Ferguson questions police interrogation
The video was released by Ryan Ferguson’s family to try to clear his name.
Feb. 12, 2008
Ryan Ferguson talks with supporters at the end of the first day of his murder trial in October 2005 at the Boone County Courthouse. Ferguson's family has released a fourth YouTube.com video to promote awareness of Ferguson's case.
(Click graphic to enlarge)
Ryan Ferguson’s family released a fourth YouTube.com video trying to promote public awareness of Ferguson’s case.
Ferguson was convicted in 2005 of the murder of Kent Heitholt, the sports editor of the Columbia Daily Tribune.
Heitholt was beaten and stabbed to death early on the morning of Nov. 1, 2001. The case was unsolved and police had few, if any, leads, until Ferguson’s acquaintance and high school friend Chuck Erickson told police he and Ferguson caommitted the murder.
Since then, Ferguson and his family have been working to appeal the case and eventually clear his name.
The video, called “Have you ever had a cop in your face? (part IV),” asks viewers whether police handled Erickson and Ferguson’s interrogations professionally and ethically.
The video first takes excerpts from Columbia Police Detective John Short’s deposition, in which he says he did not suggest to Erickson the answers to his questions.
“I don’t feel like I led him into anything,” the video said Short said.
It moves to clips from Erickson’s interrogation in which Short talks to Erickson about how Heitholt was strangled with his belt.
When Short asks, Erickson first motions with his hands, then suggests it was a shirt or a bungee cord.
“We know for a fact that his belt was ripped off of his pants and he was strangled with his belt,” Short said in the video.
In the video, Erickson also said he hit Heitholt once until Short tells him that Heitholt was hit 11 times.
Ferguson filed papers for a hearing, where a judge will decide to acquit him, grant him a retrial or throw out the case. The hearing was scheduled for March but has been postponed.
Ferguson’s lawyers have also recently filed for Erickson’s mental health records.
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