State seeks to block Ferguson "accusation'

When Ryan Ferguson goes to court April 16, his lawyers want to convince Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green that Ferguson should be released from the Jefferson City Correctional Center.

But, as they argue that Ferguson should not have been convicted in the Nov. 1, 2001, murder of Kent Heitholt, the Columbia Daily Tribune's sports editor, the Missouri attorney general's office wants to prevent them from accusing another man of the crime.

Ferguson, now 27, was sentenced in October 2005 to 40 years in prison, after a Lincoln County jury convicted him of second-degree murder and first-degree robbery. The jury heard the case in Boone County.

Because he's being held in a prison in Cole County, Ferguson's latest appeal to win his release from prison is being argued in the Jefferson City-based courts.

Last week, Assistant Attorney General Ted Bruce filed a "motion in limine" asking Green to "limit and exclude any and all evidence, argument or questions in whatever form" that suggest that "Mike Boyd or any other person "may have' committed the murder."