RAY KRONE
Ray Krone grew up near York, Pennsylvania, with a loving family and many friends. A
former Boy Scout and high school athlete, he became an Air Force sergeant and later, a mail
carrier, before finding himself on Arizona’s death row for a murder he did not commit.
He was living a normal life until 1991, when Kim Ancona was murdered in a Phoenix bar
where Ray was an occasional customer. His world was then turned upside down.
Ray refused to believe that our legal system would convict him. He told his parents not
to worry. When faced with the choice of selling his house to pay for a lawyer, he opted to be
represented by a public defender instead. “I was thinking, ‘Why should I sell my house when
they’re going to know it’s not me as soon as they investigate?’ ”
But Ray was convicted, based largely on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of an
“expert” witness who asserted that bite marks found on the victim matched Ray’s teeth. In 1992,
he was sentenced to death.
He refused to give up, though, and continued to fight through the appeals process. In
1994, Ray was granted a retrial. Based on the same evidence, he was again convicted. The
judge in the case believed that the evidence was weak, and though he stopped short of throwing
out the conviction, he sentenced Ray to 46 years in prison. At the age of 35, he was essentially
facing a life sentence.
Ray had been on death row for two years and eight months. During that time, the state of
Arizona executed three other men.
His appeals continued, though. In the spring of 2002, with the help of attorney Alan
Simpson, he was able to convince an appeals court that DNA found at the murder scene pointed
not to him but to another man, Kenneth Phillips. When prosecutors dropped the charges that
April, Ray became the 100" person exonerated from death row in the United States since 1973.
He had missed out on life in the 10 years and four months he was imprisoned. He had never
surfed the Internet, didn’t know how to use a cell phone and had never heard of gel deodorant.
Ironically, though, in some ways Ray was lucky. Unlike nearly every other prisoner on
death row, he had financial support, from his second cousin, Jim Rix, who spent more than
$100,000 of his own money for Ray’s legal fees. Ray also had the benefit of DNA evidence,
which is available in only about 15 percent of cases.
Today, Ray works to avoid bitterness about his experience. “I have the ability to be
angry, but I’ve tried to avoid the anger,” he says. “I sat in prison all that time, and I watched
people who were so bitter and angry that they became victims. At some point you’ve got to take
control of your life and rise above things. I hope I won’t ever get to the point where I am so
overwhelmed with grief and tragedy that I would actually give in.”
Now 49, he spends time with friends and family, and devotes his life to improving the
criminal justice system that failed him. He has traveled throughout the United States and Europe,
telling his story to audiences that invariably are profoundly moved by the ordeal he survived. Ray
has spoken to hundreds of groups, including numerous universities and law schools across the
country, as well as to state legislatures and governmental bodies in England, Sweden, Italy and
France. He has been featured in numerous publications and on many radio and television programs,
including People and Parade magazines, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and Good Morning
America.
Ray serves as director of communications and training for Witness to Innocence, an
organization that brings to light the crisis of wrongful convictions in death sentencing in the
United States.
“I would not trust the state to execute a person for committing a crime against another
person,” he says. “I know how the system works. I know what prison is like, I know what the
judges are like, I know what the prosecutors are like. It’s not about justice or fairness or
equality. It’s absolutely wrong. Any chance I can, whether I start with one or two people or a
whole auditorium filled with people, I’ll tell them what happened to me. Because if it happened
to me, it can happen to anyone.”
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