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[Music] this man ray krohn was known throughout arizona as the snaggletooth killer
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an unusual bite mark on a murdered woman resulted in his conviction and death sentence
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a forensic expert told the jury that he was 100 certain that it was crohn who bit the victim he knew he was wrong but
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he had already committed and his comment to me was i'm in too deep [Music] [Music]
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[Music] the cbs lounge is one of many neighborhood bars in downtown phoenix arizona
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[Music] hank arredondo owned the cbs lounge kim and kona managed it for him in the bar business you have to have a
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nice personality you have to be honest and all those qualities kim had on december 29 1991
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kim closed the bar at the usual time shortly after 1 am as was his custom hank called to make
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sure there hadn't been any problems kim answered i asked her i said is everything okay do you have any problems
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and she said no she said hank i know you're tired go to sleep rest i'll take care of it
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when hank arrived the next day to open up he noticed the door was ajar i know my bartender didn't leave the
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door open i know i didn't so something's wrong he first checked the safe
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but none of the bar's money was missing he went to the kitchen no one was there
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then he checked the men's room i can close my eyes and still see that that scene
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i saw her laying in the bathroom her eyes fixed dead i can still remember that to this day i
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probably will the rest of my life but the girl was beautiful even in death [Music]
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the evidence suggests the killer grabbed the knife from the kitchen forced kim into the men's room
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and stabbed her to death [Applause] he placed the knife in a trash can under the liner
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on his way out he left a shoe print on the freshly cleaned kitchen floor forensic experts identified the print as
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a converse brand sneaker size nine and a half hairs were found on kim and kona's body
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they were black and not hers it appeared that the killer had bitten through kim's tank top leaving a bite
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impression on her skin two drinks were sitting on the bar apparently poured after closing time
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forensic scientists found kim's fingerprints on one glass the other had prints not clear enough
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for identification working theory then became she must have known who the person was it allowed them
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into the bar against company policy but nonetheless and thereafter was killed by that person
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robbery didn't appear to be the motive there was no money missing from kim's
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purse but inside her purse police found an address book with the name and telephone number of one of the
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bar's regular customers a postman named ray krohn he was not not well liked you know he
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was just uppity or something there was something different about him that people that didn't sit well with people
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some of the bars employees told police that kim had expressed a romantic interest in crone
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if the bite mark the shoe impression and the hairs could be tied to him police were sure
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they had their killer [Music] during kim and kona's autopsy forensic photographers took numerous photographs
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of the bite wound on her upper chest [Music] the photograph showed the killer had a
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distinctive bite pattern his left front tooth pointed outward beyond the line of his other front
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kim's address book contained the name and telephone number of a man named ray
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krohn someone she had often spoken with at the bar kim and kona had told several friends
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that she was interested in rey that she liked him you know that she thought maybe something could happen
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and those friends in turn relayed that to detectives ray krohn was 35 years old an air force
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veteran with no prior criminal record several bar employees told police that kim had a date with crone planned for
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the night of her murder when police talked to kim's friends the last person that they expected kim and
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kona to meet that night was ray crone to he was supposed to meet her to help close up the bar
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when questioned ray krohn said the two were just acquaintances he denied there was any romantic relationship
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she was always a nice congenial person and very friendly and outgoing and so you know
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i i uh liked her personality i liked you know her bubbliness and things like that
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there wasn't a relationship and crone denied that he had plans to meet kim at
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the bar as her friends claimed he also had an alibi he shared a house with the co-worker who
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said crone was home the night of the murder but as police questioned crone they noticed that his left front tooth
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protruded slightly in a way that looks similar to the bite wound found on kim's
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chest after looking at the bite marks on kim and kona's body detectives pretty
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readily jumped to the conclusion that his teeth matched kim and kona the bite marks found on her body
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krone willingly agreed to provide an impression of his teeth by biting into a piece of styrofoam which is commonly
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used since it's soft but still stable forensic odontologists examined a series
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of bite impressions from men who knew kim and kona they found only one in which the left
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front tooth was clearly extended just like the bite mark on the body it was ray krones
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i hear you know brakes squealing doors slamming i look over and here's a police
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van unloading with officers all armed guns pointing at me telling me to freeze i was throwing the ground handcuffed and
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taken off and i was charged with murder kidnapping sexual assault that was the day of my arrest new year's eve of 1991.
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crone maintained he was innocent but he had no explanation for why his bite impression looked like the wound on kim
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and kona it was a a very frustrating aggravating belittling uh um [Music] situation where you're just saying why
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what why why won't somebody listen why would somebody take a minute and look at
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this intelligently responsibly you're going to see that there is a definite problem here but the bite wound wasn't
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the only evidence against crone [Music] the perpetrator left his saliva on kim's
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clothing dna tests of that saliva sample were inconclusive but test revealed the perpetrator had
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type o blood the same blood type as ray krohn he was arrested and charged with murder
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at his trial prosecutors believed the bite impression evidence was the most convincing they hired a nationally known
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bite mark expert from las vegas nevada to testify that it was a 100 percent perfect match better than a fingerprint
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that expert was dr raymond rawson a forensic odontologist and also a senator in the nevada state legislature
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at the trial dr rawson used this video in which photographs of the bite wound from kim
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and kona's body were superimposed on ray krohn's bite impressions [Music]
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based on that evidence ray krohn was convicted the first degree murder and was sentenced to death
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i didn't care if i was going to be in prison for something i didn't do it you
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might as well kill me i mean what was life my whole life everything i worked for everything i stood for 35 year old
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man was gone the press called crone the snaggletooth killer that judge believed the bite marks were
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a form of torture um and because of that he sentenced him to death but if crone was innocent as he claimed
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how could a nationally known forensic odontologist be wrong ray krohn had spent three years on death
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row for the murder of 35 year old bar manager kim and kona during that time he formed his own
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opinions about the bite impression evidence used to convict him i mean you basically could take a sharp
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object stick it in skin a couple places and have somebody say oh yeah that's a
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bite mark and uh and it matches him and you could get if you showed it to enough
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people you'd have you know somebody saying it yeah it's a match that's junk
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all death penalty cases in arizona are automatically appealed to the state supreme court and fortunately for crone
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this bite marked videotape made by the prosecution provided grounds for an appeal
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the court ruled that the defense team wasn't given enough time to review the
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tape before the trial for crohn's retrial his family asked chris plourde to represent him
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lord specializes in difficult forensic cases i heard the story you know that ray
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krohn's on death row as a result of a bite mark i didn't know whether other evidence
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supported his conviction or not i was originally kind of skeptical because i hear these stories all the time forensic
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experts hired by plourde discovered that the hairs found on kim's body were [ __ ] hairs meaning they were from
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someone of asian or native american descent [Music] they also discovered that ray krohn wore
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size ten and a half shoes the shoe impression found on the kitchen floor of the bar was a size nine and a
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half the defense brought in dr skip sperber a past president of the american academy
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of forensic odontologists to look at the bite-wound evidence that more than anything else convicted crone in his
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first trial what dr sperber told them came as a shock he said he'd seen this evidence before
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it had been sent to him before the first trial a good friend of mine john piacus in
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phoenix arizona called me and he asked me to look at this particular case the people versus crone when i first viewed
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that case thought there were too many inconsistencies for that to be a positive comparison between the teeth of
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ray crone the suspect and the victim's wounds dr sperber told his colleague working
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for the arizona prosecutors that this evidence was exceptionally weak we say on a range of one to ten
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with ten being very good i would have rated this around three or four on the low side
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here is a bite mark considered on the high end of the scale a nine or a ten all of the teeth have made clear marks
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and the relationships between the teeth can easily be seen the bite wound on kim and kona had very
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few distinct markings dr sperber took the cast of ray krohn's teeth and using a low-tech but time-tested
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method made a styrofoam impression and then traced the teeth patterns onto a transparency
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he then placed the transparency over the top of the photo of the bite mark on kim and
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kona's body although the left front tooth in both marks was jutting forward ray krohn does not have any separation
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between his front teeth the bite mark on the victim's body shows an obvious separation between those
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teeth for dr sperber the results were clear if it's a good bite it will really jump
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out at you and you will see immediately similarities in the crohn case there were no similarities so this was the key
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evidence and and to get the initial report back that a bite mark expert said it's not me it was like oh wow you know
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something something good can happen in the second trial dr raymond rawson the same bite mark expert from the first
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trial repeated his testimony he said there was no doubt the bite mark was from ray krohn
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a team of defense experts disagreed i could positively exclude ray krohn as being the biter i wasn't the only one
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there were three other forensic dentists that are all board certified highly qualified guys
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and they excluded them but the jury disagreed they sided with the prosecution's expert
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and found ray krohn guilty again what does it take what is this uh beyond reasonable doubt
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what is this innocent until proven guilty it don't exist in in in the just system the one that i've seen it did not
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exist for me we knew that there was another person in that bathroom at the time of death there were unknown
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fingerprints that came back to somebody uh there was a person who had shoes that
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were inconsistent with the defendant the hairs were inconsistent with the defendant you know the fbi
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uh forensic people testified that these hairs were not mr crohn's they were not
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the victims to me logic and common sense told me it wasn't mr cronin committed
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this crime and the jury found the opposite result when i heard the verdict in the second trial i really couldn't
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believe his total disbelief it was an absolute dog and pony show the likes of which i've never seen before
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ray krohn tried to reconcile himself to a life behind bars but then he got help from an unlikely source
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the very system he had grown to despise [Music] ray krohn languished in prison for a crime that
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some of the country's top forensic experts said he didn't commit just before krone's second trial
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dr richard suveron one of his defense experts sat next to the prosecution's forensic expert dr rawson at a
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scientific conference his comment to me was i'm in too deep he knew he was wrong but he had already
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committed and if that isn't a scary thing uh i don't know what is and i hated to see him get sucked in on
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something like this and told him you know get out of this deal just say i don't
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want to do it anymore or i've changed my opinion or there's i've listened to
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everybody else and you know i've rethought my position anybody can make a mistake i mean we're not none of us are
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above making mistakes but he said i mean too deep and that was the end of that conversation
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through a spokesperson dr rossen denies that the conversation described by dr seuveron ever took place
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it wasn't until 2001 that a new law offered crohn's some hope arizona one of the first states in the
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united states passed a new bill for post-conviction dna testing which allows convicted offenders access
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to evidence and post-conviction dna testing if they contend that they were innocent
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so crohn's defense team asked the state of arizona to test every piece of kim
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and kona's clothing for dna the saliva on kim's blouse had already been tested
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and the results were inconclusive but her genes had small blood stains the prosecution believed the blood was
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chemenconas the genes were sent to the state crime lab for a new dna test that analyzes 13
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different genetic markers the test yielded unanticipated results the blood on the genes
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wasn't kim and kona's and it wasn't ray krohns but whose was it to find out
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forensic scientists entered this new dna evidence into a national dna database with genetic profiles of more than a
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million convicts from across the country profile after profile was checked and cross-referenced
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and the database came up with a match to this man a 35-year-old native american kenneth
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phillips who was currently in prison for child molestation at the time of kim ancona's murder
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kenneth phillips lived just 600 yards away from the cbs lounge he lived right behind the bar
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and his nationality was an american indian which which was consistent with some of the other dna results we had in
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the hairs it was found at the scene the crime when interviewed by police phillips made a startling admission
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he said on the morning after kim's murder he woke from an alcoholic blackout to find his hands
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covered with blood then he saw news of the murder on tv his fingerprints were among the unknown
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fingerprints found in the bathroom where the murder took place [Music] his shoe size
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matched the print from the kitchen floor and his bite impression had the same left front tooth protruding from the
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rest of his teeth for ray kron the ordeal was over after serving ten years and four months
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for a crime he didn't commit he walked out of prison a free man i'd spent over 10 years in prison
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i would never forget that day i got out in fact i commemorated it so i won't ever forget it
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[Music] forensic odontologists say that the problem with the crohn case was that dr
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rawson told jurors bite marks could match like fingerprints but that is rarely possible
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the best that a forensic dentist can give is reasonable certainty and that means that that's the highest level we
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give there is always a remote possibility that there's someone else that has teeth similar that
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could have left the pattern ray krohn is trying to resume his life experts say the lesson of his case is
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that bite marks are rarely definitive and should only be used to exclude not include suspects
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above all they say bite mark analysis is more opinion than fact and that this should always be made
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clear to jurors what was allowed in mr crone's case was bad science scientific explanations
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given by people who were unscientific in their methods interpretation of a bite mark is what
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convicted me nothing scientific not the fingerprints that didn't match me not
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the they even had footprints that they couldn't match the shoes the hair not
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the not the uh the dna none of that stuff they used an interpretation of a bite mark to convict me that has no
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place in the courtroom any more than perjury has a place in the courtroom we shouldn't allow witnesses that lie no
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matter what they say whether it's regarding a scientific issue or any other issue and in this case it was
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clear that some of the scientific experts were actually misrepresenting their data and the scientific validity
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of what they were talking about [Music] [Music] [Music] you