By Jim Rix
[Editor’s Note: Blurb from the dust jacket: “An amazing story of the uphill battle required in the fight for truth. For those readers with no experience in the criminal justice system, the measures taken in the name of ‘justice’ will be shocking. The story of Ray Krone offers all readers important lessons – never give up hope, never stop believing in yourself and never stop fighting for what is right. Jim Rix paints a powerful picture of hope, frustration and perseverence. Jingle Jangle shows why we must never stop fighting for those whom the legal system has failed.”
– Caroline M. Elliot, law school student and 2006-07
President of the UNC Law Innocence Project
and the UNC Law Death Penalty Project]
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| Sketch for possible cover by artist Rob Esmay |
But there was no denying the bite mark. I could not see how Ray could be innocent of the murder if his teeth had made the mark, as three experts said. In addition to Dr. Piakas and Dr. Rawson, Dr. Bruce Etkin had evaluated the evidence. Etkin had been retained as a defense expert. He and the defense attorney, Geoffrey Jones, traveled to Las Vegas to meet with Dr. Rawson. Both were duly impressed by this expert odontologist and his analysis. Dr. Etkin could not disagree with Rawson. Jones wisely did not ask Etkin for a written report or call him to testify.
In a meeting set up by Gene Burdick [an attorney friend of the author], Jones outlined the strategy he had used for the trial. He said he had planned not to call an expert but would challenge the validity of bite mark analysis and Rawson’s scientific methodology. As the trial approached, the prosecutor hinted that some additional evidence was coming. The afternoon before the trial was to begin, Jones received a second videotape. He had previously received the videotape made at the autopsy by Dr. Piakas and was prepared for it. But this tape, produced by Dr. Rawson, caught Jones completely by surprise. Before jury selection, Jones vigorously objected to its admission and asked the court to either disallow the tape or continue the trial at a later date to give his expert time to evaluate this new evidence. The judge, however, denied both requests, agreeing with the prosecutor that the videotape was merely another representation of the bite mark evidence already disclosed.
“The videotape hurt,” said Jones.
Blindsided by the videotape and with Dr. Etkin on vacation, Jones sought the help of Dr. Homer Campbell, the bite mark expert from Albuquerque. In desperation, Jones sent the tape to Dr. Campbell. But it was too late. Before Campbell could respond, the trial was over and Ray Krone was convicted.
It didn’t look good for Ray with three experts affirming that it was his bite mark on victim Ancona. Nevertheless, I was curious what Dr. Campbell might have to say. I located him at his office at the University of New Mexico. By now, more than a year had passed since the conviction. While Campbell recalled the videotape, he was unable to locate it and believed he’d returned it to Jones. After a brief discussion, Campbell agreed to evaluate the Krone evidence. He would need transcripts of the bite mark testimony, photographs of the bite injury, the videotape and a cast of Ray’s dentition.
I already had the transcripts. The rest of the material was housed in the evidence room in the basement of the superior court building in Phoenix. I was able to view the material there, but there was no easy way to have evidence temporarily removed. Copies would have to be made.
Gene introduced me to a friend of his, Mike Pain, a private investigator [and the author of a novel in preparation for publication and recently excerpted here[]]. Mike sent a photographer into the evidence room to copy the photos.
The videotape was a little more difficult. The evidence room merely warehouses evidence. To view the videotape, one would have to provide one’s own TV monitor and tape player. To make a copy would require two recorders. While this procedure, however cumbersome, was doable, it would require permission. I learned early on that any request out of the ordinary was met with extreme reluctance from the evidence custodian.
To solve this problem, Mike contacted John Antieau. At the time, Ray’s case was in the automatic appeal process afforded all individuals facing capital punishment. Antieau was Ray’s court-appointed appellate attorney. Of course, he had access to the evidence. Antieau was allowed to check out the videotape. At Mike’s request, Antieau did just that and a copy was made.
The cast of Ray’s teeth was more difficult. It could be viewed in the evidence room, but was not allowed to be removed. Mike pursued other avenues, which would take some time.
In early 1994, with no cast of Ray’s dentition on the horizon and not wanting to wait any longer, I contacted Dr. Campbell and asked if he would evaluate the material I did have. He would be happy to. However, it would have to wait a few weeks, until he returned from the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, held that year in San Antonio. Thinking this meeting might be informative, I suggested we meet there. Campbell agreed.
As my route to San Antonio on Southwest Airlines passed through Phoenix, I took this opportunity to once again visit Gene [Burdick] and Carolyn. Carolyn loved to cook, and I certainly enjoyed her meals and their company. I’d been to Phoenix several times by then and had begun to refer to Alex’s room as “my room.” But I had not yet made the hour’s drive south to Arizona State Prison to meet Ray Krone. If he were indeed a killer, I had no desire to do so. Should Dr. Campbell confirm Rawson’s findings, I would report the results to Ray’s family, offer my condolences and be done with the case.
After dinner, Gene and I viewed the videotape. Mike had already reported that he and Antieau thought it to be very powerful evidence of guilt. As we watched, Gene plowed through the associated transcripts of Rawson’s testimony as best he could.
As the tape ended, Gene said, “Well, I’m not convinced.”
I wondered whether Gene’s skepticism derived from his experience as an attorney or from his desire to avoid the endless dialogue (“What about this? What about that?”) that would ensue if he were to agree with Mike and Antieau’s assessment? Gene needed to be rested for his court appearance the next day.
I met Dr. Campbell in the lobby of his hotel. After exchanging introductions, I handed him the stack of bite mark photos. He quickly got down to business, slowly moving from one photo to the next.
First, he looked at the color photographs of the bite injury, slowly rotating each photo, sometimes closing one eye. Occasionally he placed what appeared to be a small version of a carpenter’s square on the photos. Sensing my interest, he explained, “This is an ABFO ruler.” It was really two rulers connected at a right angle, each about four inches long but calibrated in millimeters. It had been designed by the American Board of Forensic Odontologists.
“In this business, it’s metric analysis, pure and simple,” Campbell continued. “If this ruler does not appear next to the bite mark, the photo has no analytic value. Look at this photo. The distance between these two marks measures forty-one millimeters on my ruler. But on the scale in the photo, forty-one translates to twenty-seven millimeters—about right for the distance between the upper canine teeth. Attention to scale is extremely important.”
I watched patiently as Dr. Campbell continued through the stack of photos. I surmised that he was determining the corresponding tooth (incisor, canine, bicuspid, molar) responsible for each mark of the bite. A logical first step, I thought.
The long silence was broken as Campbell picked up the first black-and-white photo. “Who marked this?” he asked abruptly, handing the photo to me.
“I don’t know for sure—either Piakas or Rawson,” I suggested.
Dr. Campbell went on to explain that in dentistry each tooth is numbered. For dental examinations as well as bite mark analysis, it is much easier to reference teeth by number than by name. The upper right and left central incisors, the two front teeth, are numbered 8 and 9, respectively. Campbell believed that the marks annotated 8 and 9 in the photo were not made by the assailant’s two front teeth, but by teeth 8 and 7, the right front tooth and the smaller lateral incisor to its right. This discrepancy was one of several pointed out to me. A quite obvious one was the mark annotated “11.” It was not a bite mark at all, but a mole on the victim’s breast. Another one indicated that two lower teeth, the left central and lateral incisors, were responsible for making one and the same mark.
From the tone of the remainder of our discussion that morning, it was clear that Dr. Campbell had taken an acute interest in the Krone case—particularly the bite mark evidence. He wanted to show the photos to some of his colleagues. We agreed to finish our meeting in the afternoon.
Since I had discovered an expert odontologist who evidently did not hold the evidence in the same regard as did Dr. Rawson—at least as far as the interpretation of the raw data, the bite mark, was concerned—I had now taken a much keener interest in the science of forensic odontology. I attended a few lectures on the subject while waiting to talk with Dr. Campbell again.
At our afternoon meeting, he reaffirmed his opinion that the photo was erroneously marked. He couldn’t render an opinion as to whether or not it was Ray’s bite on the victim until he could evaluate the cast of Ray’s teeth. He would need time to read the bite mark testimony and view the videotape before he could critique it. We agreed to a future meeting in Albuquerque. Before parting, Dr. Campbell left a copy of his curriculum vitae with me.
Homer Richardson Campbell was born in 1931 in Tulsa. He entered Baylor University in 1948, where he received his undergraduate and then his dental degree. After three years in the US Navy, he opened a private practice in Albuquerque. He remained active with the Naval Reserve until 1987, when he retired with the rank of captain. He received his first training in forensic odontology in 1974 and had been active in the forensic science community ever since. Like Dr. Rawson, he had given many lectures, presented numerous scientific papers and written many articles on the subject of forensic odontology. Dr. Campbell had served as both vice president and president of the American Academy of Forensic Science. He was the forensic odontologist for the State of New Mexico in the medical examiner’s office at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. All unattended deaths in New Mexico passed through the medical examiner’s office, where Dr. Campbell not only analyzed bite mark evidence but evaluated all types of pattern injuries. In 1976 he, with several colleagues, founded the ABFO and was among the first group of expert odontologists to be certified.
ABFO membership now numbers approximately one hundred throughout the United States and Canada. Dr. Campbell was one of fewer than five individuals who were full-time odontologists. For most ABFO members, forensic odontology is an avocation augmenting their dental practice.
A month later Dr. Campbell was enjoying a cup of coffee in my Albuquerque hotel room while I set up the videotape player.
“I know what he’s doing,” said Campbell referring to Rawson’s testimony. “He’s claiming to see multiple bites. He calls this the twelve o’clock bite.” Campbell was pointing to the marks at the top of the photograph he was holding. “Over here’s the ten o’clock bite.”
“They’re not even the same shape,” I observed. “The twelve o’clock mark appears longer and thicker.” Campbell nodded his head and smiled.
The tape began at the autopsy, showing the cast—the model of Ray’s teeth—being rotated about the actual bite injury. It did appear as if Ray’s teeth matched the bite. But Dr. Campbell pointed out that the position of the cast was continually being adjusted.
The cast was then positioned with the two front teeth behind the most prominent marks of the injury. In this position Dr. Campbell acknowledged that the twelve o’clock bite did appear to match Ray’s two front teeth, but then emphasized, “It’s not laid out correctly. Those marks were not made by central incisors.”
Next came the overlay demonstration. With two cameras plugged into a single tape recorder and TV monitor, Rawson could fade in and out between two separate images. One camera was focused on a photograph of the bite injury, the other on the Styrofoam impression of Ray’s teeth. Using this “double exposure” technique, Rawson demonstrated how he believed Ray’s teeth fit the twelve o’clock bite.
“It’s very impressive, isn’t it? But look here,” Campbell directed my attention to the left side of Ray’s arch. “It’s devoid of bite marks.” Indeed, while the front and right side of Ray’s teeth pattern did cover some of the bite marks, the left side did not.
The tape ran some forty-five minutes. Most of it concentrated on Rawson’s twelve o’clock bite. Briefly, at the end of tape, the demonstration was repeated for his ten o’clock bite. Several times during its viewing, Campbell would shake his head saying, “It’s laid out all wrong.”
Concluding our meeting, Dr. Campbell emphasized, “It’s a single bite,” then reiterated that the bite mark had been initially misinterpreted. The bite injury had erroneously been marked one tooth clockwise from actuality.
“But is it Ray Krone’s bite mark?” I asked.
“I can’t say until I see his dental model.”
When Mike Pain’s attempt to have the prison dentist make a cast of Ray’s teeth stalled, I invited Dr. Campbell to Phoenix. After breakfast at Sky Harbor Airport, we drove directly to Maricopa County’s superior court building. I had been in its basement the day before cataloging the exhibits Dr. Campbell wished to view. In addition to Ray’s dental model, he would evaluate Styrofoam bite impressions of six other suspects.
First, Dr. Campbell applied his ABFO ruler several times to the cast of Ray’s teeth, each time making notes on his yellow note pad. Next, he did the same with each of the other suspects’ teeth patterns recorded in Styrofoam. He was finished in less than an hour.
Afterwards, in the courthouse cafeteria, we discussed his findings. “Ray Krone is excluded,” he affirmed.
Dr. Campbell could not exclude three of the other suspects. He seemed to like one suspect in particular. Without their dental models, “not excluded” was the best opinion he would render. He did assure me, however, that the bite mark contained sufficient information, that with the dental model of the actual biter in hand, he could render the strongest possible opinion, “The suspect made the mark to a reasonable degree of medical certainty.”
“The way the analysis should have been done,” he concluded, “was for dental models of all suspects to be taken and then compared to the bite mark.”
Two weeks later, mid-June 1994, I received Dr. Campbell’s written report. In it he formally excluded Ray Krone as the donor of the bite mark, then stated, “It is a single bite injury, not a multiple injury as assumed, [and therefore] it is not possible for an adult dentition to produce the injury as marked in the black and white photos.”
As for the videotape, “It is of no evidentiary value and obscures rather that enhances any analysis.”
[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 |
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