Trying To Free His Son

Dugan Arnett: COLUMBIA — On a lazy morning not long ago, not far from where a sports editor was once beaten and strangled to death, the father of a convicted murderer was wrapping a belt around another man's neck.

This was in broad daylight, outside the Daily Tribune's downtown offices, and anyone venturing out on assignment or a smoke break would have had a front-row seat to the spectacle: a 67-year-old man re-enacting a decade-old crime.

The stunt, like most all of Bill Ferguson's actions these days, was aimed at convincing anyone who'll listen that his now-28-year-old-son is not the killer the Missouri courts concluded he is.

Since Ryan Ferguson was put away for 40 years in the 2001 robbery and murder of editor Kent Heitholt, Ryan's father has emerged as perhaps the most perplexing character in this ever-shifting whodunit.

As the center of Bill Ferguson's high-profile sideshow, he is — depending on your perspective — either a heroic father out to right the worst kind of wrong or an overbearing parent whose bullish approach has exceeded reasonable limits and ventured into the realm of obsession.

He has poured, by his own admission, roughly $250,000 into legal fees, draining his savings account and cashing in his 401(k). He regularly suspends his work as a real estate agent to stalk Columbia's streets in search of anything that might somehow be used to free his son.

(thanks, Nigel)