it has to be another ryan ferguson. >> impossible. sweet, loving, loveable ryan.iolent bone in that boy's body, his father bill told us. >> he didn't have that sort of mentality. so all off of a sudden for him e accused of a heinous murder is beyond our comprehension. >> brian ferguson was charged with murder. his old buddy chuck was ready to tell the world why ryan should spend the rest of his life in prison. >> coming up -- >> what did he do? later, you'll see new evidence and new witnesses that call that into question. >> they walked straight to the car and drove away. >>> it was almost halloween again. the third since the full moon murder of kent heitold. ryan ferguson found himself waiting to be tried for murder based on what his old buddy said was a memory recovered in a dream. a bizarre hell said ryan. isn't it possible you did have enough to drink you repressed your own memories? you were in a fog, you didn't know what you had done? >> absolutely not. absolutely not. >> pretty sure of that memory of yours? >> absolutely. no doubt in my mind. i know exactly

. >> reporter: 28-year-old ryan ferguson is trying to clear his name. >> reporter: did you have anything reporter: he was accuse of killing a popular sports editor in 2001. there's no physical evidence that ties ferguson to the murder and he's always insisted he had nothing do with it even when interrogated as a teenager for hours. he was convicted pry playerly on the word of this man, a high school friend by the name of charles erickson. >> i looked up and ryan was over the victim. but >> reporter: but erickson says since then he's lied. >> help me out with this. somebody has said so you were making that up? >> yeah. >> for the first time exclusively to "48 hours" erickson explained why. >> i lied to cover my own behind because i thought that -- you know, basically i thought that ryan was going to put it on me. >> reporter: erickson a heavy drug and alcohol abuser at the time of the murder says investigators convinced him that ryan ferguson was going to pin the murder on him so hi made up the stories using details he had read in the police reports and had been given toing him during the