Jane Alexander

Jane Alexander is a Chamber Clerk from Adelaide, Australia. Her interests include true crime, particularly the wrongful conviction of Ryan Ferguson, as well as photography, and motor racing. She runs websites at <a href="www.go-brooke.com">www.go-brooke.com</a>
and <a href="www.markskaife.net">www.markskaife.net</a>
. She can be contacted via email at skaifey@westnet.com.au.<br><br>

Donations to support Ryan Ferguson's defense should be sent to: Ryan Ferguson Freedom Fund, PO Box 7249, Columbia, MO 65205.

One Murder, Two Victims: The Wrongful Conviction of Ryan Ferguson

July 22, 2007 Updated March 14, 2013

Ryan Ferguson

In a case rife with DNA and other physical evidence, not one shred of evidence linked 17-year-old Ryan Ferguson to the murder of Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune sports writer Kent Heitholt in 2001. Ferguson's conviction in 2005 proved only how far the police and prosecution would go to close Columbia's only unsolved murder. A Boone County (Mo.) Judge, at a three-day-evidentiary hearing in mid-July 2008, heard testimony of how the police and prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence from Ferguson's trial attorneys and manipulated and threatened witnesses who dared not support their trumped-up case against Ferguson.

(Editor's Note: CBS's "48 Hours Mystery" broadcast a re-investigation of the case on March 26, 2011 and June 15, 2013)

by Jane Alexander

Update: Judge Denies Ryan Ferguson New Trial, His Attorneys Appeal

On January 30, 2013 attorneys for Ryan Ferguson filed a 154-page petition with the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District, challenging the October 2012 ruling by Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green denying Ferguson a new trial. The appeal argues that Judge Green made eight errors is his application of the law as well as several errors in his factual findings.