By Jim Rix
[Editor’s Note: First, our apologies for failing to notice that last Sunday was the fourth Sunday of the month!
Blurb from the dust jacket: “Jim Rix takes us on a remarkable journey inside an American tragedy. He helped win his cousin’s freedom from Death Row and now he documents the chain of errors that put him there. The story will chill your belief in the American justice system. With gripping details that can only come from one who has lived the horror, Rix makes us realize that one wrongful conviction is a tragedy for us all.”
–Bill Kurtis, producer of the A&E programs
Investigative Reports and Cold Case Files]
The murder trial of Ray Krone lasted eight days, generated fourteen hundred and twenty-five pages of testimony and took a week to digest.
The first witness to testify was the owner of the CBS Lounge, the crime scene. A week before the murder, Henry Arredondo had purchased the lounge, a neighborhood bar and grill. It was situated within an L-shaped shopping mall located on the southeast corner of West Camelback Road and 16th Avenue, some three miles north of downtown Phoenix. A Fry’s super market occupied the south side of the mall. The longer east side comprised several smaller establishments, including the CBS Lounge. It was located at the north end, second only to a shoe store. A twelve-foot-wide sidewalk separated the storefronts from the parking lot.
On Friday, the night before the murder, the door to the men’s restroom had been broken off its hinges. That was the same night that Ray and some friends were in the lounge celebrating a friend’s birthday. Since the carpenter wasn’t available until Sunday, Arredondo temporarily propped the door open using redwood shims. The partially open door was no problem for the male patrons on Saturday night, because the men’s restroom was at the end of a hall that emptied into a back alley.
Arredondo arrived at 8:15 on Sunday morning, fifteen minutes late for his appointment with the carpenter. He immediately noticed that something was amiss. The front door, though closed, was unlocked. He passed through an enclosed entry area and turned right through a second door, which opened facing a pool table. Beyond the table against the south wall were three high bar tables, which accommodated the players’ drinks when it was their turn to shoot. Another pool table was situated at a right angle to the first and positioned midway between the first pool table and a shuffle board which ran parallel and next to the north wall. Beyond the pool tables was an L-shaped bar, with its long dimension running two-thirds the length of the room and parallel to the south wall. A dozen bar stools with backrests lined the bar. In the center of the lounge were nine more bar tables, each accommodating four backless bar stools. The bar stools had been placed up-side-down on the tables, consistent with the closing procedure. The short end of the bar was nearest the entrance and connected to the south wall. The lounge area was fully carpeted except for the tiled floor in the southeast corner, which served as the entryway to the kitchen. The kitchen was separated from the lounge by a swinging door.
Arredondo noticed that the bar lights, always the last to be switched off, were still on. He next moved east between the pool tables and passed alongside the bar. At the end of the bar he noticed a glass containing a small amount of liquid. Had he continued straight he would have entered the kitchen through its swinging door. Instead, he circled around the end of the bar and paused in front of the cash register, which sat on the counter next to the wall. It was locked. Arredondo opened it and found the night’s receipts intact. Turning around he noticed on the ice chest behind the bar an opened but nearly full bottle of Bud Light sitting next to Kimberly Ancona’s purse. Then he moved north past the kitchen door and the hallway to the restrooms and entered his office. There he found the day’s receipts in the safe also intact.
Arredondo exited his office and proceeded east down the hallway, first checking the women’s restroom. It appeared normal. As he approached the door to the men’s room, he noticed that the steel bar that secures the back door to the alley was in place.
Peering into the men’s restroom, he discovered the body of Kimberly Ancona and immediately retreated to his office and dialed 9-1-1.
Completing his testimony, Arredondo confirmed that most of the closing procedures had been completed—the bar glasses were clean and put away, the sinks were drained, the trash had been emptied, the high tables that filled the lounge area had been wiped clean, the stools had been placed up-side-down on top of them and the restroom floors and entry way to the kitchen had been mopped. All that remained was for the lights to be turned off, the alarm to be set and the front door to be locked.
“They were ready to walk out,” Arredondo concluded.
Detective Dennis Olson’s testimony enhanced the portrait of the murder scene. Ancona’s body was lying face up in a pool of blood with her head in the southwest corner of the small (seven and a half feet by ten feet) restroom, directly under the broken door hinge. She was sprawled diagonally across the room with her legs spread apart. Only her socks remained on her otherwise naked body. A redwood shim, with its tip broken and stained with blood, was on the floor near her left shoulder. Her blouse and tank top had been cut up the front and were found, blood-soaked, under her torso. Her blood-stained bra, cut between the cups, was located under her right leg. Her panties had been cut up the side but had no apparent blood on them. They were visible from the hall, along with her pants and left shoe, lying on the floor under the urinal on the north wall. The other shoe was found resting on the floor near Ancona’s right foot. Knife wounds and bite marks on her neck were visible above a gold necklace. Another bite mark was prominently visible on her left breast.
The murder weapon was found under the plastic bag that lined the wastebasket, next to the sink. The Chicago Cutlery brand boning knife appeared to have been taken from the knife rack in the kitchen.
Dr. Larry Shaw, the pathologist who performed the autopsy, detailed the injuries to Ancona. Abrasions were found on her right knee, right elbow, right index and middle fingers. The laceration on her lower lip and contusion on her upper lip were caused by her own teeth, possibly as a result of being hit in the face. Shaw acknowledged that an erect penis could have caused the laceration type tears found in her vagina but felt that they were probably made by something else. (The shim, I thought.)
Shaw determined that the bite injuries occurred at or near the time of death. The five stab wounds to the neck proved to be superficial—not sufficient to cause death. The fatal injury was a single six and one-half inch deep stab wound entering the left side of her back in an upward angle penetrating and collapsing her lung, causing massive hemorrhaging. Small slits in the blouse and tank top at the point of knife entry confirmed that Ancona was wearing them at the time of the knife attack. Within three minutes of sustaining this injury Ancona was dead.
As I finished reading Dr. Shaw’s testimony, I shuddered at the horror that Kimberly Ancona must have experienced in her last moments. While I am not a staunch proponent of the death penalty, it would be difficult for me to argue against that punishment for the perpetrator of this crime.
But was it Ray Krone who deserved this fate?
As I read on, I paid particular attention to the physical evidence presented to the jury. How would it link Ray Krone to the crime? I wondered. I looked hard for anything of importance Ray had misrepresented or left out of his letter.
Detective Olson directed the collection of the physical evidence. Lubricating beads similar to those found in both Ray’s and Ancona’s socks were gathered from the shuffleboard that was situated against the north wall of the lounge. In the small corner created by a wall of Arredondo’s office and the north wall of the lounge area, just beyond one end of the shuffleboard, were two electronic dart boards. I could imagine Ray and Ancona leaning up against the shuffleboard chatting as they awaited their turn to shoot darts.
In the brief cross-examination Olson confirmed that the footprints found on the kitchen floor near where the murder weapon was taken did not belong to Ray. But in redirect questioning, Olson stated that it was determined that the footprints were made before the bar closed and hence unrelated to the crime. David Torres, the cook, had mopped the kitchen floor at 9:00 p.m., after the kitchen closed. Torres testified that it was not possible to leave footprints on a dry floor.
Olson submitted fingerprints taken from the scene, pubic hairs found on Ancona’s abdomen, hairs found under her body and swabs taken from her wounds to the Phoenix police department’s crime lab for analysis.
Fingerprint expert Karen Jones identified most of the prints as belonging to employees of the lounge. She could not match any of the unknown fingerprints to Ray Krone.
As I began reading criminologist Scott Piette’s testimony, I thought, Here comes the crux of the case. If there’s a bite, there’s saliva. Since I have a modest background in science, a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with minors in chemistry and physics, I enthusiastically read on, paying particular attention to Piette’s analysis and conclusions.
Piette had a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from Grand Canyon University, a small Baptist school located in west Phoenix. He’d been employed for three and one-half years at the police crime lab, in the serology section, when he was given the Krone evidence to analyze. Except for a spot found on Ancona’s pants, all the blood samples he analyzed belonged to Ancona. While both victim and suspect were blood type O, they differed in a blood subtype called PGM. Piette testified that he did a test for PGM on the pants sample but did not find this subtype present. The best he could do was determine that this sample was human blood of unknown origin. He found no bodily fluids belonging to Ray Krone.
Piette testified that the pubic hair taken from the abdomen was similar to a known sample taken post mortem from Ancona. He further testified that the pubic hairs of both suspect and victim “are similar,” and therefore neither could be “excluded” as the donor of this hair. He eliminated the hairs found under Ancona as belonging to either victim or suspect, because they were “dark and black.” Later in the transcripts they were argued to be random hairs from the restroom floor.
Among the numerous samples submitted to Piette, none contained semen.
Finally, Piette got to Exhibit 45, Sample 14-A, the swab from the area of the bite injury. But he would merely report that he detected the presence of amylase—“spit,” as he called it—which came from a “type-O secretor, and both Ancona and Krone are type-O secretors.”
I was disappointed. DNA technology has advanced to the point where such a sample, when properly analyzed, could either exclude the suspect with absolute certainty or match the suspect with near certainty. Yet Piette not once mentioned “DNA” in his testimony. His analysis was from the dark ages of forensic science. According to Piette, half the population have blood antigen type O and eighty percent secrete their antigens into their saliva. Therefore, neither victim nor suspect [nor forty percent (one-half of eighty percent) of the general population] could be excluded as the source of the salivary amylase found on Ancona’s left breast. Attempting to explain his analysis to the jury, Piette stated, “It’s kind of a weird science thing.”
I couldn’t help but recall Ray’s letter in which he contended that the DNA evidence had been passed over too quickly. Except for the bite mark, most of the remaining testimony was innocuous.
Trish was the bar manager at the time Arredondo purchased the CBS Lounge and was let go the day after Christmas. She testified about Ray’s “date” with Ancona on Christmas night. Many of Ray’s friends testified about the Friday night birthday party. According to her boyfriend, Paul Clark, he and Ancona had had sex several times before she left for work. Then they showered together and Clark observed no bite marks. Several individuals who were last to leave the bar confirmed that Ancona was alone at closing time. No one saw Ray at the bar the night of the murder. Roommate Steve Junkin confirmed Ray’s alibi, that he was home sleeping. Neighbor Roscoe Redden stated that Ray “always” covered his corvette but didn’t on the night of the murder.
The most damaging eyewitness testimony came from Kate Koester. She was the bartender at the CBS Lounge who had served Ray a beer while he waited for the pizza he’d ordered the afternoon before the murder. Ancona relieved Koester at 6:00 p.m. Koester remained at the bar socializing until about 8:00 p.m. She stated that before leaving Ancona had told her that she expected “Ray” to come in later and help close the bar. The defense objected to this testimony as hearsay, but was overruled by the court.
There were no surprises in the trial record. Ray Krone had indeed been convicted on the strength of a single bite mark. But the testimony of the state’s two bite mark experts was difficult to follow. It repeatedly referred to photo exhibits and a videotape. Without the trial exhibits, the substance of their analysis eluded me. I did, however, pay attention to their credentials and conclusions.
The first expert odontologist to testify was Dr. John Piakas, a local dentist. With a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, Piakas entered Georgetown University Dental School. After graduation in 1968, he enlisted in the US Army, spending one year at Fort Hood, Texas and the next year in Vietnam. After being discharged, Dr. Piakas entered private practice as a general dentist. In 1984 he moved from New York to Phoenix, where he soon became Maricopa County’s forensic dentist. Piakas assisted the county medical examiner in identifying human remains through dental records. He belongs to the American, the New York and the Arizona Dental Associations. Piakas testified that he was certified by the American Board of Forensic Odontologists (ABFO).
Piakas was called to the crime scene, where he initially evaluated and photographed the bite injury on Ancona’s left breast. The next day at the police station, he took impressions for a cast of Ray Krone’s teeth. At the autopsy he took more photographs and then made a videotape showing a correspondence between the cast of Ray’s teeth and the bite mark. Most, if not all, of the bite photos entered into evidence were taken by Piakas. His experience with bite mark analysis was limited to just one prior case, which never went to trial. Nevertheless, Dr. Piakas rendered the opinion that, “The bite mark on Kim Ancona matches the dentition of Ray Krone.”
Dr. Raymond Rawson was eminently more qualified. In 1964 he received a bachelor’s degree in zoology and chemistry from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Two years later he received a doctoral degree in dentistry from Loma Linda University. A decade later he received a master’s degree in physical anthropology while maintaining a dental practice in Las Vegas. Additionally, Rawson held professorships at UNLV, Northwestern and Community College of Southern Nevada. He was a deputy coroner for Clark County. Active in community and church, Rawson was a member of the United Way and the Boy Scouts of America and was a stake president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Rawson had been a Nevada state senator since 1984 and served as the assistant majority floor leader and chairman of the human resources and facilities committee. For fifteen years, Dr. Rawson had been board-certified by the ABFO and at one time served as its president. Over the years he received numerous honors and awards, published many articles, presented many lectures and testified in a number of bite mark cases.
As the state’s star witness, Dr. Rawson stated that bite marks are better evidence than fingerprints and concluded that the bite mark evidence exhibits “an excellent match and would be held in high regard by forensic odontologists.”
[Editor’s Note: Jingle Jangle is still in print and can be ordered through Amazon. (The author’s Amazon vendor’s name is “The Book Abides.”) Autographed copies can be arranged. Let us know.]
| Copyright © 2015 by Jim Rix |
I enjoyed the refresher Jim, having read your book sometime back and enjoyed it then.
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