Ray Krone (born January 19, 1957) is an American who was wrongfully convicted of

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

. 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 Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of ...

since the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

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 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 ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * Am ...

''. 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.

Notes

References

Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty

Justice Denied – Issue 32

The 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

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