Two charged in 2001 slaying of sports editor

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The slaying of a sports editor outside his newspaper two years ago was apparently a random crime motivated by robbery, authorities said Thursday after charging two men with murder.

Charles Timothy Erickson and Ryan W. Ferguson, both 19, made initial court appearances but didn't enter pleas Thursday on charges they fatally attacked Kent Heitholt after he paused in the Columbia Daily Tribune's parking lot to feed a stray cat during the early morning hours of Nov. 1, 2001.

Ferguson is charged with first-degree murder, Erickson with second-degree murder. Both are charged with first-degree robbery, said Boone County Prosecutor Kevin Crane. Preliminary hearings, at which pleas could be entered, were set for March 30. The men are being held without bond, and made their court appearances by video link from the Boone County Jail.

The men -- both 17-year-old students at Columbia's Rock Bridge High School at the time of Heitholt's slaying -- were arrested Wednesday after an anonymous tip was received by a local anti-crime hotline, said Columbia Police Chief Randy Boehm.

Boehm said police first received an anonymous tip implicating Ferguson and Erickson on Jan. 21, one of about 250 leads pursued during the investigation. Then, on Wednesday morning, a second tip asserted Erickson had been heard talking about Heitholt's slaying.

Erickson was arrested at the Columbia campus of Moberly Area Community College, and in police interviews, he made statements "implicating himself and Ferguson," Boehm told reporters.

Ferguson was arrested later Wednesday at Park College near Kansas City, the chief said.

The most serious charge against Ferguson, first-degree murder, is punishable by death or life in prison. He is accused of strangling Heitholt; an autopsy showed that was the cause of death.

Crane said he had made no decision about seeking the death penalty. Last year, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the state's death penalty for crimes committed by people younger than 18. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider the state attorney general's appeal of that ruling, which came in the case of a man who was 17 when he killed a Jefferson City woman.

Heitholt's father, Bill Heitholt, told the Columbia Missourian the family "would not favor capital punishment. We are not vengeful at all."

Crane said Erickson struck Heitholt with a tire iron. The prosecutor said Erickson was charged with second-degree murder, punishable by up to life in prison, because the slaying happened during the commission of another crime, the robbery; Crane said Heitholt's keys were taken.

In court papers supporting the charges, authorities said Ferguson and Erickson had spent part of Halloween night at a dance club a couple of blocks from the Tribune in downtown Columbia.

Crane said Erickson got the tire tool from a vehicle, and the prosecutor alleged they meant to rob someone.

"There is no indication that the defendants knew Heitholt at the time this occurred," Crane said.

During the ensuing 28 months, Boehm said, detectives kept the investigation active, interviewing possible witnesses and following up on tips. Detective John Short, who worked the case, kept a color photograph of Heitholt on the wall behind his desk, the smiling sports editor literally looking over his shoulder.

"I saw Kent there every day and thought about him, and I can tell you that none of us gave up on this case," Short said in an interview.

Heitholt was the highest-profile homicide victim in Boone County since the Depression-era slaying of the local sheriff. Many who thought the case had gone cold were stunned by the arrests.

"We're relieved that there has been a break in the case, but the arrests bring up a lot of old emotions, so it's a hard time," said Jim Robertson, managing editor of the Tribune.

Heitholt had celebrated his fifth anniversary at the newspaper in the hours before his slaying. A University of Missouri-Columbia graduate and married father of two, Heitholt previously covered sports at newspapers in Jackson, Miss., Nashville, Tenn., and Shreveport, La.

Heitholt's widow, Deborah Evangelista, said in a statement to the Tribune that news of the arrests made it "a somber day."

"It is just so sad. So senseless," said Evangelista, who now lives in Texas.

Heitholt and a colleague left the newspaper office about 2 a.m. on the morning he was slain. A stray cat Heitholt was in the habit of feeding was scratching at his car tire. Heitholt and his colleague shared a joke before the second man drove away. Heitholt, who kept cat food in his car for the stray, apparently poured out some food.

Minutes later, a Tribune custodian noticed a commotion by Heitholt's car and saw two men walking away. The custodian alerted other sports writers, who found Heitholt dead at the scene and called police. Police said wounds on the hands of the 6-foot-3, 300-pound sports editor indicated he had struggled with his attackers.

A security camera at a nearby bank picked up an image of two men walking quickly past at the time of the murder, and witnesses provided a vague description of two white males seen at the scene. A composite police drawing of a suspect was widely circulated. Boehm said Thursday the drawing resembled Erickson.