About Face

As he walked from prison, he borrowed a pair of his attorney's sunglasses to cope with the glare of freedom.

Ray Krone received a hero's welcome when he returned to Dover in 2002. The real heroes, he was quick to note, were his mother, his stepfather, his sister, and the thousands around Dover and nearby York, Pennsylvania, who supported the family and donated time and money to help get Ray freed.

The moment Ray Krone was imprisoned, his family began working for his release.

Early on, their friends and neighbors knew little of Ray's troubles.

"How do you explain it to people?" Carolyn Leming says over dinner at her home. "We just did what we could and figured it had to end soon."

They got some unexpected help from a distant cousin, Jim Rix, a small business owner in Lake Tahoe. He was casually told by his mother one day, "Did you realize you have a cousin on death row?" Rix, who didn't know Krone, decided to look into the case.

He wrote Krone a letter. Krone wrote back describing the case. Then Rix began looking into the evidence.

"At first, it was just curiosity," Rix tells New Times. "I figured he was guilty."

But, he says, he quickly saw something was amiss.

He bought transcripts of the trial. He began reviewing evidence firsthand.

"So I just kept looking deeper, and the more I looked, the crazier it got," he says. "Once I realized he was innocent, it became a mission to help him."

It was Rix who first began sending the dental evidence to other forensic dental experts, all of whom agreed Rawson was wrong.

Rix approached Chris Plourd because Plourd specializes in cases involving complex forensic work. Plourd was astounded by the evidence and took the case.

Back in Dover, Jim and Carolyn and Ray's sister began working feverishly. They, too, took the evidence to other dental experts. They wrote letters to other experts, legal and medical, asking for help.

They finally got Ray a new trial. By the summer of 1995, Plourd and the family were feeling that Krone would soon be free.

The newspaper in York began covering the story. The paper detailed the evidence at the time showing that Ray Krone didn't commit the crime. The community began rallying around Krone's family. Raffles and bake sales were held to help the Lemings, who were spending all their earnings and savings on legal and travel expenses.

After a few days of trial in June 1995, the community of Dover was already planning a "Welcome Home" party for Ray. That's how strong the case seemed to be.

But Carolyn Leming never began celebrating.

"Things had been so messed up for so long, I just wasn't going to believe he was going to be free until I saw him free," she says. "I had a sick feeling. And sure enough."

Sure enough, Rawson's testimony apparently drove the jury to the second conviction.

So Krone went back to prison. The story faded from the front pages. People got on with their lives -- except for Plourd and Ray's family.

Carolyn and Jim wrote a newsletter keeping people up to date on the case.

The Lemings were out of money. They were living at the friend's cabin by then.

"It didn't matter," Carolyn says. "We weren't going to give up."

In 2002, when DNA evidence exonerated Krone, the "Welcome Home" banners went up again. This time, there would be someone to greet.

"It was just amazing," Krone says. "I can't describe the feeling. Everybody was just so great. One minute you're in prison, the next you're in the arms of so many people you care about and who care about you and did so much for you. It's just an absolutely amazing feeling."

In the months that followed, Krone tried to relax amid a crunch of media and speaking requests. He spent a lot of time with friends "just talking about old times and joking." He began dating and soon had a steady girlfriend.

He and Jim built a dining room table together. Krone's neighbor helped him renovate a shed between their homes into a party room with hot tub, bar, TV and dartboard.

After a while, though, his mother started feeling like Krone might be spinning his wheels.

"It seemed like he was changing direction all the time," she says.

And every so often, Alan Simpson, Krone's attorney in the ongoing civil suits, would call him with a new piece of evidence.

"You can't help but get angry as you get the full picture of what they did," Carolyn Leming says.

"Do these people simply have no conscience?" Jim Leming asks.

"It really is hard to hear some of this stuff," Krone says. "You can't help but ask, 'Why?' Over and over. Why didn't you check this? Why didn't you check that? Why did you cover that up? How could you do this to another human being? I just don't get it. I don't think I'll ever get it."

Once again, though, Krone stops himself from going down that road.

Look at the present. Look to the future.