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Krone's path to death row began a decade earlier, on December 21, 1991, when Phoenix police charged him with raping and murdering Kim Ancona, a bartender at the pub he frequented. Krone became a suspect when his name was found in Ancona's address book.
His trial began in the summer of 1992, where the main evidence against him was an odd-shaped bite mark on Ancona's breast.
Forensic experts said the bite marks on the victim matched Krone's dental
patterns.
The bite mark led to Ancona's killer being labeled The Snaggle-toothed Killer. At the trial, Arizona's prosecutors presented forensic experts on dental patterns who said Krone's teeth matched the bite-mark impression.
After deliberating for only two hours, Krone was convicted of first degree-murder, but not of sexual assault. At his sentencing, Krone was given the death penalty.
Back in Krone's hometown of Dover, Pennsylvania, friends and family never lost faith in his innocence and worked tirelessly to get him exonerated. And across the country, a distant cousin living in California named Jim Rix started taking a very active interest in the case.
Rix, the owner of a computer software company began collecting
any information he could find about the case and put it on his
website, Freeraykrone.com. His campaign to free Krone would cost
him more than $200,000.
Read more about
how the internet played a role in Ray Krone's case.
In 1995, mostly through the efforts of Krone's mother and stepfather, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned the original conviction. Krone, after spending three years on death row, was given a second trial.
During this trial, prosecutors once again put the bite-mark evidence forward as proof of Krone's guilt. However, Krone's lawyer countered that the teeth marks were not made by Krone, and, furthermore, DNA evidence excluded their client as the perpetrator.
To the horror of his family and supporters, Krone was found guilty again of murder; but this time the judge, who said he was concerned about the quality of the prosecution's evidence, sentenced him to life in prison. He would have to serve at least 36 years before being eligible for parole.
In March 2002, Krone's defence team, which now included Phoenix lawyer Alan Simpson, learned the FBI had a match in its database linking someone else to the DNA found on Kim Ancona.
The DNA, they would learn, belonged Ken Phillips, a convicted child molester who lived a few hundred yards from where Ancona was murdered. But even with this match, Krone's team needed one more piece of evidence to finally free their client.
That break occurred when Simpson interviewed Phillips, who was then in an Arizona jail. In the taped interview, Phillips made a number of self-incriminating statements about the killing.
A few weeks later, Krone was ordered freed. When his mother and stepfather learned of his impending release, they drove 30 hours to Arizona to be there when he got out. He eventually headed back to Pennsylvania with his family.
Now free, Krone became a vocal activist against capital punishment. He has spoken at numerous universities, schools and rallies around the world denouncing America's death penalty.
Krone brought lawsuits against Phoenix and Maricopa County for his wrongful conviction. In April 2005, the county settled with Krone for $1.4 million. Later that year, Phoenix also settled for $3 million.
With part of his settlement, Krone bought himself a 27-acre farm in Dover, Pennsylvania, which he named Freebird, and a Fat Boy Harley Davidson motorcycle.
On June 30, 2005, Krone appeared on ABC's reality program Extreme Makeover, to have his "snaggle teeth" fixed. He agreed to appear as a way to get his story and his message to the millions of the show's viewers.
The makeover, which his lawyer said probably cost about $200,000, not only fixed Krone's teeth, but included cosmetic work on his eyes, scalp and skin.
But for Krone, one of his most satisfying moments since leaving prison came on February 20, 2006, when Arizona's House and Senate apologized to him and rose in a standing ovation. Krone, who was in the legislature at the time, accepted the apology.
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