Speaker 1: In the summer of nineteen ninety five, twenty one year
Speaker 1: old single mom Christine Bunch was living in a trailer
Speaker 1: in Greensburg, Indiana, with her three year old son Tony.
Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of July thirtieth, an electrical
Speaker 1: fire began between the roof and the ceiling tiles. When
Speaker 1: the fire caused one of the ceiling tiles to fall
Speaker 1: in Tony's bedroom, a cloud of carbon monoxide gas killed
Speaker 1: the little boy before the fire even could. Christine awoke
Speaker 1: in a carbon monoxide haze, desperately trying to save Tony.
Speaker 1: After failed attempts at extinguishing the fire, she ran for help.
Speaker 1: Then she smashed Tony's bedroom window, but it was too late.
Speaker 1: She was barefoot, homeless, and deep in despair. Arson investigator
Speaker 1: Brian Frank used what is widely now known as junk
Speaker 1: science to point the blame for Tony's death squarely at Christine.
Speaker 1: So six days after losing her three year old boy
Speaker 1: and nearly everything she ever had, Christine lost her freedom
Speaker 1: as well. With no potential alibi or eyewitnesses, the state
Speaker 1: easily sealed Christine's fate with the testimony of Brian Frank
Speaker 1: and ATF forensic analyst William Cannard. Christine gave birth to
Speaker 1: her son, Trent, just a few months after being sent
Speaker 1: to prison and a decade passed before her attorney and
Speaker 1: a team from the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern
Speaker 1: University uncovered an egregious Brady violation and blatantly false testimony,
Speaker 1: freeing Christine after seventeen years, one month, and sixteen days
Speaker 1: behind bars. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flauber. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason flaum That's me, of course,
Speaker 1: and today you're going to hear story that's as heartbreaking
Speaker 1: and tragic as it was preventable, and it's a remarkable
Speaker 1: look inside the systemic flaws as well as human errors
Speaker 1: that lead to wrongful convictions. And in this particular case,
Speaker 1: we're going to be telling the story and hearing the
Speaker 1: story of one of my absolute favorite human beings, a
Speaker 1: personal hero of mine, who is doing amazing, amazing things
Speaker 1: in the world right now, today and every day. And
Speaker 1: so I am thrilled and honored to have with us
Speaker 1: on the show today, Christine.
Speaker 2: Bunch, Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1: And with Christine as someone whose name you'll probably recognize,
Speaker 1: Ron Safer. Ron is a former US attorney turned corporate
Speaker 1: lawyer turned justice fighter, and you'll recognize him because he
Speaker 1: was a huge part of the exoneration of Julie Ray,
Speaker 1: an episode that I'll never forget, and I hope if
Speaker 1: you haven't heard it, that you'll go back and take
Speaker 1: a listen. Anyway, Ron, welcome.
Speaker 3: Back to be here. Thank you, Jason.
Speaker 1: So let's get right into it. Christine, you grew up
Speaker 1: in Indiana, right, I did.
Speaker 4: Things took a crazy turn when my parents divorced, but
Speaker 4: for the most part I was happy and it was good.
Speaker 1: Now at the time of this unimaginable tragedy, you were
Speaker 1: just a young mother living in a trailer, working hard,
Speaker 1: going to school, just starting your life, just twenty one
Speaker 1: years old, right.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Speaker 4: I was working and going to school, and I had
Speaker 4: a beautiful three year old son named Tony.
Speaker 1: And then the worst nightmare that any parent can possibly
Speaker 1: have or wake up to in a cold sweat, and
Speaker 1: some of us probably have had that experience, but it
Speaker 1: actually happened to you. And Ron, can you tell us
Speaker 1: about that awful morning of June thirtieth, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 3: What happened was Christine and Tony had gone to sleep
Speaker 3: together on a couch in the living room area of
Speaker 3: the trailer. Before Christine woke up, Tony had moved to
Speaker 3: the front room, which was a separate room from the
Speaker 3: living room. Christine awoke to a sound and a small fire.
Speaker 3: She was disoriented, but she saw the small fire and
Speaker 3: she tried to put it out with a pillow and
Speaker 3: couldn't do that, so she tried to smother the fire
Speaker 3: with a blanket, and that didn't work either. Carbon monoxide
Speaker 3: is intoxicating. Christine was undoubtedly affected by this carbon monoxide.
Speaker 3: She's trying to put out the fire. She can't find
Speaker 3: the fire extinguisher. She knows where the fire extinguisher is,
Speaker 3: she can't find it. So by that time, the fire
Speaker 3: had grown into a wall her and Tony, and she
Speaker 3: could not get to him. So she frantically went out
Speaker 3: of the trailer, tried to get help, and then tried
Speaker 3: to break the window into the front room so that
Speaker 3: she could get to Tony, but it was too late,
Speaker 3: and Tony had perished.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to even conceive of the horror and the
Speaker 1: panic in a time like that, Even if you didn't
Speaker 1: have kids like waking up to a fire. Christine, what
Speaker 1: are your memories of that awful night now twenty five
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 2: I think the thing that sits with me the most
Speaker 2: is it was just normal.
Speaker 4: I came home from school, and I got Tony from
Speaker 4: the babysitter, and we went home and we cooked, and
Speaker 4: I think we watched some TV and did some laundry,
Speaker 4: and we fell asleep. I'd read him a story and
Speaker 4: he wasn't feeling really well, and we fell asleep on
Speaker 4: the couch under the air conditioner.
Speaker 2: And everything just seemed normal.
Speaker 4: You didn't realize that you were going to wake up
Speaker 4: in your whole world would be turned upside down.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, your whole world was really destroyed at a
Speaker 1: time when the community and the system should have been
Speaker 1: coming to help you in every conceivable way. Instead, you
Speaker 1: were exposed to and victimized by the worst that the
Speaker 1: system and our society has to offer. And it's so
Speaker 1: important that you're here now because this arson quote unquote
Speaker 1: science that they used in order to frame you and
Speaker 1: wrongfully convict you for a crime that never even happened
Speaker 1: is something that we need to focus on because we
Speaker 1: need awareness among everyone, because someday, you, the listener, may
Speaker 1: find yourself on a jury and you may be presented
Speaker 1: with this same sort of junk science.
Speaker 3: Fire investigation was an apprentice art. There were what was
Speaker 3: regarded as common knowledge and industry standards that were passed
Speaker 3: down from generation to generation. Virtually none of those conventional
Speaker 3: wisdom were true, and when tested by scientific principles, they
Speaker 3: were all debunked. Unfortunately, that came too late for Christine.
Speaker 1: And this starts with a fire investigator named Brian Frank.
Speaker 3: So what Frank did was the day of this fire,
Speaker 3: and keep in mind this trailer was completely incinerated. He
Speaker 3: comes into the trailer and just plucks things out of
Speaker 3: thin air. He says, Oh, this is a burn pattern
Speaker 3: on the floor. That's evidence of a liquid with the
Speaker 3: accelerant like gasoline. Ooh, there's a V pattern on the wall.
Speaker 3: That is fire burns up in a V pattern. And therefore,
Speaker 3: because there are two of these, there were two points
Speaker 3: of origin. A normal accidental fire will have one point
Speaker 3: of origin. Sometimes if a fire is intentionally set, it
Speaker 3: will have two points of origin. Says oops, here the
Speaker 3: fire burned down. That is a sign of a liquid accelerant.
Speaker 3: For all of these reasons, I conclude this was not
Speaker 3: an accidental fire. This was intentionally set because, as you
Speaker 3: said at the beginning, Jason, unlike many crimes like a
Speaker 3: robbery or a fraud or a murder, the question in
Speaker 3: an arson is was a crime even committed? And upon
Speaker 3: that threshold question rests the lives of hundreds of people,
Speaker 3: including Christine.
Speaker 1: Here's what's absolutely nuts is that to become a licensed
Speaker 1: arson investigator, one who can testify in court, you can
Speaker 1: take a forty hour correspondence course. It takes fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: hours in some places to become a manicurist. You can't
Speaker 1: get a barber's license in less than six months. The
Speaker 1: idea that they've been relying on these charlatans you'd be
Speaker 1: better off consulting with psychics or even just guessing. And
Speaker 1: in Christine's case, there are so many other problems. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a tunnel vision with holding of sculpatory evidence, there's
Speaker 1: multiple incompetent investigators who pass themselves off as experts, and
Speaker 1: then it goes downhill from there. So there you are
Speaker 1: outside the house and in minutes, in moments, your life
Speaker 1: has gone from a good life full of love and
Speaker 1: hope to the worst imaginable scenario.
Speaker 4: You're just in shock and you don't really believe what
Speaker 4: people are telling you because they kept telling me, no,
Speaker 4: you can't go in and know we couldn't get hit
Speaker 4: him and know he's not alive.
Speaker 2: And of course, as apparent, you don't want to believe that.
Speaker 2: People on the outside want to look at.
Speaker 4: It and say, well, if this was done differently, or
Speaker 4: if you had acted this way. And I mean, for myself,
Speaker 4: I have played it over and over and over and
Speaker 4: over again in my mind. I still every day that
Speaker 4: I wake up play it over in my mind, and
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: Know how to come up with a different scenario. When
Speaker 2: you're in that.
Speaker 4: Moment and the terror paralyzes you, you don't know what
Speaker 4: you would do. So it's easy to stand outside and
Speaker 4: say this should have never happen, and somebody has to
Speaker 4: be blamed.
Speaker 1: Right, because the alternative is incomprehensible to most people, why
Speaker 1: an innocent baby would be taken from us. Christine, six
Speaker 1: days in hell, right, six days for you between the
Speaker 1: fire and the loss of your child and the time
Speaker 1: that you're arrested. What were those six days like? What
Speaker 1: were you doing.
Speaker 2: I went with my parents to.
Speaker 4: Plan a funeral, and my mom and dad really went
Speaker 4: through how the service was going to be, and I
Speaker 4: just remember sitting there and crying, and then I told
Speaker 4: him that I wanted a song played something that I,
Speaker 4: you know, sang with Tony, and he said, we can
Speaker 4: play whatever you want, and then I had to go
Speaker 4: get clothes.
Speaker 2: To her to a funeral.
Speaker 4: At that time, I was still walking around barefoot because
Speaker 4: I'd literally lost everything, and everybody was trying to comfort
Speaker 4: you and give you advice, and it.
Speaker 2: Just doesn't comfort you. So you feel more alone than
Speaker 2: ever because you don't want to hurt their.
Speaker 4: Feelings, but everything they're saying to you doesn't penetrate.
Speaker 5: The police didn't help because they followed me everywhere I
Speaker 5: went and talked to everybody after I left, and they
Speaker 5: even showed up and my son's funeral and burial.
Speaker 4: They came to me before I even got out of
Speaker 4: the hospital and told me that it was an arson.
Speaker 4: They literally wanted a list of all my family and friends,
Speaker 4: anybody that could have possibly done it.
Speaker 2: Then they come back to me and say, no, you're
Speaker 2: you're the person. You're under arrest for this, and in
Speaker 2: a small town.
Speaker 4: Once they make or and arrest and put a headline
Speaker 4: on the paper in a small community, in that community's mind,
Speaker 4: you're guilty.
Speaker 1: So now you're arrested. How long were you held before
Speaker 1: the trial? Were you able to bail out?
Speaker 4: I was in there from July sixth to October mid October,
Speaker 4: I bonded out on a fifty thousand dollars cash bond.
Speaker 4: I tell my son Trent all the time that he's
Speaker 4: the miracle that saved me. But when I got out,
Speaker 4: I certainly didn't care if I lived or died, and
Speaker 4: so I was drinking and doing a lot of self
Speaker 4: medicating because I just didn't want to feel anymore. And
Speaker 4: in the midst of that, I started getting sick and
Speaker 4: that's when I discovered I was pregnant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the worst possible scenario. Although now, as
Speaker 1: you said, it turns out to be the thing that
Speaker 1: saved you. And we'll get into more of that later.
Speaker 1: But Ron, this trial is full of I mean again,
Speaker 1: it's horseshit. The stuff that they were spewing from the stand.
Speaker 3: It began with the prosecutor standing in front of the
Speaker 3: jury and saying motive is not an element of the crime.
Speaker 3: We don't have to prove motive. People tend not to
Speaker 3: commit crimes for no reason. And of course they investigated
Speaker 3: Christine and her motive for this crime, and they found
Speaker 3: that she was a good, loving, carrying, wonderful mother and
Speaker 3: that she and Tony had a beautiful relationship. Everybody said
Speaker 3: that universally, and so they're left with telling the jury, Okay,
Speaker 3: Christine committed this horrific crime for no reason, but we
Speaker 3: don't have to prove motive. Then their case depended one
Speaker 3: hundred percent on this quote unquote expert testimony, because Christine
Speaker 3: didn't set this fire, so of course nobody saw her
Speaker 3: set the fire, nobody saw her prepare to set the fire,
Speaker 3: nobody's heard her talk about setting the fire, nobody afterwards.
Speaker 3: There was no physical evidence, no forensic evidence, nothing. Of course,
Speaker 3: the trailer wasn't insured, she lost all of her possessions,
Speaker 3: she lost, of course, the person who meant most to
Speaker 3: her in the world. So they were left with this
Speaker 3: expert testimony, these absurd fire investigation myths, which should have
Speaker 3: and could have been dispelled by a defense atturn or
Speaker 3: competent defense expert. But there was something else that was
Speaker 3: critical in this trial that would have been difficult for
Speaker 3: a defense attorney to combat.
Speaker 1: And I have to tell the audience that this critical
Speaker 1: evidence becomes just as important later to prove in Christine's
Speaker 1: innocence as it was in getting her convicted. But go ahead, Ron.
Speaker 3: They took ten samples from the trailer, from the floor
Speaker 3: of the trailer, from the carpet of the trailer, from
Speaker 3: Christine's nightgown, and they tested it for various accelerants. There
Speaker 3: was no gasoline. There was no inflammatory substance of any
Speaker 3: kind on Christine's nightgown, even though they said that she
Speaker 3: would splash this accelerant all around. But there were two
Speaker 3: positive samples. And those samples, by the way, were given
Speaker 3: to the Bureau of Alcohol to back on firearms atf
Speaker 3: who federally investigates arson crimes and they have special laboratories,
Speaker 3: and they did gas chromatography on these samples, and they
Speaker 3: presented evidence at trial that there were two positive tests
Speaker 3: for what they called a heavy petroleum distillant like jet
Speaker 3: fuel or something else specifically not kerosene, and that was
Speaker 3: found in the living room area and critically in the
Speaker 3: front room, the room where Tony was found now there
Speaker 3: is reason for there to be kerosene in the living
Speaker 3: room because the prior owners of this trailer testified that
Speaker 3: they had a kerosene heater and that they overfilled it
Speaker 3: from time to time. Kerosene does not evaporate, and so
Speaker 3: even from years before, there would be kerosene in the wood.
Speaker 3: But there's no explanation for a heavy petroleum distolate like
Speaker 3: jet fuel. And there is absolutely no innocent explanation for
Speaker 3: there to be a heavy petroleum distolate in the front
Speaker 3: room Tony's bedroom. And that was critical evidence that was
Speaker 3: not refuted by the defense attorney. And on the strength
Speaker 3: of that expert testimony of end these critical lab determinations,
Speaker 3: Christine was convicted.
Speaker 1: March fourth, nineteen ninety six, twenty two years old. Pregnant,
Speaker 1: Christine is convicted of arson and murder. Less than a
Speaker 1: month later, she's sentenced to two concurrent terms, sixty years
Speaker 1: for murder and fifty years for arson. So how pregnant
Speaker 1: were you, Christine at the time of this wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: And what the hell was it like giving birth behind ball?
Speaker 2: I was almost six months pregnant.
Speaker 4: The only thing they don't do to pregnant women is
Speaker 4: make them wear the belly chain and the box because
Speaker 4: the baby's not a prisoner. But with so many pregnant
Speaker 4: women in there, you don't always get soft cuffs for
Speaker 4: your feet. So I've got deep scars on the back
Speaker 4: of my ankles from wearing those metal shackles. And then
Speaker 4: when I finally went into labor, I didn't really know
Speaker 4: that I was in labor because I was just having
Speaker 4: a backache. So they took me to the infirmary and
Speaker 4: couldn't find a heartbeat.
Speaker 2: I lost it.
Speaker 4: I started, you know, screaming at him, and so I
Speaker 4: was handcuffed.
Speaker 2: And shackle and taken out into an ambulance.
Speaker 4: And when I got to the hospital, a doctor come
Speaker 4: in and explained that I was having contractions and that's
Speaker 4: why they could here the heartbeat. They determined that I
Speaker 4: was going to have an emergency c section, so they
Speaker 4: had cuffs and shackles came off, and I got a
Speaker 4: metal cuff on my ankle in the log chain.
Speaker 2: I got about thirty six hours with Trent.
Speaker 6: And then I was transferred back to the facility and
Speaker 6: my family took him home.
Speaker 1: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
Speaker 1: of Rawfuel Conviction and of the Last Mile organization, which
Speaker 1: provides business and tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully
Speaker 1: and permanently re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is
Speaker 1: committed to improving the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting
Speaker 1: organizations that are dedicated primarily to helping young people and students.
Speaker 1: For more information on the work of the Pacers Foundation
Speaker 1: or the Last Mile Program, visit Pacersfoundation dot org or
Speaker 1: the Lastmile dot org. This episode is sponsored by AIG,
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton
Speaker 1: and Garrison, a leading international law firm. The AIG pro
Speaker 1: Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
Speaker 1: many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need, and recently
Speaker 1: they announced that working to reform the criminal justice system
Speaker 1: will become a key pillar of the program's mission. Paul
Speaker 1: Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful
Speaker 1: pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of
Speaker 1: our society and in support of the public interest, including
Speaker 1: extensive work in the criminal justice area. So the good
Speaker 1: news is that there is actually an equal or greater
Speaker 1: number of heroes in this story. Than villains Betsy Marx,
Speaker 1: Hillary po Rix, Jamie McAllister, and the other two actual
Speaker 1: fire science to John Dehan and John Maluley, plus the
Speaker 1: electrical engineer Richard Hanson. Then Karen Daniel and Jane Raley,
Speaker 1: legends in the field were on your side. And of
Speaker 1: course Ron himself, Ron Safer, I mean, the fucking cavalry
Speaker 1: came in on this one, right. Can you talk now
Speaker 1: about the process that led seventeen years later to Christine
Speaker 1: finally coming home.
Speaker 3: Yes, Christine pursued this tirelessly against all odds. Found a
Speaker 3: wonderful local attorney, Hillary bo Rix, who believed in Christine
Speaker 3: but really did not have the resources to take on
Speaker 3: the awesome power of the state, and a supporter of Christine.
Speaker 3: Wrote a letter to Northwestern Center on Wrongful Convictions, and
Speaker 3: Jane Rayley, along with Karen Daniel, took Christine's case and
Speaker 3: they disassembled every piece of evidence the state put forward.
Speaker 3: Karen and Jane assembled the world's experts on fire science,
Speaker 3: not the myths of arson investigation, but on fire science
Speaker 3: to prove first that everything the state said was wrong,
Speaker 3: and then second that Christine was innocent, not beyond a
Speaker 3: reasonable doubt. Beyond any doubt. So first they got a
Speaker 3: former ATF agent and he testified that every one of
Speaker 3: the myths that was used by the so called arson
Speaker 3: investigator Brian Frank was wrong. A V pattern does not
Speaker 3: indicate a point of origin. It indicates a point where
Speaker 3: something burned against a wall. Fire burns down not because
Speaker 3: of the liquid accelerant, but because it's seeking oxygen and
Speaker 3: there was a hole in the trailer. So the burn
Speaker 3: patterns that Frank says indicated that there was a liquid
Speaker 3: accelerant have been disproved. Brian Frank said that the fire
Speaker 3: was hotter because a liquid accelerant was used. That is
Speaker 3: a myth. Controlled experiments prove that fire is no hotter. Indeed,
Speaker 3: the heat depends on what is being burnt. So chemistry
Speaker 3: physics disproved every one of the pieces of evidence. But
Speaker 3: there was one more critical thing that Karen Daniel did
Speaker 3: that was pivotal. She subpoened the underlying test data that
Speaker 3: had been used by the ATF lab and all of
Speaker 3: the documents related to those tests, and what that found
Speaker 3: was stunning. First, she got the actual gas chromatographs, so
Speaker 3: the actual tests, and contrary to his testimony, he did
Speaker 3: test against the standard of kerosene, not a heavy dissolute,
Speaker 3: but kerosene. Then when you look at those actual test data,
Speaker 3: you find that, yes, there was kerosene in the living
Speaker 3: room where the kerosene heater had been years before. But
Speaker 3: then you look at the sample from Tony's bedroom, the
Speaker 3: sample that convicted Christine, and the test was negative for
Speaker 3: any liquid accelerate, kerosene, heavy petroleum distillate, nothing. What's more,
Speaker 3: in that file, there was a draft report that reflected
Speaker 3: accurately the test results, that is, that there had been
Speaker 3: kerosene in the living room and that the sample in
Speaker 3: Tony's bedroom was negative. And then there was a report
Speaker 3: that in handwriting that crossed that out and made that
Speaker 3: test result positive. How that happened, unfortunately, we'll never know
Speaker 3: because by the time we got to the hearing, the
Speaker 3: ATF agent, who is now deceased, was incompetent in an
Speaker 3: assisted living home and could not testify about what happened.
Speaker 3: But what was clear was Christine was convicted based on
Speaker 3: not only faulty but false evidence. So that takes care
Speaker 3: of the States case.
Speaker 1: So Christine's team exposed the junk science and the outright
Speaker 1: falsification of the real scientific data that led to our conviction.
Speaker 1: And by the way, these are your tax dollars at work.
Speaker 1: And if you don't think this could happen to you, well,
Speaker 1: don't even get me started. There's more to this, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking about with the defenses. Expert Jamie McAllister testified
Speaker 1: to about how the fire really started.
Speaker 3: Jamie McAllister, who is an expert in examining the victim's
Speaker 3: chemistry and reverse engineering how a fire must have started,
Speaker 3: testified about how this fire started. Tony died before the
Speaker 3: fire got hot. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning. There
Speaker 3: was no burning in his trachea, no burning in his lungs,
Speaker 3: and so he had stopped breathing before the fire got hot.
Speaker 3: His carboxy hemoglobin rate, which is what we referred to
Speaker 3: as carbon monoxide poisoning. It's when the carbon monoxide bonds
Speaker 3: with your blood. The hemoglobin was eighty percent. Fifty percent
Speaker 3: is lethal. So how did it get that high? Well,
Speaker 3: Jamie McAllister testifies that controlled experiment show that if the
Speaker 3: fire had started out in the open air of the
Speaker 3: living room or the bedroom, it would have produced a
Speaker 3: lot of carbon die oxide. Two oxygen molecules. Because there's
Speaker 3: a lot of air floating around and very little carbon
Speaker 3: monoxide one oxygen molecule, it would have taken ninety minutes
Speaker 3: for the fire to have produced enough carbon monoxide for
Speaker 3: Tony to have gotten to a carboxy hemoglobin rate approaching
Speaker 3: eighty percent. He would have burned to death long before that,
Speaker 3: and of course his lungs and everything else would have burned.
Speaker 3: That didn't happen. So how did this fire happen? Well,
Speaker 3: as an electrician testified, there were electrical wires that were
Speaker 3: overloaded that ran between the roof and the drop down
Speaker 3: ceiling tiles. There was an electrical fire that started that morning.
Speaker 3: But because there's limited oxygen there, what happens is the
Speaker 3: fire smolders and produces a lot of carbon monoxide up
Speaker 3: in the ceiling. Now, eventually the fire gets hot enough
Speaker 3: so that one of the ceiling tiles burns and drops
Speaker 3: to the floor. That undoubtedly is what Christine awakens to. Now,
Speaker 3: when that happens, the carbon monoxide fills the Tony's room
Speaker 3: like a balloon that is letting out its air. Physical
Speaker 3: tests and chemical tests prove within minutes he dies of
Speaker 3: carbon monoxide poisoning. That's how this fire had to have happened.
Speaker 3: And thus, not only was there no evidence that Christine
Speaker 3: was guilty of an arson, there was conclusive evidence that
Speaker 3: the fire was an accidental fire that took place in
Speaker 3: the confined area of the ceiling, and that Tony died
Speaker 3: as everybody knew, of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Speaker 1: But in spite of all of this, on June eighth
Speaker 1: of twenty ten, now over fourteen years after your conviction,
Speaker 1: Judge Weshoffer denied you a new trial. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: While and this is a quote, while mss Bunch had
Speaker 1: new resources available to her at the post conviction hearing,
Speaker 1: new experts do not create new evidence. The issues raised
Speaker 1: and the conclusions reached, while packaged differently, remained basically the
Speaker 1: same as they were at trial in nineteen ninety six
Speaker 1: end quote. He went on to add that he did
Speaker 1: not believe the ATF documents would have changed the outcome
Speaker 1: of the trial. And I mean it was exposed that
Speaker 1: they falsified the findings and said the samples were positive
Speaker 1: when they weren't. What the actual fuck like And this again,
Speaker 1: if you don't think this can happen to you and
Speaker 1: I'm talking to the audience now, of course you're wrong.
Speaker 1: A very large percentage of judges are elected and the
Speaker 1: others are appointed by elected officials. Either way, your decisions
Speaker 1: in the voting booth are going to determine who ends
Speaker 1: up on the bench. So and of my rant, back
Speaker 1: to the story. Meanwhile, another Indianapolis lawyer joins the team,
Speaker 1: John Larimore, And then we get to the good stuff.
Speaker 1: Right on July thirteenth, twenty eleven, Ron who's here with
Speaker 1: us now, argued in front of a three member panel
Speaker 1: of the Court of Appeals of Indiana.
Speaker 3: At the argument itself, it was very clear from the
Speaker 3: questioning of the judges that one judge was dead set
Speaker 3: against us. There was nothing I was going to be
Speaker 3: able to say to change his mind. One judge was
Speaker 3: for us, and no matter how incoherently I babbled, he
Speaker 3: was going to vote for us. And so the middle judge,
Speaker 3: the chief judge, held Christine's fate in her hand. Our
Speaker 3: working theory and it made sense, said, if the court
Speaker 3: was going to reverse this conviction, they would have done
Speaker 3: it right away because they know she's sitting in jail.
Speaker 3: So we're sitting there understanding that The longer this goes on,
Speaker 3: the more likely it is we lost. As time wore on,
Speaker 3: despair grew.
Speaker 1: And eight of what must have been truly agonizing. Months later, Christine,
Speaker 1: on March twenty first of twenty twelve, in a two
Speaker 1: to one decision, the panel reversed the conviction and granted
Speaker 1: you a new trial, citing the evolution of fire science,
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that sculpatory evidence was withheld
Speaker 1: that quote unquote directly contradicted ATF forensic analyst William Kinnard's
Speaker 1: trial testimony. Christine, how did you find out about this
Speaker 1: momentous decision?
Speaker 4: I got a call to come to the counselor's office
Speaker 4: and my lawyers were on the phone to.
Speaker 2: Tell me that they had reversed my conviction and remanded
Speaker 2: for a new trial.
Speaker 4: I started crying, and I asked them if they called
Speaker 4: my son.
Speaker 2: I wanted him to know that I won and I
Speaker 2: was going.
Speaker 4: To come home, and so they assured me that yes,
Speaker 4: they were calling him, and I ended up. I stayed
Speaker 4: in the counselor's office for like an hour and a
Speaker 4: half because I head back to back calls, and she said,
Speaker 4: you know, she said, we're just going to make this
Speaker 4: your day, so everybody can call and congratulate you and
Speaker 4: tell you the news, and they were just so happy
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 1: Ron. What about you? What's your recollection of that phone call?
Speaker 3: I cared beyond measure about Christine in this case and
Speaker 3: getting her out of jail, and when it ultimately happened,
Speaker 3: it was as if it was happening to my sister.
Speaker 3: Just the most moving experience. Although the reality comes home
Speaker 3: of Okay, she's not at a jail, she gets a
Speaker 3: new trial, is she's still sitting in jail. We got
Speaker 3: to get her out of jail.
Speaker 1: So almost five months go by after March twenty first,
Speaker 1: twenty twelve and the amazing phone call, all the way
Speaker 1: to August eighth, when the Indiana Supreme Court left the
Speaker 1: Appellate Court's decision undisturbed. And then finally about a month
Speaker 1: after that, September one, twenty twelve, seventeen years, one month
Speaker 1: and sixteen days after you were arrested, Christine, you were
Speaker 1: finally released into the arms of your family. What was
Speaker 1: that like?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean when you first walk out, I think
Speaker 4: all you're looking at is the dream finally happened.
Speaker 2: And I have so many possibilities.
Speaker 4: After that initial who wears off, then you're left.
Speaker 2: With all of these fears and insecurities.
Speaker 4: It was great walking out and seeing everyone, but then
Speaker 4: you know, I'm facing another murder trial, so we have
Speaker 4: to start preparing for that. And I have, you know,
Speaker 4: my son, who I have to provide a home for,
Speaker 4: and I have to make sure that he has everything
Speaker 4: he needs. He's just sixteen, so I don't have a
Speaker 4: driver's license, I don't have any kind of ID, I
Speaker 4: don't have renter's history, credit score, all of these things.
Speaker 4: I don't even know where I'm going to get a
Speaker 4: job after seventeen years. So fear starts to take you over,
Speaker 4: and I think that At first I was just like,
Speaker 4: I'm not going.
Speaker 2: To make it. There's no way I'm going to be
Speaker 2: able to make it.
Speaker 4: And that first night, my son was showing me on
Speaker 4: his laptop how to set up a Facebook account, and
Speaker 4: while I'm looking at it, I see that he has
Speaker 4: the Appellate Court site bookmarked, and I said, why do
Speaker 4: you have that? And he looked at me and he said,
Speaker 4: because I checked every day to see if they made
Speaker 4: a decision, and you.
Speaker 2: Were coming home, and I started crying.
Speaker 4: And I said, you know, I said, I've been so
Speaker 4: worried and so unsure, but.
Speaker 2: Hearing that you believed in me and we're just waiting
Speaker 2: for me to come home. I can make it through anything.
Speaker 1: Then another and a long line of amazing developments in
Speaker 1: your case happened just before Christmas, which must have made
Speaker 1: that time of year even sweeter. The prosecution finally came
Speaker 1: around to their senses and dropped the charges, which brings
Speaker 1: us to your next struggle, compensation for all that lost time.
Speaker 1: And of course no amount of money can be enough
Speaker 1: to repay what you lost, but you had an uphill
Speaker 1: battle and a unique struggle to even get compensation. Can
Speaker 1: you fill us in on that.
Speaker 2: Yes, So, like everyone, I filed a civil suit.
Speaker 4: Clearly people are protected, so you have to break through
Speaker 4: immunity to try to sue. The issue is the ATF
Speaker 4: chemist is deceased, so I didn't have a leg to
Speaker 4: stand on, and that was ultimately dismissed.
Speaker 2: Compensation.
Speaker 4: I have been working since I've been out, and well,
Speaker 4: I've helped pass new legislation in three different states working
Speaker 4: with the Innocence Project. This past year we passed compensation
Speaker 4: in Indiana and then when my civil suit was dismissed,
Speaker 4: I applied for the compensation. You know, it was I think,
Speaker 4: very surreal to receive a letter from them saying that
Speaker 4: just because my conviction was reversed and I wasn't retried
Speaker 4: did not mean that I was actually innocent, and it really,
Speaker 4: I mean it hurt my feeling. Is because I testified
Speaker 4: before these legislators three separate occasions. The senators and representatives
Speaker 4: that passed this bill used my case to pass this
Speaker 4: compensation bill, and then you're going to basically retry me
Speaker 4: all over again.
Speaker 1: So are they really trying to relitigate this case?
Speaker 2: No, they are not.
Speaker 4: But as you go through the process, you fill out
Speaker 4: a compensation application and then they review it. So for them,
Speaker 4: they reached out to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor said,
Speaker 4: you know, no, we didn't have evidence at the time
Speaker 4: to retry this, but you know, we aren't going to
Speaker 4: say we made a mistake. They never want to say
Speaker 4: they made a mistake.
Speaker 2: So I had.
Speaker 4: To reach out to everyone I knew, the Center on
Speaker 4: Wrongful Convictions with you know, the amazing Laura and I
Speaker 4: writer and Steve Drisen, Ron Safer and all of them
Speaker 4: wrote letters and admitted the evidence that was used to
Speaker 4: exonerate me in order to show them that I am
Speaker 4: innocent and worthy of this conversation.
Speaker 2: Twenty five years after the fact.
Speaker 4: They are reviewing the application. They've been reviewing it since November.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's hope they come to their senses and
Speaker 1: come to the right decision, because I think the right
Speaker 1: thing to do is clear to everyone who's listening and
Speaker 1: to anyone with a heart and a soul. So let's
Speaker 1: get to what you're doing now. You started an organization
Speaker 1: called just Is for just Us.
Speaker 4: Just is just like it sounds because the situation just is,
Speaker 4: and then it's for just us, which means all of
Speaker 4: us exoneries. Justice for just Us was started by myself
Speaker 4: and another exonery that came from the Center on Wrongful
Speaker 4: Convictions and Juan and I just basically wanted to address
Speaker 4: what it was like because when people walk out, you
Speaker 4: don't have a toothbrush, you don't have the basic necessities.
Speaker 4: So j for JA for short. You know, we're helping
Speaker 4: with boxes. If somebody reaches out and says, hey, I
Speaker 4: need an outfit and I need basic hygiens, we put
Speaker 4: that together. We've helped take some axonneries to the Innocence conference,
Speaker 4: sent out gas cards, cash cards, We've paid rent, we've
Speaker 4: paid bills, and our organization allows healthcare providers to donate
Speaker 4: services so they can get a dental visit or some
Speaker 4: counseling sessions or a physical things that are desperately needed
Speaker 4: when you return.
Speaker 1: It's such an important thing, you know. I've tried to
Speaker 1: devote myself to doing as much as I can to
Speaker 1: help people coming out of the system, because it's exactly
Speaker 1: as you described. It's like I call it the second punishment.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is most people coming
Speaker 1: out have no support whatsoever. They may get forty dollars
Speaker 1: and a bus ticket and then you know, not even
Speaker 1: a good luck. So there are a number of wonderful
Speaker 1: organis stations doing this work, and I encourage everyone to
Speaker 1: support just is for just Us. So please everyone scroll
Speaker 1: down on the episode description and get involved with just
Speaker 1: Is for just Us. And now this is the part
Speaker 1: of the show, of course that we call closing arguments.
Speaker 1: So first of all, thank you to our phenomenal guest today.
Speaker 1: The closing argument segment works like this, I turn off
Speaker 1: my microphone, kick back on my chair, leave my headphones on.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I close my eyes, and we're going to let
Speaker 1: each of you have the final word on whatever you
Speaker 1: want to talk about. So let's go to Ron first
Speaker 1: and then Christine you can just take us out.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, thanks so much Jason for telling
Speaker 3: this story, for telling the other stories.
Speaker 1: It is so.
Speaker 3: Critically important to raise public awareness of these wrongful convictions.
Speaker 3: We have the best criminal justice system in the world,
Speaker 3: but it is run by human being, and human beings
Speaker 3: are flawed. They make mistakes, they at times act intentionally maliciously.
Speaker 3: When that happens, it takes enormous resources to get the
Speaker 3: system back on track, and so few people are able
Speaker 3: to afford those resources or are given those resources. So
Speaker 3: what has to happen is everybody involved in the system. Prosecutors, judges,
Speaker 3: jurors have to have an open mind. They have to
Speaker 3: be persons of goodwill. We as citizens have to hold
Speaker 3: them accountable that their jobs are not to get convictions,
Speaker 3: their jobs are to do justice, and we have to
Speaker 3: insist on that. We have to enter that jury box
Speaker 3: as citizens, giving credence to the presumption of innocence that
Speaker 3: our constitution requires. They're not words. They are a critical concept.
Speaker 3: But if we don't pay attention to it, if we
Speaker 3: don't honor it, then wonderful people like Christine will have
Speaker 3: their lives robbed from them, losing decades that nobody can
Speaker 3: give back to them. And so this is a call
Speaker 3: to action. We have to be more active, we have
Speaker 3: to be more responsible. We have to be accountable and
Speaker 3: make sure that everybody in the system is accountable.
Speaker 4: Christine, when I go speak to the community and tell
Speaker 4: them how they can help with j for Jay, or
Speaker 4: how they can help the Innocence Project, or how they
Speaker 4: can step up and make changes within our system.
Speaker 2: Because it is a great system.
Speaker 4: It is designed to work, and we have to take
Speaker 4: responsibility and make sure it works.
Speaker 2: So I know that everybody is sitting.
Speaker 4: There saying I don't have money to donate, but everybody
Speaker 4: does have.
Speaker 2: To step up and say I have something to give here.
Speaker 4: I can vote, I can educate myself so that when
Speaker 4: I'm sitting on a jury, I know what I'm listening
Speaker 4: to because the CSI you watch on TV that's not
Speaker 4: always accurate. So really learning about these issues, really raising
Speaker 4: your voice and.
Speaker 2: Saying you know, we need to change some things that's
Speaker 2: how we make the world better.
Speaker 6: And I encourage all of you to learn about this
Speaker 6: and figure out if you can help by voting, by
Speaker 6: sharing our stories, by talking to an axonary, by just
Speaker 6: being there.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 1: donor to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one