“Amazing Race”
Man was innocently imprisoned for ten years – now he travels the world as a reality show contestant
For almost ten years, Ryan Ferguson eked out life behind bars for a murder he did not commit (symbol photo)
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In the US series “Amazing Race” the candidates travel around the world. One of them is 37-year-old Ryan Ferguson, who spent ten years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
The TV show “Amazing Race” is a popular reality show in the United States. Here eleven teams are sent on a journey around the world. The couples have to solve different tasks and the winning team gets a bonus of one million dollars at the end.
This year the American Ryan Ferguson will also be at the start together with his best friend. The special thing about it: The 37-year-old spent ten years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
Ryan Ferguson convicted of murder
It was November 2001 when the then editor of the Columbia Daily Tribune was bludgeoned and strangled in the newspaper’s parking lot in Columbia, Missouri. Ferguson was 17 at the time. The murder remained unsolved for two years, until police received a tip about a man who had partied with Ferguson that night. However, he could not remember the night of the murder and feared that he might be involved in the murder. Although he could not remember, he admitted the crime and implicated Ferguson, now 19, in the incident, after which both were convicted of murder.
Although there was no physical or DNA evidence linking the two to the crime scene, testimony from the alleged perpetrator and testimony from a janitor who claimed to have seen them at the scene led to the conviction. Although the witness later recanted his testimony and Ferguson maintained his innocence throughout the trial, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison while the other agreed to a settlement that got him a 25-year sentence.
Reality show contestant has own podcast
Attorney Kathleen Zellner, who also represents Making a Murderer star Steven Avery, helped get Ferguson’s conviction overturned in 2013. An appeals court ruled at the time that he had not received a fair trial because prosecutors had withheld evidence. He was then released from prison after nearly ten years in prison. In 2017, a federal court awarded him $11 million in damages.
He has since moved to New York, where he is pursuing his career as a real estate broker. He also created his own podcast, Prison Counts, which features prison inmates. “There are a lot of good people in prison who made big mistakes and deserve their sentences, but they also deserve to have a life when they get out,” Ferguson said. “I wanted to give them the opportunity to tell their truth and humanize them because they need our support when they come back into our world”.
Sources: Newsweek, ABC News, kathleenzellner.com,