At 2:26 a.m., employees at the Tribune called 911 to report an assault in the parking lot. 

According to police reports, Michael Boyd, a Columbia Tribune colleague, talked to Kent Heitholt for about three to five minutes in the parking lot.

Boyd said that after his conversation with Heitholt, he then continued driving, turning west into the alley leading to Providence at approximately 2:20am and went home.

This was documented in Police report No. 18 & report No. 25. But it is important to note that this conversation between the victim and Boyd was never mentioned by Erickson who said he had been hiding just a few feet away, behind a brick enclosure while watching the victim.

During the trial, Erickson told the court that just before arriving at the crime scene while walking on Providence Road, he and Ryan spotted the victim exit the northern door of the Tribune building and walk to his car.

Erickson said they then walked east up the alley keeping an eye on the victim.

In fact, it is very difficult if not impossible to see anyone exit the Tribune doors from this location due to the way the alley is laid out. At the time of the crime there was a large brick enclosure which has since been removed.

This enclosure blocked the parking lot from view to anyone who happened to be in the alley or anyone walking along Providence Road.

During the trial Erickson mentioned seeing a second man (Michael Boyd) come out of the building, walk past the victim's car and through the parking lot to his own car which was located further north in the same parking lot.

It was at this time that he said they hid behind the brick enclosure until Boyd depart. (Map of Tribune parking lot layout)

Erickson said that once Boyd had departed, he attacked the victim.

Again, Erickson NEVER mentioned Boyd stopping to have this 3-5 minute conversation with the victim!

Erickson never mentioned seeing the victim pouring cat food from a Friskies's box into the short wall 4 feet from where Chuck says he was hiding before he attacked the victim.

See police report 82 and crime scene photo A.

Did Boyd get it wrong? Boyd was the last person to see the victim alive.

During the trial Erickson described this second man as a middle-aged white man.

He said he was of medium height and build, and had brown hair. There's just one problem with this. Boyd is a black man with short cropped black hair.

It's interesting to note that Erickson did not mention seeing Boyd the day of his arrest or in any of his video-taped interviews; not even during his Proffer in October, 2004 (Police Report 332).

He did not mention this until his June 2005 Deposition, over 15 months after his arrest and after he'd had plenty of time to read through discovery information which was provided to him by the prosecutor.

It is at this time that Chuck first says he remembers someone leaving the parking lot driving a red car.

According to one of the prosecutor's reports, written in July 2005, Mr. Boyd said that he drove a red car the night of the murder (July 2005).

Yet in another report taken by a private investigator several months earlier, on February 14 2005, Boyd said he drove a blue car.

There seems to be something very odd about the cars. Which car was it? Blue or red?

It's also interesting to take a close look at police reports 18 and 25.

Boyd's account of what happened that night was written into these two reports yet they tell two conflicting stories. Very odd!

So, who is Michael Boyd?

At the time of the murder, he was a Columbia Tribune sports-writer who got his job through his connection with Heitholt. He worked directly under the supervision of the victim.

Boyd stated in an article written by the Tribune that he and Heitholt had been friends.

They had met while Boyd was working at a newspaper in southern Missouri. When he was reporting on events in Columbia the victim would allow him to use the Tribune office.

This is when they became friends and the victim hired Boyd to work in the sports department with him.

So why would there be these gaps in Erickson's eye witness account?

Chuck would have been made aware of the fact that Mr. Boyd exited the Tribune building as a result of his access to 'discovery' which contained statements in police reports about Boyd having been in the parking lot just prior to Heitholt's death. (Police Report 18 and 25)

It's crucial to also note that the cover page of the police reports that are written up on each person who gets interviewed, usually lists information such as age, address, etc., to include race. On Michael Boyd's report it was incorrectly documented that he was "white".

Oops! This may be why Erickson got it wrong!

According to testimony during the trial, Erickson had spent many days prior to the start of the trial, rehearsing his testimony which was coached by the prosecutor. This was stated in court.

Apparently the police as well as the prosecutor's office were unaware of Boyd's race.

Why else would the cover page of Police Reports 18 and 25, state that Boyd's race was "white"?

Why else would Chuck state in court that Boyd was a "white man"?

Bear in mind, according to Chuck's story, he would have been less than 10 feet away from Boyd when he walked from the Tribune building to his car.

Chuck was allegedly hiding behind the brick enclosure where he would have had an excellent, unobstructed view of the victim, victim's car, Michael Boyd, the pile of cat food and the driveway between the Tribune building and Ash Street.

It was a well lit parking lot and he would have had a good view of most of the area.

The simple answer to these questions is that Chuck was NOT in the parking lot the night of the murder.

*If you are interested in reading the depositions please email us: [email protected] 

At 2:22 a.m. in the early morning hours of the murder, Shawna Ornt, a Tribune janitor, walked out the back door of the Tribune building to take a cigarette break and was the first to notice suspicious activity near Kent Heitholt's car.

She was frightened and ran back into the building through the open bay door to alert Jerry Trump, her supervisor.

According to their testimonies,(Ornt's and Trump's June 2005 deposition) they went back together to the open bay doors looking into the parking lot in the direction of Mr. Heitholt's car.

Both of the people crouched behind the car stood up. The person at the back of the car allegedly said, "Get help. Someone's hurt.",

In her June 2005 deposition, Shawna Ornt stated that the person who spoke to her had blond hair, was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt, and was standing at the back of the car.

She remembered it had been a warm night as she too had been wearing a T-shirt. She can be seen in the crime scene video wearing a short sleeved T-shirt.

In his June 2005 deposition, Chuck stated that he was the one who said these words to the cleaning lady.

This would have made him the one standing at the back of the car.

Yet Chuck stated in his deposition that he had been wearing a long sleeved hooded sweatshirt.

Chuck also has black hair.

Of these two eye witnesses (Ornt and Trump), Ornt was considered by police to have been the only credible witness.

The police immediately solicited her help in drawing up a composite of the person she had seen at the back of the car; the one who had spoken to her.

Almost a year and a half after the murder Shawna Ornt helped Officer Nichols draw a second composite which was completed on 3-25-03.

The Columbia Tribune quoted Sgt. Monticelli of the Columbia Police Department as saying the department developed a new composite drawing �because the sole witness in the case was never happy with the original, computer-generated composite",.

Please notice that there was no mention of Jerry Trump as a witness. This story can be accessed by clicking on the link below:

http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2003/apr/20030405news003.asp

In police report #10 Detective Liebhart said "Trump could not provide a detailed description of either of the individuals",.

As can be seen, Trump did not have any credibility with the police and did not assist in developing either of the composites of the person who had been seen at the rear of the victim's car.

Click onto the link below and listen to the 911 tape. You can hear Jerry Trump's own words. He knew very little on the night of the murder even when the details would have been fresh in his mind. You can distinctively hear Shawna Ornt in the background providing Trump with the information that he himself was unable to give.

http://www.freeryanferguson.com/911tape.shtml

The description given by Ornt does not fit that of Erickson. Yet Erickson is the one who insisted that he was the person who spoke to Ornt. Erickson has always contended that he was the one standing at the back of the victim's car.

He said he had been wearing a long sleeved hooded sweatshirt when he left Ryan's car to walk to the crime scene. He stated that it was cold, but meteorological reports from that evening show that the temperature was unseasonably warm at 60 degrees.

Ornt and Trump both said that the two men they saw behind the car were around 200 pounds, six feet tall, and in their early twenties.

These descriptions DO NOT match Ryan or Chuck.

At the time of the crime Ryan and Chuck were approximately five foot six or seven, 145 to155 lbs., and barely 17 years old.

Please note that according to Chuck's own statements during his deposition, he says he had dark hair. His statements can be found on page 229 of his June 2006 deposition.

Janitorial supervisor, Jerry Trump was called to testify during the trial.

He said that while standing on the loading dock, after being summoned by Ornt, he looked out at Mr. Heitholt's car and shouted Kent Heitholt's name several times, "Kent! Kent!",

According to Trump's testimony in court, there was no response, so he continued shouting, "I see you. Come on out.",

At this point, he testified that two men stood up from behind the car and walked briskly (one from the rear and one from the front), up the alley heading east toward Fourth Street.

Trump closed the bay door and instructed Shawna Ornt to call 911. The police department received this 911 call at 2:26 a.m.

Note: Chuck Erickson never mentioned that Mr. Trump called Kent Heitholt's name or yelled, "I see you. Come on out",. His statements to police and his courtroom testimony did not include this information.

Trump's account of what he said was never written into any police report. It was not a part of pre-trial discovery - two major sources for Chuck's ever-changing story.

Therefore Chuck was unaware of these details.

Also, Chuck thought Michael Boyd, the last person to see the victim alive, was a white man because that's what was written on the cover page of Boyd's police reports.

The words Chuck Erickson allegedly said to the cleaning lady were given to him by Detective Short (police report 254)  

Detective Short stated on page 5, "I told Erickson that the cleaning lady told the police that someone asked for help",. These are Short's own words - NOT Erickson's. Short told Chuck what the cleaning lady had said. You will also discover later how he told Chuck the number of strikes to the victim's head.

He told Erickson the fact that a belt was used as the weapon. All of this came from Detective Short - NOT from Erickson.

Detective Short shamefully spoon-fed Erickson all of this information and Erickson took ownership. This can be seen on the YouTube video and the DVDs of Erickson's interview with Detective Short.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCyKnc1BVV8&mode=related&search

No one knows exactly what happened in the parking lot between the time Mr. Heitholt arrived at his car and when the janitorial staff saw something suspicious. The victim logged off his computer at 2:08 a.m. and 911 was called at 2:26 a.m.

We do know that Mr. Heitholt was beaten and choked to death. It was a very bloody murder. Twenty-nine months later, on March 10, 2004, Ryan Ferguson was charged with the murder.

The one and only "witness", was Chuck Erickson, who was arrested earlier that same morning. Erickson did not turn himself in or come by the police station to confess.