’The Amazing Race’ Star Ryan Ferguson on Being Falsely Convicted of Murder — Transcript

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1. 0:00ryan joins us now from his home in new
2. 0:02york ryan thank you so much for joining
3. 0:04me i cannot imagine being a 19 year old
4. 0:07young man convicted of murder a crime
5. 0:11you had nothing to do with
6. 0:13when you heard
7. 0:1540 years in prison
8. 0:17um
9. 0:19is it is it like a sonic boom where
10. 0:21almost you don't hear the words or
11. 0:22you're in shock i look at that picture
12. 0:24of you so some part of that reality
13. 0:27you were absorbing in that moment
14. 0:29certainly certainly it's earth
15. 0:30shattering um you know you're with your
16. 0:33family there they're behind you and you
17. 0:35not only feel the weight of your life
18. 0:37being taken from you but theirs as well
19. 0:40and it's just such a struggle for
20. 0:42everyone in that moment and you try to
21. 0:44compose yourself throughout that whole
22. 0:46ordeal but when they say that and you
23. 0:48know you're innocent and you know that
24. 0:50the police and prosecutors know you're
25. 0:51innocent they still did that to you
26. 0:53it just takes away all hope you have in
27. 0:56the world and
28. 0:57oh my goodness you know you made
29. 0:59national headlines um
30. 1:01obviously because of the nature of the
31. 1:02case the victim in the case and there
32. 1:05were people who
33. 1:06were convinced that you were
34. 1:09a murderer and you know how do you
35. 1:12muster up i guess the the fortitude to
36. 1:15keep fighting to prove that you're
37. 1:16innocent
38. 1:18i just know that uh for my family and
39. 1:20myself i have to fight to get my life
40. 1:22back and we have the evidence to prove
41. 1:24my innocence it's a matter of getting
42. 1:27out of that small community that we were
43. 1:29in and showing the world that i was
44. 1:31innocent and what i saw as time went on
45. 1:34was there were so many others like
46. 1:36myself a lot of wrongfully convicted and
47. 1:38people monthly people in prison
48. 1:40there you are no physical evidence in
49. 1:42your case um entirely convicted of
50. 1:45testimony from two people
51. 1:48when you started to read the headlines
52. 1:50after the conviction like everyone else
53. 1:52i know they have papers in prison you're
54. 1:54there you're reading convicted murderer
55. 1:57and there's your name
56. 1:59and you know that so many people don't
57. 2:01read the rest of the story or they don't
58. 2:03read the the police report they just
59. 2:06read your name and murderer in that
60. 2:08headline
61. 2:10it's such a painful thing to read
62. 2:12because they always started out with
63. 2:14convicted murder
64. 2:15and you know that you had nothing to do
65. 2:17with this and you know there's evidence
66. 2:19to prove that that police and
67. 2:21prosecutors hid they manipulated they
68. 2:24changed and so
69. 2:26you know that people aren't reading the
70. 2:27rest of that story but you also have
71. 2:29hope that the facts will get out there
72. 2:31and people will read those um those
73. 2:34parts of the story and ultimately in my
74. 2:36case because we kept fighting for it
75. 2:38because i had such an amazing family and
76. 2:40i ended up having a an amazing attorney
77. 2:42as well and kathleen zellner we were
78. 2:44able to get those facts out and that was
79. 2:46the difference between my case and a lot
80. 2:48of people's cases is getting the facts
81. 2:50and then getting them out to the public
82. 2:52such a difficult thing to do i do have
83. 2:54to make the point that charles erickson
84. 2:56uh the man involved in the case has
85. 2:58stated publicly that his guilty plea was
86. 3:01coerced i mean it's dizzying ryan the
87. 3:04details and the back and forth the
88. 3:06bizarre nature of even the mention of
89. 3:09suppressed memory that i'm sure to some
90. 3:12degree you understand how people how
91. 3:13people just see a headline and don't go
92. 3:15past that
93. 3:16yeah it's sad because that's kind of how
94. 3:18a lot of people in
95. 3:21missouri believed i was guilty because
96. 3:22they read the headlines that the police
97. 3:24gave to the local media
98. 3:26later on whenever the national media got
99. 3:28a hold of it actually did investigative
100. 3:30reporting and looked at the real facts
101. 3:32in the case and didn't just pair what
102. 3:33the police said that's when people
103. 3:35started to see what was really going on
104. 3:37here but in a lot of cases people see
105. 3:40the local media repeating whatever the
106. 3:41police and prosecutors once said and
107. 3:43that's what's so scary and that's how so
108. 3:45many lives are lost so i urge everyone
109. 3:48to read more into the details and
110. 3:50question a lot of the facts prosecutors
111. 3:52are presenting to the local media
112. 3:54coming up ryan may still be in prison if
113. 3:57it wasn't for the dedication and
114. 3:59sacrifice of his father bill you heard
115. 4:01him refer to his family well how bill
116. 4:03fought to show the world that there was
117. 4:06more to the story than the headlines
118. 4:08they were reading and bill joins us when
119. 4:10we come back
120. 4:14[Music]
121. 4:16ryan said bill joins us from his home in
122. 4:19missouri bill thank you so much for
123. 4:21joining us today thank you
124. 4:24absolutely looking at what you did for
125. 4:26your son you know people say i would
126. 4:28walk a mile over hot coal and all these
127. 4:30things for our children you drained your
128. 4:34bank account your life savings your 401k
129. 4:38um because you as you described it i
130. 4:41believe it was it was like watching your
131. 4:43son drown in front of you
132. 4:46that's true that's true and you'll do
133. 4:49you know you never think you're going to
134. 4:50be in that situation but when it
135. 4:52does uh occur
136. 4:55then at that moment you imagine a
137. 4:57naturally do everything you could do to
138. 4:59save him or save any one of your
139. 5:01children you drove 9 000 miles
140. 5:04crisscrossing the country with ryan's
141. 5:07face on your car to really
142. 5:11blunt back the headlines that people
143. 5:13were reading because you might miss a
144. 5:15newspaper but who's going to miss that
145. 5:16car and wonder what's going on there how
146. 5:19did you come up with that idea
147. 5:21you know uh i just
148. 5:23thought about a billboard but billboards
149. 5:25were stationary so i thought of the idea
150. 5:28of the car
151. 5:30and then
152. 5:32driving across the country uh east to
153. 5:34west and basically north to south and
154. 5:37like we said 9 000 miles and we gained a
155. 5:40tremendous amount of attention