Chuck Erickson with his accomplice Kevin Crane in the Court Trial
Legal System's Strangler: Kevin Crane as the new Boone County Circuit Judge
While watching CBS 48 Hours Mystery on State of Missouri vs. Ryan Ferguson I jumped up from my chair and said: “this is unbelievable!”.
In the year 2013 we are still witnessing frightening examples of wrongful convictions and injustice,
The incredible story of Ryan Ferguson and Chuck Erickson took place only thanks to an unusual combination of factors: from a boy with mental problems to the pride of the Missouri Columbia Police Department to the exploitation of this another human feelings by a greedy District Attorney who wanted to close this case so badly he came to the point he suborned his witnesses to commit perjury.
However if something positive would ever come out from this case is that we are now able to depict a detailed picture of what’s not working inside the United States justice machine and maybe someone in the legislative branch will take the right steps to have things changed for good so that such a giant miscarriage of justice will never happen again.
The Ryan Ferguson’s case is a real nightmare, something that should have never happened except maybe in a John Grisham’s novel.
Although in order to understand, how such a huge judicial mistake has occurred we have to start from the beginning.
Indeed these wrongful convictions, (yes because both Chuck Erickson and Ryan Ferguson have been wrongfully convicted) started with the dullness of a single little man: Chuck Erickson. The question everyone who clashed into this case asks is “Why someone would ever confess a crime he did not commit?” One simple answer: Lack of identity.
Chuck Erickson was nobody, I mean like many boys with identity and self-esteem problems he felt the weird sensation his own life and existence weren't that meaningful. Why? Simplest answer in the world: Columbia, Missouri.
Columbia is the thirteenth most highly educated municipality in the United States as over the half of Columbians possess a bachelor's degree and over a quarter of them hold graduate degrees. Another quarter of the population is currently enrolled in the University of Missouri and sugar on top, Columbia is a town with a very ancient history, as it was settled in Pre-Columbian times by the mound-building Mississippian culture of Native Americans, that makes it one of the earliest settlement in the whole continent. That’s pretty much a strong identity, uh?
Ok now you have to do something that not a single person during this entire criminal case has ever done before, that means putting yourself in the shoes of Chuck Erickson.
Chuck Erickson is a boy who lives in this historically and culturally important American town while he's coming from nowhere: he’s not educated, he’s not a successful student nor has he any particular success with women, he has no girlfriend and no particular talent and consequently he has some serious doubts about the meaning of his life and his presence on planet earth. Hence his little identity is being challenged everyday by the pressure of the highly historical and cultural environment of Columbia, in which he seems to be stuck without any chance of change on the horizon.
So what he's going to do? He goes out every night and drinks heavily, trying to forget his lack of identity and his many existential problems while he waits for his life to go on and maybe one day something will happen to change his life for the better.
Although when the bup is gone, nothing‘s changed, he got nowhere and the world is just the same place he left when he started drinking.
Chuck Erickson starts thinking of suicide, killing himself seems to be a solution to escape the dullness in which he's stuck. In any case nobody would notice his disappearance: he’s completely invisible to the rest of the world.
One day though, something happens in the sleepy city of Columbia, Missouri: a famous journalist gets killed.
Tribune Sports Editor Kent Heitholt, gets brutally murdered just outside of his office.
When Chuck Erickson reads the news he simply cannot believe it! Someone got murdered just nearby where he and his friends went drinking last night. "That's amazing dude, we were near the crime scene!"
Chuck Erickson starts thinking and thinking and thinking, in the back of his mind he is convinced that this is his first and unique opportunity “to exist” to the world's eyes and become finally visible. This is the opportunity Chuck has been waiting his whole life!!!!
What’s really extraordinary for Chuck is the fact that the night of the murder he was in the area next to the place where the killing actually took place! And because that same night he was out drinking with his pal Ryan, he’s got some serious chance he might be the killer!
He was drinking in a bar which is near the crime scene, his friend saw him, the bartender saw him, and because alcohol makes people’s mind confused there's some serious chance he might be that killer dude! That’s absolutely a plausible scenario!!!
In his peculiar mind Chuck Erickson seriously thinks this is his unique chance to stop being invisible and start being someone! finally!!!
So what does he do obviously?
He starts talking around he might be the journalist’s killer!!! And he absolutely makes a reasonable point because he WAS NEARBY at the time the killing occurred. I mean he was right near the crime scene, he has even some reliable witnesses because he was together with his pal, he's got the bartender too, so he starts talking around about this possibility and for the first time in his life he feels absolutely amazing.
For the first time in his whole life he starts feeling alive! And well, he’s got chills all over his body because for the first time in his life, people are listening to him!!!! For the first time in his life, people are talking to him for real: Actually they carefully listen to his story and the more he talks the more people are talking to him.
A friend of him to whom he told the story, reports it to the Columbia Police, which is investigating the crime s it has no lead to follow yet, so the hush hush of this kid telling around he's involved in the murder it immediately represents to them a major break.
At the beginning, Chuck is very excited that the police officers, who represent nothing less than The Law, are very very interested in what he has to tell them. They show to care about him and that's the first time he feels so wonderfully alive and visible.
Chuck Erickson is in heaven! He talks to people and people listen to him. People around him are showing a genuine interest in what he’s talking about. He simply cannot believe all this is happening to him!!!!
At the Columbia Police Department, the Detectives put him in an interview room, they offer him free drinks and want to know what he's got to say about the night of the murder. (It’s all so exciting!!!)
They even drive him around with their car to show him the crime scene and have a look at it all together so that things will be easier to recollect for him. It's a bit unusual for the Police to show a suspect the Crime Scene but that's fine. Columbia Police does not have homicide cases everyday and Chuck is the most cooperative suspect they ever had the chance to meet.
Chuck Erickson finally feels alive. He drives around escorted by Police Officers in their car. They want to know what he thinks, they offer him free sodas, and drive him around in their flashy shiny cars, that’s an absolute blast dude!!!!
However as the crime scene and the witnesses (the janitors who walked out of the office premises right after the murder occurred)told the police they TWO suspects, fleeing the crime scene.
So if Chuck Erickson really wants to stay in the Merry go round of those who are alive and visible, the he has to carry his pal Ryan on board. Why? Simply because this will better corroborate his story.
The Police tell him that witnesses saw two people so they go the usual way "we know it was not your idea chuck, it was your Pal's, tell us about him please, do the right thing and we'll see what we can do with the prosecutor."
In the end Ryan is the main witness of his story because he’s been with him the whole night!!! If Ryan claims he wasn’t there, Chuck can completely forget about driving around with Police cars and people talking/listening to him.
Ryan Ferguson was with Chuck that night, all night, he’s the only person in the world who can swears the god that Chuck has been drinking all night and that he was in the area near the crime scene. Without Ryan on board this thing won’t ever work and Chuck will be back in the world of the invisibles.
So what Chuck does? He starts thinking… Chuck desperately wants this exciting life not to stop and to go on and he wants Police detectives to keep talking to him and listening to him and drive him around with their shiny cars.
He has to carry his pal on board on this murder story otherwise everything will miserably end like any other drunk night out he had and everything will turn blue once again. He would wake up with a headache with nobody around to tell him he's alive.
In order to be absolutely sure he won’t be tossed by the Police again, he has to nail himself to this story once and forever and frame Ryan in the picture together with himself as the Police is suggesting him to do.
Chuck has to be absolutely sure his buddy won’t let him alone, so he finally reaches the point that he tells the Police the killing was Ryan’s idea. Yes because Chuck is being cooperative all the way down and the Police suggested him that the murder was not Chuck's fault, I mean, he was completely drunk so it had to be Ryan's idea.
Ryan is the bad guy, Chuck is a good guy who simply loves the Police game because it gave him a new extraordinary life which nobody in his whole life has ever done before.
Chuck is now in heaven, he's got a new extraordinary life because he's not alone anymore. That’s the nail-down strategy. He says that Ryan was with him to make sure his story is absolutely CREDIBLE.
Well done dude!!!! That’s genius!!!!
If this crime had happened in Miami or in Memphis, it would have never gone further than the first Police interview and we wouldn't be here writing about this tragedy.
If Detective Joe Schillaci or Emiliano Tamayo of Miami Police Department or Detectives Caroline Mason or Tony Mullins of the Memphis Police Department, just if any of them were in charge of this case, they would had kicked Chuck Erickson’s butt out of the police station after 3 seconds since he began talking.
Why? Because they are experienced Homicide detectives who deal with professional liars every single day. They have such a deep expertise in reading body language that is simply impossible to tell them a story, any story. Especially if the narrator is a high school kid with mental problems like Chuck Erickson who seeks the police help to feel less alone.
Although here the situation is completely different because we are in Columbia, Missouri. The Police Department doesn’t deal with homicide as often as Miami or Memphis so they don’t know a damn thing about body language or how to conduct a suspect interview in a homicide investigation. Why? Because in Columbia they don’t have people who get murdered everyday as in Miami or in Memphis.
However, now the Columbia Missouri Police Department Homicide Squad Detectives have a homicide case to solve and because they are aware being inexperienced about homicide, their sense of pride lead them to show they are instead very self-confident and very secure about their job, so what they do? They take advantage of this disturbed boy and take him as a serious suspect because there’s this famous journalist who’s got killed and they don't have a lead to follow. Four months have passed since the killing took place and they don’t have any idea of what happened.
Despite the fact the crime scene is absolutely full of physical evidence: prints, shoe-prints, blood, dna, they don't really know where to address their investigation.
Although the Columbia Police Department doesn’t even think to follow the Crime Scene leads, because they know nothing about processing a crime scene, they don’t have a CSI unit that can help them.
However they found this boy with identity problems who seems very cooperative and wants to talk, he needs to talk and he clearly shows he wants to be listened by someone who cares about him and who wants to take his story to the judicial stage and that’s that for them. They don’t need to process a crime scene, that’s too much work, they have got the solution right in front of them and they can close the biggest case of their life. Why looking for more headaches?
If the Columbia Police Department instead of taking advantage of a boy with identity problems they would have asked for the help of a more experienced Department, this would have never happened and we certainly were not here discussing this mess.
Just to let you understand how they could have avoided this mess, here's a little example:
On May 5 2009, in another American city called Columbia but in the state of Illinois, the local Police Department discovered the dead bodies of 31-year-old Sheri Coleman and her two young boys, 11-year-old Garett, and 9-year-old Gavin.
The local Police Chief, Joe Edwards acted in a completely different fashion respect to the Columbia Missouri Police Department: "We knew that -- that this case was gonna be probably the biggest one -- of our lives -- definitely our careers, probably our lives," said Chief Joe Edwards.
Chief Edwards immediately recognized that his two investigators were going to need some help and called in a special unit - Major Jeff Connor and the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, which brought in an army of 25 seasoned cops.
"It's typically your smaller departments that need the resource -- need the help," Maj. Connor explained. This was very honorable of Chief Edwards as he acted in the greater interest of Justice and things could not have gone better for his Department as the killer, Chris Coleman, was eventually secured to justice without big efforts but through a serious and intense investigation conducted by different teams of detectives who worked at the case all together.
This is the first major landmark in a series of mistakes made by the Columbia Missouri Police Department: not to ask help to more experienced detectives, although Police Officers can make mistakes and they have a limited responsibility because their only task is to investigate.
The facts we just listed above are not the outcome of my pure personal speculation, instead it’s all recorded in the Police investigation video footage. The Chuck Erickson’s interview led by the Columbia MO Police is all on video. If you watch the video interview you can clearly hear the detective addressing the suspect towards the right lead when he talks about the night of the crime. In practice in a mythological scale, the Columbia Missouri Police Department officer is the teacher and Chuck Erickson is the pupil. It’s a school lecture!
In the end we are in Columbia, the city of Education!!! There’s nothing wrong in a police officer who teaches a suspect about his crime scene, even if the suspect is completely innocent!. The school lecture goes on and on, without the suspect being informed on his right of legal assistance.
In the video, we see the Police Officer driving the suspect directly to the crime scene with his shiny car and the video shows that Chuck Erickson doesn’t know where to look. Despite all this, the Columbia Police Department goes on with the case and turns it on the hand of the District Attorney: Kevin Crane.
Second Landmark in a series of giant mistakes that led to the wrongful conviction of Ryan Ferguson and Chuck Erickson.
After such a science fiction way of conducting a police investigation, anyone would think the District Attorney would immediately stop all this and he'd warned the Police Officers: “are you guys crazy?” “this fool has nothing to do with our case! Go back to square one!”. That’s what you would have expected from a conscious, experienced, wiser, educated Representative of the United States Legal System, who underwent a public oath to respect the law and who studied law in depth, way more than police officers
Instead Mr. Kevin Crane, happened to be pursuing the nomination to Circuit Judge exactly in that period of time and he was more than sure that by prosecuting and convicting not one but two defendants for the murder of a famous journalist that would had nailed down his nomination as Boone County Circuit Judge.
Kevin Crane cannot wait, he did not care if the defendants were guilty or innocent, he’s been waiting his whole life to be named Judge, he did not care about serving the Justice best interests what he really cared about was his career. In practice Kevin Crane's objective was the same of its defendant: Chuck Erickson because their goal was just one: their eternal existence in the public imagery.
D.A. Kevin Crane knew really nothing about this case, he barely knew the name of the victim and he completely ignored that Chuck Erickson made up all this just because he felt lonely and suffered like himself of an identity problem.
I mean he had some clues about the defendant's innocence because Chuck Erickson didn’t look exactly like a killer, he didn’t sound like a killer and didn’t behave like a killer..... In his mind Kevin Crane was even doubting that Erickson had been able to play the killer for him in the stage of the trial court. He really doubted it. But the boy was really motivated, he liked talking, he seemed to listen to his District Attorney, like many identity troubled kids, Chuck Erickson had some acting talent and Kevin Crane saw Chuck Erickson hidden talent, he could see it, as he recognized himself in the eyes of Chuck Erickson.
However in order to better understand the situation we have to think of Kevin Crane being like a horse near the Finish Line: he’ll do anything to win this case, because if he had won the case the seat of Circuit Judge would have been his……He saw Chuck Erickson as his card to be named Circuit Judge so Mr. Crane would have go on with the case until he had got his conviction…. which he did!
It’s funny when people claim to trust the American Judicial System, Chuck Erickson was a boy with identity problems who felt really alone. That's the reason why he made up a convincing story: to have some company to fill his lack of identity. That’s it. By doing so he was helped by a series of lucky factors: the incompetence and pride of the Columbia Police Department, the blind greed of Kevin Crane, a selfish District Attorney who would do anything to go on with his career in the justice field and twelve jurors who without any convincing physical evidence they completely relied on what they heard from the Prosecutor. That’s it.
By the way what did the jury see and hear in the trial court?
They did see and hear a convincing defendant who also was the main prosecution witness at the stand. They saw another witness Jerry Trump, the Newspaper's janitor who was also a registered sex offender and who got out of his workplace right after the murder occurred. Trump initially testified to the police he had seen two shadows, but later he was literally suborned by Kevin Crane to perjury that he saw Mr. Ryan Ferguson at the crime scene who he eventually fingered at the right moment during the trial hearing.
This fact is the greatest aberration for the United States legal system's credibility but it is also a Paradox:
If a District Attorney suborns a witness to commit perjury not only he can get away with it and an innocent man can lose his life but at the same time he can also be nominated Circuit Judge…..and this can happen just because of the DA greed to pursue his career in the Justice system's which is a result-oriented system.
More convictions more efficient is the system. The goodness of this system is that makes no exception so if you are an innocent defendant you have the right to be convicted too because it's based upon the principle of equality.
In our modest opinion, Kevin Crane is the worst type of criminal because he acted with the support of the law. He awarely exploited the US legal system to obtain a conviction not in the interest of Justice but in the interest of Kevin Crane's career's goal.
Kevin Crane is not just the worst type of criminal but he's also the worst type of human being, the kind of person who completely ignores not only the concept of Justice which he paradoxically represents but he completely ignores what empathy and consciousness mean, that makes him a real sociopath whose main psychological property is not to care about the consequences of his actions….it’s a type of crime that leaves anyone speechless….
A man who let Chuck Erickson, a disturbed boy with identity problems to set up a comedy show that Kevin Crane was able to turn into the criminal case of the year. A case that Crane managed to convict Ryan Ferguson to 40 years of prison and that led Crane to be named Circuit Judge of Boone County. This is not just a damn nightmare. Kevin Crane is a criminal who plays with the United States Legal System for his personal interests and who will get away with it if we don’t stop him.
Kevin Crane ignored almost anything about this case except the fact that Chuck Erickson was a lonely boy who for his entire life has been aspiring to play his part on a public stage. Kevin Crane like all the experienced sociopath criminals he immediately saw Erickson’s weakness and he immediately decided to exploit it to his own advantage and hide everything under the name of the Law, or even worst under that of Justice….Do we really want to let him go away with it?
The stage that Chuck Erickson had to play his public role was the Columbia Supreme Court.
For one day the Columbia Supreme Court became the stage of a Comedy Theater in which a bunch of maladjusted people mimed what usually happens in a real trial court. However even if what took place that day on that stage was a complete comedy, the effects produced by that comedy were those of a real trial and two innocent people ended in jail with a real conviction that was obtained thanks to the worst kind of human feelings: greed and ambition. Sometimes these two feelings aren't to be considered as negative but in the case of Kevin Crane they are, because they are based upon a lack of consciousness and what's worse a lack of identity.
I warmly invite you to go watch the trial video, in particular go watch the Chuck Erickson’s testimony and look at his face.
Chuck Erickson in the Trial Court was the happiest man alive: everyone was watching him, his mugshot has been in the newspaper frontpage for days, he’s achieved his life objective: Becoming somebody!! Indeed it would had been enough for him that someone had talked and listened to him but he went way further than that, because he went from invisible to a newspaper's Celebrity! Mission accomplished.
Absolutely nothing and I repeat nothing would had ever been able to take him away from that stage where he was the absolute undisputed protagonist.
When Chuck Erickson took the stand to tell the jury about the murder story, that specific moment was the most important of his whole little life.... he would never be able to tell anyone how did he feel about it in that moment because it would sound "awkward" to most of the people, to say the least.
Because the moment he was called by the Judge to take the stand he felt he embodied the power of GOD. Why? because “all these people: the Police Department, the District Attorney, the witnesses, the Jury, the public and even the Judge….. they are all here……because of me!” “And because of my power….and no one, I repeat no one would ever ever take this dream away from me!”. “No one on earth! Because the Police Department and the District Attorney and the Judge…. who are all very important people with knowledge, experience, authority, education….. respectable people of this town, Columbia Missouri….. they believe ME!!!”.
If you look at the scene when Chuck Erickson takes the stand and he mimes how the killing occurred, you can tell he’s absolutely in control….. he’s 100% focused, he’s there and he’s ready to take the stage to show the world for the first time his great immense god-like power….. and his happiness combined.
The scene is absolutely perfect, he acts with an extreme self confidence and his performance can be defined as “absolutely real”. No doubt about it. Whatever he mimed in that court was something he has been rehearsing for days, months, years, and he’s been waiting since ever….for his whole life.....but now he’s there, and he’s ready…..god only knows if he’s ready to take the stage and show the world his god-like power….he moves like a middle age knight, he's got a uniform and he's able to explain an audience of educated people what is necessary to be invested of the greatest of all powers: existence.
After I have watched Chuck Erickson miming the assumed crime in the trial court I have been continuously asking myself since then "what Mr. Kevin Crane would had been thinking about Mr. Erickson's miming that comedy?".
Another question I have been asking myself was "Is Mr. Kevin Crane aware that this B-movie is going to cost the lives of two people and make suffer a number of families?".
Another question I was asking myself was "How did Mr. Kevin Crane entered into the Justice System?" What were his motivations? Another question I have been asking myself was "Does the Justice Department make some random checks on people like Kevin Crane's activity?"
However, I would probably ask these questions to Mr. Crane once he will be in a Federal Detention Center, now let's go back to Mr. Chuck Erickson's performance:
Right after Chuck Erickson's staged comedy show at the stand as the main prosecution's witness, probably Kevin Crane and the district attorney’s team shook their hands in excitement and thumbed up to each other, since that moment on. Being Kevin Crane a narcissistic sociopath, I might even being led to think he might have hidden a tear or two.
Why? Because Chuck Erickson’s dream became Kevin Crane’s dream, it became the prosecution's team dream too, and they would had been there to protect Chuck Erickson and his performance until the end of days and time! Why? Because no District Attorney in the whole Southern District of the United States Court system would never had a defendant-witness in a trial court who played a murder scene so well like Chuck Erickson. Even if in that stand there was Chuck Norris or Clint Eastwood they would never ever had done a better job than Chuck Erickson….never ever!!! You can bet dude!
The District Attorney’s team were so proud of Chuck Erickson they promised him eternal love for the rest of their lives, because Chuck Erickson’s testimony went on video and that video became a YouTube sensation, and the genius director of that YouTube sensation has one name and one name only: KEVIN CRANE, the District Attorney genius who backed Chuck Erickson’s story since day one.
Kevin Crane is a man who believes Chuck Erickson, because Kevin Crane is a believer!
Kevin Crane: A real genius!. Like Chuck Erickson, Kevin Crane had a dream: he dreamed of becoming a star in the justice field, he dreamed of winning a famous murder case and be named CIRCUIT JUDGE, which he did thanks to his Enfant Prodige: Chuck Erickson!
Thanks to Chuck Erickson, his little movie star who played the main hero in the murder story of Kent Heitholt, Kevin Crane was named Circuit Judge in Boone County, where he could serve justice by fairly judging people like Ryan Ferguson and Chuck Erickson so that the citizens of the United States of America in particular of Boone County can have a fair trial, a fair judgement, and a fair example of justice as he’s the symbol of justice not only in the United States but in the whole world.
Although the game does not end here.
Ryan Ferguson obtained an appeal hearing in which both of Kevin Crane’s witnesses retracted their statements. Indeed both Ryan Ferguson’s co-defendant Chuck Erickson and prosecution’s witness Jerry Trump they withdrew their statement because they both declared they were not sincere in the first place and they were led to commit perjury by Mr. Kevin Crane.
In particular Jerry Trump who had some criminal records for sex related crimes, in the appeal hearing he stated that District Attorney Kevin Crane threatened him to throw him in jail if he had not pointed his finger towards Ray Ferguson as the man he saw right after the murder at the crime scene. Even if in the first Police interview there’s no record nor any trace of any positive identification by Jerry Trump of any living individual, because when he was interviewed by the Police he just affirmed he saw two shadows in the dark. That’s it.
All these withdraws led District Attorney then Circuit Judge Kevin Crane to take the stand under oath and state that he hadn't threatened Jerry Trump nor Kevin Crane made any pressure on Trump because of his criminal past, nor he was showed any mugshot of the defendant before he took the stand at the hearing.
The only problem with Kevin Crane’s testimony is the little detail that while he was affirming all these things he was shaking his head like someone who completely denies what he's saying moving his head from left to right and vice versa as to mean “NO NO NO”.
Unfortunately, despite the clear and repeating series of lies told under oath by Kevin Crane at the Stand, the Appeal Judge Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green denied to reverse the verdict made by the Jury.
Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green is not an expert on empathy, consciousness and lack of identity. Everything sounded very confusing to his poor head and in fact he did not understand all this buzz for a conviction! He knows that one of the witnesses who took the stand was nothing less than a Circuit Judge from Boone County… Kevin CRANE, Judge Dan Green was confused: “I mean that’s a damn judge at the stand!!! He does the same job I do. Who you want me to believe??? A Circuit judge like myself or a co-defendant already convicted for murder by a jury and another convicted felon for sex related crimes? Are you crazy?” I did the right thing I pronounced the conviction to stand….”
That’s why instead of reversing the wrongful conviction of Ryan Ferguson, Judge Dan Green officially affirmed that exploiting mental illness, using a trial court for entertainment purposes, suborning witnesses and committing perjury is the law in the United States so the conviction of Ryan Ferguson had to stand.
However, luckily, Judge Kevin Crane’s testimony at the stand has been video-recorded and that made me jump on my chair and led me to write this story you are reading now.
If I were in Ryan Ferguson’s legal team I would have immediately called Patti Wood and Janine Driver, the best body language experts in the United States and have them take a look at the video then redacting a detailed report on it and take the stand in the next appeal hearing for Ryan Ferguson's freedom.
The case of Ryan Ferguson should ring more than one alarm bell across the whole United States legal system, because if in the year 2013 a boy with an identity problems like Chuck Erickson is able to set up a comedy show within a United States Trial Court and transform it into a Vaudeville, this means that anyone else can do it across the country, especially if disturbed DA like Kevin Crane keep manipulating the criminal justice.
Although what we really should learn from this story is to not let people like the Columbia Police Department Detectives or mischievous greedy, sociopath disturbed people like Kevin Crane to exploit and manipulate the weakness of a mentally disturbed boy for their self interest and not in the interest of Justice.
Next time a murder like the one of Kent Heitholt takes place in a little city like Columbia Missouri, the first move the Police Department has to do is to ASK FOR HELP TO A MORE EXPERIENCED POLICE DEPARTMENT. You have to be aware that in Missouri there’s the Kansas City Police Department that is very experienced and very qualified, if Chuck Erickson had been questioned by the Kansas City Homicide squad, Ray Ferguson would have been free at this time.
Instead the Columbia Police Department had to show they knew how to deal with a homicide and they arrested two innocent men who were eventually convicted and their lives ruined. Although they did not consider that together with the lives of these two innocent men what they ruined was also the reputation of the Police Department, because today the reputation of the Columbia Police Department is equal to ZERO thanks to the happy management of the Chuck Erickson and the Ryan Ferguson's case.
Another important thing we learned from this case is the government provides too much power to the District Attorney, who can in practice prosecute ANYONE even if he does not have the smallest piece of evidence. Besides, the pressure and the personal interest that Kevin Crane put in this case is what led to the conviction of two innocent men. So District Attorneys in America are driven to act more because of their career interests than in the interest of Justice. After the conviction of Ryan Ferguson and Chuck Erickson, Kevin Crane, (who is the real and the only criminal responsible of this wrongful conviction), instead of being in a federal detention center, he was named Circuit Judge.
Not only! The appeal hearing requested by Ryan Ferguson, did not pull Mr. Kevin Crane to step back and to recognize he committed a series of mistakes but instead he took the chance of taking the stand TO LIE once again and to commit a crime of perjury that has marked him for the rest of his life. Because a Circuit Judge whose body language clearly reveals that he is lying while a video is recording his testimony, it’s something you will never forget and that will be remembered forever in the history of the United States Justice.
With this article we officially ask the Governor of Missouri Jay Nixon, and the President of the United States Barack Obama to take the right steps in order for Chuck Erickson and Ryan Ferguson to be freed as soon as possible and Mr. Kevin Crane to be indicted for perjury and all the other crimes he eventually committed before the United States Justice will be ridiculed worldwide because such giant miscarriage of Justice as the Ryan Ferguson's case.
E Pluribus Unum
Dr. Gianluca D’Agostino
Gianluca D’Agostino has a JD in Law at the University of Macerata, Italy, he graduated with a thesis in Law and Literature which he developed with the help of Prof. Richard Weisberg of Yeshiva University NY. D’Agostino has also a Ph.D in Theory of Information and Communication. He worked as Researcher at the Department of English of Stanford University and was Visiting Scholar at the Media and Communication Department of Fordham Uniersity NY an at the Film Studies Program of UC Berkeley. He worked also for major news organizations like CNN and Associated Press. In 2008 D’Agostino was hired as Editor by UNHCR for the publishing of the book ”Stories of Human Rights” to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights.
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