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GameChanger [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:44
for listening I'm your host Nick and getting all of his lessons for life from prison Mike here is the captain yeah
00:01:51
this is how we talk in the clink it's good to be seing and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
00:01:58
a friend [Music] this week we are featuring roller blade by the creative minds over at one of the
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bonus show check it out on Stitcher premium and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather
00:03:21
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] oh [Music]
00:04:23
I made a lot of assumptions and turned them into facts to satisfy the police when I did that I used the opportunity
00:04:30
to move the blame on to Ryan and off of myself things happen much differently than I had previously
00:04:38
stated when we left the club I cannot hon I cannot honestly remember if we had robbery on our minds I made up the
00:04:45
statement about Ryan giving me the tire iron and saying that we might get messed
00:04:50
up without it I imagined that it might have occurred that way because I knew I had beaten a victim with a tire iron I
00:04:56
could not accept in my conscious mind that that I was a sole perpetrator and aggressor so I put a lot of the blame on
00:05:04
Ryan I don't I don't think that much of much of it was even consciously done it was just too hard to admit to myself and
00:05:11
others that I had killed someone I could not even accept the possibility of it we had never done robberies before we
00:05:19
never did them after we broke a lot of stuff which was probably what we had in mind when we left the club I believe
00:05:25
that I flipped out committed the entire act alone and with little forethought I remember feeling psychotically giddy
00:05:32
if that's understandable uh I did not tell Ryan what I was going to do he had no idea that I would act in such an
00:05:38
aggressive manner I don't remember how much of how much of it he was there for he could not stop me he he could not
00:05:45
stop me though he tried at the end if he had wanted to stop me before and during
00:05:50
much of the ACT I was armed with a tire tool Ryan did not say come on let's get this over with while I was talking
00:05:59
talking the victim he was actually pleading come on let's go he did not want to Parton it again I turned it
00:06:06
around because I did not want to accept the responsibility of the sole perpetrator I strangled Kent hiid hold
00:06:12
to death I did not remember this until the police told me what he was strangled with when I said that's [ __ ] up after
00:06:19
they told me what he was strangled with I just remember doing it I then denied remembering it I lied right there that
00:06:26
was the first blatant lie it was then that I knew I had done it I was worried about survival it was
00:06:33
too hard to throw away my entire life and put my head on quote The Chopping Block see uh see the video of the
00:06:41
interrogation for that I tried telling the police that I might have strangled the victim one of the officers stopped
00:06:48
me he got mad he did not want to hear that I might have done it again see the video before I knew I had done it I
00:06:55
consciously assumed it was Ryan because it was too hard to accept that I might have done it
00:07:00
I made up what I said about Ryan being on top of the victim I lied about him strangling the victim to everyone from
00:07:05
Nick Gilpin to the jury on a subconscious level I've always known that I did it that is a part of me that
00:07:11
I have accepted I enjoyed doing it at the time I was in a lot of pain and felt the need to take it out on someone else
00:07:18
there was something wrong with me I regret now that I put an innocent man through that he didn't deserve it I
00:07:25
don't lose sleep over it though it's more that I feel it was a sort of violation he had had he been my enemy I
00:07:31
wouldn't regret it except for the prison time that came with it I lied at the profer about ripping the belt off
00:07:37
pushing Ryan off of the victim and leaving the scene with the belt I made this up after I read Dallas mallerie's
00:07:44
statement that he had seen me with something in my hand there were also two un unidentified Witnesses in the car who
00:07:51
could have seen me with the belt I had to have an excuse for having the belt in case it came up
00:07:57
later Ryan was actually the one who pushed me off of the victim he probably wouldn't have been successful except
00:08:04
that the belt broke at the same time my original story didn't make sense I don't
00:08:10
know why the police didn't question it why would I stop beating the victim snap out of my rage and then Ryan strangling
00:08:18
I beat the victim can't hide hold until he was on the ground then I took his belt off and strangled him with it at
00:08:25
first I said that I thought I had thrown up at the scene I did throw up but it was later I'm not sure where maybe at
00:08:32
the Osco uh or Jewel or whatever it was maybe in their parking lot I'm not sure saying that I thought I got sick at
00:08:41
the scene was convenient because it removed me from the situation I said I was sitting on the curb feeling nauseous
00:08:47
in between the time that I stopped beating the victim and I pushed Ryan off of Ken heidle that was a lie Ryan never
00:08:53
touched the victim I lied about remembering taking items from the victim though I believe I
00:09:02
did uh that was all assumptions in trying to pacify the police and prosecutors I lied about putting things
00:09:08
in a bag in Ryan's car I didn't remember that I believe that when Ryan took the money out of his wallet when we were out
00:09:15
of his own wallet when we were back at the bar and said how pointless my actions were he meant just that he was
00:09:21
asking why I had done it how could he have forgotten about money in his wallet I'm not sure that I remember him saying
00:09:28
that he had always wanted to kill someone before he turned 60 on the night of the murder if he did say it he may
00:09:34
have just been trying to act tough the witness stated that the kid with highlights in their hair had told the
00:09:40
cleaning lady to get help Ryan had highlights not me I can't remember who told the cleaning people to get help I
00:09:46
remember feeling astounded when I was told by the police that it actually happened I still don't know where I
00:09:52
still don't know where that memory came from uh what what were my out of control stat
00:09:59
stat Ms to Christian blank and ship and Julie done in the parking lot uh I don't
00:10:03
know that that's something that that that I'd like to know and they should Pro probably be asked about uh and
00:10:10
finally after the murder I remember telling Ryan that it didn't matter who did what because we were both there I
00:10:17
said this so he would keep his mouth shut that's it okay let me ask you just a couple of follow-up questions so are
00:10:25
you saying today that you are the the sole murderer of Kent hdold that's correct yes and are you saying that uh
00:10:35
Ryan had no idea when you went uh to the parking lot where you encountered Ken hi
00:10:43
highle what you were going to do that's correct are you saying that there was no
00:10:48
plan between the two of you to commit a robbery that night I don't know I don't know do you have a recollection of that
00:10:57
I can't remember what we intended to do I don't know um what was the position of
00:11:03
Mr heid hold when he was strangled he was face down okay else um I want to ask you again um
00:11:15
is it correct that you're the one who declined have an attorney present today that's correct and are you currently on
00:11:24
any medication of any type no I'm not okay do you feel feel that you're making this statement uh from your memory of
00:11:32
the events of what happened that night that's correct okay I don't have any further
00:11:47
[Music] questions we are joined here in the garage today by longtime friend of the
00:11:53
show Maggie freeling Maggie is the host and producer of the unjust and unsolved podcast longtime listeners of our show
00:12:04
will know her from helping us out with our Shaker Heights project as well as her work on the mara Murray case as she
00:12:12
was featured in oxygen TV's documentry The Disappearance of Mara Murray thank you for joining us here in the garage
00:12:20
today Maggie please take us through and tell us about your new project hello guys thank you so much for having me um
00:12:28
yeah I I'm you know this is really exciting because most of the times that we've talked and and done stuff together
00:12:35
has been about Mora Murray but this is a complete 180 I'm now working on wrongful
00:12:41
convictions you know this project we conceived it by we I mean Patrick Hines of True Crime obsessed um about a year
00:12:50
ago and we just launched in September and each week I cover a case of a person that um I strongly believe has been
00:12:57
wrongfully incarcerated and I heard you talking on your podcast about the Innocence Project and there's a the
00:13:04
rough estimation or the the low estimation is 20,000 individuals are in prison that
00:13:12
are innocent yeah and I would say that's definitely super low I mean that's just
00:13:17
people that we know of that have petitioned the Innocence Project I mean there are so many people that I've even
00:13:24
heard from who write to me saying hey I'm innocent but the innocent project won't take my case they only take DNA
00:13:31
cases so you know they're not going to take a case that doesn't have some sort of DNA evidence so that leaves out so
00:13:38
many cases hundreds of thousands of cases and you know if you listen to my podcast most of my cases have not been
00:13:45
taken by the Innocence Project they're either Ballistic cases or accidental you know baby murders involving choking or
00:13:53
falling so these are all cases that are very likely not even in those statistics
00:13:58
and a good portion of these wrongfully convicted inmates have been convicted based off of false confessions and we
00:14:07
now know from DNA evidence that even in DNA cases where DNA will exonerate the person who has been convicted of the
00:14:16
murder 25% of the time with a false confession the DNA proves that it was in fact false and that we have put the
00:14:25
wrong person in prison and those numbers alone if you carry that out further to cases with no DNA you would think
00:14:34
roughly 25% is going to apply to those cases as well so yes I think I think the 20,000 estimate is very conservative
00:14:42
very low and it's amazing how unfortunately yes these organizations have to prioritize these cases which ones they
00:14:51
take on which ones they choose because there just are so many of them out there that's that's the saddest part is you
00:14:58
know there are these ones that early on in this I got a couple letters from a man who had a very sympathetic story but
00:15:05
even for me it's tough to cover it because I'm like have you had a private investigator have you had any of these
00:15:10
things and he's like his niece accused him of sexually assaulting her in some form I don't I didn't really get into
00:15:18
too many details with him but there was there was really no way of of proofing his innocence in that sense and and you
00:15:26
know there's so many of these out there so it's been tough it's definitely been tough hearing these stories and so many
00:15:31
of them I can't even cover just just because I wouldn't have enough evidence to feel comfortable saying this is a
00:15:37
wrongful conviction right because you don't want to possibly give a criminal a platform mhm now when we started talking
00:15:45
about you doing a podcast in general I mean this was probably three years ago at crime con but you were stating I
00:15:52
believe on your show that that Charles's case was the first case that you actually or the first person you
00:15:58
actually made contact with before you started producing your show yeah so I've reached out to a lot of people so you
00:16:05
know in the intro of my show it says 20 folks which is true I did reach out to at least 20 folks sent sent uh snail
00:16:12
mail and he he wrote back immediately I mean Charles is a incredibly intelligent
00:16:21
on theball person and he just wants people to know about what happened to him which is just
00:16:29
so there are no words to even explain what has happened to him and why he's still in prison and so he was you know
00:16:34
one of the first people the first person that I really got to know and to this day I would say you know Charles is a
00:16:40
friend I've put his episode out but I here I am you know still advocating for him you know still getting people to
00:16:47
listen to his story to listen to his side of the story because to him that's really the most important he's been
00:16:53
portrayed in the media for so long as this crazy person who wrongfully and knowingly put Ryan Ferguson in prison
00:17:01
which is not the story at all so for me you know it was really important to to talk to Charles and and hear what he has
00:17:09
to say well in this story it involves the unjust convictions of two individuals and therefore leads us to
00:17:18
the unsolved murder and can you take us through the attack and murder of Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor
00:17:25
Kent heol so this is the perfect time of year to tell this story because it was Halloween night 2001 Kent heol he was
00:17:35
the sports editor for the Columbia Tribune this is in Colombia Missouri he's leaving work super super late it's
00:17:42
around 2:10 a.m. that he says goodbye to his colleague near his car and he is later found sometime you know 10 minutes
00:17:52
later around 2:20 a.m. brutally beaten and strangled in the Tribune parking lot again this is Kent heol he was 48 years
00:18:02
old he's a family man brutally beaten and strangled in the parking lot he was leaving work but he also like stopped to
00:18:11
feed a cat yeah so that's what I was reading in some of these old papers he stopped to feed a cat and that's in so
00:18:18
Michael Boyd and we'll get to him as you guys know in a little bit he is a colleague I believe he was also a sports
00:18:26
Raider I think I think Kent was his boss he's the last person to see him alive in
00:18:30
the parking lot and they were talking about you know feeding these cats and then according to Boyd he leaves and and
00:18:36
almost immediately after that height hold is beaten strangled bludgeoned and left for dead and two of the workers two
00:18:45
other people working at this building they see or believe they saw something in the parking lot they call this into
00:18:54
911 to say that Kent has been attacked in the parking lot we need PA Medics we need police yes two janitors Shaina or
00:19:02
and Jerry Trump they are two janitors and so according to Shaina she has multiple
00:19:10
affidavits she comes out and sees two young white folks who allegedly say someone is hurt and then they leave and
00:19:21
she sees Kent heol her her colleague and she calls the police and there's a 911 call that you can listen to
00:19:28
it's her and Jerry Trump calling the police saying Kent is laying in the parking lot he's not moving we need help
00:19:34
but the case doesn't really go anywhere right we have two potential Witnesses we
00:19:39
have some physical evidence at the scene but this man was beat to death in the parking lot and choked and the case
00:19:47
doesn't really seem to go anywhere this takes us to the 2year anniversary marker
00:19:54
and the Columbia Daily Tribune they start running the story again one of their own has been murdered on their
00:20:01
property and they're trying to get some answers for Kent heol who used to work for the Tribune as far as the evidence
00:20:09
they have they have blood evidence they have fingerprints they have shoeprints they have the the the weapon
00:20:18
they have obviously these two eyewitnesses that saw these other two individuals we don't know if they're
00:20:24
attackers or if they were just passer by liers or if they were witnesses to the crime so they do have quite a bit of
00:20:33
evidence but like you said it just doesn't go anywhere part of that evidence is um Shaina does a police
00:20:42
composite sketch so on this anniversary of the murder like you said two years later in 2003 the Columbia Tribune puts
00:20:50
out this sketch from Shaina and then this is where we get into the entire story of Charles and Ryan this sketch
00:21:00
comes out in the paper and Charles Erikson who at the time just remembers that this was Halloween night he was
00:21:09
doing a lot of drugs including cocaine pills um he's to also have done LSD mushrooms you know he's a high school
00:21:17
kid he's just experimenting this night he blacks out and so two years later he sees in the paper this sketch that he
00:21:25
thinks looks a lot like him you know would argue it it looks like a pretty generic uh young white man you know
00:21:33
buzzcut pretty pretty generic looking but Charles thinking oh my gosh I was at a party near there it was Halloween
00:21:41
night I have no idea what happened I was completely blackout this looks like me hold on what's going on did I have
00:21:48
something to do with this yeah which is very interesting because taking a look at Charles and looking at this
00:21:55
sketch I don't think they look anything alike personally yeah I don't I don't really think so
00:22:02
either but Charles and this is where I I always thought it was so important to tell his story because you know not only
00:22:10
did he allegedly have substance abuse issues I would say he's just a a teenager just you know doing his thing
00:22:18
but okay people are calling it substance abuse issues not only did he have that but he did also have you know OCD
00:22:24
anxiety you know some some mental issues as well that were really causing him to think
00:22:31
about this and overthink about this and obsess over this and guess with that obsessing he he really thought this
00:22:38
looked like him and he went to Ryan and said hey man did we have anything to do with this and Ryan was like what are you
00:22:45
even talking about dude I dropped you off at home after the party around 1:30 you were home like get get away from me
00:22:53
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00:25:07
now knowing Charles and having a friendship with him do you know if he has been diagnosed with any mental
00:25:14
disorder yeah so those are currently in all of his appeals like these compounding factors that's with it too
00:25:22
that that you know he was someone who was troubled did have you know some mental disorders and the police
00:25:27
completely took advantage of that at the time that I spoke with his lawyer that appeal wasn't in yet so he didn't get
00:25:33
too into details but now that I've read them like yes he he has OCD he has anxiety he does take medication for it
00:25:41
he is in therapy for it now but back then at 17 years old compounding with drinking a lot doing cocaine doing LSD
00:25:49
it was it was not a good combination this case has always been on my radar because when you see the I believe it
00:25:58
was dat line the first time I heard about it it's so scary to think being in Ryan
00:26:06
shoes and and I've always viewed this case through Ryan Ferguson's lens that you're out at this party and you're
00:26:15
drinking and having a good time and at some point it's time to go home I'm going to drop off my buddy and then I'm
00:26:23
going to go home and 2 and a half years later I am being pulled into they're questioning me now well one on these
00:26:32
events and yes I mean it happened on Halloween so it's a little bit easier to remember what
00:26:38
happened but could you imagine if it was not on Halloween how less of the story he would have known um and if you watch
00:26:46
those interrogations it's it they're scary to watch because they're feeding Charles all this information and
00:26:56
then the other interrogation you have Ryan going look I I wasn't even there yeah so I guess my question would be how
00:27:06
much do you think time played a factor in this meaning the cops had really nothing to
00:27:14
go off of for two and a half years so do you think that played into the way they handled this case I do
00:27:23
um they wanted it solved and you know this case is a is a often times you know when I'm looking in these cases we know
00:27:31
that there's been some kind of misconduct but it could be accidental you know I was covering a case where the
00:27:39
prosecution unknowingly withheld evidence because the officers never even gave it to the prosecution so so that
00:27:45
was like a complete accident prosecutor had no idea there was all of this exculpatory evidence because the police
00:27:51
withheld it but in this it is like such a clearcut the police manufactured this conviction the police and prosecutor
00:28:01
manufactured this conviction because with all of the people who later recant Jerry Trump the the janitor they got to
00:28:09
make a false statement about Ryan and Charles you know he recants and says you know the prosecutor told me what to say
00:28:18
the police were giving Charles Erikson multiple I only talk about one in my podcast you know I don't have a lot of
00:28:26
time to go into every little detail right but there are at least two other manufactured alleged confessions of
00:28:35
people saying Ryan confessed to me they showed this to Charles saying you know look Ryan's telling people that you guys
00:28:40
did this there's another one um where allegedly a girl heard Ryan confessing at a party and they show this to Charles
00:28:49
and say look she heard Ryan confessing all of this was manufactured all of this was faked by the police and it is so
00:28:55
egregious what they did to Charles and Ryan but they got Charles to confess because of all of these false police
00:29:03
reports they were giving to him you know time I think in the sense that they wanted to solve it but Ryan knew the
00:29:10
whole time where he was what he did there were multiple Brady violations in this case there were multiple people who
00:29:16
said we saw them leave we saw them go home and that was all withheld from the defense and it's weird because it's kind
00:29:23
of if you know the details and you go through every bit of it it feels like there was not so much a confession
00:29:30
really at all and on the surface that's what we're told this is how this case went wrong this kid Charles Ericson he
00:29:37
was confused he goes in he talks to police he confesses to the crime he says me and my buddy Ryan did it why did we
00:29:45
do it we were looking to get more money for maybe drinks or some drugs or both and it was Halloween night we were up to
00:29:51
no good this is not totally out of the blue for Ryan Ferguson when he gets picked up because Charles has already
00:29:58
contacted him and said look I'm seeing this story in the news I saw this composite sketch they're saying that two
00:30:06
people were at the crime scene is this something we did the bar we were drinking at was near this area did were
00:30:14
we involved in this guy's murder and of course Ryan's telling him dude you're you're crazy I don't know what you're
00:30:20
talking about here and then a couple months go by he's picked up Ryan's picked up and what we're getting here in
00:30:28
the interrogation rooms are two very different things we have Ryan saying I did not do this I don't know what this
00:30:35
other guy is telling you but I was not there I I I'm not just innocent of the murder I'm innocent of even having been
00:30:44
there I don't have the didn't have the ability to even commit this crime because I wasn't physically there on the
00:30:52
other hand in the other room what we got going on is Charles Erikson who's saying
00:30:57
he's kind of he's less confessing to it more so asking them could I have done this yeah yeah he he says could I have
00:31:07
done this and what has happened and Maggie you hit the nail you hit that nail right on the head there was he saw
00:31:13
this in the news he blacked out that night he had a history of blacking out and then he said he remembered some
00:31:21
things of that night but I think you're exactly right I think he started obsessing about this crime and his mind
00:31:28
started filling in some of the blanks on its own by the time he gets in that room
00:31:33
with police police are saying he walk us through the crime well he's getting details wrong and they know that he's
00:31:40
getting details wrong and they start to feed him information so whatever blanks he couldn't figure out or fill in on his
00:31:47
own they start filling them in for him and this is something I didn't get to put in the podcast either but um they
00:31:53
took him to the crime scene so he had a very clear when he's later explaining how this
00:31:59
happened they took him there and showed him where it happened and said this is where it happened this is you know where
00:32:05
he was found strangled with the belt so he not only has been fed all this information he was taken to the crime
00:32:14
scene to give an even more accurate description of this this murder that he allegedly committed um so it's it's in
00:32:21
really it's incredibly disturbing when they pick up Brian Ferguson one of the things the detective said say to him is
00:32:28
that I'm a fact gatherer which will drive you nuts in this case because if you're a fact
00:32:36
gatherer then you would have known pretty quickly that Charles knew nothing about the crime scene the victim or
00:32:44
anything that happened that night because he wasn't there the other thing in the these
00:32:51
interrogations I think for me there's a detective that talks with Ryan Ferguson and he says I have a I have a son like
00:32:58
you so uh you can't talk to your father right now but let me step in for him there's multiple times where I I think I
00:33:06
would have stopped as a detective and said this isn't making sense we need something that actually connects them to
00:33:14
the scene where we're going to have to let these guys go they knew that they did not do this none of the evidence you
00:33:21
know they tested all the blood evidence the hair evidence all of this did not match Ryan and Charles they knew they
00:33:28
did not do this and yet they they literally concocted false statements from people I mean it it is
00:33:40
so it is just beyond police misconduct it is beyond prosecutor misconduct and the prosecutor was Kevin
00:33:48
Crane and he is now a judge so beyond like the misconduct there is no ramifications for what they did putting
00:33:57
two innocent people in in prison is just so so wild well do you know this and and
00:34:05
you might not that because different departments work different ways and different cities work different ways so
00:34:13
in some cases the detectives are the ones that push the trial to the prosecutors there's a conversation that
00:34:22
goes back and forth but there's one entity normally that has the hierarchy to say no we're going to take this to
00:34:29
trial so we need you to go back and get more information I didn't know if you knew
00:34:36
how that worked in this department I don't know but um again like I was saying you know I ran into
00:34:43
these instances in other cases where the prosecution didn't know all of the dirty
00:34:47
things the cops were doing in this instance crane is part of it I mean he he seems like the dirty one to me he
00:34:55
coached jry Trump who was the star witness who is the entire reason that Ryan's case was um vacated because he
00:35:04
went on the stand and said um everything I said was a lie prosecutor Kevin crane
00:35:11
coached me on what to say so to me it seems like all of it was was dirty um they all knew they knew that the
00:35:18
evidence was not matching them and they just took two innocent freaking kids 19-year-old kids and locked them away
00:35:27
right so what we have as far as evidence that didn't match the eyewitnesses the janitors didn't match U they said that
00:35:35
these two boys were not the boys that they saw at the crime scene yeah so to clarify on that Shaina or um this was
00:35:41
one of the Brady one of the numerous Brady violations um she specifically told the police um when they showed her
00:35:49
photos that is not it is not them it is not Ryan Ferguson it is not Charles Ericson that is not who I saw at the
00:35:56
scene and so when it comes to trial the defense had no idea about her so that's the BR violation and of course the
00:36:04
prosecution doesn't bring on this witness because it doesn't match their story she's saying consistently for
00:36:10
years that is not who I saw so yeah that's one of the pieces of evidence is the eyewitness did not see Charles and
00:36:17
Ryan well supposedly there was a lot of fingerprints all over the scene and none
00:36:22
of uh Charles or Ryan's fingerprints match any of those or a bloody pal print or the shoe prints as well none of them
00:36:33
match I mean there is not a single shred of evidence there's not a single witness
00:36:38
who has not come and either recanted or said I was coaxed putting them there I mean there is zero evidence even putting
00:36:46
them near there well I think that that's a big thing in this trial that is not talked about enough in the system is I
00:36:54
think there was some somewhere between 10 and 15 people that came forward and said hey I was interviewed and they
00:37:02
asked me questions but I felt like I was an interrogation I felt like I was doing
00:37:07
something wrong and we they have several of them come forward and say I got to the point where I just told the
00:37:16
prosecutor whatever you want me to say I'll say it so you let me leave this is not how we should be treating
00:37:25
eyewitnesses and and the other thing too that I want to step back to for a second
00:37:29
when you were talking about um you know how they didn't have their parents there
00:37:33
not only did they not have their parents there they weren't read any kind of Miranda rights they weren't under arrest
00:37:40
they had no idea I mean they're kids you know we work in this field so we know you know if you're taken in you're not
00:37:47
under arrest you don't have to say anything you can leave you can walk out um he has no idea what's going on he's a
00:37:54
scared kid and but when I I say he I mean I'm talking about Charles specifically because he's the confused
00:38:00
one I mean Ryan is very adamant like y'all get the hell up away from me I didn't have anything to do with this but
00:38:06
Charles is like I don't know I don't know and he wanted to help so bad and I talk about this in the
00:38:14
podcast when you know now he understands he's innocent but he didn't at the time
00:38:19
because so much evidence was withheld from him he didn't know that these were all false police reports given to him he
00:38:26
had no idea that DNA was exculpatory for him and Ryan he didn't know any of this
00:38:32
until around 2013 so he's sitting there thinking I think we did this Ryan is not trying to
00:38:40
help or be helpful and I want to help so you know what do I have to do to help a
00:38:44
man is dead and I don't right but that's not even the story he's being told because in the other room like you said
00:38:50
if if Ryan knew hey I'm not under arrest I wasn't there F you he could have just
00:38:58
walked out and and that's probably what he should have done and then in this other
00:39:04
room or later on when they're talking to Charles what do they do they go hey by the way your head's on the chopping
00:39:15
block and if you don't confess against Ryan he's going to confess against you and so for a 17-year-old to 19 at
00:39:25
the time or yeah 19 at the time of questioning but he doesn't know that the the cops
00:39:32
are allowed to lie to you I think most people would assume that the cops are not legally allowed to lie to you so now
00:39:41
you have somebody in the other room or nobody in the other room but they're telling you hey if you don't
00:39:47
confess uh you're going to get the the bad end of the stick and I I you know there that's something I haven't really
00:39:53
looked into like we know that's a thing that they're allowed to lie to you I didn't know they were allowed to go as
00:39:58
far as making fake police reports I didn't know thatmore you know where is where is the line on what they can do to
00:40:06
get you know a confession out of somebody I think that's what's so tricky here because we have Charles Ericson
00:40:12
who's saying he's asking did I do this I may have done this I don't know he's flat out telling them I don't know maybe
00:40:21
I'm crazy he says that several times when they when he can't get a question right was well now I don't even know if
00:40:28
I did this maybe I'm crazy I'm making this up several several outs and the thing is it starts off as a slippery
00:40:37
slope I get it from the police end from the police end they're like look we we have reason to believe we might be
00:40:44
looking for two perpetrators or one attacker and one witness now we have this kid who comes forward says me and
00:40:51
my buddy I think we did this and of course you got one guy in one room and one guy and the other one guy's saying
00:40:58
we might have done this the other guy's saying go to hell I didn't do this that happens in every crime that's committed
00:41:03
by two people they get one person saying they did and one person saying that they
00:41:07
did and so I get that from the police angle but the problem with Erikson's confession then
00:41:15
becomes he can't answer these questions they start filling in the blanks for him
00:41:21
and as soon as he agreed that yes it was a belt it was a belt that Ryan took off
00:41:26
of the victim put it around the victim's neck and choked him to death when he agreed that yes it was a belt their hold
00:41:34
back information he sealed his fate right then and there and it goes so far as he keeps asking them maybe I didn't
00:41:42
do this I don't know if I did or not and what you guys are talking about is they
00:41:47
are giving outside confirmation to him to say yes you did you're right to come and tell us this because we got these
00:41:55
other people that are that are backing up portions of your story we got who was it a friend of theirs named Dallas who
00:42:02
all of a sudden says now that they saw that we we know this guy Dallas he saw you near the crime scene so everything
00:42:09
you are telling us must be true and that's where it's crazy because you're not having somebody walk in and and
00:42:18
pounding their fist on the table and saying this is what I did this is how we did it and this is why no you're you you
00:42:24
have you have a guy going I'm not certain if I did this or not I have a little snapshots I'm confused about that
00:42:31
night and they're filling in the blanks form and offering confirmation for him so now tell us more because you're going
00:42:38
to fry for this and if whoever speaks first is going to win in this case Ryan's going to turn on you so start
00:42:45
telling us everything right and I think the other thing that people are also confused about is um Charles didn't turn
00:42:51
himself in it was a Crim Stoppers tip because people had heard him kind of saying I don't remember that
00:42:58
night I wonder if I had something to do with it and someone called crimestopper saying hey look Charles Ericson is you
00:43:05
know talking about this murder and that's when they brought him in who knows what would have happened if
00:43:09
someone didn't call Crim Stoppers but yeah that that's how they wound up in in questioning Paul is it true that once he
00:43:19
made contact with Ryan to say hey did we do this that not only were there rumors
00:43:25
uh people started circulating rumors saying that that Eric was involved but that
00:43:32
Ryan was not involved I don't know about that um I know Ryan was saying you know
00:43:38
we had nothing to do with this and Ryan kind of went about his life like just like Charles shut up like what are you
00:43:45
even talking about I don't know if there were rumors about Ryan not being involved but I know Charles was
00:43:50
definitely talking to people he was really worried you know just trying to figure out what what was going on what
00:43:56
this ultimately leads to though nobody bothers to pull the emergency break and hit stop on this thing everybody just
00:44:04
keeps letting it go further and further and then at some point the prosecutor starts saying all right let's we're not
00:44:12
only not only we're not going to stop this train we're going to add fuel to the fire we're going to put Witnesses on
00:44:20
the stand have them say things that they know are not true because when they don't get a confession what they're
00:44:28
hoping for police is like all right we got one half of the parties confessing let's get Ryan Ferguson to confess too
00:44:34
and he doesn't he does not waver on his innocence and they have to take Ryan to trial this is going to get a deal a plea
00:44:42
deal for Charles Ericson yeah Charles takes a 25 toli second degree murder for his testimony
00:44:50
against against Ryan and that's one of these things too the death penalty was on the table so he was was also
00:44:56
absolutely terrified of the death penalty and you guys know we see this almost in every single if not every
00:45:03
single false confession is the death penalty is on the table and they're saying if you don't say something you're
00:45:08
going up for the death penalty if you just say something you know we'll take it off the table but isn't it more
00:45:14
likely that if he was convicted of first-degree murder that death penalty would be on the table and it wouldn't be
00:45:21
really likely that death penalty would be on the table for murder and right well that's why he took the plea because
00:45:27
he was up for first-degree murder he took the plea to get the death penalty off the table Yeah and this they're
00:45:34
going to charge Ryan Ferguson with first-degree murder and they need him to testify they need Charles Ericson to
00:45:41
testify at Ryan's trial and I'll tell you what having seen portions of that trial look the the prosecutor very
00:45:50
strategically had things laid out with different quote unquote Witnesses the defense attorney seemed scatterbrained
00:45:58
seemed that he didn't prepare for this case he calls Ryan to testify Ryan was not prepared to take the stand he was
00:46:07
not trained on how to answer the questions but the thing that was so shocking to me where you have this
00:46:15
confused Charles Erikson when he's talking to police maybe Ryan strangled the guy with a shirt oh it wasn't a
00:46:24
shirt maybe it was a bungee cord it wasn't a bungee cord we know it was his belt okay Ryan did it with the belt but
00:46:30
when Charles walks into that Court it is shocking it is stunning he walks right in and he throws a death
00:46:38
stare a death glance over at Ryan Ferguson who's sitting in the defendant's chair he walks up to the
00:46:44
stand and now he it's like he's an expert on the case all of a sudden he's he the script is completely flipped and
00:46:53
he's up there with The Dramatics he's acting reenacting the the murder for the jury he was extremely believable and he
00:47:02
had this look of like anger against Ryan Ferguson while he's on the stand he didn't hide his face from Ryan in shame
00:47:10
or or or guilt or anything like that he looked at him dead on and said this is what he did this is what I did I am here
00:47:18
today because I am 100% guilty of this murder yeah and and I asked him about that because it is really scary to watch
00:47:28
um and you know when you're only seeing this when you're watching you know dream
00:47:33
killer and other things that have been put out about this case I mean you're watching these clips and you are
00:47:37
thinking wow Charles is a really messed up person like what is he doing and I asked him that I said you know you
00:47:45
looked like you know you had the fire of Hell In Your Eyes like ready to go for Ryan like what was that about and he
00:47:53
said I thought Ryan was being a bad guy I thought that he was not taking responsibility for what we did and I was
00:48:01
going to do that I was going to be the one to you know give Kent height hold's family the justice that they deserved
00:48:07
and Ryan wasn't doing that yeah and then they bring him in and shackles in the black and white jumpsuit I mean
00:48:16
it's very theatrical and like you said um Nick when they bring Brian Ferguson on the The Stand he's very ill prepared
00:48:26
and just little mannerisms that he has he he kind of smirks and Chuckles at things and I think that made him come
00:48:34
off uh insincere and like he wasn't taking this trial seriously I think you know how it's like how could you it's
00:48:43
like so ridiculous at least in Ryan's perspective it's like this is absolutely insane it's like what is even happening
00:48:51
like I don't I can't even imagine what's going through Ryan's head at this point because he knows they
00:48:57
weren't there he's like this is absolutely Bonkers right and that's the thing is that's the reason why this case
00:49:05
always sticks with me so much is you just went out with one of your friends that night couple years later that
00:49:12
friend's calling you going hey man were we involved in a murder I mean could you
00:49:18
imagine how much your brain would explode yeah what are you talking about we're involved in a murder get out of
00:49:26
here months later being arrested or being pulled into questioning wait this this knucklehead's telling you that
00:49:35
maybe he had a dream and we murdered somebody we weren't even there and probably thinking the whole time they're
00:49:42
going to let me go and that's going to be it and nope now you're arrested now you're in jail
00:49:49
they're in jail for over two years before they went to trial I don't know if I could stand that
00:49:56
if I it's supposed to be innocent till proven guilty but you're in jail for two years before you even go to trial it's
00:50:05
and this is why you know so much of it focuses on Ryan because it it's you know this poor kid was
00:50:13
railroaded by his friend and the police and you know he is just like what is happening and and you feel really bad
00:50:22
for him but at the same time we also forget that here's Ericson an incredibly vulnerable 19-year-old that was
00:50:30
completely taken advantage of by the police and the prosecutor and and Ryan has admit that you know when Ryan was
00:50:36
released he I put it in the podcast a statement that he said he says um Charles is a lot of things but he's not
00:50:43
guilty of this murder naturally Ryan's going to feel a certain way to towards someone who put him in prison for 10
00:50:49
years but you know I know from that statement that Ryan knows that that Charles had a lot of issues and the
00:50:55
police took advantage of that well and his whole story just doesn't it doesn't track I mean he says we left the
00:51:04
bar in order to go rob someone to get more money for drinks and drugs and this Kent height hold murder
00:51:12
scene is a bloody mess Chuck says we returned to the bar afterwards and had some more drinks and
00:51:21
we have witnesses who worked at the bar who were at the bar that said no the bar
00:51:25
closed closed before we believe K heol was even murdered because they call in the janitors call in to 911 I believe at
00:51:34
uh 2:26 a.m. and now Chuck Erikson saying we we killed this man and we returned to the bar which we know could
00:51:43
not have happened because the bar was not open and then on top of that they would have been a bloody mess they're
00:51:49
just going to hang out there yeah that's the thing too they also not only did none of the evidence at the scene match
00:51:54
Charles and Ryan but they searched their I forget who I think it was Ryan's car because Ryan was driving but whichever
00:52:00
car they were driving in they searched they searched Charles's you know clothing from that night there's nothing
00:52:07
nothing there's no blood there's no evidence and that's the whole point they would have been a bloody mess there
00:52:12
would have been blood in that car you know there would have been something and again it's it's hard not
00:52:20
to fault the detectives or the prosecutors but I I do feel that maybe with somebody coming forward
00:52:29
saying I don't know if I did this I possibly could have I think maybe you push further than you normally would and
00:52:37
you dig deeper than you normally would but I think at the end of the day you still come to the conclusion that
00:52:43
neither one of these boys were at the scene of the crime so they therefore could have committed the crime yeah and
00:52:49
again there was multiple Witnesses you know like you said the bar saying it was closed like people people were alibiing
00:52:57
for them and they just pushed ahead and I think to going back to what you said you know I feel like prosecutor Kevin
00:53:04
crane I mean we have Jerry Trump specifically saying he was coached by him I feel like he was really pushing
00:53:10
for this conviction and again he's a judge now so this was like a big this was a big win for him um in in a
00:53:18
stepping stone in his career so you know the whole thing was just very dirty well
00:53:25
and Shauna ort says that she told Prosecuting Attorney Kevin crane that that Ryan Ferguson is not the man that I
00:53:34
saw in the parking lot so and he kind of conveniently leaves that out he doesn't
00:53:40
get her to change her story but he never says point to do you see the man that you saw that night in the parking lot in
00:53:48
this room at court here today he never asked that question then of course Ryan Ferguson's attorney is too scared to ask
00:53:56
that same question cuz he doesn't know what the witness is going to say that's what's bizarre that shows you how the
00:54:02
lack of preparedness on the defense on their end there were holes to be poked in this story in this narrative and the
00:54:10
evidence itself but he didn't bother poking any of those holes because he didn't really didn't seem like he
00:54:16
prepared much for this had he interviewed shaa AR in advance he could have asked her that question in a
00:54:22
deposition found out in advance she was going to say and realize wow that's some
00:54:28
powerful information that this jury should know about my client but he didn't know to do that because he didn't
00:54:34
he didn't put in the work well and again this is so it's so bizarre and one of the reasons is cu the system is set up
00:54:42
to have checks and balances and in this case it's it's such a perfect storm we have this kid that
00:54:50
doesn't remember thinks they did something bad now he's confessing against you your uh attorney your
00:54:57
defense attorney that you hire that everybody tells you this guy's the best shows up so
00:55:04
unprepared I mean at one point he's pointing to um a reference map and talking about a restaurant and the
00:55:12
restaurant's not even on the map yeah because because it was a old map this guy was so
00:55:19
ill-prepared and then again The Perfect Storm cops that went too far a prosecu that probably said hey look if we can
00:55:27
get the confession doesn't matter if it's false or not if we can get that confession I can get a conviction well
00:55:33
that was in his opening statement in Crane's opening statement he points he says you know there's no DNA linking
00:55:39
them to this all the DNA pointing away from them but uh he's confessing so that's all you need to worry about well
00:55:46
not even not DNA I I believe crane said there is zero physical evidence there's I mean the the amount of
00:55:56
douchebaggery he talks with I mean I wouldn't even call it a Swagger it's he is so douchy at times this man
00:56:07
is a judge now he is presiding over cases now I guess on one hand people could go well
00:56:14
he's you know taxpayers pay his salary and he he got the conviction um by bending the rules right well and
00:56:23
interrogating interrogating eyewitnesses now because of his conviction the state owes $10 million to
00:56:31
Ryan Ferguson alone that not to mention when Charles gets out who's done more time than that I mean what is this
00:56:41
conviction was purely for his own political career gain it there is no way to say that this helped society and it
00:56:50
clearly did not help because again taxpayer money is now going to paying a wrongful conviction settlement and the
00:56:58
real killers are still out there Kent heid hold's family does not have any kind of justice and who knows what these
00:57:04
people have done in the meantime in fact I I do know what two of these people have done in the meantime and there was
00:57:10
another murder here's a couple things about this case is again the focus normally goes on Ryan
00:57:17
Ferguson he's definitely inv victim in this case as much so I believe Charles is a victim in this case but like you
00:57:25
just said Kent is the victim that is most forgotten in this case his family is forgotten in this case and just like
00:57:36
the last person that saw him Michael Boyd which was a sports writer which worked under
00:57:43
Kent there was multiple things early on one he puts himself at the crime scene he at one point says he left at 2:
00:57:56
later says he left at 2:20 in one interview he says he drove his car another interview he says he drove his
00:58:03
wife's car there was pieces of paper that had a schedule on it that would have been Michael boy's schedule that
00:58:12
was found underneath Kent's car there was rumors that they had an argument um the car that people believe
00:58:21
Michael was driving at the time he got rid of so uh he also said when he came back to
00:58:31
work that there was um the the Medics were still there that was a lie there was also he said um a couple
00:58:42
different things about the crime scene um that he shouldn't he shouldn't have known uh or he changed the story about
00:58:51
so there was enough reason to look into that individual and I'm sure they did a little
00:58:56
bit but uh where where do you stand on on on Michael Boyd yeah you you just named everything that makes him you know
00:59:05
a better person of interest than Charles and Ryan I don't really know in that two-year span before Charles and Ryan
00:59:14
came on the radar how much they looked into Boyd clearly something turned them away from
00:59:21
him um you know well I what I question is is it the the janitors are correct in their eyewitness that they both saw two
00:59:33
individuals that were caucas so I think that's what it yeah yeah Boyd is not he's not white um he's a dark- skinned
00:59:42
man um and he was solo and the janitor said they saw two young white men again though who knows if they were just
00:59:49
pedestrians walking by because allegedly they said hey someone's hurt so who knows if they were the actual Killers or
00:59:56
if they just saw something it could have been boy but you know in doing subsequent investigation and and talking
01:00:04
a lot with people who know this case really well there are two people that were uncovered by zelner
01:00:13
private investigators that are very good suspects in 2005 commit another murder similar similar like a very random
01:00:24
murder who who they were linked to this murder and allegedly have said that they
01:00:29
commit other murders like this and they look very much like the sketch one of the
01:00:35
men so personally I think they're much better suspects than Boyd I think Boyd is just an odd odd duck and just doesn't
01:00:42
remember things yeah I I I don't think it was Boyd but he he should have been looked into much more than he
01:00:53
was thanks for joining us here in the garage make sure you go to the website truecrime garage.com sign up on our
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