Heitholt homicide case remains inactive 25 years later, despite overturned conviction
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
It's been nearly 25 years since a Columbia sports journalist was killed in the parking lot of the Columbia Daily Tribune.
With one man paroled and another man's conviction overturned, many still question who really killed Kent Heitholt.
But at least one high-ranking police official who worked on the case maintains investigators got the right men.
Forty-eight-year-old Heitholt was the Tribune's sports editor when he was beaten and strangled to death in the early morning hours of Nov. 1, 2001. It was Halloween the night before, and while many were trick-or-treating or vying to win the costume contest, Heitholt was working late as usual.
Heitholt sent one last email before logging off his computer at 2:08 a.m. As he made his way to his parked car, he had his last known conversation with his coworker Michael Boyd. Boyd recalled leaving around 2:15 a.m. in his statements to police.
Minutes later, at 2:26 a.m., the first officer was dispatched to the Tribune parking lot, and Heitholt's body was discovered.
The discovery kicked off a legal saga that would take more than a decade to play out, and many say is still playing out. That saga would climax with a judge throwing out the convictions against Ryan Ferguson, freeing him from prison.
Ferguson subsequently won millions in lawsuits against police and prosecutors after a judge ruled that they withheld evidence that might have led to acquittal. Meanwhile, Charles Erickson remained in prison, and Kent Heitholt's friends and loved ones continue to search for the truth.
Arrest and conviction
Tribune janitorial staff Jerry Trump and Shawna Ornt told police about two men they saw crouched down by Heitholt's body in the parking lot just after 2:20 a.m. Ornt and Trump both recalled one of the men calling out that someone was hurt in their statements to police.
The men were described as being around 19 to 20 years old, both white, one standing about 6 feet tall and the other noticeably shorter.
Erickson confessed in 2004, and Ryan Ferguson was convicted in 2005. Erickson said he had dreams about the two of them being involved in Heitholt’s killing following a late night of Halloween partying. They would have been 17 years old at the time of the crime.
Erickson accepted a plea deal and testified that he and Ferguson committed the crime together for drinking money, even though Heitholt's wallet was not taken. Erickson received a 25-year sentence, and Ferguson was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Ferguson's conviction was later tossed out by the Missouri Western District Court of Appeals when Erickson recanted his statements to police along with Trump. Ferguson successfully sued prosecutors and police for the 10 years he spent in jail. Erickson was released in 2023.
Even after the fallout, Randy Boehm, Columbia police chief from 2000-2008, said he believes his officers arrested the right people.
"We conducted a thorough investigation and arrested the people responsible for committing this crime. The Prosecutor thought that too many years had passed to retry the case," Boehm wrote in a statement to ABC 17 News on Sept. 25.
After Ferguson's conviction was overturned in 2013, then-prosecutor Dan Knight asked for a special prosecutor to take the case. Knight appointed the Missouri Attorney General's Office as special prosecutor, which determined days later not to pursue another trial.
As of October, the Missouri Attorney General's Office said it has "no pending cases related to this matter."
Ferguson's attorney Kathleen Zellner said retrying the case today would be "ludicrous."
"They don't have a case," Zellner said. "The key witnesses, Charles Erickson, who's now free, and Jerry Trump, who's now deceased, both recanted their testimony. Trump said that he'd lied, that he'd been pressured into lying, and that was pretty conclusively demonstrated."
Zellner said Boehm's statements and others like it could be considered defamatory.
"They have to realize that at a certain point they are defaming Ryan Ferguson and Charles Erickson. They're defaming both of them," Zellner said. "There's legal liability for continuing to persist something that's been disproven in court."
The case file
ABC 17 News obtained the investigative case file into Heitholt's death through a record request with the Columbia Police Department. The file revealed several people of interest police looked into before and after the trials of Ferguson and Erickson that were never formally cleared.
Zellner narrowed in on one person she thinks was never thoroughly investigated by police, the last person who saw Heitholt alive.
"There's an employee who works there who was with Mr. Heitholt. He's really the last person that's with him, walks him out to his car," Zellner said. "There's some pamphlets that that employee had, they were particular assignments he was working on that are found under Heitholt's car."
On the ground next to Heitholt's driver's side door, police located several basketball schedules. Just south of his car, officers also found a 2001/2002 Hickman High School girls' basketball schedule, according to police documents.
Zellner is referring to Boyd, who worked under Heitholt.
The case file says Boyd gave conflicting statements of what happened that night. Boyd also returned back to the crime scene that night, seen in evidence photos taken by police while crime scene tape is still up blocking off part of the parking lot as officers investigated.
Zellner claims there was friction between Boyd and Heitholt. However, Boyd recalled his relationship with Heitholt fondly.
"Kent was a fantastic person and was very helpful to me as I was trying to grow as a reporter. He taught me a lot about reporting and writing, and I was very green at it all," Boyd wrote in a statement to ABC 17 News. "He invited me to go out with the rest of the crew when we had time. He kept me around after 9/11. He liked cats, I like cats. Things like that. He was just a cool guy."
Boyd said Heitholt is the biggest reason he continued on with his writing career.
Zellner also posed a theory for the two men seen by Ornt and Trump that night.
"There's clearly two young men that are at the scene. We felt they happened on it [the murder scene] after the attack had occurred. They were looking at Heitholt and even called out to the janitor, which you wouldn't do [if you had murdered someone]," Zellner said.
She asserted that the actions of the two men seen in the parking lot that night were not actions of two people who had just killed someone.
"You wouldn't stand there under street lamps and let someone see what you look like. So I've always thought that it was also a failure of the investigation to find those people, not to charge them, but find them because they came upon the scene so quickly," Zellner said.
Zellner described Heitholt's killing as spontaneous.
"It was complete overkill for a robbery. In fact, you have zero evidence of a robbery," Zellner said. "So this is something personal, and the way this killing was done, this is like a rage, overkill, and it was someone very strong."
The evidence
Police documents reveal multiple defensive wounds found on Heitholt's hands. The knuckles on his right hand were seriously bruised, and several wounds were found on his left hand. Police said the injuries to his left hand appeared to have been made by some sort of "prying instrument."
His head injuries consisted of circular wounds and large cuts, but his skull was not fractured. Heitholt was also noticeably strangled.
Zellner said if police were to reinvestigate the case, modern DNA technology could be valuable.
"DNA, even in the last five years, is so much more sophisticated," Zellner said.
None of the evidence tested from the crime scene ever matched Ferguson or Erickson. Fingerprints found on and inside Heitholt's car, on his wallet and strands of hair recovered from Heitholt's hands all tested negative when compared to Ferguson and Erickson.
Zellner said she and the Ferguson family are still seeking answers of what really happened that night in 2001.
ABC 17 News asked CPD about the current status of the investigation. CPD did not provide a clear answer, but a case review has been conducted within the last five years by the Criminal Investigations Division, according to a spokesperson.
Zellner said she considers Heitholt's death a cold case.
"Regardless of the people that were involved in the investigation, the courts have vacated the convictions; Ferguson prevailed in a giant civil rights case. It's a cold case; it's unsolved," Zellner said.
The last documented development in the case was in 2024, when fingerprints found on the contents of Heitholt's wallets were identified. Case documents show the individuals provided police with credible explanations of how their fingerprints ended up on the items and the items were stored.
ABC 17 News also asked CPD if it plans to retest any of the DNA evidence and whether it has identified any new persons of interest. Lt. Matt Gremore referred back to the Criminal Investigations Division review.
"This review yielded no new persons of interest; there are no plans to do any further DNA testing in this case," the statement reads.
ABC 17 News also submitted a sunshine request for audio, video and photo files associated with the Heitholt investigation on Oct. 2. That request was never fulfilled.
ABC 17 News reached out to family members of Heitholt, but received no response.
The group "Justice for Kent LLC" announced plans to fly a plane over Columbia between 1-4 p.m. on Oct. 31 with a banner reading JUSTICEFORKENT.COM. The group is seeking tips that may provide new leads into what happened the night he died.
