COLUMBIA — Ryan Ferguson’s attorney wrapped up the convicted murderer’s case in his hearing for a retrial with testimony from an expert in police interrogation and false confessions who said he doubted the validity of Charles Erickson's confession.
Ferguson was convicted in 2005 for the 2001 murder of Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt after Charles “Chuck” Erickson told police that he and Ferguson committed the murder.
In his testimony, Richard Leo, a law professor at the University of San Franscico, said after watching footage of Columbia police interrogating Erickson and reviewing other documents, he thinks Erickson falsely confessed.
He said that after a suspect offers a confession, interrogators should shift the focus of their questioning to try to elicit information that would help prove whether the confession is true.
“The goal of the police should be to get the truth, not to get a confession,” Leo said.
He said police should gather details from the suspect that were not released to the public from the confessor, or the confessor should be able to provide investigators with new clues.
Leo said watching interrogation videos of Erickson showed him that Columbia police told Erickson information the murderer should have already known, such as the weapon used and where Heitholt’s car was parked in a lot behind the Tribune’s offices.
“I do think this reflects improper techniques,” Leo said. He said that giving Erickson information that he doesn’t know could contaminate the evidence, and Erickson could have created a narrative around those facts.
Leo also said one kind of false confession, called a persuaded or internalized false confession, can take place when the confessor begins to believe he or she actually committed the act.
Erickson used speculative language when he was interrogated, such as “maybe,” “probably” and “I must have done it then,” when he was making statements to police, which Leo said can indicate an internalized false confession.
“It has the hallmarks of a persuaded false confession,” he said.
Columbia Police Detective John Short conducted an interview with Erickson earlier in the day, before Erickson was videotaped. Leo pointed out that the police reports regarding the case relied on the memory of police investigators, so the only records he considered truly accurate in the case were the videotapes of the interrogations.
Stephanie Morrell, Boone County assistant prosecutor, pointed out that those police reports indicate Erickson told friends before he spoke to police that he told the cleaning woman to get help, information that was not released to the public.
“That’s the police’s representation,” Leo said.
Shawna Ornt, who worked as a cleaner at the Tribune at the time of Heitholt’s murder, testified in the 2005 trial that she saw two young white males when she found Heitholt’s body and that one of the men told her to get help. She said Wednesday at the hearing that neither of the men she saw was Erickson or Ferguson.
After Leo finished, Morrell called her first witness, Columbia Police Detective Bryan Liebhart.
Liebhart interviewed Dallas Mallory soon after Erickson’s arrest. Erickson told police he and Ferguson saw Mallory shortly after killing Heitholt and that Erickson told him they had “beat someone down.”
Liebhart met with Mallory a week after Mallory was first interviewed. In his report, he said what Mallory told him concurred with what he had previously told investigators.
But there were two previous police reports: one stated that Mallory did not see Erickson downtown that night and the other stated that Mallory said he had.
Liebhart testified that he could not remember what Mallory said when he spoke to Liebhart.