Comments on: Dream Killer

A Young Man Dreams He Murdered A Man

[conhem]

This case makes me sick. I cannot believe that there was no evidence that either Ryan or Chuck had been at the crime scene. I would like to know about the hair found in the victim''s hand...who does that belong to? I believe something needs to be changed in the law that allows police to give details of evidence when trying to get a confession. Pretty easy to get the details you want when you give them to an unstable person. Is this America? I am deeply concerned that Crane is now a judge. It is very disturbing that a jury would dismiss the evidence that was found....and convict with NO evidence. The eye witness testimony of the janitor was unreliable....the jury should study the reliability of eye witnesses....usually an eye witness cannot identify the correct person in a line up.

[conhem]

This case makes me sick. I cannot believe that there was no evidence that either Ryan or Chuck had been at the crime scene. I would like to know about the hair found in the victim''s hand...who does that belong to? I believe something needs to be changed in the law that allows police to give details of evidence when trying to get a confession. Pretty easy to get the details you want when you give them to an unstable person. Is this America? I am deeply concerned that Crane is now a judge. It is very disturbing that a jury would dismiss the evidence that was found....and convict with NO evidence. The eye witness testimony of the janitor was unreliable....the jury should study the reliability of eye witnesses....usually an eye witness cannot identify the correct person in a line up.

[lisannenyc]

i am utterly heartsick for ryan and his family. to me it''s obvious that chuck(? is that his name) had done something horrible in his past and it is eating away at him. although his psyche can''t accept it, he therefore is confessing to something perhaps not as heinous as that killing. because chuck probably has some deep seated jealousy of ryan, he is simply bringing ryan down with him. i hope and pray that they look deeper into chuck and his life before any of this happen and can come up with what it is that he did. i''m sure this is how he is purging his sin. i pray for ryan and his family and i''m utterly disgusted with that prosecutor and the jury. small town justice?

[conhem]

This case makes me sick. I cannot believe that there was no evidence that either Ryan or Chuck had been at the crime scene. I would like to know about the hair found in the victim''s hand...who does that belong to? I believe something needs to be changed in the law that allows police to give details of evidence when trying to get a confession. Pretty easy to get the details you want when you give them to an unstable person. Is this America? I am deeply concerned that Crane is now a judge. It is very disturbing that a jury would dismiss the evidence that was found....and convict with NO evidence. The eye witness testimony of the janitor was unreliable....the jury should study the reliability of eye witnesses....usually an eye witness cannot identify the correct person in a line up.

[conhem]

This case makes me sick. I cannot believe that there was no evidence that either Ryan or Chuck had been at the crime scene. I would like to know about the hair found in the victim''s hand...who does that belong to? I believe something needs to be changed in the law that allows police to give details of evidence when trying to get a confession. Pretty easy to get the details you want when you give them to an unstable person. Is this America? I am deeply concerned that Crane is now a judge. It is very disturbing that a jury would dismiss the evidence that was found....and convict with NO evidence. The eye witness testimony of the janitor was unreliable....the jury should study the reliability of eye witnesses....usually an eye witness cannot identify the correct person in a line up.

[conhem]

This case makes me sick. I cannot believe that there was no evidence that either Ryan or Chuck had been at the crime scene. I would like to know about the hair found in the victim''s hand...who does that belong to? I believe something needs to be changed in the law that allows police to give details of evidence when trying to get a confession. Pretty easy to get the details you want when you give them to an unstable person. Is this America? I am deeply concerned that Crane is now a judge. It is very disturbing that a jury would dismiss the evidence that was found....and convict with NO evidence. The eye witness testimony of the janitor was unreliable....the jury should study the reliability of eye witnesses....usually an eye witness cannot identify the correct person in a line up.

[conhem]

This case makes me sick. I cannot believe that there was no evidence that either Ryan or Chuck had been at the crime scene. I would like to know about the hair found in the victim''s hand...who does that belong to? I believe something needs to be changed in the law that allows police to give details of evidence when trying to get a confession. Pretty easy to get the details you want when you give them to an unstable person. Is this America? I am deeply concerned that Crane is now a judge. It is very disturbing that a jury would dismiss the evidence that was found....and convict with NO evidence. The eye witness testimony of the janitor was unreliable....the jury should study the reliability of eye witnesses....usually an eye witness cannot identify the correct person in a line up.

[conhem]

This case makes me sick. I cannot believe that there was no evidence that either Ryan or Chuck had been at the crime scene. I would like to know about the hair found in the victim''s hand...who does that belong to? I believe something needs to be changed in the law that allows police to give details of evidence when trying to get a confession. Pretty easy to get the details you want when you give them to an unstable person. Is this America? I am deeply concerned that Crane is now a judge. It is very disturbing that a jury would dismiss the evidence that was found....and convict with NO evidence. The eye witness testimony of the janitor was unreliable....the jury should study the reliability of eye witnesses....usually an eye witness cannot identify the correct person in a line up.

[owhatanght20]

I originally saw this when it first aired and it made me so mad that when I saw it on tonight I made my husband watch it. He was amazed that he was convicted. What I REALLY want to know is....The janitor...What is he in trouble for legally? There are WAY to many unanswered questions on this case and if I was a juror I don''t think I could''ve done guilty...I think I would''ve been at minimum a hung jury!

[dubble_dee]

Just when you think you''ve seen and heard it all a story like this comes to your attention. I don''t think I could''ve made it through the night without coming here and venting my frustration and anger I feel towards this whole group of purely ignorant and unjust people (jury, prosecutor, detectives, etc.) There is no way possible I could of ever convicted someone of murder based on that case. It really scares me to think that anyone of us could end up in this kind of situation and there''s nothing we could do about it. My mind right now is just in an uncomprehendable mode and I can''t except that this has happened to someone. I''ll pray for Ryan and his family while I''m asking God for my own personal understanding of this tragic misjustice.

[dubble_dee]

Just when you think you''ve seen and heard it all a story like this comes to your attention. I don''t think I could''ve made it through the night without coming here and venting my frustration and anger I feel towards this whole group of purely ignorant and unjust people (jury, prosecutor, detectives, etc.) There is no way possible I could of ever convicted someone of murder based on that case. It really scares me to think that anyone of us could end up in this kind of situation and there''s nothing we could do about it. My mind right now is just in an uncomprehendable mode and I can''t except that this has happened to someone. I''ll pray for Ryan and his family while I''m asking God for my own personal understanding of this tragic misjustice.

[mickeyminni1]

Just another side note is they claimed Ryan exhibited no emotion. I am sure he probably is very tramitized over this whole ordeal and some people have PTSD type behavior when thrown into a tramatic event. This sure counts as a trama to me. He probably is feeling very void empty and numb.

[mickeyminni1]

I really hope the Innocense Project will see this story and take on Ryans case. And to top everything else in this case is that the prosecutor of this case is now a JUDGE!!!!!!!

[psychstudent-2009]

This is the end of my earlier post...

A simple journal search would surely hit thousands of articles on this topic. Likewise, the expert witness, Dr. Loftus, is one of the top 25 psychology researchers of all time... we''re talking Freud, Erickson, Pavlov....and yes Loftus. She is not just fabricating a crazy idea she dreamed up, she has years and years of reliable, meaningful, and empirical research to defend her perspective on false memory. If the prosecutor was unable to understand or fathom the intricacies of false memory, he is either a poor researcher, he is ignorant, or he is biased. Finally, if Loftus'' research is not compelling enough, a short review of the work of Dr. Gary Wells would certainly leave no doubt that the police investigation was just about as poorly conducted as possible. There was no control for bias or suggestibility, and the boy who confessed was essentially spoon-fed everything the police needed to achieve a conviction. When one party (the police) have a vested interest and do nothing to control for the influence of their bias and eagerness to find a killer, there is no level of checks and balances to achieve the type of judgment process our Country claims to uphold. I am extremely disheartened by this display of unethical behavior which has consequently landed a young man in prison for the rest of his life. Does the end justify the means?

[psychstudent-2009]

I just finished watching this story and was intensely disturbed both by the biased police investigation and ignorant prosecutor. I can imagine their level of desperation, after searching fruitlessly for 2 years to find the killer of a man who certainly did not deserve to be so brutally murdered. However, the few investigation clips that were shown during the 1 hour show were enough to convince me that neither the police department, nor the prosecutor were current on the literature surrounding the psychology of investigation practices. This topic has become an increasingly hot button within the field of forensic psychology, and a variety of major police departments%u2019 contract forensic psychologists to help them eliminate the very biases that corrupted the Columbia police dept. For the prosecutor to claim that he has NEVER heard of "false memory" tells me that neither he nor his legal aids did their research. I am a graduate student in psychology, however I am not studying forensic psychology and I still know that the debate over false memory and the psychology of interview tactics has been one of the premier topics within both cognitive and forensic psychology for the last 15 years.

[mickeyminni1]

I can''t believe how inept the prosecutor in this case was! What an injustice to this young man. I don''t think the jury had enough experience to understand the whole case. I would have really had questions. I would have wanted every detail of the autopsy to be convinced of this young mans guilt. The so called witnesses did not seem credible to me. I feel they were fed the details by the police. This is coming from a criminal justice major. Why if Ryan had choked this man with a belt while standing on his back were there no foot impressions left on his back with bruising. Now a days they should almost be able to tell shoe size by those bruises that should have been left!!!!!

[ecperry]

I am sorry for the repeated posts, they can be removed. I kept getting an error message and thought my post had not been published. I deeply apologize!

[yamaha2u]

In the crime photo, the victim was lying on his back. Chuck Erickson testified that Ryan put his foot in the victim''s back while strangling him. Even if that were the case, rolling over a 300+ lb. body would have likely left one arm close to the torso, yet both arms were extended in the photo. Did that indicate that one arm was purposely extended after rolling the body over, or was that yet another flaw in Chuck''s testimony?

[ecperry]

I cannot believe what has transpired here! To think that evidence can be disregarded in such a manner as it was in this case makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. There was forensic evidence left at the scene of the crime that does not match either of the two boys. The most obvious being the unidentified hair that was found in the victim''s hand. This hair had to have belonged to someone at the scene of the crime. If that is so, then Chuck''s version of the story, that he and Ryan (alone, just the two of them) killed this man, is obviously false. IF the two of them were involved, then why does he not remember the THIRD person who must have been present - the owner of the hair? This is just one of many holes in his story. We need to remember here that this is not a circumstantial case; there was evidence left at the scene that should not be so carelessly discarded.

[ecperry]

I cannot believe what has transpired here! To think that evidence can be disregarded in such a manner as it was in this case makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. There was forensic evidence left at the scene of the crime that does not match either of the two boys. The most obvious being the unidentified hair that was found in the victim''s hand. This hair had to have belonged to someone at the scene of the crime. If that is so, then Chuck''s version of the story, that he and Ryan (alone, just the two of them) killed this man, is obviously false. IF the two of them were involved, then why does he not remember the THIRD person who must have been present - the owner of the hair? This is just one of many holes in his story. We need to remember here that this is not a circumstantial case; there was evidence left at the scene that should not be so carelessly discarded.