7: Two Teens Blackout and Commit Murder…Or Did They? | Kent Heitholt

On Halloween night, 2001, Columbia, Missouri, was quiet until the body of Kent Heitholt, a beloved sports editor for the Columbia Daily Tribune, was found brutally beaten and strangled in the newspaper’s parking lot. The crime scene was chaotic. Two janitors claimed to have seen mysterious men nearby. It would take two years before a tip from a college student led detectives to a shocking confession. But that confession, and everything that followed, would unravel one of Missouri’s most controversial murder cases. Was justice served? Or did the wrong men pay the price for a crime that still raises more questions than answers?🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perk Join The Club: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3WpfSP8 Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚Spotify: https://bit.ly/AnnieEliseSpotify 🎙️All Other Platforms: https://bit.ly/annieeliseaudioboom📸Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: https://instagram.com/@_annieelise TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@_annieeliseSubstack: https://bit.ly/AnnieEliseSubstack Facebook: https://facebook.com/@10tolife👗Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: https://bit.ly/annieelise_shopmy Amazon: https://bit.ly/annieelise_amazon ⭐ Sponsors Sundays Food for Dogs: go to http://sundaysfordogs.com/10tolife and get 50% off your first order. Or, you can use code 10tolife at checkout. Veracity: Head to http://VeracitySelfCare.com and use code 10TOLIFE for up to 45% off your order.🫵🏻Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: https://annieelise.com/For Business Inquiries: [email protected]📚Episode Sources 48 Hours | Change.org | Columbia Daily Tribune | Crime Museum | Daily Mail | Find A Grave | Freecharleserikson.com | KOMU 8 |TODAY.com | Wrongful Conviction News••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:15Annie Elise?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to an all-new episode of 10 to Life with me, Annie Elise. Thank you so much for being here. Today, we're going back to the fall of 2001. And this case takes place in Columbia, Missouri, when a 48-year-old man named Kent was working late night as a sports editor. And he had it all. Friends who loved him, a happy family, a job that he was passionate about. You know, even if it was a lot of work and sometimes had some long hours, he loved it. And on October 31st, it was going to be one of those long nights because there was a basketball game that Kent had to cover for the article, for the sports section. And a bunch of the other games hadn't happened yet. But he had to be prepared so that when it was time for him to go, he'd be ready to, you know, write his article and get it going.

• 2:00Annie Elise?

  And he had to be there late, which meant, you know, past midnight even. It was going to be a really long stretch. He actually didn't even end up leaving his office until somewhere between 2:12 or 2:20 in the morning on November 1st, somewhere in that window. And the crazy thing is, it wasn't like Kent was the only one working super late that night. He had other coworkers who were also still at their desks, working hard, getting their articles in. So at around 2:30 a.m., just a few minutes after Kent left, two other coworkers walked out the front door. They were a pair of janitors named Jerry and Shawna. And they had just walked out shortly after him, you know, not too long after, but they didn't see Kent anywhere. Yet, what was weird is that his car was still parked in the lot.

• 2:44Annie Elise?

  They also saw two men near it. Now, these were men that the pair of these coworkers did not recognize at all. It was a pair of white guys who were sort of just like loitering near Kent's car, and they didn't have any reason to be there. And as soon as these two guys saw Jerry and Shawna, they just turned around and like ran away, almost like they had been caught doing something that they weren't supposed to be doing. Now, of course, this was obviously sketchy as hell. So right away, Jerry and Shawna ran over to where the two guys had been, just to see if they could get a sense of, you know, what they had been up to. Were they trying to steal this car? Were they doing drugs? Like, just trying to like figure out what happened since they took off so quickly. And as soon as they got over there, that's when they found Kent. He was lying on the ground in a puddle of his own blood.

• 3:29Annie Elise?

  I'm Annie Elise, and this is 10 to Life. Let's jump right in.

• 3:47Annie Elise?

  Now Jerry and Shawna didn't get a good enough look at him to know if he was alive or dead in that moment. They just saw that he was covered in blood. So they immediately turned around and ran off to go find a phone. Because, remember, this was also 2001. A lot of people didn't have cell phones yet at the time. They knew that their number one priority was to call 911, though. That was their goal. They needed help, and they needed it fast.

• 4:12Speaker 05

  911, what is your emergency?

• 4:13Speaker 06

  Um, we need someone here at the Conley Daily Tribune.

• 4:15Speaker 05

  What's going on?

• 4:16Speaker 06

  I'm, I'm not sure. I was just told, "Call 911, there's somebody hurt outside."

• 4:20Speaker 05

  Is there anybody who can tell me what's going on there?

• 4:22Speaker 06

  Here.

• 4:23Speaker 05

  We're at the main building of the Tribune. And what's going on? The parking lot, the sports editor, Kent, laying in the ground, pool of blood, looks like he'd been shot or something.

• 4:34Speaker 05

  Okay, he's on the parking lot behind the Tribune on the KFC side? Yes, yes. Who did you see in the area? I saw two guys in the area. Were they white or black? White. I'd say nineteen, twenty. What were they wearing? I, I don't know. This gal, she saw them. She walked out to smoke a cigarette, saw them duck down behind the car. Okay. I looked out and saw them and I said, "What's going on?" I knew it was Kent's car and I said, "Kent?" And they didn't look up. Nobody did anything. Somebody's been hurt, man. Okay, so you saw them duck down behind his car? Yes. Okay, and then where did they go after that? I don't know. Up, up towards the new building, uh, towards Fourth Street, I guess it's Fourth. So, just to make sure they're down on the parking lot? Yes. And then all of these guys?

• 5:16Speaker 05

  I don't think, because, well, they, they were close to six feet. Uh, Kent, one of them had blonde hair, really, really short blonde hair. They either one of them had hats or caps. They were headed towards Fourth Street, so would that have been east or? I'd say southeast, but I don't know that for sure because they took off, you know, they just went up that alleyway towards Fourth. All right. We've got officers on the way over there right now. All right, we'll be out there. Okay, bye.

• 5:45Annie Elise?

  In the meantime, while Jerry and Shauna were on the phone and the police were on their way, two more of Kent's coworkers came outside of the building. And this place had a lot of foot traffic for three in the morning, but it was kind of lucky in that regard, right? Because there were a lot of witnesses and a lot of people who could jump in and help in this situation. And these two new coworkers also both worked for the sports department at the newspaper, so they knew Kent very, very well. They liked him. He was a friend of theirs, a mentor even. Most everybody agreed that he was pretty good at writing his stories and covering events too, but his main gift, or his main strength, was editing. And not even just editing, but teaching and coaching others. He was really great at helping other writers get better.

• 6:27Annie Elise?

  He could read an article and immediately tell what was working and what wasn't. So when they got outside and saw Kent, their first instinct was not to call nine one one or get an ambulance. They wanted to intervene. They wanted to save him. So first, they tried taking Kent's pulse, but they didn't pick anything up. Yet, still, they didn't want to give up on him. Now, when they had found him, he was lying face down. So the next move on their part was to flip him over so that he would be face up. They figured that by doing that, it might help him breathe. And if not, and if he wasn't breathing on his own, at least if he were flipped over, one of them could at least attempt mouth to mouth. Except they didn't really actually get a chance to try mouth to mouth. Because by the time they had flipped Kent on his back, the ambulance was finally arriving on the scene.

• 7:12Annie Elise?

  So the two sports reporters sort of, you know, stepped back out of the way, letting the professionals take over. And they could tell that Kent was in really bad shape. I mean, he wasn't breathing. There was blood everywhere. It was not looking good. Right away, the paramedics tried doing CPR, which unfortunately didn't help. They even cut off Kent's sweater so they could use a defibrillator, but that didn't help either. And finally, the paramedics had no choice but to declare Kent dead at the scene. And since there was so much blood at the scene, and there clearly would not have been that much blood if he had, say, had a heart attack or something like that. They knew they needed to treat this as a crime scene. This wasn't just some sort of like medical emergency. Someone had attacked Kent. Somebody had killed him.

• 7:57Annie Elise?

  The police could tell right away that Kent had been badly beaten. I mean, really badly. In fact, later on, his autopsy showed that somebody had struck him at least six times. And not just with a hand, as though that would be horrible, you know, in itself, but with some kind of weapon. Although they couldn't tell exactly what the weapon was. One of the things that the investigators guessed that Kent could have been hit with was a tire iron. The kind you would keep in your trunk or, you know, it's like the long, really heavy bar. But they also thought that his injuries could have been consistent with a nail puller, a plank of wood, even a shoe. Like if somebody had been wearing a particular kind of athletic shoe and then like stomped on him really hard, you know, very forcefully.

• 8:40Annie Elise?

  And there was one thing that all of these weapons or possible weapons could have had in common. They were all things that the murderer could have grabbed right there in the parking lot. They could have either pulled that tire iron or the nail puller out of his trunk, but also he had been parked near a dumpster or a trash can type area. So the attacker could have easily grabbed a plank of wood out of there. I mean, just easily accessible weapons, kind of right then and there. Not necessarily a weapon that you would bring with you to a crime scene, like a gun or a knife, something more like handy, you know, easy to grab. And the point that the investigators were making was that all of these weapons could have been something that not only could have been grabbed at the scene, but could have been grabbed before Kent even entered the parking lot.

• 9:23Annie Elise?

  And there's something else that came out in the autopsy. While Kent had been beaten, that wasn't what killed him. At some point after the killer had beaten him up, they had actually taken Kent's belt off and then used it to choke him to death. And they actually tugged it so hard that it broke the belt. The investigators found the buckle part separate from the strap, like just lying on the ground, completely broken off. And again, it was Kent's own belt, something that the killer didn't have with them before this attack. It was something that they grabbed off his person, literally pulling it off Kent's body after attacking him while they were killing him. So again, probably not premeditated, pre-planned, nothing like that.

• 10:07Annie Elise?

  More of a case where somebody saw Kent in the parking lot, late at night, alone, undefended, and decided to take advantage of the situation. Now, the real question in all of this was why would somebody have attacked Kent in the first place? Because when his body was found, he still had cash on him, which you would think that if this was a robbery gone wrong, the murderer would have certainly taken his money, but they didn't. However, they did take his watch and his car keys, yet they left the car there. My guess is because they were spooked by the coworkers who came out, right? But then if this wasn't a robbery gone wrong, the next theory that the police had to work with was that maybe somebody had killed Kent because they were angry at him. The question then was whether or not he had any enemies.

• 10:50Annie Elise?

  But so far as everybody knew, he didn't. Like I said, he was known for being this very kind, very supportive, very encouraging guy. Everybody loved him. Now, the good news was that the police had plenty of physical evidence that they could use to try and find Kent's killer. I mean, for one thing, there were fingerprints everywhere, both inside and outside of Kent's car, tons of them. Unfortunately, though, the fingerprints on the outside were not very useful. A lot of them were only partial prints, and they were either too faint or too incomplete for the police to be able to use them at all. And the ones that they could pull and match were all Kent's. It's almost like he touched his car door and his hands brushed against it a bunch of times while he was fighting this person, fighting for his life.

• 11:33Annie Elise?

  And it was almost as though the murderer hadn't left a single print of their own behind, at least not on the outside of the car. But the inside of the car also had a bunch of prints in it. And some of them were unusable, again, too faint or too incomplete, and a bunch of them just matched Kent and his daughter. But there were eight unknown prints, one on the passenger side front window and one on the passenger side rear window, then three on the driver's side rear window, and one on the rearview mirror. Also, some on some papers and things that had been inside the car. But surely, a good amount to go off of. Now, here's the thing, the police had no way of knowing if the killer ever actually got into Kent's car or not.

• 12:17Annie Elise?

  I mean, it would have been a little bit weird for the murderer to beat and strangle Kent to death, then climb inside, touch all of the windows, the mirrors, everything, but then leave within 10 or 15 minutes, and not take the car with them, especially when they took the keys. Unless, of course, they were looking for something inside the car. So there was this chance that those prints had absolutely nothing to do with the murder. They could have been from a mechanic, a friend, you know, a coworker that maybe Kent gave a ride to in the past, anybody else. The point being, the prints were not 100% like definite evidence in the case, but they were a place to start. And the good news was that there was also a hair on Kent's body, one that did not come from him.

• 12:57Annie Elise?

  There was also a cigarette butt at the scene that had DNA on it, which did not match Kent's. And there were a bunch of footprints in the blood around Kent's body. Which, again, it didn't automatically mean that any of the evidence could be tied to the killer. Prints and the hair could have come from the coworkers who went out and saw Kent on the ground when they were trying to revive him. It didn't mean that it was concrete evidence. It was good because it was a lot of evidence, but nobody really knew how relevant it was. So the police had a lot to sort through and a lot of people to question and try to rule out.

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• 14:34Annie Elise?

  It was going to be a long investigation, and you might be wondering where the investigators even got started in something like this because it was so busy. But the answer is, they didn't really need to. Because right around the time that they were starting to investigate Kent's murder, someone else, someone who really didn't seem to have anything to do with the case, made an incredibly shocking discovery. And in order to explain that a little bit, I have to backtrack just a tiny bit. And I need to tell you about a guy named Charles Erickson. He went by Chuck for short and he was a teenager and not exactly what you would call a good kid. Chuck and his friend, nineteen year old Ryan Ferguson,

• 15:17Annie Elise?

  were very into hard drugs and binge drinking, which I know is a thing a lot of teenagers do. It's not like going out and getting drunk before you're twenty one makes you a monster or anything like that. But Ryan and Chuck would take things to extremes. And on the night of Halloween, the same night that Kent got murdered, Chuck and Ryan managed to sneak past a bouncer at a bar and start their drinking, or their binge drinking, I should say. They were also doing a lot of illegal drugs. And in fact, Chuck went so hard, he ended up blacking out entirely. The next morning came around and he had no memory whatsoever of what happened the night before. He asked Ryan and Ryan was kind of basically like, you know, don't worry about it. We had a lot of drinks. I drove you home. Everything's good. You know, it happens. Don't worry.

• 16:02Annie Elise?

  But Chuck just could not shake the feeling that there was more to this, that something else had happened that night. More specifically, that he had gotten into some kind of trouble, something important had happened, and he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, but there was a feeling just nagging at him. And the thing is, around that time, Chuck was also having these really intense and kind of violent dreams. I don't know the full details on what exactly these nightmares were about, but I do know that they involved attacking somebody, lots of blood, and very disturbing images and ideas. And then he saw a news report about Kent's murder. And this was especially shocking to Chuck because the parking lot where Kent had been attacked and killed

• 16:45Annie Elise?

  was actually really close to the bar that he and Ryan had been drinking at and partying at. Almost like if the two of them had gone outside after last call and then sort of wandered around for a little bit, it would have been very easy for them to end up at the scene of the crime, right as the murder was happening. And remember how there were those eyewitnesses who saw two white men near Kent's body and then take off? Well, first of all, Chuck and Ryan were both white. And second of all, the police actually released a sketch of one of the men that the two coworkers had seen, and it was published in the newspaper. And when Chuck saw the sketch, all he could think was like, holy shit, that looks exactly like a picture of me.

• 17:26Annie Elise?

  And to be clear, Chuck still didn't actually remember hurting or even killing Kent. He definitely didn't know for sure if he had anything to do with the murder. But it did seem like all of these little puzzle pieces were now coming together. I mean, the dreams, the sketch, the eyewitnesses. So finally Chuck started becoming obsessed with the idea. The idea that he might have been a murderer. And I know that this is crazy, but he also thought that he had just completely forgotten about taking this other person's life. And as insane as it sounds, Chuck knew that he had been out and doing drugs all night and like partying and doing all of that. So he thought that he had gone on this substance fueled bender, this crime spree.

• 18:07Annie Elise?

  And then after just sleeping it off, it was almost like poof, his memories were gone. But then one day, completely out of the blue, the police got in contact with Chuck and they said that they wanted to interrogate him. They said he was a person of interest in Kent's murder investigation. Which you might be thinking, okay, well, how did the police even know to question him? Did they track him down based on fingerprints, DNA? What was it that made them want to interrogate him? But it was Chuck who got himself called into the interrogation. Because the whole time that he was having these weird memory like dreams and finding all of this evidence that kind of made him look like a killer. He was telling everybody about what was going on. He was not quiet about any of this.

• 18:48Annie Elise?

  All of his friends and casual acquaintances would hear Chuck thinking out loud, worrying out loud about how he thought that maybe he was a murderer. How he had gotten away with it up until now. That he was paranoid that the sketch looked like him, that he was having these weird dreams. So eventually someone he knew made an anonymous tip to police and repeated everything that he had been talking about. Which led police directly to Chuck. So now they put Chuck in a position where they needed to talk with him about the case and see what he knew. But that also kind of put him in an awkward position because he didn't actually know anything. He just had this gut feeling, these weird dreams, which of course are not the same as having actual hard evidence in a case.

• 19:29Annie Elise?

  Still, in spite of everything else that was going on, everything, you know, he thought might have or might not have happened. Chuck was a good guy at heart. The thought that he might have been a murderer made him sick to his stomach. And his thinking was, if his suspicions were real, he didn't want to get away with it. He didn't want to be a murderer. He wanted justice to be served. So as soon as Chuck sat down in the interrogation, he told the police the absolute complete truth. Well, you know, as well as he knew it anyway. And he started off by saying that he didn't even actually remember that night at all because of all of the drugs and the alcohol. But he also admitted straight up that he thought there was a very good chance that he could have been involved with the crime, even more so that he might have been the one who actually committed it.

• 20:13Annie Elise?

  And then, once he started talking, it was like something unlocked in Chuck's brain. More and more details came just pouring out of his mouth, and he ended up giving a very detailed confession. And look, I think that his interrogation tapes really speak for themselves, so I want to play those for you rather than just regurgitate it.

• 20:32Speaker 09

  What night was this that this that this happened down at the Tribune? Was there a special occasion?

• 20:37Speaker 10

  Halloween, yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 09

  Halloween, okay. So that night, when you see Ryan choking out, do you think that Ryan was choking to make sure he was dead?

• 20:44Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 09

  Yeah, did he say that, or is that just you thinking that?

• 20:48Speaker 10

  That's what I think.

• 20:49Speaker 09

  Okay, all right. Was there anything taken from the guy that we will know where it's at or we'll be able to find?

• 20:55Speaker 10

  I think his dad found the wallet.

• 20:57Speaker 09

  Ryan's dad found the wallet?

• 20:58Speaker 10

  Yeah, but I don't know.

• 21:00Speaker 09

  Okay, not for certain on that?

• 21:01Speaker 10

  No.

• 21:02Speaker 09

  Okay. And what did you say earlier about what you thought he choked him with? Or is it possible he may have choked him with something, is that right?

• 21:09Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 21:10Speaker 09

  But you don't know what it was?

• 21:11Speaker 10

  No.

• 21:12Speaker 09

  Okay, all right. There was obviously a lot of injuries to this guy, so it's pretty obvious that he was hit more than once, but you're not sure who did that, right?

• 21:18Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 09

  So basically, your feeling or what you're recalling?

• 21:21Speaker 10

  I think I just blacked out.

• 21:23Speaker 09

  Okay. After you hit the guy and he went down, you see Ryan choking?

• 21:26Speaker 10

  I mean, yeah. I mean, I blacked out in between when I hit the guy and and when I see this lady, basically.

• 21:35Speaker 09

  Okay, but you did see Ryan choking him out?

• 21:37Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 09

  Okay. All right. Hang on for just a second.

• 21:41Speaker 11

  So, my angle to you is, I need to know as much information about what Ryan said to you as what Ryan did. That's the best I can tell you. Like, I don't... Okay, well, let's start. You start, you were at the club, right? Yeah. And my understanding is, and I'm just going to try to briefly explain to you what my understanding is, is that you guys needed money.

• 22:14Speaker 10

  This is, this is, alright, this is after reading the newspaper article in October.

• 22:19Speaker 11

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:20Speaker 10

  And this is kinda what I put together with, I mean, I don't know if I'm just flipping out or whatever. But, I mean, this is kinda what I put together with what could have happened. We, I remember, we were at the club, we ran out of money, like he'd been asking the sister to borrow money. And then, from there on, I'm just kinda presuming what happened. I'm making presumptions based on what I read in the newspaper.

• 22:45Speaker 11

  Well, you're making accurate presumptions, that, like I said, that you would only know if you were there.

• 22:51Speaker 10

  Like what? What, the, the lady, the cleaning lady?

• 22:55Speaker 11

  That's one.

• 22:56Speaker 10

  That was in the newspaper.

• 22:57Speaker 11

  Well, no, about what was specifically said to that lady.

• 23:02Speaker 10

  I mean.

• 23:03Speaker 11

  No, no, you explained, I'm not gonna.

• 23:05Speaker 10

  I mean, you know what I'm saying, like, I wouldn't be here if I didn't feel guilty about it. But it's just, I don't, I can't recollect, I mean, it's just a trip for me to have to sit here and try to look at something that happened that I've read about and try to base what I remember off of that, you know, it's, it's a mindfuck.

• 23:20Speaker 11

  Let's, let's just stop right here, okay? Now, one thing I'm not gonna do, is I'm not gonna sit here and listen to this kinda jerk, okay? That's not, I'm not gonna waste my time doing that. No, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, now, listen, it's my, I'm gonna start talking, and you're gonna start listening. Okay? Alright. I'm gonna be point blank with you, pal. Right now, your hind end is the one that's hanging over the edge, and Ryan could care less about it. Okay? Do you understand me?

• 23:55Speaker 10

  Yes.

• 23:55Speaker 11

  Okay.

• 23:56Speaker 10

  Yes.

• 23:56Speaker 11

  Now, you better start thinking very clearly.

• 24:02Speaker 10

  Okay.

• 24:04Speaker 11

  Because it's you that is on this chopping block.

• 24:08Speaker 10

  Okay.

• 24:10Speaker 11

  Am I clear to you?

• 24:12Speaker 10

  Yes.

• 24:14Speaker 11

  Now, do we need to go by, or go back and go through this step by step?

• 24:25Speaker 11

  I think we do, and that's what we're gonna do. And I don't wanna hear.

• 24:33Speaker 11

  Oh, all of a sudden I just think I maybe fabricated all this and. No, what I wanna hear is exactly what Ryan told you because that's what's gonna keep you in a position to where you're not gonna be the sole individual out here responsible for what happened to Kent.

• 24:55Speaker 10

  Okay.

• 24:56Speaker 11

  Okay?

• 24:56Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 11

  I can't be any more clear to you than that.

• 24:59Speaker 10

  I understand.

• 24:59Speaker 11

  And you need to understand it, okay?

• 25:03Speaker 11

  We're gonna start back at the club. Whose idea was it to go get money because you wanted drinks, you wanted dope, whatever you want?

• 25:12Speaker 10

  I wanted to go home, that was Ryan's idea.

• 25:15Speaker 11

  Ryan's idea?

• 25:16Speaker 10

  Best of my knowledge, yes.

• 25:17Speaker 11

  I don't wanna even hear whose idea, or best of my knowledge, whose idea was it?

• 25:22Speaker 10

  It was Ryan's idea.

• 25:23Speaker 11

  Ryan's idea, and what did he tell you?

• 25:25Speaker 10

  That we need some more money for drinks and his sister wouldn't give us any more money.

• 25:29Speaker 11

  Okay, and he said, we're gonna do what about it?

• 25:32Speaker 10

  We're gonna rob someone.

• 25:34Speaker 11

  You're gonna rob somebody? And so that led up to you and him leaving together?

• 25:40Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 25:41Speaker 11

  And you went to where?

• 25:43Speaker 10

  We went to the Tribune Mill.

• 25:45Speaker 11

  Well, before that, you went where?

• 25:47Speaker 10

  We went to his car.

• 25:48Speaker 11

  To his car, which was parked where?

• 25:51Speaker 10

  Down, whatever street that is, that five doors along.

• 25:54Speaker 11

  Where we drove through earlier, you and I and the other two detectives. On, on First Street. It was parked alongside the street. And you went there for what reason?

• 26:05Speaker 10

  To get something out of his car.

• 26:07Speaker 11

  Get something out of the car?

• 26:08Speaker 10

  To get a weapon out of his car.

• 26:10Speaker 11

  To get a weapon out of his car?

• 26:12Speaker 10

  What we tried to do.

• 26:13Speaker 11

  Whose idea was it to go to the car to get a weapon out of the car?

• 26:16Speaker 10

  It was his.

• 26:17Speaker 11

  His idea?

• 26:17Speaker 10

  Yes.

• 26:18Speaker 11

  And how did he articulate that to you?

• 26:20Speaker 10

  Basically that we're young, we're an high school boy, fucked up, if we're just gonna try to rob someone just regularly without it.

• 26:27Speaker 11

  So you're young, you're afraid you'll get fucked up because you're not a big stature, and you wanted to go to the car to get something out of the car, a weapon?

• 26:38Speaker 10

  Yes.

• 26:39Speaker 11

  In order to do what with it?

• 26:42Speaker 10

  If it came down to it.

• 26:43Speaker 11

  If it came down to it.

• 26:44Speaker 10

  To beat someone.

• 26:45Speaker 11

  To beat someone with it. To possibly beat him.

• 26:48Speaker 10

  To death.

• 26:49Speaker 11

  To death?

• 26:50Speaker 10

  Hopefully.

• 26:51Speaker 11

  Hopefully?

• 26:52Speaker 10

  Hopefully not, no, I mean, hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

• 26:56Speaker 11

  But you went there with the knowledge of getting a weapon and it could come to that.

• 27:01Speaker 10

  And it did.

• 27:02Speaker 11

  And it did come to that. And who took the weapon out of the car?

• 27:07Speaker 10

  Out of the car?

• 27:08Speaker 11

  Yes.

• 27:10Speaker 10

  I don't know if I carried it from the car. I don't, I'm pretty sure that he took it out of the car, but I think that I carried it after that.

• 27:17Speaker 11

  He carried, he got it out of the car, apparently transferred it to you and you carried it from the car to the tribute building.

• 27:25Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 27:26Speaker 11

  Is that what you're saying?

• 27:27Speaker 10

  Yes.

• 27:27Speaker 11

  Okay, what did Ryan carry with him?

• 27:30Speaker 10

  I don't think anything.

• 27:31Speaker 11

  And you described that weapon as what?

• 27:33Speaker 10

  I think it was, it was skinny and so, I mean, I don't think it was a wrench to get the lug nuts off the tire. I think it was something for like the jack.

• 27:41Speaker 11

  Like a handle for the jack?

• 27:43Speaker 10

  I think it had a handle on it, actually, like it was, looked like a question mark with like a long, like the top's very small. And then it went like a question mark. So you twist it like this. I can draw.

• 27:55Speaker 11

  Like a, like a ratchet?

• 27:58Speaker 10

  I can draw you a picture.

• 27:58Speaker 11

  Sure.

• 28:03Speaker 08

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• 28:32Speaker 12

  If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Hi, I'm Sean Evans from Hot Ones and I want to tell you about YouTube Premium. It has offline downloads, so you can watch without Wi-Fi. Background play, so you can lock your phone and it still plays, baby. Oh, and it is completely ad-free. Yes, I said it, ad-free. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime.

• 29:06Annie Elise?

  Now, the thing that's really different about this case, which makes it different from a lot of the other cases that we've covered and that we've talked about, is that Chuck really did seem to want to do the right thing. I mean, even when he was saying that he was blacked out and didn't remember the murder, didn't remember a single detail, he wasn't using that as an excuse for why he did it, or to say that he was innocent. I mean, he was totally cooperative. Now, as for his friend Ryan, who supposedly committed the crime with him, it wasn't so straightforward. Because even after Chuck told the police about his involvement, Ryan ended up getting called in for an interrogation too. And during that, he kept on insisting that he was innocent.

• 29:43Speaker 13

  I did not do anything. I did not say anything.

• 29:47Speaker 13

  And I'm here for murder? Like, I didn't do [BLEEP].

• 29:51Speaker 14

  Chuck says that he got kind of sick to his stomach after you hit this guy. During that time, he looks over and sees you on top of the guy who's down, and you choke him out. He says strangling him. You believe this?

• 30:06Speaker 13

  I would. Chuck probably had something to do with it.

• 30:09Speaker 14

  Well, he said it's true.

• 30:11Speaker 13

  Alright, well, I mean, he could very well have been a part of it. I'm not.

• 30:15Speaker 14

  You know, calm as hell when we come down there. We start talking about the murder, you're like, "I didn't do it. Wasn't there. Don't know what's on about." If the police pulled me in saying we were talking about a murder, I'm gonna be getting about half crazy.

• 30:22Speaker 13

  I am [BLEEP] half crazy, dude. I'm sorry, I'm good at [BLEEP]. I think my emotions [BLEEP]. I'm shaking like a [BLEEP] leaf here. I didn't do anything. About to get in trouble for something I didn't do.

• 30:32Annie Elise?

  Now, we see this a lot, but the police didn't need Ryan to confess to be able to move forward with pressing charges. I mean, in their mind, they already had plenty of evidence. In fact, Chuck accepted a plea deal. He agreed to plead guilty to killing and robbing Kent, and also to testify against Ryan during his murder trial. And in exchange, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison, which, I do have to say, is pretty short for murder. But given that Chuck had been nothing but cooperative the whole time, and told them everything he knew, and was forthcoming, it did make a little bit of sense for the courts to go easier on him, rather than Ryan, who was just claiming his innocence in all of this. So in October of 2005, Ryan also went to court and he was facing charges of second

• 31:16Annie Elise?

  degree murder and robbery. He still was saying though that he was not guilty. And during the trial, something very, very interesting happened on the witness stand. Now you may remember Jerry. He was one of the janitors who saw the two guys in the parking lot on the night of Kent's murder, the one when he said he saw them, you know, book it and take off. Well, now Ryan and his lawyers knew that Jerry was going to testify. I mean, how could he not? He was one of the most important key eyewitnesses who could put Ryan right there at the scene of the crime. But also I could see where maybe they weren't very worried because Jerry and Ryan had never met. Jerry had also never gotten a clear picture visual of Ryan. It was a parking lot. There was a lot of distance. It was dark that night.

• 31:56Annie Elise?

  So there was some credibility, I guess, that could easily be thrown into question. Yes, you see a white man running from the scene, but how well can you identify them? Right? So it was going to be a little bit interesting. In fact, Jerry had even told the police that he didn't feel comfortable identifying him in a lineup because he didn't get such a good look at him. And the other janitor witness, Shawna, had also already testified to all of that. During her testimony, she straight up said that she had no idea if Ryan was the same guy that she had seen that night. So if both of these eyewitnesses were sworn in and said that they weren't sure if Ryan had done it or not, that could only really help Ryan's case, right? I mean, give everybody some reasonable doubt. But then Ryan and his attorney were in complete shock when Jerry took the stand.

• 32:41Annie Elise?

  Because the lawyer asked Jerry if the person he had seen in the parking lot was in the courtroom at that moment and if he could identify him. And sure enough, Jerry just pointed directly at Ryan. Which you might be wondering, how, okay, well, how did Jerry go from saying he couldn't describe the men at all to now just confidently and boldly identifying Ryan and pointing to him, saying he's one of them? Well, the way he explains it is that he had been through some personal growth and change of his own since the murder. See, Jerry was a sex criminal. And at some point between Kent's death and Ryan's trial, Jerry actually got caught, arrested, and sentenced. Then he spent some time in prison. He testified on the stand that while he was in prison, his wife mailed him an article

• 33:24Annie Elise?

  one day, and it was the news story about Ryan and Chuck getting arrested, and it also had their mug shots on it. So Jerry testified that the moment he saw those photos, he just knew, he recognized them instantly. It was almost like it unlocked a memory for him. Because as it turned out, he had gotten a good look at the two guys. He just hadn't been able to recall it when he had given that statement to the police the first time. This according to Jerry. Which I think it's interesting that both he and Chuck have these like miraculously recovered memories that were suppressed and gone forever. I mean, feels a bit odd, doesn't it? Now, as for Ryan and his defense team, he was still saying that he was innocent. And he was saying that he had no idea why Chuck was saying they committed this murder together.

• 34:09Annie Elise?

  The only explanation that he could come up with was that maybe after the two of them had gone home that night, Chuck might have gone back to the same area to kill Kent. And he was now blaming Ryan just to get off clean and be a dick and, you know, throw the blame on him. Which, I get it, it's not a great argument. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. But what else was he going to do? He had really no other option to, you know, cast doubt anywhere. But it was no surprise at all that the jury was not convinced of this. They found Ryan guilty of the robbery and the murder, and they sentenced him to 40 years in prison. And at this point, you might be thinking, okay, well, that was a pretty short episode, Annie, pretty clear cut, no twists, no turns, pretty easy. Here's where it gets wild, because everything is about to go off the rails at this point.

• 34:54Annie Elise?

  And this is where things get really insane. See, after his conviction, Ryan filed appeal after appeal. He was still saying that he was innocent, that he wanted the courts to overturn his conviction. Because according to him, there wasn't actually enough evidence to justify a guilty verdict. And, he was actually right about that. See, there were some details that didn't come out during his trial, and other things that his lawyers argued during his trial, but the jury ignored all of it for one reason or another. For one, like how there was actually no physical evidence to put him at the crime scene whatsoever. I'm talking zip, zero, zilch. And earlier, I mentioned how the police had the fingerprints, the hair, the cigarette butt, the footprints in the blood, all of those things, and they thought that these

• 35:38Annie Elise?

  things might have been from the killer, right? Except when the investigators compared all of those things to Ryan and Chuck, checking against their prints, their DNA, all of that, there wasn't a single match. The profiles weren't even close. Then there were some problems with the eyewitnesses, which I'll go back to Jerry, the janitor. He's the one who claimed in the beginning not to have seen them, but then claimed he had this repressed or suppressed memory, whichever you would say, come back to him and he could identify him. And he pointed at Ryan right there in the courtroom. Well, it felt a little too easy. I mean, yeah, stranger things have happened, but it kind of put a question in everybody's mind. Now, what I will say, for whatever reason, his defense team didn't really pick Jerry's story apart during the trial,

• 36:23Annie Elise?

  which was a miss on their part because if there's two separate versions of events where he's saying he can't identify him and now he clearly can, it's a defense attorney's job to like pick that apart, right? Make him seem less credible. But for whatever reason, they didn't do that, which was a problem because there were some major holes in Jerry's story. And Ryan's lawyers probably would have spotted them if they had enough time to like prepare, to cross him, to pick apart his story, or just maybe even like dug a little further. But there were definitely holes. Now, the biggest thing that wasn't adding up is if you remember, Jerry said that while he was in prison, his wife sent him that article that had the mugshots. That's how he was able to have that memory come back and identify the two of them. Except his wife was saying, no, I've never sent him anything. I didn't even know about that case.

• 37:08Annie Elise?

  What are you talking about? So then when Jerry was confronted with that information, he admitted that he straight up lied. He said he made the whole thing up and he still didn't remember what the two men in the parking lot had looked like. He wasn't confident that Ryan was one of them. And according to Jerry, the only reason that he had lied during the trial was because he says he wanted to be helpful. He figured that the police had probably done their work. They probably arrested the right guy. So he wanted to do his part. His thinking was that if he told a little fib and it got a murderer put away behind bars, that it would be a win and that it was a plus. Except it's not if you're putting the wrong person behind bars. He also admitted that he was afraid of what would happen to him if he didn't cooperate. Because again, he was in prison on separate charges at that time.

• 37:54Annie Elise?

  So his fear was that if he kept saying he didn't know who these men were and that he didn't recognize Ryan, then it might have a negative impact on his own sentence and his own ability to get out on parole. So he lied. He said that he had known Ryan was the one at the scene of the crime, but he thought that it was the right thing to do. So now he said he was willing to testify during Ryan's appeal hearing and help him get the conviction completely overturned. But then we also have to talk about Chuck, the person whose confession had pretty much been the cornerstone of the whole case against Ryan, which, let's be real, his confession was always a little bit off, right? I mean, he claimed he couldn't remember that night, but he was having these images. He was then able to come up with all these very detailed descriptions of how he and Ryan had killed Kent

• 38:38Annie Elise?

  and how Ryan was the one behind it, you know, the main driving force and all of it. And then even after he confessed, he still said he didn't remember a whole lot of details. And he actually said that the only reason he knew so much was because he had done a lot of research. He had been reading the papers, watching the news, doing his own little investigation. So in other words, when he went to the police and said that he knew all of these things about how Kent had died, it wasn't because he had any special insider information or firsthand account of it. He was just repeating what he had learned from other places. But it gets even crazier than that, because you know that anytime the police are investigating a serious crime, they of course always keep details private, right?

• 39:20Annie Elise?

  There are always certain details and facts that they don't want other people knowing. That's what's going to help them decipher real confessions from false ones, right? And like, who really knows the truth? Well, when it came to all of those little details, the things that weren't public knowledge, Chuck got a lot of those details wrong. When he described the exact way that he and Ryan supposedly killed Kent, the specific details he described did not match what the coroner had said. And I know I described Kent's murder a little bit earlier in this episode, but I want to go back really quick and I want to just revisit those details because it is very important in order to understand this next part. Now here's what the police know. When Kent left his office at 2:12 or 2:20 a.m., he had a bunch of things in his arms.

• 40:05Annie Elise?

  Paperwork, cellphone, car keys, and so he walked to his car and opened the passenger side door. Then he bent forward, I would assume to maybe either like grab something, maybe he dropped something, maybe to put it in, whatever. Nobody's sure why he was leaning over. But we do know that that is the position that he was in when this attack began. So he was leaning forward when the attacker hit him in the back of the head. And the blow was hard enough that it knocked Kent's glasses off and they landed inside his car. He also dropped all of his paperwork on the ground. Then he fell forward and he hit his head against the outside of his car and he landed on his hands and knees, almost like to brace himself.

• 40:45Annie Elise?

  And for the entire rest of the attack, that's the position that Kent was in, just kind of down on all fours. He tried to defend himself as well as he could, which we know from his defensive wounds, but he never managed to make it back on his feet. He was just beaten there, on the ground, then choked with his own belt and left to die in this parking lot. Except when Chuck gave his version and his confession about wrapping the belt around Kent's neck, the tightening it, all of that, the angles that he was describing were completely wrong. He wasn't talking about beating a man who was already down on his knees. He was talking about a completely different situation. And let's also talk about the motive.

• 41:27Annie Elise?

  Chuck said that he and Ryan killed Kent because they were out of beer money. He said that it was a robbery or, you know, a mugging that then escalated to murder. Then, once he was dead, they took his cash, they went back to the bar, they used that money to pay their tab, to party a little more, and whatever. Except you may remember, the only thing that was taken from Kent was his watch and his car keys. They never took any cash off of him. Which, look, I've never heard of a beer that they will let you pay for with a watch and car keys. So, again, this whole story about motive made no sense. And if you look at the footage of his interrogation, there are also these moments where it seems like the police are almost feeding Chuck this information.

• 42:08Annie Elise?

  Like, they knew for a fact that he was not the killer, but they were willing to let him take the fall anyway. Take a listen.

• 42:16Speaker 09

  Well, you said earlier that after you hit, after you hit the guy, that you got sick. Did you actually throw up or did you just feel, no, do you, right? You did throw up there. Okay.

• 42:26Speaker 09

  We didn't find any vomit down there, so can you kind of pinpoint where you think you got sick at? Was it in the park maybe, or on some dirt, or was it on concrete? Do you remember hearing that splashing sound?

• 42:36Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 42:37Speaker 09

  You think? Not certain though, right?

• 42:39Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 42:39Speaker 09

  Okay, that's fine.

• 42:42Speaker 09

  Back to the ranch. These are just my notes, so I'm really asking. You said it was kind of like a tire tool style wrench, is that right?

• 42:49Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 42:50Speaker 09

  Let's go back to when we were talking about how you saw Ryan strangle this guy. Now, we know what the guy got strangled with. That's kind of a thing I've been holding back from you.

• 43:01Speaker 10

  Alright.

• 43:03Speaker 09

  Is it possible that you know what he was strangled with and just didn't want to tell me? Because I know-

• 43:06Speaker 10

  No, like I think it was a shirt or something.

• 43:08Speaker 09

  Well, I know it wasn't a shirt.

• 43:10Speaker 10

  It's like, maybe a bungee cord, or I don't, something from his car. I don't see why it'd have rope in his car.

• 43:15Speaker 09

  Well, we know for a fact that his belt was ripped off of his pants and he was strangled with his belt.

• 43:19Speaker 10

  Really?

• 43:20Speaker 09

  Yeah. Do you see a belt in Ryan's hand? Something that looked like a rope maybe, or a bungee cord?

• 43:26Speaker 10

  I don't know.

• 43:26Speaker 09

  Okay. You didn't put anything in your hand, though?

• 43:28Speaker 10

  No. I mean, I don't remember that at all.

• 43:31Speaker 09

  Okay.

• 43:31Annie Elise?

  Chuck's confession was basically bullshit. It was coached, it was full of holes, and it didn't involve any details that were not public knowledge. In fact, after he and Ryan were both convicted, he recorded a new confession, where he said his previous confession had been a lie. Now, he wanted to walk it all back.

• 43:51Speaker 10

  Things happened much differently than I had previously stated. I could not accept in my conscious mind that I was the sole perpetrator. I regret now that I put an innocent man through that. He didn't deserve it. I made up what I said about Ryan being on top of the victim. I lied about him strangling the victim. That was a lie. Ryan never touched the victim.

• 44:12Annie Elise?

  So, to recap, the physical evidence did not indicate in any way, shape, or form that Ryan or Chuck were anywhere close to Kent at the time of the murder. And the one and only eyewitness who put Ryan at the crime scene was also now backtracking, saying he didn't recognize Ryan or Chuck, and he had no reason to think that they were guilty. He even came to Ryan's appeal hearing and said so under oath.

• 44:37Speaker 15

  When you pointed to Ryan Burris then in the courtroom and you said, "That's the person you saw at the Columbia Tribune parking lot," was that true or false?

• 44:48Speaker 16

  Bullshit.

• 44:49Speaker 15

  Do you anticipate or want anything for doing this?

• 44:56Speaker 16

  Yes. I'd like to have forgiveness from Ryan and his

• 45:07Speaker 16

  and his family.

• 45:09Speaker 15

  And did you make that up or did someone else make that story up?

• 45:12Speaker 16

  Someone else did.

• 45:14Speaker 15

  And who was that?

• 45:15Speaker 16

  Kevin Crane.

• 45:17Speaker 17

  Crane's the prosecutor from the 2005 trial, but the Attorney General's office isn't buying Trump's recantation.

• 45:23Speaker 14

  How is it that you're able to remember that today and never have been able to remember it up till?

• 45:27Speaker 16

  I had remembered it before. I didn't want to say it because of fear of being in trouble with Mr. Crane.

• 45:36Annie Elise?

  So in light of all of that, it was pretty difficult to see Ryan as a cold-blooded murderer. It really did sound like maybe he had been convicted for a crime that he didn't commit, which of course, first and foremost, meant it was certainly unfair for him to be in prison. An innocent man should not be locked up for something that they didn't do. But also, it meant that the real killer was still out there. Police needed to figure out who this was. Now, the bad news is that the appeals process is pretty tricky. It is not easy to get a conviction overturned, even with a bunch of evidence on your side. And it's actually designed that way on purpose because lawmakers didn't want to make it too easy for actually guilty people to try to get a retrial and like, you know, retrial after retrial, until eventually they'll get the result that they want.

• 46:21Annie Elise?

  So it's meant to be difficult. But the other side of that is that when actually innocent people are found guilty, it's incredibly hard for them to get justice and become free. And that is something that Ryan unfortunately learned the hard way. You'll remember that he was found guilty and sentenced in the fall of 2005. And over the next seven years, he filed no fewer than 11 appeals. And every single one of those appeals was denied for one reason or another. In some cases, it's because the judge didn't believe his argument. They didn't trust Jerry and Chuck when they had been lying before. And now that they wanted to tell the truth, there were also other factors that were kind of complicated with like legal things. I mean, like I said, the appeals process is difficult.

• 47:05Annie Elise?

  It's confusing by design. But finally, in November of 2013, Ryan won his 12th appeal. It had been eight years by this point, eight years of sitting in prison for a crime that he didn't commit. That's how long it took to convince a judge to give him another chance. Now, I want to be clear, winning an appeal does not automatically mean that you're let go or that you're found not guilty. And in Ryan's case, it just meant that he could have a second trial, a second shot at proving that he didn't kill anyone. Which that, of course, meant that there was still a chance that he could be convicted again and sentenced to 40 years again. But even so, it was a chance at freedom, a chance that he had, of course, take.

• 47:47Annie Elise?

  And the good news was that by this point, a lot of people were looking at the evidence and reevaluating things. There was this huge movement of people who thought that he wasn't guilty and that he should have never even been sent to prison in the first place. There were a ton of Free Ryan-type Facebook groups, different communities of people spreading information on social media, trying to raise awareness. And it was actually kind of ironic that so many of his supporters were on Facebook because Ryan never created a Facebook account. He never got the chance to before his arrest. So a bunch of these supporters started showing up at court during Ryan's last appeal. They were holding up signs, making sure everybody knew what was going on, what the truth was, seeing how many people believed in Ryan and wanted to see him be set free.

• 48:32Annie Elise?

  And even the state seemed convinced, because rather than have another trial against Ryan, they decided to just drop the charges. Which was great news on one hand, because when an innocent person gets let out of prison, it's always a step in the right direction, right? However, Ryan had also lost almost a decade of his life to the first wrongful sentence. So once Ryan was now out of prison, he ended up suing the police department. And the police department had to pay him, I think it was somewhere around like $5 million. They didn't have the money to do that, so he sued the insurance. And it was all this back and forth, but, you know, wrongful conviction, covering his legal fees, everything. And in the end, he ended up winning. And he won about $38 million. Which you might be thinking, okay, well, what about Chuck?

• 49:17Annie Elise?

  He obviously, it turned out, his confession was coerced and that it wasn't real and that Ryan's innocent, he's probably going to be free too, right? Like I said, the appeals process is designed to be complicated. So even though Ryan was out now and free, Chuck had to go through a whole appeals process on his own. And it ended up taking until 2023 for him to get released, meaning he served 18 years of his original 25-year sentence, which I'm glad he did get out early, if you can even call it that, because life is short and every day counts. But it's also very frustrating to know that he was fighting so hard to prove his innocence and go through the whole appeals process just to get released two-thirds of the way through the sentence. Also, think through

• 50:00Annie Elise?

  the fact that like, yeah, he was in prison for his own fault, like I guess, because he had confessed to this. But also, he was having these vivid nightmares and he wanted to do the right thing because he thought he was a murderer. So he was confessing to something and confessing to a crime he didn't commit, but then the police were like further bolstering that. It's just, it's very complicated. And like, do we feel sorry for him? Do we feel sorry for Ryan? Was it his own fault for doing that? I don't think so. I think he was trying to do the right thing, but it's very convoluted, right? Now, the good thing that came out of this was because there was so much attention and notoriety around this case, it did create some new career opportunities for them, public-facing

• 50:43Annie Elise?

  opportunities. Specifically, producers from the show The Amazing Race reached out to be a contestant. And Ryan was so down, he was all in. There were some delays due to COVID and all of this, but he was really excited about it. Now, look, I'm glad that Ryan and Chuck both landed on their feet, were exonerated, got their lives back. But also, I don't want us to lose sight of the other victim in this story, someone who still, to this day, has not received justice, and that's Kent. His killer is still out there. And you may remember, I had talked about the DNA samples, the cigarettes, the fingerprints. The plan was, when they kicked this investigation back into high gear, to start collecting all of that from, you know, coworkers, people who may have

• 51:27Annie Elise?

  been there, people who've been by the friends, people who are by the parking lot. But apparently, they never got around to doing that. Seriously, it's entirely possible that the police, right now, have the evidence in their possession that could solve the case, yet they're not looking into it. And I don't know why. Maybe they lost momentum during the time when Ryan and Chuck were in prison. Maybe it's not a priority anymore. Maybe they're embarrassed about the whole situation. I don't know. What I do know is Kent deserves better. And the fact that this was fumbled so badly from the start is incredibly infuriating. He was a father, he was a husband, he was a loved coworker, and where's the justice? They saw two people running away from the

• 52:09Annie Elise?

  scene. Where are those two people? What caused Chuck to have those nightmares too? I mean, I don't, what do, who do you think is really involved here? And what do you think happened? There are, it's so convoluted and so messy. And that's why this is like a very controversial case too, because there are a lot of different opinions out there. Some who think too that Chuck and Ryan really are the guys and that they just somehow got away with it. I don't know. You tell me what you think. Now, there is one theory I want to share with you because it has taken flight. A lot of people who have been invested in this case have been talking about it, but it's not verified. Do your own research as always, but because so many people are talking about it, I figured I would mention it. So, a lot of people think

• 52:51Annie Elise?

  that Kent might have been killed by a coworker of his, a man named Michael Boyd. Now, I mentioned this before, but a ton of sports reporters were working really late on the night when Kent got murdered. And Michael was one of them. He worked for the same paper. And he was also in the parking lot around the time when Kent was attacked, which means he could potentially have seen something, right? However, it's almost impossible to know what he saw or didn't see, because the police interrogated him six times, and each time, his story changed drastically. At least once, he said that he saw two men who resembled Ryan and Chuck in an alley near the parking lot. But of course, he didn't share that detail until after Chuck and Ryan had been arrested, almost like he was telling the police what

• 53:35Annie Elise?

  they wanted to hear, rather than being truthful. But what makes Michael's situation different and questionable in all of this, is he's the Last person who saw Kent alive. Or I should say it's believed that he was the last person to see him alive. And that detail is especially important because we're not sure what the motive was in Kent's murder. The whole robbery gone wrong angle doesn't make a whole lot of sense, given that the killer didn't take Kent's wallet. So it almost felt like this was a spur of the moment crime of passion and maybe personal and targeted. Then maybe staged to look like a robbery, taking the watch and the car keys, but not taking the money. There's just something that doesn't quite fit. And the theory goes that when Kent was leaving the office, he and Michael got into a fight in the parking lot.

• 54:20Annie Elise?

  And that, you know, Kent was trying to deescalate it, was putting some things in his car. When then he came up behind him and hit him. And then it was this fight that escalated to murder when ultimately he took his belt off of Kent and then strangled him. A lot of the coworkers inside the building are saying they didn't even know that they got into an argument that night. So again, this is just a theory that is out there, but it's one of the biggest ones out there. It's a lot of speculation, but my hope is that someday we will get the truth. We will find out what happened to Kent and he will get justice. And that's why it's so important for us to keep telling his story, keep sharing it because somebody's got to know something. Somebody had to have seen something, right? So how do we get the answer so that his family can get the closure, the peace?

• 55:04Annie Elise?

  He can get justice and whoever truly did this can be held responsible. Because this case didn't end with Chuck and Ryan's release. It is far from over. Thank you guys for tuning in today for this episode. Let me know what you think below. Sound off in the comments. Do you think that it was the coworker? Do you think it really was Chuck and Ryan and they got out on like technicalities? Do you think it was something completely different? What do you think is going on in this case? And if you've researched it yourself and have details that I didn't mention, please feel free to share them in the comments. And as a reminder, 10 to Life is available now, not just as a YouTube series, but also its own podcast. All the uncensored versions will be over there. And when you check it out, hit a follow. Or if you're watching this on YouTube, click that subscribe button.

• 55:52Speaker 18

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