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Eric Ferkenhoff

Investigative Journalist

I am a 30-year reporter and editor skilled across media, with a chief focus on investigations – particularly the intersection of justice agencies with politics and private industry.

I am based in Kansas City, but I have worked throughout the country. I focus on national issues, and have reported across the beat spectrum. I have also worked for local outlets.

Skilled in analyzing data and well-sourced, I also taught all forms of journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School and at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Waco Tribune-Herald •

Federal suit over in-custody death accuses Angelina County, health firm of ignoring medical needs

On the morning of June 16, 2023, out of meds, Smallwood sought help at the Burke Mental Health Services clinic in Lufkin. Before he was placed at a psychiatric hospital, Smallwood tried to leave, only to be coaxed back by an employee. But 17 minutes after he arrived, he said he needed air and went outside under the watch of two employees, according to records from Burke. He then ran, got on a transit bus but quickly got off and took off down the road.

On the morning of June 16, 2023, out of med...
AP News •

A pipeline company filed hundreds of lawsuits against landowners. Now its project is threatened

MANSFIELD, S.D. (AP) — Jared Bossly was planting soybeans one spring night in 2023 on his 2,000-acre farm in South Dakota when he spotted a sheriff’s vehicle parked at the corner of his property. He had a hunch it wasn’t a social visit.“I’m like, ‘Well, I doubt he’s just being a friendly neighbor, giving a guy a beer at eight o’clock at night,’” said Bossly, 43.He was right. The sheriff’s deputy served him court papers. Summit Carbon Solutions, the company behind a massive proposed carbon pipeli...
Omaha World-Herald •

Feds amass 612-page file in a case of alleged slayings near Omaha. What does it mean?

There’s also one hour and 42 minutes of audio recordings included with the FBI file, still under federal lock and key. Together, according to some FBI experts and retired FBI officials, they hint at a significant amount of investigative work to determine if Studey was involved in criminal activity or killings of the scope alleged by his daughter, Lucy McKiddy, and others.McKiddy, 55, says she has told her story to teachers, pastors and law enforcement since she was a child – with some telling he...
Omaha World-Herald •

Journal backs claims man left trail of death, violence near Omaha. But was it real?

“The thing that stood out was just her ability to recollect the specifics,” Lima said. “She's just very credible, and she has nothing to gain from doing this. She’s just released from prison, and she has a condition that she's going to likely die from, right? That's the reason she was let out early. … So to me, it's kind of the equivalent of a deathbed confession. She hates Lucy (McKiddy), so it's not like she's siding with Lucy or gaining anything from this. I felt like this was a woman confess...
Newsweek •

Arkansas Justice: Harsh sentences, tough fines, inmate deaths

Larry Eugene Price. Michelle Caddell. Marshall Ray Price. Three Arkansas residents who never met each other, but they all had one thing in common: All were arrested on minor offenses and died either in the custody of the state or shortly afterward. In a series of stories spanning 2023, Newsweek chronicled their deaths and took a deeper look at the justice system in Arkansas.In the course of reporting their stories, the reporters filed multiple open records requests to obtain jail videos, as well...
Newsweek •

'Not treated as humans': Critics say Arkansas neglects inmates' health

Barefoot in an Arkansas ice storm, Jennifer Johnson walked up to the drive-thru window of a McDonald's. Suffering from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, Johnson, 49, was in the throes of a yearlong psychotic break when the restaurant, figuring she was high, called Springdale police.But Johnson fled, according to police records, made it back to the car she had ditched on the side of a highway and sped off, convinced Freemasons were after her. A multi-county chase ensued through the northwest co...
Newsweek •

Who killed Marshall Ray Price? Family's desperate search for truth

Eight hours after Marshall Ray Price died, the first inmate from the Greene County Detention Center to call his family was Odell Lewis, the man whose boxing match with Price inside the northeast Arkansas jail was officially blamed for causing the injuries leading to Price's death.At that point, about 10 a.m. on December 8, 2022, Lewis did not know Price had died at 2:08 a.m. Lewis believed Price was severely hurt and quickly needed medical attention. In his call, he urged the family to do someth...
Newsweek •

How a brutal jail death exposes Arkansas' 'punishing' justice system

Newsweek began probing criminal justice issues in Arkansas after reporting in January on the death of Larry Eugene Price, who starved to death in an Arkansas jail. His case is now the subject of a federal lawsuit.Now, in a months-long, two-part investigation, Newsweek examines the case of Marshall Ray Price (no relation), who died after what officials say was a boxing match with another inmate. His case, for which his family is still seeking answers, illustrates what many said is a failing justi...
Newsweek •

Jails health provider sued after inmates left dead and disabled

For months, Michelle Caddell had complained to Tulsa County jail officials of nonstop vaginal bleeding,  discharge  and pain.It wasn't until she was bleeding through a menstrual pad every 20 minutes—and passing tissue from her vagina—that she was transported to an Oklahoma hospital to be screened for the cervical cancer that killed her at the age of 36, alleges a federal lawsuit filed on her behalf."There were nights where she would call and she would, you know, be weak," Cameron Lucas, Caddell'...
Newsweek •

Man starved to death in Arkansas jail despite 11 years federal of oversight

The U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing information about the death of Larry Eugene Price, Jr., who died of starvation after over a year in an Arkansas county jail, and Newsweek has obtained documents showing the detention center had been under DOJ oversight for 11 years until 2017 because of allegations of civil rights violations and inmate abuse.Price, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and had an IQ below 55, died wide-eyed, naked and starved in August 2021 after a year of isolatio...
Newsweek •

Starved to death in an American jail, the man who couldn't pay $100 bail

Routinely homeless, schizophrenic and with an IQ below 55, Larry Eugene Price, Jr., wandered into the small northwest Arkansas police station on August 19, 2020, as he did nearly every day. Police in the town, Fort Smith, were used to seeing Price, then 50, coming in, hanging around for a bit, then leaving.But on that late summer day, Price, also diagnosed with bipolar disorder and having PTSD, used his finger like a gun to point around the station and at officers, threatening and cursing at tho...
Newsweek •

Questions Raised as Authorities Say 'It's Over' in Probe for Iowa Remains

The hunt for human remains near Thurman, Iowa, was called off Thursday after an "exhaustive" search for evidence of Lucy Studey's claims that her father was a killer who killed scores of people, burying their remains in the hollows around the area, yielded no evidence to corroborate her allegations, officials said.But questions remained about how "exhaustive" the search really was, and what this news means for the overall case.The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the lead agency on the c...
Newsweek •

Dad was serial killer, woman says, as cadaver dogs hunt field of nightmares

For 45 years, Lucy Studey told anyone who would listen that her father had murdered scores of young women and buried them with the help of his children. No one believed her. Cadaver dogs have now pinpointed suspected human remains at the spots she identified in a remote stretch of western Iowa, investigators told Newsweek."I know where the bodies are buried," Lucy Studey told Newsweek, whose reporters were at the scene of the investigation in the scrub outside Thurman, Iowa. She recalled how her...
USA TODAY •

Mother of inmate who died in prison says state has 'flat-out refused' to answer questions for over a year

Nearly 19 months after Iowa Corrections Department officials say Christopher Rios hung himself in a locked phone room at Clarinda Correctional Facility, details of the 28-year-old's death remain hidden from his family and the public.

"They have not been transparent," said Rios’ mother, Melinda McNabb. "They have never actually given me any information.”

The Iowa Department of Corrections has declined to release many of the details requested by either Rios' family or the Des Moines Register about his death on Nov. 13, 2020.
USA TODAY NETWORK •

Youth gun violence has increased 'dramatically.' Where are teens getting guns?

DES MOINES, Iowa – Rumors on a bus the morning of March 4 tipped an assistant principal and counselor that a student at a Kansas high school might be armed. Soon, two school officials were looking for Jaylon Elmore.

He was in shop class, his backpack next to him. It was about 10:30 a.m. The varsity football player was taken to the school office, where officials asked to search his backpack, according to an affidavit.

Elmore refused, grabbing a homemade pistol from it and firing five shots, the...
USA TODAY •

Should people in prison regain their right to vote? Illinois lawmakers are considering it.

At 19, addicted and functionally illiterate, Renaldo Hudson entered jail in 1983 to await trial in the murder of a 71-year-old man he stabbed some 60 times before setting his Chicago apartment ablaze.Staring at a death sentence for killing Folke Peterson, the teen's mind was far from the right of Americans to vote.But once locked up, Hudson taught himself to read and write and became an inside voice for the right to vote, as well as a minister, educator and founder of a prison newspaper.  Hudson...
USA TODAY •

Should people in prison regain their right to vote? Illinois lawmakers are considering it.

At 19, addicted and functionally illiterate, Renaldo Hudson entered jail in 1983 to await trial in the murder of a 71-year-old man he stabbed some 60 times before setting his Chicago apartment ablaze.

Staring at a death sentence for killing Folke Peterson, the teen's mind was far from the right of Americans to vote.

But once locked up, Hudson taught himself to read and write and became an inside voice for the right to vote, as well as a minister, educator and founder of a prison newspaper.  Hu...
USA TODAY •

They're out of prison, but still fighting to prove their innocence: 'I feel like I'm not free'

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On April 23, Michael Politte is set to walk out of prison, three months after winning parole and nearly 24 years after he was sentenced for murdering his mother.Like many people across the U.S. released after serving their sentences, Politte, from the small Missouri town of Hopewell, will be in a legal limbo: out of prison but not exonerated.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On April 23, Michael Politte is set to walk out of prison, three months after winning parole and nearly 24 years aft...
USA TODAY NETWORK •

A rape, a shooting, alleged harassment: How legal shields can protect police from lawsuits

Nine years ago, after Shari Martin was sexually assaulted in an Iowa hotel, the on-duty police officer who attacked her was fired, arrested, convicted and sent to prison.

It was justice for Martin – but only in the criminal sense. Martin and her lawyer say full justice will be achieved only if the Muscatine Police Department is held accountable in civil court for the crimes of its officer.

If Martin had been the victim of a murder or physical assault, she or her estate could have sued the depa...
USA TODAY •

After 43 years in prison on a wrongful conviction, Kevin Strickland is getting no restitution. He's not alone.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — At 5-foot-5 and 135 pounds, Kevin Strickland walked into prison in 1979 at 19 frightened but with the hope he would one day be cleared of killing three people.

That hope was realized 43 years later. Now 62 and exonerated, Strickland rolled out of Western Missouri Correctional Center two days before Thanksgiving in a wheelchair, stricken with nerve problems and regret over years he lost.

Missouri law entitles Strickland, of Kansas City, to nothing in recognition of his wrongf...
The Des Moines Register •

Report: Most states, including Iowa, treat young people ensnared by sex trafficking as criminals rather than victims

Second of two parts

A new analysis of laws against the sex trafficking of minors gives most states, including Iowa, a failing grade in tackling a billion-dollar industry that for decades existed in the shadows, regarded by many as a third-world problem.

Shared Hope International, a nonprofit that focuses on the trafficking of youth and children, released its state report cards this month. Shared Hope credits states with improving since its last 10-year analysis, but still gives Fs to Iowa and...
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