COLUMBIA, Mo., Nov. 5 (UPI) -- An appeals court Tuesday vacated the murder conviction of a man found guilty of beating a Missouri newspaper sports editor to death.
Ryan Ferguson, 29, convicted of second-degree murder and first-degree robbery in 2005 in the death of Kent Heitholt, was granted a writ of habeas corpus by the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District.
Ferguson will be released from prison, where he is serving a 40-year sentence. It was not clear if the state will re-try him, CBS News reported.
Two years after Heitholt's killing, Charles Erickson came forward to admit his involvement in the crime, implicating Ferguson. Erickson is serving a 25-year sentence, the Columbia Daily Tribune reported.
Ferguson's convict was upheld last year despite a lack of physical evidence pointing to him, and the recanting of testimony by both a witness to the crime and Ferguson's accomplice, CBS News said.
