Jury deliberates in trial of slain sports editor

Saturday, October 22, 2005

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Jury deliberations are under way in the trial of a man accused of killing a newspaper editor four years ago to get money for a post-Halloween night of underage drinking. Ryan Ferguson, who turned 21 on Wednesday, is on trial for first-degree murder in the death of Kent Heitholt, a Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor who was beaten and strangled in the newspaper parking lot on the morning of Nov. 1, 2001. Jurors entered deliberations shortly after 4 p.m. Friday, the trial's fifth day. If convicted, Ferguson faces a possible life sentence. The trial has centered on the memory of Ferguson's former high school classmate Charles Erickson, the prosecution's star witness. Erickson said he initially re-pressed his memory of the crime but began to recall details two years later on Halloween 2003. Some of those details emerged in dreams, Erickson testified. In response, Ferguson's defense attorneys called upon expert witness Elizabeth Loftus, a California psychologist who said Erickson's recollections were planted by overzealous police investigators.

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