Gregory’s answers were evasive and misleading, though, when asked about the physical evidence linking Ray Krone to the crime: Fingerprints? “Not yet.” Pubic hairs? “Ray’s hairs are similar.” DNA? “The Phoenix crime lab can’t do everything instantly.” Was there any semen found? “Not at this time.” Stains on Ray’s underwear? “There appeared to be blood to me.”1
Six of the fifteen members of the Grand Jury decided there was not sufficient evidence to bring charges against Ray Krone. He was indicted by a narrow two-vote margin. Had the known circumstances been accurately portrayed at the indictment, it is quite possible Ray Krone would have never been tried.2
There were no fingerprints; there was no semen; there was no blood on Ray’s underwear; and Ray’s pubic hairs were similar only to the extent that the pubic hairs found on Kim Ancona’s abdomen came from a Caucasian.3
A few days after the indictment, a couple claiming to have information that Kim Ancona’s murder might be connected to a lesbian affair contacted Detective Gregory, but Gregory dismissed them with the curt reply, “I am not interested in information that will show innocence. I am only interested in information that will convict Ray Krone.”4
Three months later Gregory tracked down the man who left a note saying he had seen an “Indian” lurking around the back door of the CBS Lounge on the night Kim Ancona was killed. The note-writer Robert Fredrickson lived in an apartment behind the bar and routinely rose early to go to work on a construction job.5 The description Fredrickson gave prompted Gregory to interview the Native American man Kim Ancona had refused to serve that night. He was a regular customer named Arnold Lomatewana, and suspiciously enough, since the murder, he had stopped frequenting the bar.6
Lomatewana insisted he didn’t have anything to do with Kim Ancona’s death. Gregory took a Styrofoam plate impression of Lomatewana’s teeth back to the county’s forensic dentist Piakis, who confirmed Lomatewana’s claim of innocence to Detective Gregory’s satisfaction: according to Piakis, Lomatewana’s teeth were not a match.7
Ray decided against hiring a private attorney. What was the point? Why should he waste his money? He was innocent. The public defender who visited him at the Maricopa County Jail suggested he plea bargain, and he threw her out.8
The court appointed Phoenix attorney Jeffery Jones to represent him. It was Jeffery Jones’ first murder case, but Jones was not without experience. He was a former country prosecutor and had decided to open a private practice and defend indigent clients.9
Jones was paid a miserly $5000 for representing Ray Krone. Lacking the resources to hire an investigator and conduct expensive forensic testing, Jones had to rely on the information provided to him by the Phoenix Police Department, which was incomplete at best, and in some instances blatantly false.10
When it became apparent that the size 9 ½ to10 ½ Converse brand shoeprints found at the crime scene did not match Ray Krone’s size 11 ½ feet, police chose to discount the significance of the Converse shoeprints. The shoeprints were found behind the bar, in the kitchen leading to the knife drawer the murder weapon was taken from, and in the men’s room surrounding Kim Ancona’s body. Detective Gregory reported to Jeffery Jones that there were no shoeprints in the men’s room.11
Phoenix Police crime lab technician Scott Piette visually analyzed the pubic hairs found on Kim Ancona’s abdomen and concluded they came from a Caucasian. Piette’s superficial examination formed the basis of his report which stated, “the hairs matched victim and Krone” and were “indistinguishable” from Ray Krone’s hair sample. Three pubic hairs found on Ancona’s back were not from a Caucasian, and Piette tucked them away in an envelope, along with a long black hair found on her buttocks which was also, obviously, not from Kim Ancona or Ray Krone. Peitte decided to ignore the four exculpatory hairs and performed no further analysis.12
Peitte’s tests showed there was no blood on Ray Krone’s underwear, which Piette ultimately acknowledged. His final report stated that all the blood samples he performed a full battery of serological tests on matched Kim Ancona. When preliminary testing of blood on the inside of the pants on the rear pocket flap indicated that the blood did not come from Kim Ancona or Ray Krone, Piette decided to ignore the pocket-flap blood sample and performed no further tests.13
While the prosecution had in its possession information that pointed to Ray Krone’s innocence, they were short suited on evidence pointing to his guilt. Nothing except the bite mark linked Ray Krone to the crime, and lead prosecutor Noel Levy encouraged dentist Piakis to get additional expert verification. Piakis shipped the dental casts and bite-mark photographs to his friend and mentor Dr. Norman ‘Skip’ Sperber, a nationally recognized forensic odontologist from San Diego. Sperber had thirty years of experience in bite-mark identification and immediately zeroed in on inconsistencies. Ray Krone had two higher teeth than his incisors that would have marked when he bit. “If that's all they have, if there's no other evidence, stay away from this case,” Sperber advised Piakis.14
When Prosecutor Levy learned that Piakis was having trouble finding a certified odontologist who would verify his conclusions, Levy sent Detective Gregory to Las Vegas to meet with Dr. Raymond Rawson. Like Sperber, Rawson was certified by the American Academy of Forensic Odontologists and boasted other impressive credentials as well. He was state president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a professor at the University of Nevada, and a Nevada State Senator. Rawson had fifteen years experience in bite mark identification, although in a recent Arizona case he had been proved wrong when a bite mark match he identified turned out to be a knife wound. Gregory delivered the dental casts and bite mark photos to Rawson on March 23, and Rawson’s preliminary report dated the same day read, “The bite mark on the breast of the victim identified to me as Kim Ancona matches the dentation of the person identified to me as Ray Krone.” Rawson’s confident assessment of the evidence was exactly what Prosecutor Levy was hoping for. He contracted with Rawson to serve as an expert witness, paying him a retainer of $10,000.15
Rawson began to run into problems, though, when he undertook an in depth analysis of the bite mark evidence. He could not account for all of the individual tooth abrasions. Three weeks after being hired by Levy, Rawson met with county forensic dentist Piakis, and following the meeting, Rawson advanced the theory that there were two bite marks, contrary to his initial opinion, which stated there was only one. Piakis, who likewise saw only one bite mark originally, changed his assessment as well, postulating that the attacker bit Anonca twice.16
Ray’s mother Carolyn had looked into hiring a private attorney, in spite of Ray’s protests that he didn’t need her help and would do fine with his court appointed legal counsel.17 The lowest estimate Carolyn received was $90,000, a daunting sum, especially since her assets were still tied up in the divorce settlement, and she was unable to borrow money.18 In March of 1992, Carolyn Krone and Jim Leming drove to Phoenix to visit Ray and to meet with his attorney, desperately wanting to be reassured that, as Ray repeatedly insisted, there was no need to worry. Carolyn had worked as a seamstress until Ray was sixteen, when she took a position as the billing manager at a Dover area hospital where she supervised twenty-one employees. Jim worked as a superintendent for a construction company. Their middle-class, white-collar life left them totally unprepared for what they encountered at the Maricopa County Jail.
“It was my first experience of being in a jail,” Carolyn says, “Most of the people that are in jail are not exactly like us—I don’t know how to say this. It’s a whole different culture.”
Carolyn and Jim were herded into a ten by ten room along with thirty or forty others, mostly women and children, mostly Hispanics, standing room only, screaming toddlers and crying babies, the stench of dirty diapers. Everyone had been waiting far too long for the short visit with their loved one. Three of the walls were thick Plexiglas, and on the other side of the plastic walls were small phone booths. An inmate was ushered into each booth, and the visits began. Ray was handcuffed and shackled. Carolyn and Jim conversed with him via the telephone in his booth, but they could barely hear what he was saying for the cacophony of voices in the tiny room. The experience was horrifying and demoralizing for them, but Ray, ever optimistic, dismissed their anxious concern—it would all get straightened out, quit worrying.
Ray’s attorney Jeffery Jones was equally confident when they met with him. The prosecution’s only evidence was the bite mark, Jones insisted, and no one had ever been convicted of murder by a bite mark. He was convinced Ray was innocent, he reassured Carolyn and Jim, and said that he was working night and day on his case. When Jones complained of being hampered in his investigation by lack of funds, Jim Leming wrote him a check for $2000.
Jones hired an investigator. He had also petitioned the court for funds to hire a dental expert, when he learned that the prosecution had retained a certified odontologist who would testify at the trial. Although Rawson’s retainer alone was $10,000, the court allocated Jeffey Jones a total budget of $2500 for expert witness testimony. Jones hired a Phoenix area dentist who was a family friend, Dr. Bruce Etkins. Etkins and Jones traveled to Las Vegas to interview Rawson. Etkins had no education or experience in evaluating human bite mark injuries, and after meeting with Rawson, Etkins realized he was wholly unqualified to render a judgment on the evidence.19
Jones’ investigator meanwhile had talked to a few of Ray’s friends, and then conferred with the Phoenix Police, who convinced her that Ray’s teeth did indeed match the bite mark. She reported back to Jones that she believed Ray was guilty.
Jeffery Jones met with Ray and encouraged him to plea bargain—that is, to plead guilty to a lesser crime carrying a less severe penalty, without actually going to trial.
Ray adamantly refused. Plea bargains were for the guilty.
The Trial
“The bite mark on the victim matches the dentition of Ray Krone…there’s a match, a definite match”
In the Maricopa County Jail, Ray was incarcerated in what prisoners referred to as the submarine, a cramped eighty-man unit where the cells were accessed by small submarine-like doors.20 There was constant fighting and trouble.
Because Ray was facing a possible death sentence, he was given a psychiatric evaluation. When the examiner asked if he was stressed or worried he replied, “Well, yeah. I’m worried about my job, and this place, all the fighting and stuff—I can’t sleep.” He was prescribed the anti-psychotic tranquilizer Thorazine, and when he complained of the side effects, Sinequan, a strong antidepressant known to cause drowsiness and lethargy. “I wasn’t totally in a clear state of mind,” Ray concedes. “They’d come around in the evening with your medication. Some of those guys in there were zombies. I wouldn’t take mine all the time. Some days were more stressful, or days when I’d need to sleep, I might take it.”
“On trial days, they got me up at four o’clock in the morning, and I’d sit in the holding tank with drunks until about nine o’clock, when they’d take me down to the courthouse.”
On Friday July 24, 1992, with jury selection set to begin on Monday, the prosecution presented Defense Attorney Jones with a video prepared by their dental expert Rawson. In the highly impressive demonstration, which employed CAT scanning, digital imaging, and reverse image overlays, Rawson illustrated his multiple bite-mark theory by rotating the cast of Ray’s teeth to account for each tooth mark found on Kim Ancona’s breast.21
Monday morning, Jones made a motion requesting that the jury not be allowed to view the video, or, at the very least, that he be granted a continuance, to prepare an adequate defense.22 Jones argued that by providing him with the video at such a late date the prosecution violated the rules of discovery, which mandated that both sides be made aware of all evidence to be introduced at the trial well in advance. Judge Jeffrey Hotham refused to grant a continuance, but said he would take the motion to preclude the video under advisement.
In his opening remarks Prosecutor Noel Levy mentioned three times that Kim Ancona had told Kate Koester “Ray Krone would help her close.” Pubic hair found on the victim’s abdomen is “similar to the hair of Ray Krone,” Levi stated authoritatively, and his teeth “match the bite marks on the victim.”
When Kate Koester testified, she acknowledged that Kim Ancona never gave a last name when she mentioned ‘Ray’ helping her close, but former bar manager Pat Chipley’s testimony seemed to make clear that Ray Krone was the man Kim Ancona had been referring to.
Chipley said Kim Ancona had given Ray Krone a Christmas card, and that she saw them hugging and kissing for two or three hours at a Christmas night party. She also told the jurors Ray Krone had yelled at Kim Ancona during a dart game argument, leaving way for speculation that Ray had a violent temper. Jones hoped to introduce the theory that Chipley’s lesbian lover might have been jealous because Chipley had offered to let Kim Ancona move in with her, pointing to Chipley’s lover as a possible suspect. Judge Hotham, however, refused to allow any line of questioning that alluded to Chipley’s sexual preferences.
To verify that the bite mark occurred during the murder, Prosecutor Levy called Kim Ancona’s live-in boyfriend Paul Clark as a witness. Clark testified that just before she left for work, they had sexual intercourse and showered together, and that there were no marks on her body. Playing to the juries’ sympathy, Clark misleadingly portrayed his relationship with Kim Ancona as warm and loving and said that they were considering getting married.23
In spite of Jones’ objection, the jurors were shown forty photographs of Kim Ancona’s bloody and mutilated body.
Phoenix Police lab technician Scott Peitte acknowledged that all of the blood samples he tested matched Kim Ancona, by inference excluding Ray. The remainder of Piette’s testimony, however, falsely implicated him. “The hair and saliva samples found on the victim could not be eliminated as coming from Ray Krone,” Piette insisted, explaining that he “found a great deal of similarity between the victim’s hair and Krone’s hair”—neglecting to explain the hairs were similar only to the extent that the hairs came from a Caucasian; and Piette’s claim that the saliva samples “could not be eliminated as coming from Ray Krone” was patently false.24
In his examination of lab specimens, Piette detected the presence of amylase (a component of saliva and other body fluids) in a swab from the area surrounding the bite mark and submitted the sample for DNA analysis. The lab reported that, although there was an anomaly in the results which was not understood, Ray Krone’s DNA was not evident in the sample, only Kim Ancona’s. Dr. Thomas Wall who performed the tests took the further step of explaining the results in a follow-up telephone call.25
Wahl also sent a copy of the report to Jeffrey Jones, but Jones never read it.26
On day four of testimony, Monday August 3, Judge Hotham decided to permit the jurors to view Rawson’s video. Jones acknowledged that his dental expert Etkins would not testify and said that he had another expert in mind, but had not contacted him yet. Jones again requested a continuance, and Hotham again refused.
Rawson’s testimony was preceded by the testimony of county forensic dentist Piakis. Under oath, Piakis falsely claimed to be certified by the American Association of Forensic Odontolists. “The bite mark on the victim matches the dentition of Ray Krone,” Piakis testified with confident authority, “There’s a match, a definite match.”27
Rawson testified for more than an hour about his credentials. In addition to viewing the highly impressive and convincing, albeit misleading, video presentation, the jurors listened to several hours of expert scientific testimony from Rawson, who elaborated on the basis of his conclusion, pointing to the unusual characteristics of Ray ’s teeth because of his injuries from the automobile accident—“It’s a very good match. It’s unique.”
When Detective Gregory testified, he reiterated in detail his first and second interviews with Ray, calling attention to Ray’s insistence that he didn’t have a relationship with Kim Ancona outside the bar, by implication reinforcing the notion that Ray had lied.
In all, Prosecutor Noel Levy called seventeen witnesses.
28
Four of the witnesses called by Jones were Ray’s friends and the fifth witness was Ray.
A neighbor of Ray’s who testified for the prosecution had said that, contrary to Ray’s usual habits, Ray had not put the cover on his Corvette on the night of the murder. Prosecutor Levy had made much of the unusual behavior, and to counter the testimony, Jones called on a friend of Ray’s who testified the Corvette was sometimes covered and sometimes not.
Two of Ray’s friend’s confirmed that on the Friday evening preceding the murder, Ray was at the CBS Lounge for a birthday party and that he had not been with Kim Ancona.
As Ray’s alibi witness, his roommate Steve Junkin testified that Ray was home on the night Kim Ancona was killed. In cross-examination, Prosecutor Levy questioned Junkin at length about his longstanding and close friendship with Ray. Levy’s final question to Steve Junkin was “And you’d lie for him, wouldn’t you?” Without waiting for Junkin to answer, Levy turned and walked away.29
When Ray took the witness stand, Jones asked him about his military service, his work history, how he came to know Kim Ancona and the extent of his relationship with her. Further clearing up the issue about the Corvette cover, Ray explained that on the night of the murder, the Corvette cover was on his sand rail, an open vehicle, because it was supposed to rain, and it had.30
Then Prosecutor Levy took over. Ray recalls the encounter vividly: “Everything was phrased, ‘So you deny’—worded like ‘Why don’t you admit you’re lying?’ ‘So you deny being in the bar?’ ‘When?’ ‘The night of the murder.’ ‘Yes I do.’ ‘So you deny killing Kim Ancona?’ ‘Yes I do.’ Levy had a police report in front of him that he was reading from, ‘Now you’re changing your story—didn’t you just say this?’ ‘No, that’s not what I said.’ ‘It says right here that you said…’ ‘You know, I was interrogated for over three hours. There was a lot more said than is written on one sheet of paper.’ ‘Oh, so your saying this officer didn’t do his job.’ ‘I’m saying he could have done a better job of accurately writing down what he was told.’ ‘This officer has nineteen years service with the police department, a distinguished record, and you’re saying now he’s incompetent.’” 31
To salvage Ray’s testimony and vouch for his credibility, Jones attempted to ask Ray if he had ever been arrested before, but Judge Hotham refused to allow the question on the grounds that it was “character evidence.”
Jones’ final witness was waiting in the hallway, Dr. Homer Campbell who was the chief forensic odontologist at the University of New Mexico Medical School and a past president of The American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Campbell was prepared to testify about Rawson’s erroneous conclusions in the Arizona case where he had mistaken a knife wound for a bite-mark match. When Judge Hotham refused to allow Campbell’s testimony, Jones requested a continuance to give Campbell an opportunity examine the bite mark evidence in depth and prepare a video for the defense. Hotham refused Jones’ request for a continuance a third time.32
6) Laura Laughlin, “Krone's lawyers proceed,” 22 November 1995; Rix and Leming, Krone Story, 1 June 1995.
8) Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing, press conference announcement, e-mail 27 April 2004; Lemings interview; Krone interview.
11) Jim and Carolyn Leming, correspondence, 22 June 1995; Rix and Leming, Krone Story, 25 July 1995.
15) Leming, “Prostitution,”; Leming, “Trial Summary,”; Rix and Leming, Krone Story, 7 November 1995.
17) Unless otherwise noted the information appearing in this section was compiled from the following sources: Lemings interview; Leming, “Krone’s Case.”
22) Unless otherwise noted the information in the remainder of this section was compiled from the “Trial Summary” prepared by Jim Leming.
25) Rix and Leming, Krone Story, 1 January 1996; Lemings, correspondence, 22 June 1995 and 29 June 1995.
31) Krone interview.
32) Carolyn Leming, e-mail correspondence, 1 August 2006.
This is Page 2. Page: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, of the Ray Krone Story.....