48 Hours Mystery: The Lost Night
Produced by Gail Zimmerman and Chuck Stevenson
COLUMBIA, Mo.- Bill Ferguson is a driven man. A real estate broker, nothing in his life ever prepared him for what he is doing now: trying to solve a 10-year-old murder.
"I started going to the crime scene within a week of the arrest... I'd go down at 1:30 [a.m.], stay down 'til 3 o'clock," Ferguson tells "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Erin Moriarty. "I would sit in different spots of the whole crime scene, from different angles. I'd do it every Halloween for sure."
Ferguson says he's gone down to the crime scene "40, 50 [times] at least."
"What did you know about investigations before this?" asks Moriarty.
"Well, I used to watch 'Perry Mason,'" he replies.
One thing Ferguson knows for sure, he says, is that his 26-year-old son, Ryan, is innocent.
"I wanna be exonerated," Ryan tells Moriarty. "I want everyone to know that I have absolutely nothin' to do with this case."
Ryan is Bill Ferguson's only son.
"We've always been close. Really, really close," Ferguson says. "He never gave us trouble at all."
Ryan had just turned 21 in 2005, when he was convicted and sentenced to 40 years. The key witness against him is his high school friend, Chuck Erickson, who told the court that he and Ryan robbed and murdered 48-year-old Kent Heitholt.
"Was there any side of you wondering, 'Well, Chuck is willing to go to prison for this. Maybe - Chuck and Ryan did this?'" Moriarty asks Ferguson.
"No," he replies. "I know that my son could not have committed the crime because the facts prove that was not possible."
It was Halloween night in 2001, when Kent, the popular sports editor of Columbia Missouri's newspaper, the Tribune, worked into the wee hours.
Sports reporter Rus Baer was among the handful of people there with him.
"Kent Heitholt was a big, bubbly, friendly bear of a man," he says. "...a good guy, very relaxed, very laid back."
Part-time writer Mike Boyd was also there. He says he was getting ready to drive off of the parking lot a little after 2 a.m. when Kent came out. Boyd stopped to speak with him.
Asked if Kent seemed concerned with anything at that moment, Boyd says, "No ... just, like normal. It was just a normal night."
"What was the last thing Kent said to you?" Moriarty asks.
"... I can't remember the exact words ... but it was just more in line with, 'See you later,'" Boyd recalls. And - and I thought I would."
Minutes after Boyd left, two janitors on the loading dock saw that Kent's car was still there and the driver's door open.
"I had that gut feeling that something was wrong," says Shawna Ornt. She remembers seeing two shadowy figures emerge from behind the car. She says one ran away; the other, a college-aged male, stopped to speak.
"...looked me dead in the eyes and said, 'Somebody's hurt,' and he walked off casually like nothing had happened," Ornt says.
Alerted to the incident, Rus Baer rushed outside and found Kent's body by his car.
"I was like, 'What the hell's going on here?'" Baer recalls. "I - couldn't believe what I saw."
Crime scene photos
Coverage from the Columbia Daily Tribune
Kent Heitholt had been bludgeoned and strangled.
"Not the kind of guy you'd think would be murdered?" Moriarty asks Baer.
"No, no, definitely. I mean, just size alone," Baer replies, describing his friend as "a big six foot five, 300-pound guy. That is not the kind of guy I'd want to mess with in a dark parking lot."
"No one's gonna mess with Kent," Boyd says. "Who was gonna mess with Kent?"
Earlier, on that same Halloween night, Ryan Ferguson and Chuck Erickson - 17-year-old high school students at the time, managed to sneak into a bar a few blocks away.
"Underage drinking?" Moriarty asks Ryan.
"Yeah, had a few drinks," he explains. "I was not intoxicated. It's something that goes on in college towns."
Around 1:15 a.m., about an hour before the murder, Ryan says everyone was kicked out of the bar - including himself and Chuck.
"I dropped him off at his house and I went home myself," Ryan tells Moriarty. "...it's very simple, easy night."
Asked if he had anything to do with the murder of Kent Heitholt, Ryan says, "I have absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Kent Heitholt. ...I wasn't even anywhere near that crime scene."
Whoever was at the crime scene may have left clues. Police found fingerprints on Kent's car, hairs in his hand and bloody shoeprints on the ground.
And they had the two janitors. One "could not provide a detailed description" of the men they saw. But the other one, Shawna Ornt, said she got a good look at the man who spoke. "He was tall. He was skinny. ...he had light colored hair," she says.
Police released a sketch and fielded dozens of leads, but none of them went anywhere. Kent Heitholt's murder was a mystery.
"It just doesn't seem possible how - that anybody could hurt him," Boyd says. "And - bein' as nice as he was, why."
Two years passed before there was finally a break. In November 2003, the Tribune published an anniversary story about the unsolved crime. That prompted Chuck Erickson to have disturbing thoughts, vague ideas - dreams - that he was somehow involved in the murder. He told some friends.
"He said, 'I had a dream,'" a friend of Chuck's tells Moriarty.
"I had a dream?"
"Yeah - about the crime... bits and pieces of it."
Police got wind of what Chuck was saying and brought him in. In a bizarre taped interview, Chuck seems cooperative, but also clueless.
"It's just so foggy. I could be fabricating all of this," he tells police.
He doesn't even seem to know the weapon used to strangle Kent Heitholt.
Chuck Erickson: I think it was a shirt or something.
Police Interrogator: I know it wasn't a shirt
Chuck Erickson: A bungee?
Police Interrogator: We know for a fact that his belt was ripped off ... he was strangled with his belt.
Chuck Erickson: Really?
Police Interrogator: ...does that ring a bell?
Chuck Erickson: No! Not at all...
That's the way most of the interview goes. What Chuck doesn't know about the crime, the police tell him. They even take him to where the crime occurred.
Police Interrogator [in car]: That is the parking spot where Mr. Heitholt had his car parked...
Chuck Erickson [in car]: OK...I don't recall a lot of what happened so I don't know.
Still, Chuck's memory seems vague, at best. And that frustrates the cops.
Police Interrogator: It's you that is on this chopping block ... and I don't want to hear, "Oh, all the sudden I just think I may be fabricating all of this."
Watch excerpts of Chuck Erickson's police interrogation
Chuck Erickson fits their profile - at least half of it. Two young men were seen that night. So police press Chuck to give up the friend he was with on Halloween, and he does.
Police Interrogator: Whose idea was it?
Chuck Erickson: It was Ryan's idea
Police Interrogator: Ryan's idea...
Ryan Ferguson, then in college, is also brought in. Police question him for hours, but he never wavers.
Ryan Ferguson: I wasn't there, I didn't do anything!
Ryan Ferguson: You're trying to get me to admit to something I didn't do. ...I'm not lying, I was not there.
Watch excerpts of Ryan Ferguson's police interrogation
Still, in March 2004, two years after the crime, Ryan Ferguson and Chuck Erickson are arrested and charged with murder.
"It just - just tears at your heart," Bill Ferguson says. "Just a moment of desperation."
Ryan's father, his older sister, Kelly, and mother Leslie are prepared to fight for him.
"They just don't have their story right," Leslie Ferguson tells Moriarty. "There's something that is going to come out that is going to free him."
But things were about to get much worse.
Ryan Ferguson, once a college student, is now a defendant on trial for the murder of Kent Heitholt.
Instead of a dorm, his home for the past year-and-a-half has been jail. "I was emotionally spent. My soul had been crushed," he tells Erin Moriarty
The state's star witness, Chuck Erickson, is also a changed man. The once befuddled teen is now a polished witness for the prosecution. And he's made a deal: he will plead guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for his testimony.
"I did this. He did this. I didn't dream anything," Chuck says in court.
While Chuck will spend less than 25 years in prison, Ryan faces life.
"I could care less about what happens to him. I'm just doing this because I know it's the right thing to do," Chuck continues.
A composed Chuck now says that when he and Ryan left a bar on Halloween night in 2001, Ryan suggested they rob someone to get more drinking money. They chose their victim at random, he says, and things got out of hand.
Prosecutor: What did the defendant in this case, Ryan Ferguson do?
Chuck Erickson: Robbed him and strangled him.
Chuck seems to vividly recall every detail and demonstrates how Ryan held a man twice his size on the ground:
Chuck Erickson: He was down here and he had a belt, and he had his foot on his back on the victim's back and he was pulling up on the belt.
After the murder, past 2:30 a.m., Chuck tells the jury they went back to the bar, getting past the same bouncer who let them in earlier.
Prosecutor: What'd you and him talk about inside the bar?
Chuck Erickson: I didn't say anything. I was just upset about what we'd done.
But there is no physical evidence to back Chuck's story.
"Did you have Ryan or Chuck's fingerprints at the scene?" Moriarty asks Prosecutor Kevin Crane.
"No," he replies.
"Do you have a murder weapon in this case?"
"Did we find the murder weapon? No."
In fact, none of the fingerprints, shoeprints or hairs found matched Ryan or Chuck - and Kent's wallet was found in his car. But Prosecutor Crane has faith in his star witness.
"It is definitely possible to consciously put something out of your mind that you don't want to remember because it is a terrible, terrible thing," says Crane.
And Crane has his trump card. Jerry Trump is the janitor who saw the two men that night, but couldn't give police a detailed description. But now, in court, that has changed.
Prosecutor: Mr. Trump, if you see the individual... would you point to that individual or individuals please?
Jerry Trump: Yes (points to Ryan).
"When he pointed to you in the courtroom, how did you feel?" Moriarty asks Ryan.
"I was disgusted, because I know this man did not see me," he replies.
Trump explains it this way: While in jail on a sex charge, his memory was jogged by the arrest photos in the newspaper.
"I recognized the two pictures," he testifies. "I've seen these two faces before - at the Tribune that night Kent was killed."
Ryan's older sister testifies for the defense, but on cross examination is forced to admit that it was her idea to get Ryan and Chuck past the bouncer at the bar.
Prosecutor: That was because your brother and Mr. Erickson were both well under age. Isn't that correct?
Kelly Ferguson: Correct
"...thinking back on it, wasn't the wisest decision," Kelly Ferguson tells Moriarty. "I definitely do carry a lot of guilt."
When Ryan takes the stand, he denies Chuck's accusations.
Defense attorney: Did you go to the Tribune parking lot?
Ryan Ferguson: No.
Defense attorney: Did you see Kent Heitholt that night?
Ryan Ferguson: No.
Defense attorney: Did you participate in this murder?
Ryan Ferguson: No.
His lawyers are confident that the jurors will believe Ryan more than Chuck - that the interrogation tapes undermine Chuck's credibility, especially since there's no forensic evidence to corroborate his story.
Watch excerpts of Chuck Erickson's police interrogation
"I've got to tell them what that man did," Chuck says on the stand, pointing at Ryan.
But the jury believes the now self-assured Chuck they heard testify.
"We couldn't see no reason why he would've gave himself up for 25 years of his life," says a male juror.
"He looked over at Mr. Ferguson and the pleading look in his eye like, 'Come on buddy, you know you did it,'" says a female juror.
It takes the jury five hours to reach a verdict: guilty of murder in the second degree.
Before sentencing, Ryan's father is allowed to address the jury.
"We feel very, very badly for the Heitholt family," Bill Ferguson tells the court.
"If he gets the jail sentence that I'm hearing, I will never live long enough to see him outside of jail," Ferguson continues in tears.
Ryan is sentenced to 40 years.
"Oh, it's really scary," Ferguson says of the sentence. "We were in shock."
From that moment on, Ferguson was on a mission to prove that Chuck's story was impossible. Six months later, he's tracked down his first new witness: the bouncer who Chuck said let Ryan and him back into the bar after the murder.
"He said at 1:30 they will lock the doors ... Every single night without fail," Ferguson explains. "So, there's no way that Erickson could have come up onto the nightclub at 2:45."
And on one of Bill Ferguson's many visits to the crime scene late at night, he had noticed a traffic light. Instead of the light changing from green to red, it's flashing yellow.
"The next day, I called the Missouri Department of Transportation and asked them when those lights changed. They said every night and at 1:00," he says.
It's another fact that contradicts Chuck's story: Chuck told police that as he and Ryan were fleeing the crime scene around 2:30 a.m., they saw a classmate stopped at the light there.
"It's difficult enough to get people to stop at red lights, let alone a flashing yellow light," he notes.
What's more - that classmate denies he was there.
"I didn't have a license to drive. I had no automobile in my name," Dallas Mallory tells Moriarty.
Bill Ferguson also gets surprising information from Shawna Ornt, the janitor who did describe one of the men by Kent's car.
Did he have any blood on him?" Moriarty asks.
"Not that I noticed, no," Ornt replies.
Ornt insists that before the trial, she told the prosecutor the man she saw was not Ryan or Chuck.
"I told him every time I seen him. I seen neither one of those kids," Ornt tells Moriarty. "He goes, 'I know for a fact they did it. You're wrong.'"
Bill Ferguson is convinced he has enough evidence to prove Chuck Erickson made up his story.
"Did you ever have any idea your dad was gonna turn out to be such a devoted investigator?" Moriarty asks Ryan.
"I had no idea, his capabilities. It - it's phenomenal," he replies.
But will it be enough to get Ryan's case back in court?
The more Bill Ferguson studied Chuck Erickson's police interrogations, the more he believed that not only is his son, Ryan, innocent - so is Ryan's accuser.
"He looks like someone that's totally lost. He doesn't know anything about the crime scene," Ferguson observes. "I think it's the first time he's ever been there, quite honestly."
What Chuck knew about Kent Heitholt's murder, says Ferguson, seemed to come from the police.
Police Interrogator: We know for a fact that his belt was ripped off from his pants and he was strangled with his belt.
Chuck Erickson: Really?
Watch excerpts of Chuck Erickson's police interrogation
"They fed him all the information," says Ferguson
"But why would Chuck want to fit the evidence? I mean-" Erin Moriarty asks.
"That's the $64,000 question," Ferguson laughs. "Who knows? I have no idea how his mind works."
It's a huge missing piece of the puzzle: why Chuck was willing to go to prison for a crime he seemed to know nothing about.
"I think they put a lot of pressure on him to comply with the evidence," Ferguson explains. "I think what happens is in Chuck's heart, he did it. He knows no details because he wasn't there."
And Chuck's story continues to fall apart when Christine Varner comes forward.
"It's your conscience," she tells Moriarty. "I felt I had to do it."
Varner once managed the agency that employed Jerry Trump, the janitor who definitively identified Ryan at trial.
When she saw Trump's testimony on "48 Hours" when we first aired this story, she says, "I'm thinkin', 'How can you do that? That's not what you had said.'"
Varner says that shortly after the murder in 2001, Trump told her that he'd never be able to identify the men he saw by Kent's car.
"But he said that the way the lighting was, 'I couldn't tell who - who was there, at all," she says.
Three years of digging for new witnesses finally pays off for Bill Ferguson. In July 2008, the state agrees to hear the new evidence.
Varner is one of 22 witnesses who testify - many who undermine the state's case against Ryan.
"We were able to, for the first time, present this new evidence. So, we were very excited," says Ferguson.
The state, however, questions the credibility of some of the witnesses.
For example, the janitor who now claims she told the prosecutor she didn't see either Ryan or Chuck the night of the murder had actually earlier said - in a sworn statement - that she wasn't sure. She tells "48 Hours" that back then the she felt pressured by the prosecutor.
"Kevin Crane had me so intimidated and so - so scared, you know," Shawna Ornt says. "I was scared of what he would do or say to me if I said, you know, somethin'."
But Prosecutor Kevin Crane says Ornt did tell him she just wasn't sure. After the hearing, the judge takes nearly a year to make a decision... and it's a huge disappointment for Ryan: No new trial. His conviction will stand.
"It broke me, in a way, because I allowed myself to get hopeful," says Ryan.
But Ryan's father does not accept defeat, and out of the blue, he's found a new ally.
Kathleen Zellner doesn't even live in Missouri. She's a high-profile attorney in Chicago who also saw the "48 Hours" report.
"A case like this to me is just consuming," says Zellner, who agrees to take Ryan's case pro bono. She's worried. "My big concern is that I came into the case so late, I'm not sure that the case is salvageable."
"Wait a minute, Kathleen. You're saying that you truly believe Ryan Ferguson had nothing to do with this murder, that he's completely innocent... But you're not absolutely sure you can get him out?" Moriarty asks.
"Right, because... the case has just progressed procedurally so far," she says.
Zellner believes the entire case was based on a faulty premise.
"The police came up with the theory and just bought into it 100 percent - that these people that came upon the scene were the murderers," she says. "These two white guys."
Zellner thinks that the two young men seen there were not the killers at all - just college kids cutting across the lot. That's why one of them stopped to tell the janitors to get help.
"Who would do that if you've just committed a murder? You want to get the police there faster? I don't think so," says Zellner.
Because of that wrong assumption, Zellner says other possible suspects were not fully investigated. In particular, the last person known to see Kent Heitholt alive: Sports writer Mike Boyd.
"Did the police take hair samples, fingerprints?" Moriarty asks Zellner.
"No," she replies.
"Check Boyd's car?"
"No. No. None of the above."
Boyd was never interrogated, although he has cooperated with investigators from both sides. He did expect to come under more scrutiny in the beginning.
"Were you worried at how the police would look at you?" Moriarty asks Boyd. "I mean, because-"
"Oh, immediately, yeah, because I was the last one, you know, and - I've seen my share of crime shows to realize that they always, you know, look at the time of all this and where were you and what were you doing?" he replies.
He admits that over the years he has given troubling inconsistent statements - telling one investigator he was driving his wife's blue car that night, and then later telling another he was in his red car.
"What car were you driving that night?" asks Moriarty.
"That's how tired I was," says Boyd.
"But that night, on Halloween night, what car do you think you were driving?"
"I'm gonna say the red car."
After Ryan and Chuck were arrested, Boyd claimed that he also saw two young men by the parking lot. But that doesn't match what he told police on the night of the murder.
"'Boyd stated he did not see anybody around the parking lot, or anybody who was suspicious in nature,'" Moriarty says, reading the report to Boyd.
"OK," he says.
"Is that what you told John Short, right after the murder?" Moriarty asks.
"I do remember having to go back and tell him that I did see two people."
"There's no police report that says you saw two people."
"Later on. That night, I remember - there were so many questions, so many things goin' through my head - that it just - and I'm still tired."
"Now, let me ask you a very tough question," Moriarty continues. "Did you fight with Kent that night? Did you have anything to do with this murder?"
"No, ma'am. No, ma'am."
Zellner believes that Ryan's jury should have been told about Michael Boyd.
"I can't possibly know if Michael Boyd committed this murder. And I wouldn't say that," Zellner says. "But I do think that he raises reasonable doubt about Ryan Ferguson's guilt."
Zellner is confident she could win if Ryan gets a new trial and determined to get an appeals court to hear his case. But that won't be easy.
"Once you're convicted, the system works completely against you," she says. "The analogy I think of is that he's in quicksand. And I'm trying to grab a hold of him."
The difficulty of winning an appeal
She needs more evidence... and she's about to get it from the last person she'd ever expect to hear from.
In November 2009, Ryan Ferguson got a letter - and a big shock. "I didn't know if I should open it," he says. "I was scared of it."
It was from someone he had not heard from since his trial four years earlier. "At the same time, my adrenaline's goin' cause I'm perplexed..."
The letter was from his accuser, Chuck Erickson.
"It says, 'Ryan, have your lawyers come speak to me the next time that they're down here...'" says Ryan.
Attorney Kathleen Zellner, who had been working Ryan's case for only a few weeks, arranged a visit with Chuck in prison.
"I knew it was something extremely important. That's why I didn't waste any time getting there," she says.
Zellner doesn't know what he wants to say, but whatever it is she wants it on the record.
"May I call you Chuck?" Zellner asks.
"Mr. Erickson or Charles. I don't go by Chuck," he replies.
Erickson reads a statement he's prepared:
"Things happened differently from what I stated ... I could not accept in my conscience mind that I was the sole perpetrator."
The sole perpetrator. Erickson now says he's the one who killed Kent Heitholt.
"I beat the victim, Kent Heitholt, until he was on the ground," Erickson continues. "Then I took his belt off and strangled him with it."
Ryan, he says, was only a witness.
"I did not tell Ryan what I was going to do. He had no idea that I would act in such an aggressive manner."
Ryan even tried to stop him, Erickson says. He says he lied about Ryan's involvement to save himself.
"It was too hard to throw away my entire life and put my head on the quote, chopping block," he reads. "I regret now that I put an innocent man through that. He didn't deserve it.
"Is it correct that you're the one who declined to have an attorney present today?" Zeller asks Erickson.
"That's correct," he replies.
"I kept saying to him, 'Are you sure you want to say this?' And then he would say, 'Yes, I'm positive... I need to fix this," Zellner tells Moriarty.
"My reaction was, thank God this man has finally admitted that I have nothin' to do with this crime," Ryan says of the statement.
But it's not that simple.
"Isn't there a problem?" Erin Moriarty asks Ryan. "He's exonerated you by saying you had nothing to do with the murder, but he has said you were there."
"I believe he thinks that he committed the crime. My personal belief is that he didn't," says Ryan.
"You don't even think he was there either?"
"I don't think he was there. I know I wasn't there."
Witnesses often recant, but in this case Zellner hopes Erickson's statement will get Ryan a new trial. She says Erickson put himself at great risk. If he had remained quiet, he could have been released in less than four years from now. But by changing his story and admitting he lied at trial, he might have to serve his full 25-year sentence.
"This is a very daring thing that he's done," Zellner says. "I mean, he's thrown himself on his sword for Ryan. And I don't know what the outcome of it will be."
"For Chuck to come forth and say that ... he committed perjury ... tells us that we're on our way to the truth and to reality," says Bill Ferguson, who is cautious about getting his hopes up.
"We're never gonna believe it until--until... we have our arms around him," he says.
One month after Ryan got his letter, there's more from Erickson. Another letter, this time to Zellner, in which Erickson tries to explain his condition on the night of the crime.
"He wanted to make sure that we knew that he was out of his mind on drugs and alcohol: 'I was under a lot of stress and filled with a lot of pain,'" says Zellner.
Asked if she believes the story, Zeller replies, "I don't think it matters whether I believe it or not. All I know is that he's saying he committed perjury."
That Erickson committed perjury is the argument Kathleen Zellner takes to an appellate court in August 2010, nine months after getting Erickson's statement.
"It's imperative that the Court realizes that this is a true emergency," she says.
She wants the Court to bend its own rules to save Ryan Ferguson, whom she believes should never have been sent to prison in the first place....
Zellner pleads her case to the three judges.
"There is compelling evidence that my client is innocent and every day that he sits in a maximum security prison, his life is in danger."
But she knows what she's up against.
"Courts don't want to retry cases. It adds to workload. They don't want to reverse cases," Zellner tells Moriarty.
Three-and-a-half weeks later, there's a decision. Ryan's conviction is again upheld. But this time, there is a glimmer of hope. The judges admit that the case does give them pause because "the sole evidence tying Ferguson to the crime was the testimony of Erickson and the identification from Trump" - the janitor.
"They said you've got what looks like really persuasive evidence, but you need to go to another court," says Zellner.
Asked how Ryan took the disappointing news, Zellner says, "I mean, sometimes I'd talk to him, I think he sounds like an old soul."
Zellner has to file a different kind of appeal in yet another court.
"This case is really at the end of the road," she says. "There isn't anywhere else to go with it if this doesn't work."
Ryan's burden is high. He must prove his innocence. And he may just be able to do it as the last piece of evidence against him seems to fall apart.
Ryan Ferguson is not the only one whose life was shattered when someone took the life of Kent Heitholt.
Asked if he ever thinks about the Heitholt family, Ryan says, "I do. And I think about what they must be goin' through.
"I know personally, myself, and my family, it's been the most horrifying experience. It's painful," he continues. "But we're also here for each other. To go through what they've been through, it's almost incomprehensible, you know?"
"The Heitholt family deserves justice," Bill Ferguson says. "They deserve to know who actually committed the crime."
There has never been any physical evidence tying Ryan Ferguson to Kent Heitholt's murder and one of the two crucial witnesses against him has changed his story. Now, as attorney Kathleen Zellner prepares Ryan's third appeal in less than three years, the other witness has come forward as well.
Remember the janitor who identified Ryan Ferguson as the young man he saw at the crime scene?
In court, Jerry Trump said he was in jail, saw a picture of Ryan in the newspaper, and had a sudden recall. Now, he is drastically changing his story.
"He now says ... it was the prosecutor who came up with the idea of having him look at a newspaper article," Zellner says. "And then, all of a sudden, he recognized Erickson and Ferguson."
Prosecutor Kevin Crane said he didn't show photos to Trump until the day he testified. But whatever happened, Trump says in a sworn affidavit that he would now testify that he "cannot positively identify the two people I saw..."
"Why would he admit this now?" Erin Moriarty asks Zellner.
"I have no idea," she says. "Maybe he has a conscience."
The tougher question is why Erickson has changed his story. Kathleen Zellner believes she found the answer to that, too.
"What does Erickson now believe happened that night?" Moriarty asks.
"He says he has no memory of any of it. He doesn't remember any of it," says Zellner.
Erickson had been abusing drugs since he was 14. At the time of the murder, he was in particularly bad shape.
"He was essentially in a blackout state," Zellner explains. "He did a line of cocaine, he snorted Adderall. And he consumed at least, that he remembers, eight alcoholic drinks."
Just weeks later, his worried parents put him through exhaustive psychological testing at the University of Missouri. The result: this assessment which revealed there were huge holes in his memory.
"The whole case was built on Charles Erickson's memory. And I think that is powerful evidence that his memory was severely impaired," says Zellner.
"Couldn't the state, though, use that same assessment to say, well, that explains why he didn't remember this terrible event for two years. And then it came flooding back," asks Moriarty
"No," Zellner replies. "You ask anyone who's ever had an alcohol blackout ... they will tell you it's just a blank in their memory. You don't retrieve it. It doesn't come back. ...It's like the recorder is not turned on."
Two years later, Erickson was under enormous pressure to confess. Zellner says he was made to believe that Ryan Ferguson had also confessed and was ready to testify against him.
"He was told that Ryan was negotiating a deal. That Ryan was going to admit to the murder," Zellner says. "It was flatly untrue."
Zellner says that's why Erickson was willing to adopt the details given him by police as his own. By trial, he had become that polished witness willing to go to prison himself.
"I think he had this blank in his memory. And I think he believed right up to the end ... that Ryan was going to turn on him. And he thought, 'God, we must have done it. 'Cause why would Ryan be saying this," says Zellner.
Now, she says Erickson is finally beginning to question it all. He, too, has a new attorney to help him with his case.
"When you're finished fighting for Ryan Ferguson, are you going to fight for Chuck Erickson?" Moriarty asks Zellner.
"I will," she replies. "Yeah, one case cannot survive without the other. And when one goes down, the other one's going to go down."
The man who urged her to take on Erickson's case? Ryan's father, Bill Ferguson.
"In my mind, Charles Erickson is innocent," says Ferguson.
But his first priority is his son. "What my family wants to see right now is for Ryan to be exonerated as soon as possible."
Seven years after Ryan's arrest, Ferguson hand delivers the legal document that asks for a new hearing, which he believes will finally lead to his son's freedom.
The petition lays out all the new evidence that Zellner and her team have uncovered, most notably, those sworn statements from the only two witnesses who connect Ryan to the crime - Chuck Erickson and Jerry Trump - who say they lied at the trial.
Says Ferguson, "We knew that sooner or later, the truth would come out."
This time, he says he finally feels that his mission is nearing an end. "The day that Ryan walks outta prison I'm gonna feel as a father that I have done my job."
The Missouri Attorney General's office will respond to the request for a hearing by May 2.
Kevin Crane, now a judge, expects to be called as a witness; Ethics rules prohibit him from commenting.