Dane Cook & Ryan Ferguson

For a few years in the mid-2000’s, Dane Cook was on top of the world. He performed high-energy stand up routines to countless adoring fans. He sold out Madison Square Garden. One of his stand up comedy albums went platinum. The next one went double platinum. He got movie deals. He created his own production company. At the risk of stating the obvious, Dane got rich. Super rich. Luckily, his half-brother Darryl McCauley was by his side the whole time, acting as Dane’s business manager.

Then Brandi tells us a story that’ll make your blood boil. In November of 2001, Kent Heitholt, a sports editor for the Columbia Daily Tribune, was discovered dead in the newspaper’s parking lot. Kent had been brutally beaten and strangled. His murder went unsolved for two years. But a young man named Charles Erickson, who’d been 17 at the time of Kent’s murder, read about the crime and got a bad feeling. He and his friend Ryan Ferguson had been partying at a nearby bar on the night of Kent’s murder. Charles had done cocaine, taken adderall, and been drinking that night. He couldn’t remember the night in question, but he began having troubling dreams. Those dreams made him wonder whether he and Ryan had been involved in Kent’s death. Charles eventually confessed to the crime. Police accepted the story, despite the fact that Charles’ dreams didn’t match the evidence.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

Dane Cook’s appearance on the podcast, “Your Mom’s House”

Dane Cook’s appearance on the podcast, “Inside of You”

Dane cook’s appearance on the podcast, “Bertcast”

“Dane Cook’s half-brother, sister-in-law must repay $12 million,” by Alan Duke for CNN

“Dane Cook’s manager-brother ordered to pay him $12 million,” by Lindsay Powers for The Hollywood Reporter

“Wife of Dane Cook’s brother sentenced in embezzlement scheme,” by Lisa Redmond for the Lowell Sun

“Dream/Killer” Documentary

“Ryan Ferguson’s Habeus Corpus Petition” courts.mo.gov

“Saving Ryan Ferguson: One Lawyer’s Story” episode 48 Hours 

“The Ryan Ferguson Case: An examination of a strange murder and conviction” by Chris Hamby

“Ryan Ferguson Freed After Spending Almost a Decade in Prison for Murder” by Lauren Effron and Victoria Thompson, ABC News

“Ryan W. Ferguson” wikipedia.org