Two Wrongful Convictions. Who Really Killed Kent Heitholt?
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Who was Kent Heitholt and what was his life like before the murder?
Today, we are going to be discussing the heinous murder of Kent Heitholt. Kent Heitholt was born January 4th, 1953 in Lawrence, Kansas. From there, he attended John Burroughs High School in St. Louis, Missouri, then went on to study journalism at the University of Missouri. While there, Kent met his wife, Debra. The two got married on December 21st, 1981, and they went on to have two children, Vincent and Callie Rose. Kent was described as a gentle, kind man who was the type of person who could get along with just about anybody. He was an animal lover who was known to put out food for stray cats in the area. From the time that Kent was very young, he absolutely loved sports. he initially moved to Louisiana to work for nine years as a sports editor at the Sheva Report Times.
However, by 1996, he started work as a sports editor for the Tribune newspaper in Columbia, Missouri. In his career, Kent was known to gravitate towards the more overlooked sports, he gave women's sports equal attention to men's sports he was known by his co-workers as someone who got along with everyone which could be difficult for some people due to the big egos that a lot of people have in the journalism and sports industries sometimes he was sincere hard-working and others looked up to him and saw him as an example of how to do things the right way while still making work fun. When he was in the position of being a manager, he was still known as being fun-loving and so much fun to work with.
He was known to hire talented, experienced writers, but also for giving the underdog a chance as well. He would hire someone who had no experience whatsoever as long as they showed that they were eager to work hard in the profession. He had a soft side for the underdog and didn't have much time for people with inflated egos. One of the writers who worked under Kent described that Kent was just this big bear of a lovable guy. He said that he made the Tribune a fun place to work, going on to say, "...it was always lots of laughs. It was like having a dad for a boss." he was a hands-off type of boss but if you had a question he would be the first to figure out an answer and help you with whatever it was you needed help with he truly took care of his staff and even outside of the office everyone enjoyed his company and spending time with him on the evening of halloween so october 31st 2001 the sports staff at the tribune had to work
pretty late that evening. It seemed like a pretty typical evening at work, but they had a lot of work to do in relation to a basketball thing that was coming up. I don't exactly know what it was, but that's why they were there so late. Throughout the entire evening, Kent had been chatting with his coworker, Michael Boyd. The two had been chatting pretty much all throughout the entire evening, and according to Michael, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary for Kent. He said that the two had very pleasant conversations all throughout their work shift as they always had. At around 2am, Michael said that he left work because it was at this time that all of the computers for the sports staff had shut off.
But as Michael was leaving, he stopped by Kent to ask for some phone numbers of some coaches that he needed to get into contact with. After he left at around 2 10, Michael went into the parking lot and he actually saw the cat that Kent had normally fed clawing at the tire of Kent's car. Michael thought this was funny because again Kent was known to stop and feed the stray cats around the parking lot pretty much every single night. He kept bags of food in his car, so the cat was probably waiting by Kent's car, waiting for his midnight snack. As Michael was in his car and was backing up to leave work, he also noticed that Kent had left the building and was in the parking lot, and this was at around 2.13ish.
Before leaving the parking lot, Michael rolled his window down and pulled up to Kent so that the two could chat again. He told Michael about the cat that was using his tire as a scratching post and the two had a laugh.
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