this day not

(01:07:46):
tested his DNA against the hair clutchedin kent Heithold's hand, Oh exactly,
Like it just seems like it wouldbe so simple to solve this, like
call Boyd in for questioning, testthe hair and the DNA against him,
and if it matches him, thenhe's your guy. But if it doesn't
match him, then great, youcan move on to another angle. But
in their eyes, this case isstill officially closed because even though Ryan was

(01:08:10):
exonerated and left out of prison,Charles is still incarcerated, and their eyes,
well, the right man's in prison, there's no need to perform any
further investigation and that and admit thatwe screwed up the first time. That's
so frustrating. It's like, yeah, we don't want to prove, but
we were wrong the first time,like unequivocally, so we don't test that
DNA. Then there still leaves thedoor open that they could have done it.

(01:08:32):
Right, Charles Ericson's still in jail. He could have done it.
Maybe Ryan Ferguson's exonerated, but CharlesEricson, he's still in jail. You
still could be good for a typeof a thing. That's pretty much their
attitude right now, which is sofrustrated. And well, here's one more
crazy story about BOYD is that afew months ago he came forward to the
police and shared his story again andadded in a new detail that he had

(01:08:56):
never shared before that while he wasdriving away from the parking lot. He
remembered seeing two white males walking downan alley near the murder scene. But
it's like, why would you notmention this the first time? Why would
you just suddenly add this on afterthe detail about the two white males has
suddenly been released publicly in is allover the media. And of course when
you look at the timeline, hesays, I left it to twenty.

(01:09:18):
Yet Shauna Orne says she saw thetwo white males at the parking lot in
your Kent's body at two twenty one, so it seems physically impossible for them
to make it to the parking lotattack. Kent hit him eleven times remove
his belt to strangle him to deathin the span of one minute. So
it almost sounded like he was comingup with these excuses just in case these

(01:09:39):
white males were captured. Had rememberedseeing boy driving away. It's kind of
a way to place himself there,saying, oh, yeah, well,
I admitted that I saw these twowhite males, so it couldn't have been
me. They're the ones who committedthe crime. Good cover, Pal,
Good Cover. It just seems likewhen you examine all of the evidence here,
it's laughable, if not laughable,because these are two human beings lives.

(01:10:00):
Like Ryan Ferguson now is out,like he said, living his best
life. Charles Ericson is still behindbars because he was essentially a kid who
saw a composite, had a dream, and then somehow became convinced that he
was involved in this murder with hisfriend. And it's just it's ridiculous because
they really didn't seem to pursue anyother avenue outside of their tunnel vision.

(01:10:24):
I mean, we've talked earlier aboutlike the unusual nature of this crime and
how hasty and unprepared it seemed tobe. And it would be theoretically,
if Michael Boyd was the killer,the circumstances of how Kent were killed would
make sense, where if they hadan argument and he just went into a
fit of rage, he could haveattacked Kent from behind, hit him eleven
times with I don't know, maybea tire iron that he had in his

(01:10:45):
own car, and then realized,oh, he's still not dead yet,
and then in a panic, justripped off Kent's belt and strangled him.
And then once he realized what he'ddone, he thought, well, maybe
I should make this look like arobbery, and that's why he took Kent's
time X watch and that's when hefled the scene and then likely got rid
of all the evidence. Yeah,it sounds much more likely than the idea

(01:11:08):
of trying to make it fit withCharles Erickson and Ryan Ferguson them going to
the bar for another drink finding thatextra twenty dollar bill, but like,
oh, you wouldn't have searched yourpockets before and oh wait the bar closed
it. Like what did you sayone am? Yeah, like one thirty
am, and this murder took placeat around two twenty. Yeah, so
they definitely didn't go back for adrink after this two twenty murder. It

(01:11:30):
just didn't happen. Like, nothinglines up here. And then seeing their
friend at that light, the Malloryguy, and he's like, actually,
i'd lost my license and there wasno red light at that intersection. It
was just like a flashing yellow light. So just nothing makes sense here,
and it's just so preposterous that theyeven went forward with this. You know,

(01:11:53):
it's one thing to charge Charles Ericson, but it's a whole other thing
to charge Ryan Ferguson. Because allyou have to put him there is the
testimony of Charles ericson who I mean. I think most people who would look
at it would think there's no waythat the physical evidence doesn't support this.
Nothing seems to support this. Butobviously Kevin Crane was a very good lawyer,

(01:12:16):
I mean unethical, but very good. I mean not a good lawyer
in that sense. But no,no, no, he didn't know how
to convince a jury and that's howhe was able to get a conviction,
Like it's not easy to get atmurder conviction after you've acknowledged that the DNA
does not match the defendant. No, no, he was a successful lawyer.
I don't mean like he was goodas in good ethics, like unethical,

(01:12:36):
but yeah, he obviously put ona good show. Yeah, exactly,
Michael Boy. He has since leftthe Tribune and he has moved out
of town and his current whereabouts isunknown. But he has never been investigated
about this for like over a decade, and she probably never will be unless
the Columbia PD comes to their sensesand finally decide to launch a new investigation.

(01:12:58):
But I do want to mention whatother part ential alternate suspect which I
had never heard of before, butin a kind of a neat coincidence,
I had a listener who heard myTrail Went Cold episode recently and actually emailed
me last week about this. Andthis involves a guy named Timothy Hogue.
He was responsible for the murder ofa professor at Missouri State University, which

(01:13:18):
is also in Columbia. His namewas doctor Geong Im who was brutally beaten
to death and stabbed in a parkinggarage at the university and stuffed inside his
trunk before the vehicle was set onfire, and it was not The crime
went on solved for I think sevenyears before a young man named Timothy Hoague

(01:13:39):
suddenly, out of the blue justdecided to kill himself by jumping off the
roof of a parking garage which justhappened to be across the street from the
Columbia Tribune. And they collected Hoag'sDNA and they matched it to the murder
scene for geongm and it matched.So it turned out that Hogue was the
killer. And we really don't haveany idea what the motive could have been.

(01:14:00):
But Hogue had a criminal record.He had a violent history, So
it seems likely that the murder ofm was nothing more than a random thrill
kill, and that he did itjust because he could. But when you
look at the timeline Timothy Hog,he would have been in his early twenties
in two thousand and one, hekind of does look a bit like the
composite sketch of the suspect. Andso he decided to kill himself by jumping

(01:14:23):
off the parking garage across the streetfrom the Columbia Tribune. So what about
the possibility that he decided to goout on a thrill kill that night,
ran into knt Hedehold and decided tobrutally murder him for no reason whatsoever before
fleeing the scene. I mean,it's just speculation, but he's still a
more promising suspect than Charles Ericson orRyan Ferguson. Oh, I'll agree with

(01:14:45):
you on that he's more promising thanthey are. But I still think that
they have his DNA on file.If he was indeed the killer, it
would likely match the hair that wasfound in the palm of knt Heighthold.
Well, the problem is that theydidn't get his DNA till twenty twelve,
and that was the point when Charlesand Ryan were still in prison. So
I don't think they've ever attempted tomatch as DNA for it because they officially

(01:15:06):
consider the case to be closed.So that's another frustrating thing. We do
know they have Hoags DNA on file, but because they don't want to admit
they're wrong, they're probably never goingto compare it with the evidence unless they
face serious pressure. Oh, thisis like Tommy Ziegler level frustrating exactly.
It's the same stuff going on withthe West Memphis three case right now,

(01:15:26):
where they have all this evidence andthey're pushing for new DNA testing, but
the state keeps resisting it. Eventhough this case is thirty years old and
the defendants have been freed, theystill are refusing to admit that they made
a mistake and put the wrong peoplein prison. This is just such a
recurring theme in all these cases.It's like so many years have gone by
and they I guess it's like theywould face a very unique situation if they

(01:15:50):
did. Indeed, in the WestMemphis three come up with DNA that would
match somebody else. But yet technicallyyou have people who take an Alfred plea.
Right, you've got the three suspectswho were in jail, and like
you brought up when we talked aboutthis case, you're not if you actually
believe that they murdered these young boysand did the things that they were accused

(01:16:12):
of doing. Are you really goingto just be like, hey, you
can get out of prison if youknow you do an Alfred plea type of
a thing, Like, no,you just wouldn't. So it was them
trying to kind of course correct andI guess take control of the narrative rather
than having to pay any kind ofrestitution or admit wrongdoing. But if the
DNA matches somebody else and implicate somebodyelse as being a killer, well then

(01:16:34):
you might have a serious, seriousproblem on your hands because you're going to
have some public outcry and backlash becauseyou've got these guys who've taken Alfred please
and when it's clear that they didn'tdo it based on the forensics. So
I guess they just drag their heels. That's the same thing with the Alfred
plea in the West Memphis three case, is that one of the terms of

(01:16:55):
the plea is that if they takeit, they can't sue the state for
wrongful conviction. And so even ifDNA proves that they were not the killer
and completely exonerates them, they stillcan't sue the state technically. But I
think they're just worried about the publicbacklash and that's why they don't want to
admit they're wrong. And same thinghere is that they've already had to pay
out eleven million dollars to Ryan Ferguson, and who knows how much more money

(01:17:18):
they would have to pay out ifCharles Erickson is exonerated and released from prison.
So there's some major ass covering goingon here. Oh yeah, I
think we see that with all thesetypes of cases, right whenever there's a
wrongful conviction or potential wrong full conviction, they just try to wait it out.
With your pet case, Tommy Ziegler, it's like waiting out testing DNA

(01:17:39):
and just it's like the authorities areliterally hoping he's going to die. Yeah.
That's the thing with Tommy is thathe's seventy six years old now,
and who knows how many years hehas left. I guess the good news
for Charles is that he technically onlygot a twenty five years since and he
could potentially get paroled sometime within thenext few years, so he will get
out of prison eventually. I'm surehe would much prefer to be exonerated before

(01:18:01):
he has to serve his whole sentence. It's so frustrating, right in cases
like these, like how is hestill behind bars? I guess when a
system tries to protect the integrity ofthe system, trying to admit wrongdoing,
I think would undermine the integrity ofthe system. I think it's better to
admit that sometimes the system gets thingswrong, and when you can correct those

(01:18:26):
things that people have gotten wrong alongthe way, it doesn't make the system
better or makes it actually better,because that way, at least you know
that there are actions that one cantake to correct the mistakes of the past.
But the way that it seems tobe now is like, oogh,
we don't make mistakes. We don'thave any mistakes to correct over here.

(01:18:46):
The system is perfect as is justeverybody cover your ass exactly. And that's
the problem is that Kevin Crane usedthis case as a stepping stone to become
a judge. So and he isstill a judge, and he has never
face any consequences. So I'm surethere are people in power who are thinking,
oh, if we did attempt toopen up this can of worms and
expose that Kevin Crane sent two innocentpeople to prison, then he's going to

(01:19:10):
come after us and destroy our careersand stuff. So I think there's too
much fear because the people responsible forwhat happened have too much power. Yeah,
that's the unfortunate part is you've gotwhen you have somebody who's elevated from
being a prosecutor based on their successprosecuting the case of Charles Ericson and Ryan
Ferguson, then they get to bea judge, they've got even more more

(01:19:32):
power, more sway and influence.So do you really want to mess with
them and kind of like, youknow, kick the hornet's nest pretty much.
And that's the reason that Ryan didn'tget his conviction overturned in twenty twelve,
but that other judge, Daniel Greene, because you get the sense that
he did not want to kick thehornet's nest and discredit a fellow judge,

(01:19:53):
which is why he had to stayin prison for a year longer than necessary.
So it is kind of a bittersweetcase. It had one happy ending
for one person, but still anunhappy ending for another person. And also
the murder of a good man,a very well liked man, that is
still unsolved. And I know thatfor many years can Hidehold's families still believe
that Ryan and Charles were guilty allalong, And I still don't know if

(01:20:15):
they feel that same way. They'vebeen kind of private to get about it.
But I always feel for the familiesin these wrongful conviction cases to go
on this roller coaster ride where youfeel that you finally receive justice and that
the perpetrators went to prison, butthen years later it's like, Nope,
they got the wrong guys and we'renot going to make any effort to try
to find out who really did this. Yeah, I can understand why families

(01:20:35):
will cling to that idea because nobodywants to feel like they got it wrong.
And it's a lot easier when youcan point at the person who did
this wrong to your family and islike essentially the boogeyman when you take that
away and there's no other Like wehave brought up other suspects, but law
enforcement isn't looking at any other suspects. They're not comparing DNA even though they

(01:20:58):
very easily could. So it couldbe hard for family to go, We've
got all of this anger, orwe've already accepted that this was the resolution,
and now you're going to upend thatand tell us we were wrong.
That can be a lot of process, exactly, And I can only imagine
that they're kind of clinging to theircomfort now, where it's like, well,
I want to have faith in thesystem that they got it right the
first time, and that law enforcementis not corrupt and that they'll put innocent

(01:21:23):
people in prison just to solve murders. But that's exactly what happened here.
I like to refer to this asa horrible catch twenty two because the best
chance for solving Ken Heighthold's murder isfor Charles to be exonerated and released.
But because there are so few optionsnow to exonerate Charles, the only thing
that could really get them released fromprison is to catch the real killer,
but nobody wants to do that.Yeah, it seems like there's zero motivation

(01:21:47):
for law enforcement to go and actuallyinvestigate this with the understanding that somebody else
could have potentially done it. BecauseI think it's pretty clear based on the
physical evidence that there is an theirkiller, and they've got a couple of
people whose DNA they could test,But yet there's zero motivation to do it
because who does it benefit it greally doesn't benefit them. It benefits Ryan

(01:22:12):
Ferguson, who's already out, butit mostly would benefit Charles Ericson, And
I don't really think they're acting inthe interests of Charles Erickson. No,
definitely not. Yeah, but yeah. It's kind of a good story though
for Ryan, because he had agreat support system for his dad. I
don't know if Charles has the samesupport system with his family. I think
I read somewhere that his parents likebelieved he was guilty and actually encouraging him

(01:22:36):
to take the plea deal the firsttime around. But of course Ryan's family
did not believe he was guilty fora second and encouraged him to fight the
conviction all the way. So here'shoping that we finally have the real resolution
in this case, and that maybeMaggie Freeling will work her magic and get
Charles out of prison at some point. Well, fingers crossed. If anybody

(01:22:56):
can do it, Maggie can exactly. Well does that wrap up the case
of Ryan Ferguson and Charles Ericson.Pretty much. Yeah, I think I've
said what everything I need to sayabout it. I highly recommend that if
you've never seen it, to watchthe Dream Killer documentary on Netflix, and
you can probably also find the oldforty eight hours and Dateline episodes on YouTube

(01:23:17):
as well. And if you wantto hear me discuss this case even further,
I released an episode of it onThe Trail Went Cold several years ago.
Robin. I'm pretty sure all thelisteners are aware of the Trail and
Cold, but do you want totalk a little bit about your podcast?
Yes, The Trail Went Cold recentlypassed. It's a six year anniversary.
It covers a lot of cases involvingunsolved mysteries and wrongful convictions. I do

(01:23:41):
a different case each week, andlike Jewel said earlier on We Did Over,
I've done over three hundred episodes.You can find us at Trail Went
Coold dot com and find me onFacebook and on Twitter at the handle Robin
Underscore Order And if you never listenedto The Path Went Chilly yet, it
also encouraged that because that's pretty muchThe Trail Went Cold director's cut where myself,

(01:24:02):
Jewels, and our co host Ashleytalk about a lot of the cases
we covered and The Trail Went Coldbut have more in depth discussions. Yeah,
The Path Gun Chili is like theabsolute most fun because we really get
to go through all of these frustratingcases. And right now we've got to
our one year mark, and soto commemorate that, do you want to
talk about what case we're going tobe covering, Robin, Yes, Since

(01:24:25):
I covered this case on my fiveyear anniversary of The Trail Went Cold,
I wanted to do something special forour one year anniversary of The Path Went
Chili, So revisiting the Boys onthe Tracks case from Arkansas, which is
one of the biggest rabbit holes you'llever find about two teenage boys who were
found dead on train tracks in ruralArkansas, and even though their deaths were
originally ruled to be accidental, theywere changed to homicide. But they're just

(01:24:49):
mammoth conspiracy theories around it about drugtrafficking, corrupt politicians, and even Bill
Clinton and a professional wrestler have gotteninvolved at one point. So our series
is going to be four episodes logbecause there is that much material to talk
about. Oh yeah, it's endless. When I first heard it on Robin's
podcast, I was like, whoa, There is just so many twists and

(01:25:11):
turns, and it's so fun becauseAshley doesn't know any of the details and
it's in Arkansas case and Ashley livesin Arkansas, so it makes it even
better. Yeah. So we've atthe time of this recording, we've already
recorded our first two episodes, andit was great to hear Ashley's WTF reactions
to a lot of the things thathappened. Yeah. So our first episode
on the series will be out ina couple of weeks, but I yeah,

(01:25:32):
this is going to be out onSaturday. We're recording it on Wednesday,
So yeah, a couple of weeksfrom when you're listening to this.
All right, So, Robin,where can the listeners find The Trail Went
Cold? On social media? Youcan find us our website Trailwentcold dot com.
You can also find our Facebook pagefor the Trail Went Cold, and

(01:25:53):
you can find us on Twitter underthe handle Robin Underscore Warder. Thank you
so much for telling me all aboutthis case, Robin. At once he
started talking, I remembered it vaguely. I'd probably had listened to you know,
forty eight hours or dateline years andyears and years ago, but it
was really great hearing the ins andout. So thank you so much my

(01:26:13):
pleasure. It's great to talk aboutmy passion cases with you who doesn't have
all this knowledge of these cases andare learning all this material for the first
time. I want to thank youall for listening. I would love to
hear from you all. If anyof you have anything to say about the
case, any thoughts, you canreach out to me at Riddle Me that
Pod at gmail dot com, orI'm really really active on Twitter, so
please follow me. I'll follow youback a podcast riddle and I just wanted

(01:26:36):
to let you all know if you'reunaware, I don't have a Riddle of
Me that Patreon, but I havePatreon with doctor Ashley Wellman. So at
the three dollar level you get earlyaccess ad free episodes. At the five
dollars level, there's a Jewels inAshley where either Ashley will tell me a
story or I'll tell Ashley a storyand it will be conspiracy theories solved,

(01:26:57):
unsolved, kind of a little bitof everything. As a ten dollar level,
there's a path went Chilli Mini,so we'll have Robin joining us for
that, so we're really really excited. I will link that in the show
notes. So until next time,stay safe and remember accept nothing, question
everything. Music by Jobbers

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