need to add title here

Dream Killer

December 27, 2008 8:12 PM

A teenager dreams that he killed a man, but, did he really commit murder? "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports.

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by QQQQIIIIIIIIIWWWWW April 27, 2013 11:48 PM EDT
How the DA won this case is a mystery to me. In fact, how he became a DA is a mystery to me. He seems to be lacking in intelligence. The fact that Ryan was found guilty based upon the coached testimony of a psychopath and the ever changing testimony of a felon (the janitor) does not speak well of the jury. I hope that Ryan gets a new trial. He certainly deserves one.
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by justice4innocent December 2, 2012 1:01 PM EST
I feel soooo sorry for Ryan and his family, my question is why did they only interview 5 jury members when a jury is 12? And how could they take the testimony of the janitor while in jail??? Did they look into the idea that he might have been doing all this to get time taken off the sentence he was serving at the time? And as for lack of emotion....who's to say he had no more tears to cry, or that he was in a state of shock??? I know if it were me and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was innocent and that 12 of my peers had just found me guilty of such a horrendous crime and sentenced me to 40 years I would be in so much shock I wouldnt know whether to poop or wind my watch let alone cry at that very moment or the fact that I had probably cried myself to sleep every night I had been locked up. And there were way to many descepencies in Chuck's story.....such as the timing and that when they got back to the bar ( an hour after it had closed) Ryan found a 20 in his wallet how is it possible for them to have that conversation when the bar was already closed.....and since its proven fact that the vic didnt leave his office till after 2:10 am the bar was already closed for 40 mins. And the no mention of the foot prints since they showed the pics of the shoe prints numerous times. I hope Ryan's new lawyer is able to get the justice he deserves and that the new jury waits till all the evidence has been entered and how about a DNA test and finger prints compared to the janitor's since he was so quick to point the finger.
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by justice4innocent December 2, 2012 1:01 PM EST
I feel soooo sorry for Ryan and his family, my question is why did they only interview 5 jury members when a jury is 12? And how could they take the testimony of the janitor while in jail??? Did they look into the idea that he might have been doing all this to get time taken off the sentence he was serving at the time? And as for lack of emotion....who's to say he had no more tears to cry, or that he was in a state of shock??? I know if it were me and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was innocent and that 12 of my peers had just found me guilty of such a horrendous crime and sentenced me to 40 years I would be in so much shock I wouldnt know whether to poop or wind my watch let alone cry at that very moment or the fact that I had probably cried myself to sleep every night I had been locked up. And there were way to many descepencies in Chuck's story.....such as the timing and that when they got back to the bar ( an hour after it had closed) Ryan found a 20 in his wallet how is it possible for them to have that conversation when the bar was already closed.....and since its proven fact that the vic didnt leave his office till after 2:10 am the bar was already closed for 40 mins. And the no mention of the foot prints since they showed the pics of the shoe prints numerous times. I hope Ryan's new lawyer is able to get the justice he deserves and that the new jury waits till all the evidence has been entered and how about a DNA test and finger prints compared to the janitor's since he was so quick to point the finger.
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by melmcc00 October 25, 2012 1:21 PM EDT
You have got to be kidding me?!?!?! How does this kind of thing just "happen"? The prosecuter sounds like a typical sleezeball. I feel so sorry for Ryan and his family. If I had been on that jury, Ryan would have been walking out the door..without chains on. I have never seen such spoonfeeding of evidence as I did when Chuck was interrogated. That idiot had no clue what to say to the police!!! I am floored that Ryan is still incarcerated at this time. This kind of thing happens more frequently then people know. Our justice system is seriously flawed if a drug addict can walk in an point the finger and say "he did it", and thats all thats needed to send an innocent young man away for 40 YEARS!!!!! Shame on Columbia Missouri and their police department. SICKENING~!!!!!
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by Viper55555 July 12, 2012 5:31 AM EDT
the jurors admitted that they had already decided on his guilt by the time of the janitors ID of Ryan. Aren't the jurors suppose to decide after all the evidence is revealed, though there was no physical evidence.
Two drunk teens slaughter a person and no blood is transfered onto them even after that fat rat Chuck says that Ryan stepped on the back of the victims neck for leverage with the belt, which should have cause a lot of blood to spread out all over his shoes at the least.
Cops feeding the info on video should be enough to have a new trial. The belt detail was kept back to ID the real killers, but they freely gave it to Chuck during the confession.
Again another case decided mainly by jury emotions, not on evidence.
Enough is enough!!!
Plus, studies over the last 20 years has proven witness testimony is the most unreliable and flawed evidence.
How about the hair found in the victims hand and foot prints on scene not used.
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by GraceK22 February 29, 2012 4:43 PM EST
These jurors are ridiculous. There wasn't a shred of evidence.
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by jbgood75 December 13, 2011 5:17 PM EST
This is a complete injustice! Interrogation 101, never EVER tell a suspect information regarding a murder investigation. I mean, it is all on videotape that this detective fed vital details of the murder to an obviously confused teenager. And then to take him to the crime scene! It was obvious that Chuck Erickson had no idea where they were even at. If I had been on that jury there would have been no way I would have been sending those kids to jail after what these detectives did. And that arrogant, cocky prosecuting attorney that pretty much thought it was his way or no way.

I fully believe that dreams can be very vivid and seem real. I don't remember most of my dreams, but I have had some in the past that have been so real that I had flash backs about them like memories and I have to remember that it was only a dream and that it never happened. I have read articles about Erickson, that he was into drinking and drugs-- so for a kid that had just been out partying to read about a murder in the paper that happened not far from where he was, I am sure his imagination ran wild. And to have the police feed him information regarding the crime only exacerbated the situation.

There is absolutely no physical evidence linking either of these kids to the crime, not the bloody footprint, and not the hair. Not to mention they would have both been covered in blood, so tell me where the clothes they were wearing that night ended up?? Were their clothes even presented as evidence?

Also, the janitor's eyewitness statement means absolutely nothing to me. I have my first college degree in Criminology and one of the things they teach us is eyewitness accounts are generally not accurate. You can have 20 people witness a crime and each one of them will have a different account of events or various descriptions of the suspect. I have read countless articles on men being sent to prison solely on eye witness accounts, only to be released 10, 20, or 30 years later because DNA exonerated them. The janitor didn't even know what the suspects were wearing when he called 911, so we are expected to believe he just happens to remember them after seeing their mugshots in the paper? Give me a break!

I have been reading up on this case, and as late as Aug of this year both the janitor and Erickson have changed their stories. Erickson now says he committed the crime himself and that Ryan Ferguson did not participate at all. He says that he was pressured by police to point the finger at Ryan as his accomplice to avoid life in prison or the death penalty. The janitor also says that the police pressured him to say he remembered the boys fleeing from the crime scene, now stating that he did not actually see the faces of the perpetrators. Because of this Ryan will be receiving a new trial soon. Erickson now says he doesn't care if he gets a longer sentence, he wants to make sure that Ryan Ferguson is released.
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by squishyj November 28, 2011 2:38 PM EST
This whole thing smells bad. Witnesses changing their stories before trial, no physical evidence, a juror who inexplicably says of Ferguson's testimony "by that time I had already pretty much made my mind up. As always, if you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, through no fault of your own, an overzealous cop or prosecutor could do this to you!
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by gtfish1 November 17, 2011 1:01 PM EST
The Janitor has a criminal history...maybe he saw a way out when he saw the arrest pictures. Chuck may not know a trip from reality with his drug past.
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by johnsgirl82 October 15, 2011 7:42 PM EDT
Ok so basically I can point at someone like a 5 year old and say he did it he did it and that makes it true? Good lord there isn't one stitch of evidence against these boys! I pray for justice in this horrible case in a small town where someone is trying to make a name for himself by closing the one unsolved case they have.
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