Boca Raton periodontist Dr. Jeff Ganeles was watching an episode of ABC’s Extreme Makeover, when he saw something that took him by surprise.
The subject of the show underwent dental surgery and was given dentures instead of dental implants.
“It’s like completely rebuilding a classic car and then putting a lawn mower engine in it,” said Ganeles, a pioneer in the use of an implant procedure called “immediate loading.”
He made it a point to contact the show’s consulting dentist and offer his services.
Ganeles has since been on Extreme Makeover twice, but this month he plays a major role in the makeover of Ray Krone, a man once dubbed the Snaggletooth Killer.
Krone, a U.S. Postal worker with no prior criminal history, spent 10 years in prison, including four on Death Row, before DNA evidence led to his release in 2002.
It was Krone’s severe overbite, with one of his upper teeth protruding as the result of a car accident, that led to his conviction in the 1991 murder and sexual assault of an Arizona bartender. Though his original conviction and death sentence were overturned, testimony of a dentist, who matched bite marks found on the woman’s body to Krone’s snaggletooth, led to a second conviction.
In a show scheduled to air at 8 p.m. Thursday on WPBF-Ch. 25, Extreme Makeover will give 47-year-old Krone everything from hair plugs to cosmetic surgery on his nose and face.
But it is the dental surgery to correct his overbite that Krone was most looking forward to, according to others involved in the show.
“The snaggletooth that he had was a reminder every day of a horrible period in his life,” said Dr. Bill Dorfman, the featured dentist on Extreme Makeover, who was instrumental in bringing Ganeles out to work on Krone and other patients. “For Ray, this was essentially the beginning of a new life.”
Dorfman said on camera Krone was reserved and relied on the tough exterior he had developed over the years to avoid showing emotion.
“When the cameras were off, he grabbed my arm and said, ‘You’ll never know what this means to me,'” Dorfman said.
Ganeles says he was especially pleased to be helping Krone regain a normal appearance.
“A lot of people have bad teeth,” Ganeles said. “But very few almost get executed for it. He was just a horrible victim of circumstance. Now when he looks in the mirror, he will see strong and healthy teeth.”
Krone ended up with dental problems following a car accident when he was 17. The accident left him with caps on several of his top front teeth and six of his bottom teeth. It also left him with the protruding tooth.
Viewers of Extreme Makeover will watch as Ganeles and his team, which he brought to California with him, remove Krone’s teeth and replace them with implants using a procedure Ganeles has named “TeethToday.”
Using the techniques he helped pioneer, Ganeles was able to replace all of Krone’s teeth with plastic temporaries in the course of a day.
Patients who have traditional implants usually have to wait several weeks before they can use them, according to Ganeles, 47, of Boca Raton.
Ganeles graduated from Boston University’s Goldman School of Graduate Dentistry and studied periodontics at the University of Pennsylvania College of Dental Medicine. He has been practicing dentistry since 1983 and periodontics since 1987.
As he did with his previous appearances on the show, Ganeles donated his time and was reimbursed for his expenses. He says the experience is a way to bring awareness of changes that are being made in cosmetic dentistry to audiences who may not be aware of them.
For Ganeles, however, there is also a sense of satisfaction.
“One of the reasons I do what I do is because it is so successful and so appreciated,” he said.
“It’s rewarding.”
