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Ryan Ferguson: From A False Conviction To The Amazing Race

The Amazing Race is making a comeback after being postponed due to the pandemic.

The series follows eleven two-person teams as they race across countries to win the top cash prize.

The popular series has been missed over the last year, as the American public has loved watching couples race against time and nature to win a million dollars.

The contestants were introduced at the start of the series, but one made quite the declaration.

Ryan Ferguson captured the nation’s heart when he revealed he had spent ten years in prison after being falsely accused of murder.

Ryan Ferguson – Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Ferguson had been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons when he was just 17 years old.

In November 2001, ​​Columbia Tribune sports editor, Kent Heitholt, was murdered in the newspaper’s offices’ parking lot around 2:30 am.

A janitor noticed two figures near Heitholt’s car and informed her supervisor of the two college-age men she had seen outside.

The editor was found dead by the police, having been severely beaten with a blunt object.

That night, high school junior Ryan Ferguson and his friend Charles Erickson were bouncing around various Halloween parties in the area. 

They met Ferguson’s sister at a bar called By George, where they knew they could get in despite not being of legal drinking age.

They left after spending all their money on drinks and were provided extras by Ferguson’s sister before leaving.

During the investigation, Erickson said he had no recollection of that night as he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol. He denied seeing anything out of the ordinary the next day.

Erickson became obsessed with the case during the years it went unsolved, believing one of the figures in the police sketch looked exactly like him.

After a series of interrogations, Erickson told the police he and Ferguson had robbed Heitholt for money, and the two were immediately arrested despite no proof that Ferguson was involved.

The Trial

During the trial in 2005, Erickson was quick to sell his friend out without proof.

He provided a detailed description of Ferguson strangling the editor on the witness stand – he had previously claimed not to remember the murder – and that Ferguson had taken the money.

The defense argued that none of the hair, fingerprint, or blood samples matched the defendant, and no traces of the victim’s blood were present in Ferguson’s vehicle.

Their efforts proved to be futile as Ferguson was sentenced to 40 years in prison on the charges of second-degree murder and robbery.

After almost a decade in prison, all charges against Ferguson were dropped after it was revealed that Erickson had lied about his former friend’s involvement. 

His Appearance on The Amazing Race

Ferguson is racing with his longtime friend Dusty Harris, who has stuck by him through the entire process of his false conviction.

He credits his closest friend with the strength to get through his false prison sentence, with Harris saying:

“We’ve been through hell and back together, and hell has brought us back, and we got to join forces again […] We tried to wreak havoc and put on the best we could for everyone who is going to watch, and we hope everyone loves it.”

During his introduction on the show, Ferguson hoped to win the $1 million to set up an organization to help others who had been wrongfully convicted of a crime.

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