Ryan W. Ferguson

Ryan W. Ferguson (born October 19, 1983) is an American man who 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, Ferguson was a 17-year-old high-school student. Kent Heitholt was found beaten and strangled shortly after 2:00 a.m. on November 1, 2001, in the parking lot of the Columbia Daily Tribune, where he worked as a sports editor. Heitholt's 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 based on 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, who later became 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. He won $11 million in a civil suit against Missouri police. The case has been featured on 48 Hours, Dateline, and in numerous other newspapers and media outlets.