Ryan Ferguson /// Part 1 /// 116 | Forensic Files

foreign saw them duck down behind the car okay I looked out and saw him and I said what's
going on I knew it was Ken's car and I said cat and they didn't look up nobody did anything somebody's been hurt man
okay so you saw them dug down behind his car yes okay and then where did they go
after that I don't know up up towards the new building uh towards Fort Street I guess that's 4 foreign
one of them had blonde hair really really short blonde here today either one of them have hats or caps
they were headed towards Fourth Street so that would have been Easter I'd say Southeast but I don't know that
for sure because they took off you know and they went up that Alleyway towards fourth all right we've got officers on
the way over there right now all right we'll be out there okay [Music] [Applause]
thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] this is true crime garage
and this is the case of Ryan Ferguson [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] got sick you had to hand the thing off
the line because this guy's got headrooms all over his head we're talking minimum 15 strikes I must
have done it though I mean I don't know either that or I stopped and he did I don't know did you ever drop the pipe
probably did you hand it off to Ryan I don't I don't know I don't think so let's go back to it
when we were talking about how you saw Ryan strangle this guy now we know what the guy gets triangled with
that's kind of the thing I've been holding back from you all right is it possible that you know what he was
struggling with and just didn't want to tell me because I know I don't know like
I think it was a shirt or something well I know it wasn't a shirt it's like maybe
a bungee cord or I don't something from this car I want to see if I would have her up in his car well we know for a
fact that his belt was ripped off of this passing restrainment with this belt really yeah
you said Belton Ryan's hand something looked like a rope maybe or a bungee cord I don't know so it's possible why I'm
kind of strangled this guy with his belt got the keys well the guys are the man's
belt yeah because I'm about yes does that ring a bell not at all like I didn't but you saw Ryan scrambling
though I thought yeah yeah okay you said it's earlier or something about Ryan's Ryan wanted to choke him down to make
sure he was dead is that true I think that he was like yeah yeah foreign [Music]
Ferguson was convicted of the murder of Kent heitholt Kent's murder took place in the early morning hours of November
1st 2001 and Ryan Ferguson's hometown of Columbia Missouri at the time of the murder Ferguson was only 17 years old he
was a junior in high school Kent heitholt was found beaten and strangled shortly after 2 A.M on November 1st 2001
in the parking lot of the Columbia Daily Tribune can't work there as a sports editor the murder went unsolved for two
years until police received a tip that a man this is Charles Erickson he was extremely drunk that night and he could
not remember some of the events that took place that evening and most of what took place around the time of the actual
murder after reading newspaper articles Charles Erickson was having dreams about the
murder he told a couple of people that he had concerns that he may have been involved in the actual murder one and
Chuck had a drug problem as well correct Charles Erickson was partying with Ryan
Ferguson on Halloween night October 31st now this would be Wednesday night but we
all know how much Everyone likes to party on Halloween Charles and Ryan they were doing quite a bit of underage
drinking at a bar that night and a party that had started in the evening earlier
turned into partying into the early morning hours Charles or Chuck Erickson would later
confess to the murder of Kent heitholdt and implicate Ryan Ferguson in the murder as well Ryan Ferguson was
convicted in the fall of 2005. and what you can hear in that trailer is the interrogation of Chucky
yeah and that was kind of a what we just went through as a summarized version of
the case which we usually don't go through that and summarize the case for you before we so now they can just stop
listening yeah you now you know everything all right see you guys next week well we usually don't do that
before we go through it in detail but we wanted to do that because with this case
it's it's actually very important that persons not familiar with this case have that information because when it comes
to Ryan Ferguson Not only was his innocence or guilt called into question before he was convicted but both were
called into question years after his conviction which ultimately would lead to appeals trials and then Ryan
Ferguson's conviction was vacated in November of 2013. so I just wanted everybody to be aware of that situation
fully before we go through the detailed account of what took place the evening of October 31st and the early morning
hours of November 1st 2001. so each of you can make a little mental note of when you think of you know at some
points some things might Point towards Ryan's guilt or if it would Point towards his innocence yeah don't don't
you tell me what to do okay let's go through a detailed account of that night and first we'll go through the police
slash prosecutor story of that evening as what they piece together off of eyewitness accounts and the Confessor
this is Charles or Chuck Erickson and we'll call him Chuck from now on and I'll call him Chucky there you go on the
evening of October 31st 2001 as we said many people were out celebrating Halloween this including students from
both of the city's two high schools we will start the evening off roughly in the time frame of about 9 to 10 p.m
there are several Halloween parties going on and the ones we are talking about have both High School age kids and
young adults just out of high school at these parties Ryan Ferguson is party hopping that evening and as the night
goes on he's getting ready to leave a party and he sees Chuck Erickson who as we said he knows him from school right
some have reported that Ryan and Chuck were hanging out that night together others report that Ryan offered Chuck a
ride as he was leaving the party I think either way actually works uh it's not really important so however it comes
about they are riding together in Ryan's car Ryan tells Chuck come on let's get this
clear too because a lot of people report like that they're buddies kind of like in the West Memphis Three case where
it's like yeah they're you know two of them were buddies and one was just kind of acquaintance in this scenario uh Ryan
and Chucky they're just acquaintances yeah they know each other from school they're the same age they probably have
a couple classes together but from everything that I could gather you're exactly right Captain they doesn't sound
like they were they were not best friends they they really didn't even hang out a whole lot almost opposite
sides of the track I mean we have an individual with Ryan that seems to be heavily involved in sports
um you know involved with his family and a lot of friends and it seems like Chucky is uh kind of on the slacker side
and they ran in the same circles but the circle wasn't just the two of them it was you know many friends that they had
right anyway so regardless of how they end up in Ryan's vehicle but they're in his car and at some point Point either
before the ride or during the ride Ryan says to to Chuck you know hey uh let's go to this club my older sister is at a
club and she can get us in and we can continue to party you know we'll go there and have a few drinks right okay
sounds great so the two underage 17 year old boys out looking for a good time they meet up with Ryan's sister well and
they're going to meet up at a bar called uh by George and it's such a dumb name for a bar sorry if you own that bar and
I'm talking about it but or if your name is George I don't mind the name George I'm just saying by George is a kind of a
dumb name for a bar Chuck Erickson states that the the two spent up what money that they had once they were at
the bar okay and then Ryan's sister bought a drink or two for them and then the two left you know because they were
out of money once outside Ryan is calling people on his cell phone now I couldn't gather why Ryan was calling a
bunch of different people but I'm going to guess that Erickson that chuck would have said possibility that that Ryan was
looking for someone with money to either join them at by George's or looking for
another place to go party because what Chuck Erickson would say is that Ryan Ryan said next would imply that Ryan was
not done partying for the night so with with no one left to call Ryan tells Chuck hey man let's go rob someone so we
can get enough money to get back into the bar and have some more drinks all right okay yeah here's a plan yeah I
mean it happens every week and how many times you're at a bar and your buddy says
let's go rob somebody so we can drink more well before they leave Ryan's car they take a like a tire iron or one of
those tire changing tools that come in the trunk of your car they take this item and so they walk to find their
potential robbery or mugging victim uh well they spot 48 year old Kent height Holt can't as we had said Kent is
working late at the Columbia Daily Tribune this would be approximately a 2 15 a.m or so now I do want to point out
here that several people were working at the Columbia Daily Tribune that night uh
early morning hours whatever you want to call it and the the times well most of the times we give during this detailed
account are going to be more approximate times uh for most of this stuff we do not have exact times for one reason we
have our main witness which is Chuck Erickson who ends up confessing to being a part of the crime implicating Ryan
Ferguson chuck had fully admitted he was so drunk and high that night uh that that he had been drinking doing Adderall
and cocaine that night so quite the concoction inside of him oh damn Chuck he slowed down and while he admits to
being so messed up that he cannot remember most of the night so there's one reason of not having exact times but
what we will figure out here is that almost you know almost in the same breath that I say that I'll point out
that we do know that these times from the other eyewitnesses are close or somewhat accurate because we are dealing
with such a small window of time that they have to be close okay so how do we know Ryan and Chuck spot Kent at
approximately 2 15 am well Michael Boyd he is another employee of the Daily Tribune he's working he's a writer a
part-time writer he says he left work sometime before Kent heathold did and he knows this because he left around 2 A.M
and on his way out he stops and he has a short conversation with Mike Henry he's
a night custodian at the at the Tribune Michael Boyd walks the parking lot and he gets to his car he will have to
actually pass Kent's car to get to his own car then he goes out to his car and when he's out there he sits there for a
little bit of time listening to some music when he sees Kent leaving work and going out to his car
to leave for the night all right why would you just get in your car and listen to music for a while before you
leave it seems strange to me at that hour right you know especially at that hour uh Michael pulls his car up
alongside of Kent's and they have a discussion according to Michael Boyd this conversation it's a work
conversation it takes place sometime between 12 2 12 a.m sorry and 2 20 a.m Michael Boyd says after the conversation
he leaves in his car and he's he goes to drive home as he's pulling out and into
the alley he says that he nearly hit someone he sees two people in the parking lot right uh this is not Kent
Kent is not one of the people that he's describing here he's these younger people right well uh or does does he not
make that claim to be clear all he says is that he sees Michael sees two people and he cannot tell if the people are
male or female okay so basically no description of the people and anomalies almost yeah so these two people could be
Chuck and Ryan because they would have to have have arrived sometime in this time frame to the parking lot at the
Columbia Daily Tribune and you'll see why here in a minute so the attack would go something like
this Kent would be hit in the head or neck area about 11 or 12 times with some unknown object or the Tire Tool as chuck
had said all right then as the victim Kent is down on all fours from the blows he just took someone you know and that
someone according to Chuck is Ryan pulls the victim's belt off now he would have
had to have done this according to the police by pulling by pulling up from the left hand side you know from from like
reaching around from behind Kent on the left side and grabbing the belt and pulling it up and off right they came to
this conclusion because two of the belt loops on the left side of Kent's pants were ripped or torn off
then using the victim's own Bell Ryan Ferguson strangle okay hold on a second so you're saying that they believe that
the belt was ripped off of him because there was two because the belt loops were broken two two of his belt loops
were were ripped okay then using the victim's own belt Ryan Ferguson strangled Kent height Holt a very short
time before 2 26 a.m a custodian this is her name is Shauna ort she stepped outside for a cigarette break or to walk
some trash to the dumpster now or both yeah my understanding is that sometimes the smoke break and walking trash to the
dumpster are the same thing anyway great report in there there you go happen at the same time right anyway she
is out there and she she sees two shadowy figures near Kent's car she ran back inside to get her co-worker
this is Jerry Trump she's telling him that there is something going on in the parking lot and she wanted him to go out
there and see what it was he doesn't really want to do this but he gives in and he agrees to go check it out so now
the two of them well they are standing they're standing at one of those like um you know kind of like a large overhead
door you know they're standing just past the opening of that okay and at first they don't see anything you know you
know Jerry Trump's probably like oh great I agreed to come out here and check out this thing you're just you're
just freaking out for nothing there's nothing going on out here they don't see anything but sometimes that's scarier is
when somebody says I see somebody outside and you go and you start looking and you go I see nothing but sometimes
that the they're you're not as relieved well they see nothing at first they hear
nothing at first so Jerry Trump decides he he yells out something like you know I see you you might as well come out you
might as well stand up or something like that put your hands up yeah and two individuals stand up and one of them is
at the front of Kent's car near the front of the vehicle the other one is at the rear of the vehicle so both both
custodians witnessed two what they what they report as white college age men now
standing near Kent heitholtz vehicle they also both said that the man at the rear of the vehicle he walked to the
front of the car and said something to the effect of you know this guy is hurt out here or you better call someone you
better get call an ambulance something like that that this this guy's hurt and he needs help so what you're saying is
that these two two employees of the newspaper see these two individuals in the parking lot
ducking down possibly hiding behind Kent's car and then one of them kind of Walks from the back the car to the front
and then says hey you better call our ambulance this guy's hurt out here yeah he says something
like get help this guy's hurt now that's something you probably want to say if you hurt the guy
um yeah I don't know it's it's a it's a strange situation regardless right if you but if you're gonna take somebody's
belt off put it around their throat and pull as hard as you can so they stop breathing I don't think you're asking
somebody to call an ambulance no you want that guy dead for some reason yeah you don't want him to be able to come to
and and give information about you right uh according to the police report the employees called 9-1-1 at 2 26 a.m right
which we heard that uh 9-1-1 call at the beginning so if you want to hear it again go back to the beginning
some of the other uh sport reporters working that night uh came running out to see what was going on and they found
46 year old Kent heitolt lying face down at the rear of his car now they rolled him over and they tried to resuscitate
him and of course unfortunately it didn't work uh the police department was within just a few blocks of the
newspaper's parking lot in the newspapers building so they arrived very quickly when they got there they saw
Kent had been severely beaten with some kind of blunt object and he was strangled and dead at this point one we
we both took a look at the autopsy but and we're not going to go over in a bunch of details because it's pretty
simple to summarize but they keep talking about this blunt object and being hit well over 10 times
um you even hear this in the interrogation with the police and and Chucky but they keep talking about blunt
object but there's no skull fractures correct there's they don't find any skull fractures on Kent height Holt um
so so it's death by strangulation as hyoid bone is broken yeah and there's a little there's a little
conjecture there's a little back and forth on uh the hyoid bone being broken as well there's one expert that says
that he believes the hyoid bone was could have been broken because of he because he was hit he was hit about the
the head and neck area um but the original the original expert believes that the hyoid bone was broken
during the strangulation process I don't think that that is necessarily important
I think the most important thing that I see in the autopsy itself is like you said the number of times that that Kent
is hit with they keep referring to it as a blunt object right uh but like you said no
skull fractures so to me it's more of uh he's hit 11 or 12 times with an unknown
object right but what was that expert telling you that one time uh like you take a 10 year old girl yeah with a bat
or something and and there's going to be skull fractures actually this is it wasn't something that somebody told me
it was um a comment that was made to Ryan Ferguson's father to Bill Ferguson uh that he reported elsewhere stating that
you know it was strange that there was no skull fractures because an expert quote unquote an expert according to
Bill Ferguson had told him that a 12 year old girl with a baseball bat if she hits somebody 11 12 or 50 even 15 times
you're gonna have several skull fractures not just one you're gonna have you're gonna you're gonna get a few out
of that so he's hit with some kind of unknown object we'll call it that right and he doesn't so he's not going to make
it right and at this point Chuck Erickson claims that he and Ryan after having murdered Kent that they take this
kind of this very kind of roundabout way of walking back to the bar but before they get there this is at approximately
2 30 a.m they are at an intersection and there is a car there stopped at a red light
uh and inside the car well this this is somebody uh that the two boys know and his name is Dallas Mallory Dallas is in
a car with two young ladies Dallas is actually about two years older I believe Ryan
well Chuck Erickson has a short conversation with Dallas Mallory at the at the red light and Chucky says how are
you in the truck with two women that's what he asked well the the the light eventually turns green and Away Dallas
and the two girls go right right so so now it's back to by George's for Chuck and Ryan and we'll get right back to the
case of Ryan Ferguson after this quick Uber [Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers
so after Ryan and Chuck Commit This murder they according to Chuck they go out with the motive of robbery they
attack Kent heitholt uh and they kill him in the parking lot now they've taken this roundabout way of making their way
back to the bar and they're back at by George's according to Chuck they get back to the
bar around 2 45 a.m and they stay there drinking dancing having a good time until about 4 to 4 15 a.m in the morning
well these bars are open pretty late and this only makes sense right because we we saw this with uh with the Casey
Anthony thing right right you know when when you kill somebody uh the best way to celebrate is to go to a bar and dance
and party and have a good time you know so today now now while the two of them are off having a good time right the
police have a murder and a crime scene to deal with here so the police are going to do a canine search and I won't
go through all of the street names but basically the police dog is going to track slash follow the trail of the
perpetrators and the dog leads them in the opposite direction as to where Chuck Erickson says that they are going to go
of course the dog the dog chase does not turn up the perpetrators and we do have another problem here with
this crime scene the Tribune's parking lot well it has two two security cameras and these security cameras are very
obvious you know they're the type that would be up on the building and if you were walking by they weren't hidden
cameras you know you would you would notice them from the street and be aware that the parking lot is under
surveillance right however you know we unfortunately we see this time and time again in these situations these cameras
are not working on this night oh really yeah so the police really have no leads other than the description that they're
given from the two custodians that they are looking for two Caucasian College age dudes uh per the description given
to them short hair one maybe blonde spiked up in the front and they do uh they do a drawing of the there's at
least one of the individuals well yeah this is Shauna ort and Jerry Trump the the employees at the Daily Tribune
um we should point out here that early in the investigation Jerry Trump statements were deemed as useless by the
police okay as his description that he gave to them it was so vague that it really provided them nothing of value
you know he basically says I I really couldn't see anything I really couldn't see anything to describe
these guys now as you had mentioned Shauna ort on the other hand uh with the with the police department's use of what
they call like an identicate or an ID kit right they come up with a composite sketch of the guy who walked from the
rear of the vehicle to the front of Kent heithold's car you know the guy telling
them to get it right and Shawna is she's younger yes so let's just assume she has
better eyes and uh I think she was what 18 or 19 at the time when she saw the yeah young and and Trump and Trump was
quite a bit older at the time yes um now basically the way that they come up with this composite drawing it's it's
that old school identicate um and and some places they may call it something different but basically what
they do is Captain they'll show you they have like a flip book and they're like they'll show you a bunch of different
sets of eyes and you're like oh that looks like his eyes and they're like okay they they set those eyes on the
face and then they flip through the book more and they show you a nose like oh yeah that looks like his nose and and so
you piece together the person's face well the problem with this drawing is again it's happening very late at night
or in the early mornings it's very dark out very low lighting so and then if and
actually I would say you know like during if it was during the day obviously you'd be it'd be easier to
identify by somebody I think it would be way harder to do this Adena kit when there's heavy Shadows from the street
lights well I agree and I don't know that it was fully like as far as the way I heard the parking lot described I'm
sure there are dark spots and dark areas um Shauna states that when she saw the man that she was able to come up with
the composite drawing of that that was she believed to be what she considered a well-lit portion of the park right again
but you're going to have these hard Shadows of course because all the lights are coming from above and if you watch
any of the documentaries on on this case it's you know you can see how dark that
that area would have been yeah and to go with the composite drawing um you know she describes the guy as a
Caucasian male about six foot tall 200 pounds uh muscular build wearing a white T-shirt and has possibly has short
blonde hair now some other things while we are talking about the crime scene there was
a blood trail which makes sense because we have a victim that was beaten in the head you would expect a certain amount
of blood so there was a blood trail but this went in again in a different direction than what Chuck said he and
Ryan had fled the scene police found a hair either in or on the hand of the victim this would be collected and later
tested they did not find the blunt object or as chuck had said the Tire Tool uh used to beat Kent they did not
find that at the crime scene they did find the belt buckle Kent's belt buckle it had broken off and was lying there
near the uh near Kent they found fingerprints not matching the victim in and on the victim's vehicle
uh and and one more thing though the the police found no evidence to suggest Kent
had been robbed um so keep in mind you're trying to find the motive yeah they're going to check
the victim and try to come up with why would this guy be attacked well they don't see any obvious signs that that
robbery was the motive for this this attack or murder so at this point they are looking for two young white dudes
and they don't have a motive to go on at this point in their investigation well and so we go to the following day that
we I call this The Hangover day I mean we got two individuals that were 17 years old they went partying uh Chucky
was doing a blow drinking doing some Adderall uh and he claims that he doesn't remember anything of the events the
night before yeah he has no memory of Halloween night uh and also you know as we said there there was nothing other
than probably one heck of of a hangover like the captain pointed out that anything had went wrong or anything
terrible had happened that night Chuck did not notice anything unusual he he didn't have any injuries uh he didn't
have any blood on his clothing um let's talk about let's talk about Chuck for a minute though okay
um you know as we had said earlier he's the same age as Ryan 17 at the time of this murder and a high school student uh
but but one big different thing here is you know Ryan like the party obviously like like some high school students do
however chuck had a bit of a history he had a he had a reputation for blacking out right and a history and a reputation
for getting really blitzed you know whether it being drinking or drugs or both um and he would from time to time do
something bad or embarrassing you know he would destroy he was known to destroy property or to get in fights right
um and then typically the next day he would have little to no memory of these events or the things that he had did
well then people would tell him what he had done and sometimes these memories well they would start to come back to
him and maybe sometimes they would not but it's my understanding that he had such a reputation for this kind of
behavior that often he was not invited to parties because nobody wanted him around you
know who wants the nobody wants the douche canoe break in Furniture right you don't want that fights you don't
want that guy at your house that's not a party yeah because you're gonna get busted by your parents if this guy
destroys something second of all you don't want him there if he's going to pick fights with your friends uh getting
you know getting drunk destroying stuff and just being basically a walking party
Foul right is is what Chuck Erickson would be Chucky Chucky AKA party Foul Ericson so let's
okay before we fast forward let's go through what happened that night according to Ryan now of course this
okay so what we need to be clear about this okay all the reports that you were just giving just to find beautiful
people listening to the show all the reports that you're giving are just from from Chucky but also from the
police correct it's basically the the this the general story that the prosecutor slash police pieced together
about what took place that night right but like we all know there's three sides to every story well according according
to Ryan um you know and I didn't want to mix the two stories because not only are they
very different but uh well let's say uh the night and the way things went down according to Ryan let's say it was much
less eventful um according to Ryan Ferguson he and Chuck did go to the bar they went to buy
George's uh they met his sister there they had drinks um they left the bar at 1 30 a.m so
we're already seeing a difference in time here right Ryan drove Chuck to Chuck's home and then Ryan continued on
to his own home arriving at his family's house around 1 40 a.m so very a very quick drive from by George's to get
Chuck home and then Ryan takes himself home then in the early morning hours after he gets home uh from 1 41 a.m to
209 a.m Ryan calls several friends and then he goes to bed he's having murdered no one that evening uh being and
actually being according to his account right he's at home at his family's home during the time of Kent height Holtz
murder yeah okay so we got two completely different stories and one story we got two murderers and the other
story we got a guy dropping you know I dropped my buddy off we had a couple drinks dropped him off and dropping his
really drunk buddy off yeah um okay yeah not just drunk but high too so how about how about we fast forward
here Captain so let's let's fast forward to the DeLorean 2003. Now by this time the murder it
remained an unsolved mystery you know in October of 2003 the local media again began they were covering the story they
were covering the murder and Chuck Erickson reportedly had several dreams about the crime after seeing an an
article in a newspaper and he couldn't get over the fact that he had been so close in proximity to where someone had
been murdered at about the same time right and he had almost no memory of that night well right because he has
that history of blacking out and about a month later or so Chuck he he read another article in the in the local
newspaper but this one included a sketch the sketch of the possible suspect in the case remember this was the one given
to police by the eyewitness Shauna ort working at working that night at the Tribune Chuck thought that the sketch
looked like himself now he now he's really starting to get concerned that he was somehow involved
in this murder now when when he's at this point when he gets really drunk he starts telling some
people that he thinks he's committed a murder or was at least involved in the murder of Kent hithold well part of this
is you know you're not fully developed you're you're frontal cortex and all that stuff I'm not a doctor so but
he taking all those drugs right it's going to mess up your brain a little bit and I think I think this guy took so
many drugs he fried his damn brain and maybe too often you know is is it the same thing are you beating your brain
the same level as like getting multiple concussions over and over again with what he's doing he's blacking out yeah
and how many times has he hit in his head when he's drunk too I mean that's that's another good point so now he's
getting really drunk and he starts telling people that he thinks he may have committed the murder or he's least
involved in the murder well he this is definitely not helping you know you with your friends there Chucky yeah you
already had this bad reputation now this guy gets drunk he breaks Furniture he he
tries to fight people and then now he's confessed into murders don't invite this
guy to your party rule number one it's not going to be a good time it's not going to work out well for you you're
not going to be the popular kid in school stop inviting Chucky to the party it sounds like he only told two people
these were his friends this is only two people would hang out what the crazy dude this is Nick Gilpin and art Figaro
and the thing is I don't know if the he told me these two guys on separate occasions or you know if he told them
together on several occasions I'm not certain but as as I've heard it he's only told two people I I'm assuming that
he told Nick Gilpin this story one time and then old Captain Gilpin was like I'm
not hanging out with you no more Chucky uh well it's through these two friends uh that Chuck is is you know that it's
later let's hold on for a second let's think about this way your neck Gulpin right you're hanging
out with Chucky so you don't have a lot of options right hmm this guy breaks stuff
gets in fights and then he tells you he tells you he murdered somebody right or he thinks he
did what how low do you have to be how bored how lonely do you have to be to pick up the phone and say call him up
again I'm going to call Chucky up and see if he wants to hang out ah you got to be pretty lonely right get
some more details about that murder uh well it's through these two friends that the police are later notified and
told that Chuck Erickson uh was one was the one who killed the newspaper reporter or that was involved in the
newspaper reporter's death that took place two years ago so and are you still with me so far
in March of 2004. okay well okay so we have we have the the event happens on Halloween two years later
Chucky's having these dreams he's telling people search Tom people they contact the cops and even if look if if
somebody gets drunk and starts telling you they murdered somebody call the cops did you do
um so they call the cops now the cops need to talk to Chucky yeah so in March of 2004 the Columbia police department
they pick up Chuck Erickson and they question him well not too long after and in fact I believe it was later that same
day they call another Police Department because by this time Ryan was off at uh junior college
and they have Ryan Ferguson arrested as well well these two questionings by police uh
go very differently um and let's talk about this uh let's talk about this starting with Chuck Okay
so you played uh some of that interrogation for us right and you know you see in the
questioning there's there's a couple different levels of questioning that take place here first off there's some
questioning that goes down off camera there's some that goes down on camera and there's also a questioning period
that takes place on camera where they're driving him to the crime scene and they're driving him around the area so
he can you know they can point things out to him and they can kind of ask him where did you guys come from uh did you
enter the parking lot this way which way did you exit where did you go after the
murder you know uh can you tell us where his car was parked things like that you
know they have to take him there well regarding the questioning or slash interrogation of Chuck Erickson it's
what would you say it's disconcerting Captain it's unethical so we have a guy here the problem is though they picked
this guy up and he's saying you know maybe maybe I was involved in this thing I I don't know it's it's I blacked out
that night I have very little memory he says something like uh he he's seeing almost snapshots of of the of the night
well they're going to they're going to it looked to me Captain like it started off like kind of a friendly questioning
period and at some point they start getting you know we see the typical well here's what the detectives do they like
to spread their legs very wide and then like to get in a little tiny baby chair and then they scoot up really close you
know so their whole you know [ __ ] and balls and everything are right on the guy's knee and then they're looking deep
into their eyes and they start saying stuff like you need to tell me the truth you're not
telling me the truth so that yeah it starts off friendly then they do the whole let me get right in
your grill two help a little bit later they back up that also once things are going their way they like to do the lean
back you know what I'm talking about where they they are starting to get answers so they do the lean back well
and they keep you they keep you positioned back in the corner and they they stay right in front of you in your
face right but once they start getting answers they like to back up and do the lean back you know like oh let's make
this more comfortable for you and when you're not telling me the truth I'm going to make it uncomfortable for you
well and they're also constantly reminding that reminding you that you did this that you are guilty yes they
will emphasize that word you and they will often point at you when they do that or or touch you in some manner to
remind you that is that it is you that is under the microscope right it's not it's not a whole bunch of other people
that they're looking at they have circled in on you yeah so a couple things one I feel for the detectives
because there's no real leads they had nothing to go on all of a sudden two years later you have this guy Chucky
coming forward saying I'm having these dreams I have a history of blacking out I might have been involved
okay so yes the cops need to get to the bottom of this so I I look I I normally would say no way shape or form should
you ever feed details but I think in this case I'm going to give them a little bit of a pass because
this guy is saying I don't know I don't know a bunch of the details where I'm not going to give you a pass
as once Chucky brings somebody else into the equation and once he brings up Ryan
Ferguson into the equation your job now is to if you want to find out if he's telling you the truth you need to focus
on trying to prove him wrong and that's what they should have done first I I'm going to halfway agree with
you because it sounds like you're saying if if it were just Chuck that was that was implicating himself and no one else
that it's fine to give up the details not not fine to give up all the details right because the problem I have with
that is the whole purpose of withholding those details is that so you avoid false
confessions and if you start just giving away information that's really going to
help this person whether they did it or not uh get the right answers right so where do we have a problem with some of
these things well but what I'm saying though is you could drive him to the scene you could do certain things
um you know maybe try hypnosis or whatever just to see if you can Get These Memories to come back to the
service but I'm not telling them I'm not saying that you should say what the guy
was strangled with or details like that no definitely not right and in in the beginning of the questioning or
interrogation it appears uh and we we can see it on TV we see it on the camera footage uh it appears that Erickson that
Chuck has little knowledge of the crime um and at one point he tells the police I could be sitting here fabricating all
of this right now as the captain was hinting towards there uh they want some detailed information you know they want
to know what did you what was Kent strangled with okay um how many times was he hit what was he
hit with Okay so let's go through that as such he he states that they they took something from Ryan's car and that's
what they are going to attack Kent with and he assumed like a tire iron Yes again now if you hit now
it was at about 15 times if you hit somebody 15 times in the head the tire iron there's gonna be a skull fracture
and maybe not Chucky because Chucky's a small guy but you give a a pretty good athlete and Ryan Ferguson a tire iron
there's not going to be skull fractures it's going to be a mutilated skull one thing we should point out too though to
paint a bit of a better picture for everybody is uh I would actually I would actually consider both Chuck and Ryan to
be smaller dudes um you know I think what Ryan was five eight five nine uh and we have Chuck
who's a who's about five seven um and and the reason why I say smaller dudes is that's in comparison to Kent
eitholt Kent height Holt was well over six foot and he was a large dude he played offensive line for for some
college before he became a sports writer so yes I understand that they might be armed with this tire iron or some blunt
object or unknown object but it does seem strange to me that these two teenage boys would pick a very large
male victim to attempt to Rob yeah but Ryan Ryan was you know he's athletic um yeah I don't know uh I don't know
exactly what his height is no he he definitely looked very athletic um anyway so as we were stating they
need to know what he was hit with and furthermore who hit him and how many times was he hit with this object well
here's one thing that I found really strange about that interrogation you saw this you know he says how many times was
did was Kent hit did you hit Kent uh once yeah he's like no come on we know we know Chuck that he was hit a lot more
than one time and then he throws out some other number that's not correct and then the the uh detective corrects him
and he says now we know that Ken that you hit Kent 15 times is that right and eventually Chuck gives in to this
and says yes I hit him 15 times right and this is what I find is so unethical well not only that the strange part of
this thing here is Captain is first of all it's incredibly unethical second of all the detective fed him information
but fed him wrong information he says 15 times the the autopsy report States 11 or 12 times the detective didn't even
bother to get the wrong you know the wrong information right right right and and so he feeds him some bad information
and we have Chuck validate that and corroborate with that and says yes you know yeah yeah but right we hit her 15
times but there's a couple times that Chuck has to go on you know what but I don't really know I don't really know if
I'm telling you the truth or not right and then then they want to know okay what what did you use to strangle Kent
yeah I don't know his T-shirt yeah and actually I I thought when I viewed the the the the full length of the of the
questioning the interrogation yeah I I thought that I saw him almost react he didn't verbally say it but it looked
like his his uh his body language was suggesting that he was about to say his hands you know what I mean like yeah
because he said you know did did Ryan how did Ryan choke him like again implementing Ryan and not Chucky and and
then he makes I saw Ryan uh hands were you know kind of the symbol he makes a gesture about choking with his name the
Homer Simpson I'm going to choke Bart Simpson Type move so yeah and and they're like no that's not
right and he's like well maybe a t-shirt yeah or because he states that the officer would tell him you know it it
might have been something of Kent's that was used to to strangle him and as you said at first he says a T-shirt and he
said no it wasn't his T-shirt and then you he this is like questioning like a five-year-old you know that like took a
crap on in the family room that that that's what this question reminds me of well and then you you hear
him say so he says no it wasn't a t-shirt Chuck right then Chuck says maybe it was a bungee cord I don't know
because I couldn't see him having a rope in his car right because it's making sense to me why he would have a rope in
his car yeah so so all right well let's examine that it obviously wasn't a t-shirt I've no no it wasn't with his
hands right wasn't strangled with his hands he wasn't strangled with the T-shirt wasn't strangled with a bungee
cord wasn't strangled with a rope and it wasn't something that was taken from the
victim's car it was something that was taken off of the victim right right so after five wrong answers after five
wrong answers maybe you as a detective should go hey this guy doesn't know jack [ __ ]
right yeah he does he doesn't know what's going on yeah but right so at what point does the does the detective
say hey this is ridiculous this is nonsense not only and here's what they do they feed him
all this information they feed Chucky all this information they get a tape confession they think maybe this can
hold up and then they pull Ryan Ferguson in well uh you know and I'm not even ready to go that far yet because I'm
still on the Belt thing here you know we the the officer tells just outright tells him yeah he
was strangled with his own belt oh no no he sits back with just this cocky son of
a [ __ ] type attitude he's just sitting back and he goes I'm I was kind of holding this from you
I was keeping this back from you I didn't want to tell you but it was a bell that's pretty much
exactly what he says right and Chuck says something like well I don't remember that at all like he seemed
surprised like that that's the murder weapon like like shocked uh no no he he doesn't even understand what he's saying
because all of a sudden then Chucky says wait a second with his own belt right not Ryan's Belt
but his own belt oh like flabbergasted like like this is the first time he's thinking somebody pulled up on Kent
knocked him in his head at a 10 times 11 times pulled this dude's belt off of him
strangled him with his own belt you have to be a vicious SOB to do that well and like you said it's he's his
reaction is almost like getting fired up man well Chuck's reaction is almost like
I'm trying to help you out here guys but I would not have guessed that you know on my best day I would not have guessed
his own belt on my best day right so anyway then now they got to figure out what is the motive why would you guys go
and attack this large man uh that you don't know in the middle of a parking lot you don't know
did nothing to you and here's the answer that you get after all after you go through all of these details the answer
that you get is well I guess if we killed him then I assume we would have done it for money
right but no sign of robbery right right this is this is unethical horrible horrible police work
and and I believe just like and we'll talk about this later you know a prosecutor
for example can't just make up fake evidence right and there's laws against that and you can face jail time just
like I think you know now that we require people to tape these interviews they need to be well aware that if you
cross the line or you do some ridiculous dumb [ __ ] that you can face jail time
and I believe in this case that these detectives doing the interrogation they deserve jail time because these
interrogations were so unethical you signed up to Serve and Protect not to make up [ __ ] lies and put innocent
people behind bars well the thing here is when they're talking to Ryan Ferguson it's a much
different story you know uh we have we have Ryan Ferguson basically denying everything well do you do you want to
just hear that clip yeah [Music] I did not do anything I did not see anything and I'm here for murder like
Chuck says that he got kind of sick to his stomach after you hit this guy during that time uh he looked over and
sees you on top of the the guy who's down and you're choking him out he says strangling you
you believe this I I the shark probably had something to do with it well he said
is Heather all right well I mean he could have very well have been part of it I'm not are you a common Zone when we
come down there we started talking about the money like that I didn't do it wasn't there don't know what you're
talking about the police pulled me and said anyone talking about a murderer I'm gonna be good about half crazy I am
[ __ ] half crazy dude I'm sorry I'm good at [ __ ] hiding my emotions I'm shaking like me figure I didn't do
anything about to get in trouble for something I didn't do foreign [Music] so that's uh little pieces of the Ryan
Ferguson interrogation I gotta tell you Captain I watched that thing and I thought that Ryan actually held it
together pretty well um not in a way that would imply to me that he's guilty like the detective was
trying to point out um you know stating that oh if somebody pulled me in for murder I'd be mad as
hell well what's crazy to me is he does appear to be mad as hell to me yeah but and um and I I think a mature
way I mean one you're getting questioned about a night that happened two two years ago so think about that night
might be very insignificant to you and then somebody's questioning you about it and you're going well I don't really
remember because the reason why I say that he appears to be mad at times you know but but controlled right is sure
you see him at times where there's like a split second where he'll he'll smack the table and he's like man I'm telling
you I've told you a hundred times I didn't do this I wasn't there I don't know what else I can say and then second
of all you'll see a couple times where he will raise his voice to the detectives basically making the same
argument I don't know how to tell you this any differently than I was not there right but what drives me nuts and
I've said this I think since we started looking into this case is when you watch
these these tapes uh Chucky doesn't make any damn sense right uh the detectives make no damn sense at all the only one
that's not in this crazy make-believe world is is Ryan he's he seems like the only
one that is is speaking with any logical sense right so I mean just like with the
detectives if you can't get Chucky to remember anything or if all of his details are
different and conflicting of the evidence that you know and that you have studied he's not your guy you know what
I mean so it makes zero logical sense to keep pursuing down that road and I like
that he says you know at some point he kind of gives in because he says you know every time he says I didn't do this
I wasn't there well then at some point the police start coming back with the argument well well Chuck was there and
we know Chuck did this and you were with Chuck and his his answer is the same every time he goes okay well fine maybe
Chuck did do this maybe Chuck was there I was knocked right I didn't do this and
then you know he he's asked you see that part where the um the one detective comes in and he tries to play the good
cop you know oh I have a son your age and when I when I look at you I'm seeing my son so I'm here to I'm here to help
you get this off your chest and I'm here to help you talk about this you know sometimes we do things that we don't
mean to do right and for whatever reason we don't know why we do them you know but he sticks with it you know Ryan
sticks with it he says yeah I would have said hey sorry I'm I'm sorry I'm not a douche like your son but I didn't do
this the the thing here is you know not only did I not only only am I innocent of the murder I'm innocent of
having even been there yeah and never was even there now the police they're stuck in this bad situation okay you
know it obviously looks like Ryan's in a bad situation and Chuck is in a bad situation
but the police unbeknownst to the two boys the police they need something because as we pointed out earlier you
know they don't have a lot to go on other than this confession that they've got from this Chuck Erickson
and then the person that supposedly with him Ryan Ferguson is saying the exact opposite I was not there I'm not guilty
of anything they need someone to somewhat back up Chuck's story okay so who who would have gone also their story
it's a collaborative story at this point you're exactly right who would have seen
you there that night oh well you know Chuck points out that at some point after the murder while we were leaving
and going on on our way back to the bar at this intersection we saw this guy that we knew and his name is his name is
Dallas Mallory we saw him he was at a red light in a vehicle with two girls I had a brief conversation with him at the
intersection before the light turned green and he took off well they bring in this Dallas Mallory
and he says I did not see those I did not see Chuck I did not see Ryan I saw neither of those guys at an intersection
in the early morning hours of November 1st he goes on to say I didn't see those guys on Halloween night either
well the police keep coming back to him and they say well we know Dallas we know
that you saw them because Chuck keeps saying that he saw you that he had a conversation with you and at some point
Dallas is saying you know like you pointed out Captain this is at least two years ago
so Dallas is like he's confused he's like well how about this if Chuck says he saw me
then what was I wearing that night well they go to Chuck and they talk to Chuck and Chuck says well Dallas was
dressed up for Halloween to go to the Halloween parties he was dressed up as a police officer mm-hmm
and of course the uh the detectives go back to Dallas Mallory and they say he says he saw you you were dressed like a
police officer and Dallas Mallory says hmm I was I was wearing a police uniform that night that was my character for the
Halloween parties uh then then I must if he says that that's what I was wearing then I must have seen those guys that
night right because how would he know so now that they have somebody backing up Chucky's story and their story their
combined efforts to create this elaborate story the they're going to charge Chucky and
then they're going to go on trial to charge Ryan Ferguson yeah and and I think let's cover that in tomorrow's
episode we we should talk about how this gets to trial talk about the trial itself the things that they got right
the things they got wrong and where this ends up getting us in the end well yeah
tons to dive in tomorrow until then check out True Crime garage.com go to the store Page we got the tank tops for
sale we got the v-necks we've got the logo teas some beer mugs a bunch of different stuff check that out all right
we will see everybody back here tomorrow in the garage until then be good be kind
and don't let him thank you [Applause] [Music]

Ryan Ferguson /// Part 1 /// 116

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

We all know that a lot of crazy things can happen on Halloween night but maybe none as crazy as this. In 2001 a couple of High School students were out enjoying several Halloween parties. The partying took them into the early morning hours of November 1st. One of them was so intoxicated he could not remember what took place Halloween night. In the same area of town a man leaving work after 2am was beaten and strangled to death in a parking lot. Several dreams about the murder and one phone call led to the arrests of the teenagers. One of them confessed and the other was convicted of murder.

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Brief Summary

Ryan Ferguson was wrongfully convicted of Kent Heitholt's murder, largely based on Chuck Erickson's unreliable confession and police misconduct.

Key points

The Murder of Kent Heitholt. Kent Heitholt was found beaten and strangled in Columbia, Missouri, in 2001.
The Night of Halloween. Ryan and Chuck were partying on Halloween night before the murder occurred.
Ryan Ferguson's Conviction. Ryan Ferguson was convicted of Kent's murder based on a confession from Charles Erickson.
Murder Discovery. Kent Heitolt is found dead, severely beaten and strangled in a parking lot.
Police Investigation. Police struggle to find leads as security cameras at the crime scene were not working.
Confession Under Influence. Chuck Erickson, after several dreams, confesses to friends he may have committed murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Somebody's been hurt, man.

Witnessing a crime scene.

0:57WatchDec 6, 2022

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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