#230 Jason Flom with Ray Krone

With the limitations of the sorology in this case, the notorious junk science of bitemark analysis became the sole evidence against Ray. To judge's denial of a continuance for the defense to prayer to refute. This evidence made a path for a second trial, but not before Ray was.

that was it nothing else. And furthermore, as happens too often in too many of the cases that we cover, the actual perpetrator went on to commit an unspeakable crime after Ray was targeted for reasons that we'll get into later, which are inexplicable, but they're real. So without further Ado, Ray Crone, welcome to wrongful conviction.

we know of, right. The first was Deborah Milky back in nineteen ninety when Levy hid the lead detective's long history of lying under oath, and that was exposed in twenty fifteen, which allowed Debrah Milky to finally clear her name and then of course you But before all of this insanity, can you take us back a bit, what was your life like growing up?

I signed up for six years active duty. Was stationed places like Texas, Mississippi, then Georgia, Maine, and then the last was Phoenix, Arizona. My six years were up, I got out out there. A few years later. I got a job at the post office, and life was really pretty good again. I played a lot of sports, and that's really where my problem arose. Because of the one bar that I played volleyball for that I had sought darts at a few times became a scene of a murder right.

notoriously reliable that is? But so ray from these facts? How did they even come to suspect and ultimately target you.

to be somebody that knew her. No evidence of break in, no sign of a robbery. They talked to some of the co workers. One of them mentioned my name as a potential boyfriend. I did not date. She was not my girlfriend. I knew her from the bar. You treat bartenders and waitresses are kindly in any profession if you're going to be attending that place of business, and that's all it was. But it was about one o'clock on that Sunday end. I heard my dog was outside and

he started barking. Two men in suits had pulled in front of my neighbor's house and were getting out of their car. And by the time I went outside to let my dog and they were walking up my driveway and I stepped out and I said, excuse me, can I help you? The one man said, or you Ray Crone? I said, well, yes, Sam, What can I do for you? And he said you know, and I thought of SATs. I said, I don't think I knew anybody named, and he exchanged glances with the man next him, looked like

he said, you don't know from the CBS lounge. I said, well, wait a minute. I played volleyball there. I shoot darts there sometimes. There was a girl there named I said, I don't know her last name. And he kind of looked at me side. He said, you don't know her last name. You're a boyfriend, aren't you. I kind of said, tell I'm not her boyfriend. What's going on here? He said, well, you're dating, or aren't you? I said, no, I'm not datinger,

what is this about? And at that point, he opened up his jacket, pulled out his badge, identified himself as a homicide detective, and informed me of her death. Said he was there to ask me a few questions. Now I'm stunned. I've been going to that bar about two months. Here's somebody I knew was a victim of a homicide and the police are at my house to ask me questions.

The first thing I said, well, sure, come on inside, and he said no, we really need to do this downtown, And so I was interrogated for the next three hours about how long we've been dating, where I take her on dates, every time she'd been to my house. All of them, I told him were negative. You know, she's never been to my house. I didn't date her. I would see her at the bar. I was at a Christmas party with a number of people from the bar at one point with her, and that was it. At

one point they took my sneakers out. Another point they took mugshots. They had me take my shirt off, took pictures of my upper torso they took fingerprints. Another party, he had like a white stir foam cups, had it tied two pieces together. Where I actually been into that and I cooperated. I didn't know anything about her death. I didn't know her that well. I was at home that night. I have a roommate that knows I was home that night, and after about three hours it was over,

and I thought that was the end up. But then the next day, which was a Monday, I went to the post office, delivered my mail, got home that day and there he was waiting. Detective Gregory said, I need to eliminate you as a suspect. I don't think you've been completely truthful. You want to cooperate, don't you, mister cron And well, I said, sure, what does it you need me to do? And he said, well, I need you to come downtown again again. I volunteered to go

downtown this time. When I got down there, in a little interrogation room, right away, he pulled out a piece of paper said, oh, yeah, by the way, I have an affidavid here, or a request for for evidence, and that it said that they were going to take a blood sample or hair sample to cast in my teeth. Now I'm a little upset. Now I'm concerns, like what's going on here? It was signed by a judge, said I was required to give these samples, and it said they had three hours to do it. So I cooperated

when he took blood out of both arms. I'm not sure why that was necessary. I cooperated when they took hair samples, and then I was taken next door in a bigger room where there was a dentist and a dentist chair set up, at which point they sat me in a chair, put this gup, and he took two casts in my upper teeth to cast my lower teeth, and for about the next two and a half hours there was nothing but taking pictures in question me about my identicians history. When I was eighteen years old, I

was a passengor in a head on collision. I woke up with a broken jaw mouth wearing shut. Six weeks went by. The bottom jawl didn't line up with the top. They had to rebreak and wear it shut again for another six weeks. I had some teeth that it eventually had died. I had some teeth issues, root canals, they some bridge work, some different things that went on with the front teeth in my mouth. And finally, when that was over, I went next door to that little interrogation

room at wench Point. The detective banged his desk with his big old book and said, look, it's time to come clean. It's time to tell the truth. I know you didn't want you just confess that we can all go home. Well, by now I was pretty angry. I was pretty upset with what was going on where I was being treated. I was almost thirty five years old. I'm not a little child. I spoke up to him, I told you what I thought of him when I thought the investigation of the police department, Why you waste

my time go find a person that did this. And by the way, your three hours were up. I mean I was hot. And he looked at me, looked at his watch, he looked back up. He said, look, mister crone, I'm not going to argue with you. There's other ways to handle this. He took me home fifteen minute ride, never said a word to me again. I thought that was the end of it, but I found out what he meant by other ways to handle this. The next day, December thirty first, nineteen ninety one. It was just about

four o'clock. I pulled into my driveway, just stepped out of my car, which point all Suddenly I heard a speaker go off. Freeze, don't move, you're underrest. A vanload the police officers came pulling up. Black and whites came pulling up. The van doors opened up with armed officers in full riot gear. Threw me on the ground and rescue for murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault.

it on appeal. And I went crazy, What do you mean if he found Giddy had not to do his own bit? I just started going off, ranting and raving, and she got the phone held away from her ear, waiting for me to calm down. And she got back in that phone and she said, listen, mister crone, let me tell you something. I don't take that to an A voice from the judge I don't take it from the prosecutor, and I'm certainly not going to take it from you. Hung up the phone, picked up a briefcase,

and was gone. And I thought, this is incredible. What is this system? I believed in? What the country? I believe that things I stood for and was taught and you know, raised to believe. Anyway, I got a letter about a week or two later from the Public Defender's office that stated that they were being removed from my case. They cited a conflict of interest, said the next most

likely suspect was the victim's ex husband. They had a fifteen year old daughter together, and he did a sleepover for her birthday and did something inappropriate with one of her little girlfriends and he was arrested rightfully so, and they were representing him, and I was told that I would be getting a court appointed attorney. I thought, oh good, I'm going to get a private attorney. Now. Somebody's going to be appointed to represent somebody that'll do the job.

But unfortunately, the day I went before the judge to get a court appointed attorney, it was a man who'd never done a death penalty case. And at the point where the judge appoint him to me. He was granted five thousand dollars to defend me, to represent me in a capitol murder case.

very convincing. We had later found out, very well paid, over fifty thousand dollars by the Maricopa County DA's office for his testimony. But his testimony was that my teeth were unique as the result of the car accident. I was in my teeth matched the marks and the body, and the detos marks in the body were made at the time of death, and that definitively made me Ray Crone the murder. There really wasn't much other evidence, but I was called a snagger tooth killer in the papers.

disdain I have for this particular junk science. I encourage everyone to listen to our series Wraleful Conviction Junk Science. The first episode exposes bitemark analysis for what it really is. And let's start out by saying that one of the original purposes of forensic odentology is identifying human remains with dental records. What I mean is, for instance, like a person was on a flight, right, and the flight crashed into a mountainside or whatever, it gets obliterated.

about elasticity, decomposition. I could go on, but from there they act as if they're able to match perfectly a dental mold from a suspect to marks made on a surface that's transitioning, and they claim to be able to do this to the exclusion of all others on the planet,

as Ray Rosen did in this case. So yeah, no, but as Ray mentioned, they impressed the hell out of the jury with their witnesses purported credentials, and this time tested method has tragically been very effective at producing convictions, often with no other evidence of any kind. So that was the state's case. But what about your defense?

I just started tearing into me. I mean everything I said was twisted around. And after two or three hours of this cross examination, I come down off that wind of sand. I mean, so disorder and confused almost what over sat down next to me. Next was my roommate. My roommate was going through divorce. He had two children. Most of his money was going to support those children. He was staying with me for a month or two.

He'd been there already he raised his right hand to testify, to tell the truth there in that court of law, and sat down and answered my attorney's question. And then here come nol leave again to cross examine him. Stirred there in front of him a minute with his arms cross said, now you know Ray Crone a long time, haven't you. My friend Steve said yes, that's right. He's been twelve years since we were in the Air Force together. And then the prosecutor said, and Ray Crone has always

been a good friend to you. I've been there at times, indeed, times of trouble, looked out for you, helped you out. In fact, he's even given you a place to live right now, isn't he my friends to He kind of straighten up said yes, that's right. That's the kind of guy where he is. And then the prosecutor leaned right over a space point to figure and said, and you'd lie for him, wound you and turned and walked away

and sat down. Later on at closing arguments, he told the jury disregard my friend a man who raised his right hand to serve the United States Air Force, a man who raised his right hand to tell his truth in the court of law. He told that jury to disregard his testimony because he's just there to protect me and will say anything. And it took the jury just three and a half hours to come back and find me guilty and murdering kidnapping.

get a death sentence. They used the bite mark set. It was gratuitous violent success, he pain and suffering on a soft tissue of while she was still alive, the pain and suffering she must have went through, or because they're great at covering any possibilities in all their bases, and he said, or it was after she was already dead. That's heinous and depray, that's tampering with dead body. That's

just sick. And it's all his suppositions. He don't know what happened, but he even had a dress dummy up there showing how this was hacked and this was cut, and how she has been I mean, very very powerful. And then of course came the defenses turned to put on the mitigating. Well, how do you mitigate something you didn't do? How do you show remorse regret for an act you never committed. I told my her, I got nothing to apologized for. I didn't kill her. They got

the wrong person. And he said, well, we'll put your family, your friends, or we can have them testify to your good behavior in that background. I said, you're not putting my family, my people that I know, on that stand and be cross examined by that prosecutor. I said, no way, it's not going to happen. And he said, we have to tell the judge that right, Well, so I did, and I was promptly calling an old, remorseful killer a horrible monster, and sentence to.

civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access Program provides pro bono legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations, bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide.

on it. I wrapped my sneakers in my towel. That was my pillow, and that's where I was to live now until they decided when I was going to die again. My friends and family believed to me, supported me, but I knew this cell and death row is going to be my home for quite a while, and I'm going to have to learn the survivment here and learn what I can about the system to prepare myself for what I need to know to fight it in the future if I ever had that chance again.

to say, God bless my worthless attorney. He actually did something worthwhile right before our trials to start he was on a Friday. The trial started Monday. We were taken into the courtroom there in the prosecution and introduced a videotape made by their bikemark expert, about forty minutes long, about how he conclusively matched my teeth using the latest techniques to these bike marks on her body. Very impressive, very powerful evidence. And my attorney was awake, he was

actually paying attention. He said, your honor, I've never seen this evidence before. You can't allow this in. At the last moment, the judge said, D nine, I'm going to allow this in. He said, you got the weekend to consult with this expert. And then at a burst of brilliance, we actually said you're honor and lighted that ruling. If you're gonna allow that evidence in, I'm going to have to ask for thirty day continues. I am not prepared

for this evidence. I need thirty more days. And as I said, the judge was consistent, he was an ex prosecutor, had people on death road. He said, denied. He said, we need to get this trial rolling. So just seven months from the murder, he needed to get the trial rolling. The arizonas were Supreme Court reviewed the issue for what it was. They said, my attorney was well within the rights for ask for a continuance. They said the judge was wrong for allowing that in at the last moment.

As a defendant, you have a right to know what Evan's going to be used against you. You have a right to receive that in a timely manner. But just because there's a mistake of technicality and error made does not mean you walk free. There's two parts to it, and the second part is called a harmless error evaluation, and this is where they review this piece of evidence, this omission, this era, and whether or not it would affect the verdict when the jury even cared, did this matter?

And the exact words were without this videotape, there wasn't even a jury submissible case against mister Krone. They recognized this was about a bite mark, that this was critical evidence. The judge was wrong and they ordered a new trial.

death row? And he was intrigued. He came to visit me on death row and talked with me, and when he was done, he said, something doesn't sound right here. And he became a real champion for the fight for my innocence. And he knew attorney out of California, and from talking through him, the attorney said, let me take the case. We couldn't come near the hundreds of thousands of dollars required, but he said, just pay the expenses. I believe in raid. This case is no good. Let

me take the case. And so now we had a person very experienced attorney. When he showed up for that trial, I mean, he had books and books about its stuff that he had found out that we never knew about in our first trial. Things that they had done with everything from even blood sampling and testing and stuff that we never knew had been done. More about footprints and fingerprints that had been found that we never knew about, and all this stuff was coming out at our second trial.

And when that second trials finally started in February of nineteen ninety six, it lasted over seven weeks. Over five hundred exhibits were introduced. We had three bitemark experts testify the defense alone. It was a whole different scenario now, and it was starting to feel good about the truth was coming out at this trial.

He said, we know from the bike mark who did this, and you're responsible to see that justice is done for the victim's family. And this is his best prosecutor of tone, a kindness, consoling, trust me voice that he's telling this jury that right before they go out to deliberate. And the jury goes out after all that time and come back and finds me guilty again, everything just froze for me. I see the jurors wiping tears out of their eyes, their heads down, they don't want to look at me.

My attorney's hanging on my shoulder, saying, I can't believe this. Why do they see the truth? Don't worry. I'm with you to the end. And I look over to prosecution side and they're all jumping up and down, celebrating like the one the big ball game, And all I can think is woeb stop rewinders though this can't be is no, it's not possible to But that lasted just seconds because I was brought right back to reality because I heard the most horrible scream, this moan and wailing from my

mom and sister not five feet behind me. To turn around and see the look in their eye, the tears holding their face, and I'd say, Mom, don't cry, Amy, my little sister Amy, It'll be all right. Don't worry. I'll be okay. You couldn't believe this, what happened? How can this be? It's not possible. But there I was found guilty again Jesus.

a size eleven, right. That fingerprints and palm prince found in the bathroom didn't match you, that hair found on the victim's body, that salivary DNA didn't match you. And all of this made such an impression on the judge, Superior Court Judge James McDougal, that he said, quote, the court is left with a residual or lingering doubt about the clear identity of the killer. This is one of those cases that will haunt me for the rest of my life, wondering whether I have done the right thing.

investigate doing different things, and nothing's really panning out. And then in two thousand and one, Arizona state legislatures passed a new law allowing for post conviction relief DNA testing. Most states are only allowed a small window after your conviction to bring up new evidence. If you didn't bring it up a trial, it's very hard to ever bring

it up again. But they recognized that DNA was too critical, too definitive, too important to just ignore on a time restraint, so they passed a new law allowing for post conviction relief on DNA material, provided it was previously on tested that would have direct bearing on guilt or innocence, and that it was properly maintained. And I have to say God, bless you, thank you Phoenich police department, because they kept

the clothing in Kim's case. She had been stabbed with a big butcher knife from the kitchen through her clothing which was then cut off with that butcher knife and thrown in a corner. She had been stabbed so forcibly with this butcher knife that it actually bent the blade, and my experts all surmised there was a good chance

the person willing that knife may have cut themselves. And so we were able to get a look at those clothing that they had kept preserved and stored, and my journey was able to see that there was blood on her pants, on her underwear. Meanwhile, I was visited by a man named Alan Simpson and investigator Tom Street would to know if I would like them to represent me. I'm like, I have no money or no, No, that's

not what we're talking about. We want to represent you in this case and have this post conviction relief DNA testing done, so I can't pay you anything for about five minutes, I can't pay you if only got to the point, That's not what mattered to them. They wanted to represent me. They bleed in my innocence and they would then petitioned the courts under that new law to have DNA testing done on that pants and underwear that they had found some type of a staining. That testing

was now being done. It started in October. We were told it would take six to eight weeks. October went by, and November went by, December went by, January went by, still no results. I'm waiting, I'm anxious. Went it up. It turned out that they actually had results back, but it came back with a match to a another man that was currently serving a ten year sentence for sexually assaulting a child. It came back three or four times. The prosecution to have the rerun it and rerun it and rerun it.

have been avoided entirely. Unfortunately that was not the case, and it took all of those years later, and these critical DNA test.

do you want? He steak? Seafood ekes a good food, a beer? What would you like? Ray? I said, Alan, what the devil are you talking about? He said, I just got off the phone with the prosecutor's office. They just got back from the judges chambers. They're cutting the paperwork and coming home today. And I just what did you say? He said, Roll up, Ray, it's all over.

You're coming home. And I looked at the counselor and I gave him the phone, and he'd hung it up and well his phone rang right away and he picked yes, sir right, he's right here. Yes, his eyes are getting bigger. Yesterday I'll haven't done. Yes, absolutely, I'll take care of it. Said. That was the ward. He said, you need to go back and roll your stuff up. You're being released, mister crone.

I walked out of that prison about three hours later, looking at over my shoulder and wondered what the devil were they up to this time because they never accepted my innocence, they never believed what I said. And now, just like that one day and back in December thirty first, it was when I woke up in my house and that evening I went to sleep in a jail. So that morning I woke up in a prison cell and went home to sleep. But I was released and my attorney,

Chris Plord, came from over in California. He picked me up and drove me off that day to escort me off to start my life all over again at the age of forty five, after ten years, stream months and eight days, to reunite with my family and friends, with the distinction of being the one undred person in America too have been convicted of a capitol murder, sentence to death, and later to be free, to be exonerated, to be proven innocent. Wow.

belonged to a suspect in some crime or other. But it turned out that the dental molds were actually the ones belonging to the investigator who was part of this sting. And of course, this freaking numbnot's West identifies the dental molds as those belonging to the culprit in this fake case, thereby exposing himself as just one of many frauds in this field.

the dental school. He also lost his re election as senator. But yeah, Ray Rosen held on to the end when all the other experts said you're wrong, why you're doing this? And We actually had him on tape for the lawsuit. If we could have went after saying I'm just in too deep to back out now. So what kind of system do we have that allows people like that to get paid exorbitant amount of money to testify to something that they weren't even sure of, but they're in too

deep to back up and admit they were wrong. Walking out that gate that day, being number one hundred, there was notoriety. One hundred was a special number. There was a number of events that went on around the country for that molestone, and there was the media outside Mike Gate just want to talk to see what it's like. But what are you going to do now? How's it feel?

And I talked about how my family and friends had stood by, how I read the Bible front back three and a half times during those ten years and stepped with it under my pillow, and reporter back and raised his hand. He said, well, mister Crone, giving your faith in God, how do you justify him leaving you in prison for ten years? I thought, what, how do I justify God leaving me in prison for ten years? How do you answer a deep soul searching question like that?

I mean the prison is right behind me. I've been out five minutes, and I'm dumbfounded. I'm frozen underard. And then all of a suddenly something shot in my head. I said, well, you know, maybe it's not about those ten years I spent in prison. Maybe it's about what I have to do the next ten years. It took three weeks to go back before a judge, at which point the judge ordered a new trow and that's when the prosecution stepped forward and said they were dropping charges

with prejudice meeting that could never be tried again. And at that point said, mister Krone, you're free to go. Good luck. I time to think maybe there was a reason that somebody like me had to go through this, because again, if they can put me on death throw anybody, it's acceptable almost to that. And then so I shared my story in my background, and at the time, his sister Helen was fighting her own war so to speak

against the death penny. She had the ideal about what better way to talk about the death pilty and how wrong it is and to have somebody that was innocently convicted of it. And I was asked if I would come on board to share my story. She was out of New Orleans at a time. It lasted probably good six months, almost a year, and as anything funny gets difficult to have and it was finally folded up years later.

Man Kurt Rosenberg out Philadelphia had to contact her sister Helen and said, I'd like to resurrect Witness Innocence with your blessings, with your approval, and she said yes absolutely.

He had contacted another man he knew there in Philadelphia, that was grant writer Terry Ramsey, and then I was contacted the resurrect Witness Innocence and between the three I was Then we ended up drawing up a nonprofit organization US to five oh one three C. We got our LLC and we started Witness Citizens, and I believe that was around two thousand and five somewhere in there. And since then we've grown it now to staff a five or six at least paid staff, over thirty some members

that are active. But we share our stories around the country. We've spoken all the states that have at leashed to

death peny. Our people come and shared their stories, both men and women who like me, were wrongly convicted, who walked that walk on death row, who were facing a possible execution, and later, by the grace of God and good fortune and the hard work of others, including innocence projects and justice projects around the country, that we're able to get our freedom and now use our voice to say what is wrong and how we can abolish the death peny and fix certain other aspects of our justicysm

that have continued to malfunction and result in wrongful convictions of minicent people.

for being here on the show. And then what happens now is I turned my microphone off, kick back in my chair, leave my headphones on, and just listen as you share with our audience anything else you may want to say. The microphone is yours, Ray Crone, closing arguments.

crowd is mostly all my friends and family members. But she had come walking up a frail lady. Now after almost ten years or so, she'd been through this, come up walking on a cane. Sadden almost in tears to mister Crone, I'm so sorry for what happened to you. I know what it's like to lose a loved one. I lost my daughter. Your mom lost you for ten years. She said, Please forgive me. I just believed what they told me, and I said, ma'm your apologies, certainly accept

that it's not necessary. I can understand your anger at me and thinking I'd killed your daughter. I did not kill your daughter. I thank you for coming up to me, I said, And now it's my first opportunity to actually, I'll offer you my condolences. I only knew your lovely daughter for a few months, but she seemed like a very nice and special person. But there it was a system. Wasn't just doing it to my famous system had done

it to her family now too. She was at that point, was actually looking at the possibility having to go back to travel again, see all the brutal pictures at the prosecutional show of her daughter again and had to sit

through that testimony. They were doing it to her too, And she said, I just believed they told me, And I wish some of the good fortune that I've had in my case could be blessed on all those other ones, those moms and those daughters, those sisters, those wives that are fighting for their husband, their loved one right now,

who totally believe in their innocence. So I just want those folks that might be listening, that are struggling with their own case right now, to keep that faith alive, to keep that open and know that people do care

about you. Why we might not know you personally, we know of your hardships, we know of the struggles, and we have people like you today's putting this on the air doing podcasts and showing the errors, mistakes and fighting for that justice system that we could all be proud of in trust.