5 most infamous Dateline cases where the wrong persons were convicted 

Dateline NBC has spent years covering cases that show the justice system doesn’t always get it right.

A few of them stand apart. Not because they’re complex, but because the wrong person was so clearly convicted. These are the cases that make you stop and question how careful the system really is.

The fallout goes far beyond a courtroom verdict. Families break under the weight of it. Reputations don’t recover. Even when the truth comes out years later, the damage sticks.

Money can help rebuild a life, but it can’t erase lost time or public doubt. And that’s the part these cases make impossible to ignore.

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Dateline cases where the wrong persons were convicted

Ryan Ferguson

This Dateline case is a haunting reminder of how memories can feel real… even when they’re not.

The conviction:

In 2005, Ryan Ferguson was convicted of the 2001 murder of a sports editor in Columbia, Missouri, and the only evidence against him came from a friend, Charles Erickson.

Erickson claimed he “recovered” memories of the crime from a dream. Yes, a dream became the backbone of the prosecution’s case.

The reality:

Nothing was tying Ferguson to the scene, such as the absence of fingerprints and DNA. So, nothing physical at all could be traced. Years later, Erickson admitted the truth: the police had pressured him, and his testimony was unreliable. Even a janitor who had claimed to see Ferguson recanted, but the story that sent him to prison was falling apart.

The outcome:

Nearly ten years behind bars, in 2013, Ferguson’s conviction was vacated. He walked free. As we can see, justice took its time, but it came eventually. In 2024, he received a $38 million settlement.

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Russ Faria

This might be the most famous modern Dateline case, and it even inspired the scripted series The Thing About Pam.

The conviction:

In 2013, Russ Faria was convicted of murdering his wife, Betsy, who had been stabbed 55 times. The crime scene was brutal beyond comprehension.

Prosecutors focused on Russ’s emotional 911 call. They claimed it was "staged. And that one call became a centerpiece of their case.

The reality:

But the story wasn’t that simple, and the star witness against Russ was Betsy’s so-called friend, Pam Hupp.

Hupp had just been named the beneficiary of Betsy’s life insurance policy only days before the murder. Suspicious, right? That detail didn’t come up in the initial trial the way it should have.

The outcome:

Russ got a second chance as in a 2015 retrial, his defense was allowed to present evidence pointing to Hupp. The conviction didn’t stand. Russ was exonerated.

Pam Hupp is serving life in prison for a separate murder, one she committed, in part, to frame Russ. And now, she’s also been charged with Betsy’s murder.

This case shows how quickly the justice system can get it wrong when the real culprit hides in plain sight.

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Richard Rosario

Dateline producer Dan Slepian didn’t stumble onto this case. He spent years digging, following leads most people had already dropped. That work eventually became the backbone of Dateline’s digital series Conviction. And once the full story comes together, it’s clear why this case demanded that kind of attention.

The conviction:

In 1996, Rosario was convicted of murder in the Bronx. Two eyewitnesses picked him out of a photo lineup, and that was the whole case.

The reality:

Rosario had a rock-solid alibi that he was in Florida when the murder happened. He even gave the police the names of 13 people who could confirm it, but his original defense team? They never spoke to a single one of them. Twenty years of his life were gone, based on eyewitness testimony that didn’t hold up.

The outcome:

In 2016, the conviction was finally vacated, and the prosecution eventually dropped all charges. This was when Rosario finally walked free.

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Anthony Wright

This Dateline case is a stark reminder of how police misconduct can ruin lives and how science can fix it.

The conviction:

In 1993, police pinned a brutal crime on Anthony Wright. An elderly woman had been raped and killed in Philadelphia, and investigators said Wright confessed almost right away. Fourteen minutes, they claimed, and that detail alone became a cornerstone of the case, even as serious questions about how that confession came to be went largely unasked.

The reality:

Wright never accepted the confession as real. He said it came out of fear, not truth. The room was tense. The pressure was constant as threats hung in the air. Years later, science stepped in where words had failed. DNA testing pointed to someone else entirely. The evidence traced the crime back to Ronnie Byrd, not Wright, but that shift changed everything.

The outcome:

According to Dateline, in 2016, Wright was acquitted in a retrial. He also won a $9.85 million settlement in a civil lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia.

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Clarence Moses-EL

This is one of the strangest and most tragic cases in Dateline’s history. It all started with an identification made… in a dream, just like the Ryan Ferguson case.

The conviction:

In 1988, Moses-EL was sentenced to 48 years for a brutal assault and rape in Denver. The victim couldn’t identify her attacker at first. But later, she told police the identity “came to her in a dream.” That dream became the foundation of the case against him.

The reality:

Moses-EL fought for decades to get DNA testing done, but the Denver Police Department destroyed the evidence, accidentally, and despite a court order to preserve it. Years later, another man sent a letter from prison confessing to the crime.

The outcome:

After 28 years behind bars, Moses-EL finally got a new trial. In 2016, he was acquitted, and the state of Colorado awarded him nearly $2 million in compensation, an acknowledgment for nearly three decades of lost life.

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These Dateline-covered stories of Ferguson, Faria, Wright, Ogrod, Rosario, and Moses‑EL reveal that the justice system is far from perfect.

At the same time, these cases show what persistence really looks like in this system. Lawyers who stay long after the headlines fade. Journalists who keep pulling at loose threads. Groups like the Innocence Project step in when everyone else has moved on. Freedom helps, but it doesn’t give the years back. And justice, as these stories make clear, can’t stop at a single verdict. It has to keep going.

It’s a responsibility to question, examine, and make sure the innocent are never left behind. Cases like the ones we discussed are still very much prevalent, and now and then, many are being wrongly convicted.