Ryan Ferguson Update: Article

Some Ferguson jury members rethink decision
"He was guilty at the time, we thought"


Few who served on the jury that convicted Ryan Ferguson in a five-day murder trial six years ago care to talk about it today.


Chuck Erickson describes where he says he and Ryan Ferguson were hiding behind a dumpster moments before Kent Heitholt was killed in the parking lot of the Columbia Daily Tribune.
After all, putting away for murder a 21-year-old man with most of his life in front of him is no easy task, jury member Mark Krieg said. And hearing key witnesses recant their testimonies while more evidence surfaces makes what was a difficult decision even more confusing now.

Some on the unanimous jury that convicted Ferguson of murdering Tribune Sports Editor Kent Heitholt have mixed feelings about the verdict today. In light of new allegations by the defense and recantation of testimony by key witnesses, the Tribune in February attempted to contact the 12 jury members and two alternates who served on the panel. Many said they were tired of reporters over the years asking about their participation.

One jury member declined to be interviewed but said before hanging up the phone: “He’s innocent. I hope they just release him.”

Krieg also is no longer convinced, although in the courtroom he said everyone was “dead set that he was guilty.”

“People seemed antsy to get the heck out of there,” he said. “Why would” co-defendant Chuck Erickson “admit to himself being there if it was not true?”

He follows reports of Ferguson’s appeals and has visited the family’s website advocating for Ferguson’s release. That’s where he first read about the former Tribune employee the defense now claims should have been questioned as a suspect.

“It really makes you wonder now if we could have done more,” Krieg said. “He was guilty at the time, we thought.”

Fellow jury member Anthony Runge doesn’t like to talk about the case, saying the trial was taxing.

“I didn’t like being on that jury,” Runge said. “I didn’t like having that man’s life in my hands. … Everyone had a hard time judging that young man.”

Runge and Krieg think Ferguson deserves a new trial.

“You never know for sure. You’re putting your faith in people telling you the truth,” Runge said. “You’re sitting there and listening to someone you don’t know at all. I would tell the truth, but you can only have faith that others would do the same.”

The defense hopes to get a new day in court. Ferguson’s father, Bill, filed a new petition in Cole County, where his son is serving a 40-year sentence for second-degree murder and first-degree robbery. The defendant and his attorney, Kathleen Zellner of Chicago, are requesting an evidentiary hearing. The petition and attached exhibits contain more than 1,000 pages that outline witness recantations and alleged bullying by Columbia police investigators and former Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Crane. The petition suggests a former Tribune employee is the “only viable suspect” remaining.

Jurors said they relied on what they thought was the truth and nothing but the truth, saying they considered Erickson’s testimony as well as that of Tribune janitor Jerry Trump, the state witnesses who placed Ferguson at the scene — until later changing their stories.

Jury member Laura Thomas is skeptical of the altered stories rising to the surface nearly 10 years after the Nov. 1, 2001, murder. She remains confident the verdict was the right one.

“They are just fooling around and wasting money,” she said. The defense is making it appear as though the conviction was decided before the trial, she added.

Thomas said she believed Erickson on the stand and remembers eye exchanges between him and Ferguson. “He looked at his partner like, ‘C’mon, come out with it. You know you did this,’ ” she said.

She also speculated about Erickson’s decision to change his story.

“He has some kind of ulterior motive,” she said, referring to Erickson. “There is no reason for him to put his agreement with the state in jeopardy.”

Erickson is serving a 25-year sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in a plea agreement that shortened his sentence in exchange for testimony used to convict Ferguson. In a February affidavit, Erickson recanted the testimony he gave at the trial.

Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Knight declined to comment about the status and future of Erickson’s agreement.

With the habeas petition filed in February, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office faces a deadline this week to issue its response to the allegations of Ferguson and his attorneys. Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green will consider both arguments and could rule on the matter at a June 29 hearing.

■

Shortly after 2 a.m. the morning after Halloween 2001, Kent Heitholt left the newspaper office. By 2:26 a.m., he was dead, his body on the parking lot next to his car fewer than 60 feet from the building’s door, according to police reports. He had suffered multiple blows to the head.

Fellow sportswriter Michael Boyd said he was sitting in his car just moments before, listening to music. He remembers seeing a cat that Heitholt normally fed at night pawing at a tire of Heitholt’s car. When Heitholt made a motion like he was entering his vehicle to leave, Boyd said, he did the same and left the parking lot through a side alley.

Boyd also said he saw two unrecognizable people behind a trash bin as he was driving away. But he didn’t tell investigators about that until after he read in the Tribune that other witnesses claimed to have seen two white college-age men near the body.

Sometime during those wee minutes of the morning, Heitholt — who was 48 years old, married and the father of two children — was beaten with a tire tool and strangled with his own belt. Ferguson and Erickson at the time were 17-year-old students at Rock Bridge High School.

During the trial, Trump, a janitor who heard a commotion by Heitholt’s vehicle and rushed to the scene, identified Ferguson from a newspaper photo. But the new petition says Trump, a registered sex offender, fabricated the tale at Crane’s suggestion.

Crane, now a Boone County circuit judge, declined to comment on the allegation.

In an October 2010 affidavit, Trump claimed his trial testimony was false. The defense also alleges Trump told others he could not identify the two white men he saw outside the Tribune before the trial.

Boyd was never called to testify and, according to the defense’s latest petition, wasn’t thoroughly investigated even though he was the last person to see Heitholt alive.

The petition cites “revenge” and “deep animosity” for Heitholt as Boyd’s possible motives and alleges Boyd had complained to the janitorial crew that Heitholt disrespected him in the workplace. Janitor Shawna Ornt said in an affidavit that Boyd seemed obsessed with Heitholt and said his boss would repeatedly criticize his work.

Boyd tells a different story. He said Heitholt took him under his wing and even provided him more appropriate clothing for the workplace at a time when he was strapped financially.

Joe Walljasper, the current Tribune sports editor who was on the staff at the time, dismissed the defense’s allegation. “I can tell you with almost 100 percent certainty that there was no disrespect there,” he said recently.

Under the defense’s new theory, the actual killer was aware of the neighborhood, was in a comfort zone and knew the work ritual of the victim. The petition cites a review of evidence by Boston College Professor Ann Burgess, who specializes in assessment and treatment of trauma and abuse.

“Strangulation is common to the more personal crimes where there is a relationship between offender and victim,” her report said.

The defense also proposed an attack theory in the petition. Larry Blum, a forensic pathologist hired by the defense, suggested upon a review of evidence that Heitholt — at 6 feet 3 inches tall and 300 pounds — was brought to the ground by pressure on the neck resulting in a hyoid bone fracture caused by multiple blunt trauma, his report said. The victim was then struck repeatedly on the head against the rear wheel of the car and strangled with his own belt.

Ferguson’s attorney, Zellner, has said she believes Heitholt’s DNA and a murder weapon could be in Boyd’s 1991 blue Oldsmobile, which police never searched. Efforts to find the vehicle have stumped Zellner’s investigators. The defense alleges the vehicle identification number has been changed on paperwork, which is why the vehicle has not been located.

Boyd said he traded the vehicle for a red van through Enterprise Leasing in St. Louis. His brother, who worked for the business, told Boyd he could get him a good deal, and so the transaction was made.

“My family got larger,” Boyd said. “The car was crap. I needed something bigger.”

Boyd said, he doesn’t know where the Oldsmobile is. Enterprise declined to comment.

■

The Columbia police investigation into the murder began moments after Heitholt’s body was discovered but went cold after 2½ years with no arrests.

In 2004, officers got an anonymous tip that Erickson had been talking about Heitholt’s slaying. They questioned him in March of that year, and that’s when Erickson told investigators about his presumption that he was involved.

Erickson originally told police his recollections of his and Ferguson’s involvement in Heitholt’s murder started to surface after he read newspaper articles about the case, according to testimony.

Ferguson has maintained his innocence through his arrest, trial and seven appeals. Erickson’s story has been inconsistent through his initial questioning, trial testimony and recent recantations.

Last year, Erickson said in a video sworn statement he alone was responsible for the murder of Heitholt, saying he robbed, beat and strangled Heitholt. The statements contradict trial testimony, during which Erickson said he robbed and beat the victim but pinned the strangulation on Ferguson. Erickson still maintains Ferguson was with him.

In his recantation, Erickson said he “made a lot of assumptions and turned them into facts to satisfy the police.”

In a February affidavit Erickson provided to Ferguson’s attorney, he said Ferguson “did not harm Heitholt in any way” and that his trial testimony was the result of pressure from Columbia police and Boone County prosecutors.

“Recently, after reviewing the police reports and transcripts of my interrogation, I do not understand how the information I provided resulted in the conviction of Ryan Ferguson,” he said. “I did not provide any of the pertinent details in my interrogation that would support a conviction.”

Erickson said in his affidavit he believed Ferguson was going to accept a plea agreement and testify against him. He also acknowledged he did not remember any details about how the crime took place during his interrogation.

“The police threatened me to implicate Ferguson or else I would be solely responsible for Heitholt’s death and be charged with first-degree murder and possibly sentenced to death,” Erickson said in the affidavit.

He also claimed to have smoked marijuana before being questioned by police and said he has a long history of substance abuse. He said his substance abuse problems began at age 14, and he described himself as a “heavy drug user” with experimentations with LSD, psychedelic mushrooms, peyote and cocaine.

Hours before the murder, Erickson said, he had taken three or four Adderall pills, ingested a line of cocaine and consumed up to 14 alcoholic beverages. He also said he might have used marijuana, but he does not remember because he experienced his first alcoholic blackout that night.

During the 2½ years between the murder and his arrest, Erickson said he experienced 10 to 20 additional blackouts.

“My memory, including my memory from that night, was severely affected as a result of my consumption of alcohol,” he said.

Just days after Heitholt’s murder, Erickson was tested by the University of Missouri’s Assessment and Consultation Clinic for possible attention difficulties. The assessment suggested three findings: Erickson became bored with school at a young age; he experienced a minor brain insult or abnormality that had gone undetected and had compromised his cognitive abilities, memory, motivation or judgment; or that Erickson’s past or current substance abuse impaired his memory.

He claims both the state and defense were in possession of that assessment before the trial. A psychologist found him capable to stand trial, but Erickson never participated in a neurological examination. The defense in its petition presented an affidavit from pediatric neurologist Steven Abern, who concluded upon an examination of prior testing that neurological testing would have identified “obvious neurological conditions” that would have called into question the credibility of Erickson’s testimony and statements provided to police.

■

Media reports have kept the Heitholt murder in the public eye. Ferguson and Erickson provide occasional front-page headlines, and the relentless efforts of Bill Ferguson to exonerate his son have brought this local story to the nation through CBS’ “48 Hours Mystery” and NBC’s “Dateline.” Crews from both national news shows were in Columbia this year re-examining the case, with the “Dateline” episode yet to air.

Bill Ferguson said he keeps fighting by drawing strength from what he believes is the truth: a scenario that does not place Erickson or Ferguson at the crime scene, despite Erickson’s testimony.

“Ryan didn’t do it,” he said last month. “I don’t think Chuck did this. I don’t think Chuck was even there.”

Bill Ferguson is pinning his hopes on the latest affidavits from Erickson and Trump retracting their original stories.

The elder Ferguson believes the appeal is gaining momentum through media coverage, but any advancement can quickly be halted by the snail-like pace of the criminal justice system.

“It’s a steady slog,” he said, describing the past 18 months of appeals and discovery of new evidence since Zellner took on the case.

“We are just slogging along. We are not losing ground. We are gaining ground, but not in big distances.”