My name is Maggie Freeling.

A majoringist and producer and this is unjust and unsolved.

A podcast about people who I believe are wrongfully incarcerated for crimes that are actually

unsolved.

You've surely heard stories like these on the news, but the thing is, the ones you've

heard about barely scratch the surface.

The Innocence Project gives a conservative estimate that about 20,000 innocent people

are currently locked away in US prisons.

After reading some of these stories, I felt compelled to do something.

So I sent 20 letters to people who are locked up despite evidence pointing away from them.

Some responded through mail, some emailed, and some called me on contraband cell phones.

But all wanted their stories to be heard.

So I left my public radio job and decided to do just that.

In each episode, I speak with those people, their loved ones, supporters, and lawyers,

to shed light on how they wound up incarcerated for decades, despite the evidence, and how

that means the crimes they were convicted of are still unsolved.

This week I'm telling the story of Charles Erickson.

On Halloween night, 2001, sports editor Kent Heitholte was found brutally beaten and

strangled in his work parking lot in Columbia, Missouri.

Murder of sports journalist Kent Heitholte.

Two years later, teenager Charles Erickson pled guilty to the murder.

He says he and his friend Ryan Ferguson killed Heitholte after a night of blackout drinking

...