Don't miss Dateline on NBC tonight- The Ryan Ferguson case

[Albert Pujols]

This is one of the biggest travesties in the history of the criminal justice system.

FreeRyanFerguson.com

[stevek173]

Wow that's ****** up he's still serving

[InTheDrink]

never fukkin heard of it

whats the abridged version?

[d2bets]

never fukkin heard of it

whats the abridged version?

Dude hopped up on drugs and alcohol has dream he and buddy killed the sports editors of Columbia, MO paper Halloween 2001
Dude tells people about dream
Those people tell cops
Copes bring dude in and coerce him into admitting and help him fill in details and implicating buddy
Buddy maintains his innocence
Dude pleads guilty to testify against buddy
Buddy found guilty pretty much solely on that and one witnesses who fingers buddy - no physical evidence
Fast forward several years, the dude recants his testimony and the witness says prosecutor coerced him into ID
New attorney trying to get him new trial based on the recantations, among other reasons.

That's as abirdged as it gets. Hopefully he's free soon.

https://www.freeryanferguson.com

[GUMMO77]

wow

[MeatWad]

Our justice system is a joke, we have 1/4 of the world's prison population yet we are only 1/4 the population of China. Either US citizens are extemely predisposed to criminal behavior or we have a system that defines criminal behavior much too broadly and punishes it too severely. The Justice Department and Corrections are pathetic, they strive to expand regardless of the damage they ultimately do to society, sucking up tax dollars as they investigate and prosecute innocous "criminals" and build prisons to create jobs for uneducated inbred Corrections employees.

[muldoon]

Our justice system is a joke, we have 1/4 of the world's prison population yet we are only 1/4 the population of China. Either US citizens are extemely predisposed to criminal behavior or we have a system that defines criminal behavior much too broadly and punishes it too severely. The Justice Department and Corrections are pathetic, they strive to expand regardless of the damage they ultimately do to society, sucking up tax dollars as they investigate and prosecute innocous "criminals" and build prisons to create jobs for uneducated inbred Corrections employees.

Private prisons.

They spend tens of millions lobbying for longer prison terms, for harsher penalties for non violent crimes. Prisoners have always been issued numbers, but now those numbers are just part of the excel sheet which determines the share price.

Fire up the "he's a socialist" siren, but in my view, not everything in life that CAN be run for profit (police...military...), should be.

Add this to the list.

[d2bets]

Our justice system is a joke, we have 1/4 of the world's prison population yet we are only 1/4 the population of China. Either US citizens are extemely predisposed to criminal behavior or we have a system that defines criminal behavior much too broadly and punishes it too severely. The Justice Department and Corrections are pathetic, they strive to expand regardless of the damage they ultimately do to society, sucking up tax dollars as they investigate and prosecute innocous "criminals" and build prisons to create jobs for uneducated inbred Corrections employees.

Good points, although none of that has much relation to this particular case. This is just a case of they arrested and railroaded the wrong guy and his appeals process has been impossibly slow. There was a crime and somebody did commit the crime, which was horrific, and that person(s) should have been sent away to prison for life. They just got the wrong guy. Actually two wrong guys. The other guy that "confessed" and pleaded guilty is in jail, but he didn't do it either. This is more a case of overzealous police, investigators and prosecutors who wanted to convict somebody, anybody in a high-profile case. And even to this day they are unwilling to see and accept what is crystal clear to just about anyone with common sense. The original prosecutor is now a local judge (scary!).

[a4u2fear]

How about if you have a fuked up dream, you figure it out before you go running your mouth.

[Dutch]

I remember this when it happened awhile back. Dateline did a show then. Fuked up story.

[d2bets]

I remember this when it happened awhile back. Dateline did a show then. Fuked up story.

The murder was in 2001; false confession in 2004; trial and conviction in 2005. Dateline premiered the story August 2011 with a 2 hour episode. 48 Hours was on it first, I think it was 2006 maybe, and they've updated it 2 or 3 times. Both Dateline and 48 Hours were filming at the recent April 2012 dramatic hearing for a new trial. The decision could come on that in the next couple months and I would expect both Dateline and 48 Hours to air update shows soon thereafter.

How revolting is it that the Missouri AG's office is still trying to prosecute this case and cling to a bogus verdict?

[Dutch]

The murder was in 2001; false confession in 2004; trial and conviction in 2005. Dateline premiered the story August 2011 with a 2 hour episode. 48 Hours was on it first, I think it was 2006 maybe, and they've updated it 2 or 3 times. Both Dateline and 48 Hours were filming at the recent April 2012 dramatic hearing for a new trial. The decision could come on that in the next couple months and I would expect both Dateline and 48 Hours to air update shows soon thereafter.

How revolting is it that the Missouri AG's office is still trying to prosecute this case and cling to a bogus verdict?

I must have seen 48hrs cuz it's been more than a yr since I saw it.

It's a trip how prosecutors will keep pushing for a conviction. I've seen stories where even the victims family doesn't believe the dude in prison did it and the prosecution won't back down. Leave an innocent man in jail rather than admit you were wrong. Fuk'd up.

[crustyme]

as silly as the evidence may sound, a jury of 12 found him unanimously guilty. so there has to be more to this story.

[d2bets]

as silly as the evidence may sound, a jury of 12 found him unanimously guilty. so there has to be more to this story.

There's A LOT more to the story, but none of it points to Ferguson being guilty. I've read the entire trial transcript - all 2000+ pages. There were so many things wrong with the trial you could go on forever. But it's undisputed that the conviction was based solely on the testimony of his supposed co-conspirator Chuck Erickson and the ID of a witness, Jerry Trump. There was nothing else. Nothing. Chuck's story is as weird as it gets. The jury of 12 just couldn't imagine that he would plead guilty to serve 25 years if he and Ferguson didn't do it. It really is weird. But that's what happened. The kid was severely drugged up, blacked out and created this false memory a couple years later, aided by cops. I think he really had himself so convinced that he did it.

Of course now both Erickson and Trump have recanted their trial testimony. It was all a bunch of lies. It's really hard to summarize because there are so many facets and so much going on here. But when it all boils down, Ferguson is 100% stone cold guaranteed innocent. He's as innocent as me. It;s that simple. And Erickson, who pleaded guilty and "admitted" to the crime, is also completely innocent. It's just one of the weirder crime stories you'll ever read. The onyl mystery is whodunnit. We kow it wasn't these kids, but sadly the real murderer has gotten away with it. There is some decent suspicion of one guy that worked with the victim - the last person to see him - but he was never properly investigated. I'm 50/50 on whether he (Mike Boyd) did it.

But crusty, the "more to the story here" is how a clever and devious prosecutor (now judge - yikes!), along with the cops and investigators, manipulated everything to get a false conviction. This isn't a case of "well, I think he's guilty, but you might disagree". Anyone with a rational brain who truly looks at all of the facts now will agree that he's innocent. The original jury didn't get the see the full picture and couldn't get over the notion that this guy would plead guilty to something he didn't do. It can happen though. But usually cops try to ferret out false confessions (remember John Mark Carr). In this case, they aided and abetted the false confession. It is quite disturbing that the prosecutors continue to cover up the truth to save their ass.

[d2bets]

For those of you who watched this Dateline, do you think Mike Boyd is the murderer? Hate to falsely accuse, and he may be innocent, but his entire story, or should I say stories since he's had 5 different versions, seems extraordinarily suspicious. This was a crime of passion by a man of size, Boyd was known to be the last to see Heitholt and rumor had it that Kent was very critical of Boyd.

The problem is he was never properly investigated in the first place so it's hard to tell for sure. If they had just throughly investigated him that night, they could have luminol tested his car, checked for blood anywhere. Never happened. Why? Because the janitors who stepped out just after Kent was called reported seeing 2 white boys in the shadows who yelled back to "get some help" and then walked away. So the cops assumed those were the murderers they sought and had no interest in investigated his black colleague. But, what if those boys (not Ryan and Chuck, but two college students*) had just stumbled on the scene and might only be potential witnesses. Could they have seen Boyd? That might explain why Boyd never mentioned seeing anyone in his first 3 versions of events.....but then suddenly after these arrests now he suddenly remembers seeing two boys behind a dumpster. Because having someone else take the fall is a great way to take any suspicion off yourself. If you did it, you're always paranoid like that. Again, he might not have, but he's awfully suspicious and was never investigated.

In gambling terms here are the fair odds that each committed the murder:
Erickson .005%
Ferguson .0000000000000000000001%
Boyd 55%
"College kids" who yelled for help 30%
Anyone else 15%

[Statistics]

That's what u get for doing drugs. Stay away kiddies

[d2bets]

That's what u get for doing drugs. Stay away kiddies

That's what you took away from this story? Seriously?

Ryan Ferguson didn't do any drugs. He was drinking underage though. So are you suggesting that if you drink underage you should expect to be convicted of a murder that you had relation with?

[sharpcat]

There's A LOT more to the story, but none of it points to Ferguson being guilty. I've read the entire trial transcript - all 2000+ pages. There were so many things wrong with the trial you could go on forever. But it's undisputed that the conviction was based solely on the testimony of his supposed co-conspirator Chuck Erickson and the ID of a witness, Jerry Trump. There was nothing else. Nothing. Chuck's story is as weird as it gets. The jury of 12 just couldn't imagine that he would plead guilty to serve 25 years if he and Ferguson didn't do it. It really is weird. But that's what happened. The kid was severely drugged up, blacked out and created this false memory a couple years later, aided by cops. I think he really had himself so convinced that he did it.

Of course now both Erickson and Trump have recanted their trial testimony. It was all a bunch of lies. It's really hard to summarize because there are so many facets and so much going on here. But when it all boils down, Ferguson is 100% stone cold guaranteed innocent. He's as innocent as me. It;s that simple. And Erickson, who pleaded guilty and "admitted" to the crime, is also completely innocent. It's just one of the weirder crime stories you'll ever read. The onyl mystery is whodunnit. We kow it wasn't these kids, but sadly the real murderer has gotten away with it. There is some decent suspicion of one guy that worked with the victim - the last person to see him - but he was never properly investigated. I'm 50/50 on whether he (Mike Boyd) did it.

But crusty, the "more to the story here" is how a clever and devious prosecutor (now judge - yikes!), along with the cops and investigators, manipulated everything to get a false conviction. This isn't a case of "well, I think he's guilty, but you might disagree". Anyone with a rational brain who truly looks at all of the facts now will agree that he's innocent. The original jury didn't get the see the full picture and couldn't get over the notion that this guy would plead guilty to something he didn't do. It can happen though. But usually cops try to ferret out false confessions (remember John Mark Carr). In this case, they aided and abetted the false confession. It is quite disturbing that the prosecutors continue to cover up the truth to save their ass.

Amazing that you would invest so much time and effort into proving that these young men were innocent yet you were arguing with those who were outraged that the state of Florida would bring charges against George Zimmerman just a month ago.

So you feel that these kids who admitted to this crime and were found guilty in a court of law were unfairly charged with the crime and that the state did not have enough evidence to charge them, but you feel that George Zimmerman should be charged with murder despite the fact that evidence supports his claim of self defense.

What a fukkin hypocrite!!!

[dante1]

Private prisons.

They spend tens of millions lobbying for longer prison terms, for harsher penalties for non violent crimes. Prisoners have always been issued numbers, but now those numbers are just part of the excel sheet which determines the share price.

Fire up the "he's a socialist" siren, but in my view, not everything in life that CAN be run for profit (police...military...), should be.

Add this to the list.

Absolutely correct, on occasion the profit motive is in direct contradiction with what is proper and just. Big money tempts even the best of us. If you are familiar with the case in NE Pa involving "kids for cash," you might tend to agree. Whenever quantity of a result produces a better bottom line people will find a way, legal, illegal, moral or immoral to raise that quantity. You guys that believe the "market" always find a solution are simply wrong.

[d2bets]

Amazing that you would invest so much time and effort into proving that these young men were innocent yet you were arguing with those who were outraged that the state of Florida would bring charges against George Zimmerman just a month ago.

So you feel that these kids who admitted to this crime and were found guilty in a court of law were unfairly charged with the crime and that the state did not have enough evidence to charge them, but you feel that George Zimmerman should be charged with murder despite the fact that evidence supports his claim of self defense.

What a fukkin hypocrite!!!

Maybe you should learn the facts before you talk out of your ass. The kid I'm talking about, Ryan Ferguson, did not admit to anything, because he had no more to do with the murder than you or I. He is stone cold innocent. That is very different than Zimmerman, who we know shot a kid. Reasonable minds can differ on how to interpret that killing (at least at this point), whether or not justifiable.

There is no comparison.

[d2bets]

Another idiot judge denies Ryan Ferguson's appeal. Stone cold innocent kid has been sitting in jail for 8.5 years and the justoce system can't seem to fix it. Unreal.

[Not-A-Kid]

Man, I saw that episode of Dateline last year and cannot believe what the state of Missouri did to this kid. I figured it was only a matter of time until the conviction was thrown out. Now a judge has denied the most recent appeal? No fukkin way. Seriously what has happened to Ryan Ferguson is an absolute travesty of justice. Truly unbelievable.

[d2bets]

Man, I saw that episode of Dateline last year and cannot believe what the state of Missouri did to this kid. I figured it was only a matter of time until the conviction was thrown out. Now a judge has denied the most recent appeal? No fukkin way. Seriously what has happened to Ryan Ferguson is an absolute travesty of justice. Truly unbelievable.

Mind boggling. If this was a movie plot it would be rejected because it's so implausible and ridiculous. If you recall the case, the judge did find that the janitor's trial ID was false and perjured. That left only the "dreamlike" testimony of a teenage drug addict that was coerced and coached. That's it. No physical evidence. Nothing.

Where are the adults in the State of Missouri?

[d2bets]

NEW update show on the Ryan Ferguson case on Dateline this Friday 10est/9cst pm! Must see TV.