Name Ray Krone | ||
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Ray's Story: A Death Penalty Mistake
Ray Krone: The "Snaggle Tooth Killer" Freed by DNA
Ray Krone (born January 19, 1957) is an American who was wrongfully convicted of murder. He was the 100th inmate exonerated from death row since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
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Krone was born and raised in Dover Township, York County, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Dover Area High School 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 Phoenix, Arizona, bartender in 1991. The woman was found dead in a bar where Krone often played darts. The 1992 and 1996 convictions hinged on experts whose questionable testimony included claiming an impression of Krone's teeth matched bite marks found on the victim's body and a hair sample matched his. On April 8, 2002, Krone was released from prison after DNA evidence proved not only that he did not murder the victim, but identified the real killer, Kenneth Phillips, a repeatedly violent sexual offender. Copious crime scene evidence and interviews with other sources should have identified Phillips, but 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 is Director of Membership and Training for Witness to Innocence. In February 2005, he was featured in episodes 13 and 14 of the third season of the reality television show Extreme Makeover. His story is detailed in Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out, written by his cousin, Jim Rix, who was instrumental in getting him out of prison.
