Ray Krone (born January 19, 1957) is an American who was wrongfully convicted of
murder. He was the 100th inmate exonerated from
death row
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution ( ...
since the
death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Krone was born and raised in
Dover Township, York County, Pennsylvania
Dover Township is a township in York County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 22,366 at the 2020 census.
History
Pettit's Ford was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
Geography
According to the United ...
and graduated from
Dover Area High School
Dover Area High School is a midsized, suburban public high school located at 4500 Intermediate Avenue in Dover, Pennsylvania. In 2014, enrollment was reported as 1,009 pupils in 9th through 12th grades.
Alternatively, Dover Area High School stude ...
in 1974.
He was labeled the "
Snaggletooth
Snaggletooth may refer to:
*"Snaggletooth", a 1984 song by English rock band Motörhead from '' No Remorse''
* Snaggletooth a.k.a. Warpig, the mascot of English rock band Motörhead
* Snivvian (a.k.a. Snaggletooth), a character seen in ''Star Wars ...
Killer" (a feature which has since been corrected) and spent 10 years in prison, including two years on death row, after being found guilty of killing a bartender in Phoenix, Arizona in 1991. 35-year-old Kim Ancona was found dead in a bar where Krone often played darts. The 1992 conviction, which was upheld on appeal in 1996, hinged on expert testimony, included claiming an impression of Krone's teeth matched bite marks found on the victim's body, a detail that was disputed by dental experts called by the defense in court.
On April 8, 2002, Krone was released from prison after DNA evidence proved that he did not murder the victim and identified the killer: Kenneth Phillips, a repeatedly violent sexual offender. Journalist Robert Nelson later wrote that ample crime scene evidence and interviews should have excluded Krone as a suspect, and all pointed toward Phillips, but this data were ignored by the police and the prosecution's purported experts.
In 2005, Krone received a settlement of $1.4 million from Maricopa County and $3 million from the city of Phoenix.
Since Krone's release, he has become an activist working for the abolition of the death penalty, and he is the director of Membership and Training for
Witness to Innocence Witness to Innocence (WTI) is a non-profit organization based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, dedicated to the effort of abolishing the death penalty in the United States. WTI began as a project of The Moratorium Campaign, led by Jené O'Keefe. ...
. In February 2005, he was featured in episodes 13 and 14 of the third season of the reality television show ''
Extreme Makeover
''Extreme Makeover'' is an American reality television series that premiered on ABC on December 11, 2002. Created by television producer Howard Schultz, the show depicts ordinary men and women undergoing "extreme makeovers" involving plastic s ...
''. His story is detailed in ''Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out'', written by Jim Rix, his cousin, who was instrumental in getting him freed from prison.
See also
*
List of exonerated death row inmates
This list contains names of people who were found guilty of capital crimes and placed on death row but later found to be wrongly convicted. Many of these exonerees' sentences were overturned by acquittal or pardon, but some of those listed were ...
*
List of wrongful convictions in the United States
This list of wrongful convictions in the United States includes people who have been legally exonerated, including people whose convictions have been overturned or vacated, and who have not been retried because the charges were dismissed by the s ...
Notes
References
Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty Justice Denied – Issue 32The Innocence Project"Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krone, Ray
1957 births
Living people
Overturned convictions in the United States
People wrongfully convicted of murder