Ep. - 429 - RYAN FERGUSON FROM AMAZING RACE AND DREAM/KILLER

Jan 5, 2022

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Kate and Steve give their opinions about this week’s episode of Sister Wives on TLC.

Ryan Ferguson spent nearly 10 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of a 2001 murder in his hometown of Columbia, Missouri. At the time of the murder, he was a 17-year-old high-school student. His story was told on 48 Hours Mystery and the Netflix documentary Dream/Killer.

Kent Heitholt was found beaten and strangled shortly after 2 a.m. on November 1, 2001, in the parking lot of the Columbia Daily Tribune, where he worked as a sports editor. His murder went unsolved for two years until police received a tip about a man named Charles Erickson who had spent that evening partying with Ferguson. Erickson could not remember the evening of the murder and was concerned that he may have been involved in it. Despite failing to recall having killed Heitholt, Erickson eventually confessed and implicated Ferguson in the crime as well. Ferguson was convicted in the fall of 2005 on the basis of Erickson's testimony as well as that of a building employee.

Both witnesses later recanted their testimony, claiming that police and prosecuting attorney Kevin Crane, now a circuit court judge, had coerced them to lie. The 2005 conviction was vacated on November 5, 2013, by the Western District of the Missouri Court of Appeals, and Ferguson was released on the evening of November 12 after spending nearly a decade in prison. Ryan won $11 million in a civil suit against Missouri police.

Ryan and his friend Dusty Harris are competing this season of The Amazing Race on CBS, an adventure reality game show franchise in which teams of two people race around the world in competition with other teams. The series began filming in February 2020 but had to take a roughly 18-month hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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