Speaker 1: Hi, guys, Welcome to an episode of Legally Brunette. I
Speaker 1: will be your host today Emily Simpson with Shane. Today
Speaker 1: we have a very special episode because we are going
Speaker 1: to focus on a wrongful conviction. We are going to
Speaker 1: interview Christine Bunch. So, Christine Bunch was a former client
Speaker 1: of the Center of Wrongful Convictions and she spent seventeen
Speaker 1: years behind bars in Indiana after being wrongfully convicted of
Speaker 1: setting a fire that claimed the life of her three
Speaker 1: year old son. And this happened back in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: Her path to freedom culminated in an exoneration driven by
Speaker 1: the emergence of new scientific evidence and the discovery of
Speaker 1: an altered lab report. Currently, Miss Bunch serves as the
Speaker 1: director of the Indiana Innocence Project, where she utilizes her
Speaker 1: extensive national experience and policy justice reform and exonery support.
Speaker 1: Her leadership extends to several prominent organizations. She is one
Speaker 1: of five exoneries serving on the Innocence Network Executive Board
Speaker 1: and as a member of the executive board for Life
Speaker 1: After Justice. For over eleven years, Christine has been a
Speaker 1: dedicated educator for the Illinois Innocence Project, teaching law enforcement
Speaker 1: students and the general public regarding the systemic roots of
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. Christine has successfully recruited and organized dozens of
Speaker 1: exoneries nationwide to share their experiences at law enforcement academies
Speaker 1: with a focus on concrete strategies to prevent future injustices.
Speaker 1: Her advocacy also includes a personal commitment to helping female
Speaker 1: exoneries access essential health screenings. All right, so we are
Speaker 1: super excited to have Christine Bunch here today with us
Speaker 1: on Legally Brunette. We're going to talk about her case,
Speaker 1: what happened back in nineteen ninety five, and then get
Speaker 1: into how she was eventually exonerated.
Speaker 2: Hi, Chrissy, how are you.
Speaker 3: I'm okay, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm great. So I was going through your case. I
Speaker 1: was reading a lot about it. I think the best
Speaker 1: place to start because we haven't really told our listeners
Speaker 1: anything about what happened back in nineteen ninety five. So
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've shared this multitudes of times, but would
Speaker 1: you mind just taking us back to June thirtieth of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five and just giving us a little bit
Speaker 1: of background on what happened that day.
Speaker 4: So it was a normal day, for me. I had
Speaker 4: come home the night before from school, got my son
Speaker 4: from the babysitter. Tony and I had went through our
Speaker 4: normal evening routine and he had a lot of trouble.
Speaker 3: Going to sleep, but it was really hot.
Speaker 4: It's the end of June, and he finally settled down
Speaker 4: and I woke up early in the morning and my
Speaker 4: first thought was, it's foggy in my house, and that
Speaker 4: didn't really make sense. Then once I realized I was
Speaker 4: seeing smoke, then you go into just sheer panic.
Speaker 3: You're trying to figure out where he is. He had
Speaker 3: gotten up off.
Speaker 4: The couch and went into his bedroom, so I tried
Speaker 4: to get in there, and there's fire in the doorway,
Speaker 4: and I quickly realized I'm not going to get in
Speaker 4: that way, so I run out. I'm screaming for somebody
Speaker 4: to come help me. I pick up his tricycle and
Speaker 4: I busted out the window and I tried to climb
Speaker 4: through and get him. I was unable to do so
Speaker 4: because the neighbors told me out and told me know it,
Speaker 4: I had to wait for law enforcement.
Speaker 3: When they got there.
Speaker 4: I mean, I know it was quick, but when you're
Speaker 4: in that moment, nobody could have arrived fast enough. In
Speaker 4: my mind, they went in, they got my son out,
Speaker 4: and of course, as soon as I heard that they
Speaker 4: had him, I was calm because I thought everything's going
Speaker 4: to be all right, It's all going to be okay.
Speaker 4: It wasn't until I got to the hospital that I
Speaker 4: found out he had died in the fire. And then
Speaker 4: at that point you're just kind of in shock. You
Speaker 4: just shut down, and it took, you know, a while
Speaker 4: before I was able to come out up out of that.
Speaker 4: I don't think it happened until about two hours later
Speaker 4: when the police detectives came in and told me that
Speaker 4: it was an arson. It couldn't have been anything but
Speaker 4: and of course at that point, all that grief turns
Speaker 4: to anger because you're thinking, who could.
Speaker 3: Have done that? Why would they do that.
Speaker 4: I didn't have any enemies, you know, I was a nobody.
Speaker 4: Nobody would want to come in and intentionally do this,
Speaker 4: so I expected them to investigate and find out. Instead,
Speaker 4: they focused their investigations solely on me. And at that time,
Speaker 4: I'd never had any.
Speaker 3: Trouble with the law.
Speaker 4: I'd never dealt with law enforcement, so I had no
Speaker 4: clue that I needed to be protecting myself as an
Speaker 4: innocent person.
Speaker 3: I talked to them.
Speaker 4: Five days later, I was arrested and charged with murder
Speaker 4: and arson. I went through trial. That was, you know,
Speaker 4: a joke I think for most women, because we're represented
Speaker 4: by men usually. And he told me, you know, don't
Speaker 4: look too flashy because they already think you're a loose
Speaker 4: party girl because you're a single mom and you aren't married.
Speaker 4: He said, don't cry because if you don't cry enough,
Speaker 4: they're going to say you're faking. If you cry too much,
Speaker 4: they can say you're faking. He said, it's just better
Speaker 4: if you don't react at all. He said, I think
Speaker 4: we can talk to them about you being cold versus
Speaker 4: you being an actress.
Speaker 3: And so I took his advice.
Speaker 4: I sat there, I didn't say anything, and I listened
Speaker 4: to people talk about things that absolutely weren't true. That
Speaker 4: there had been a chair shipped in the doorway of
Speaker 4: his bedroom so that nobody could get in there to
Speaker 4: rescue him. And then this atf chemist testified that he
Speaker 4: had found accelerant in his bedroom. My jury took four hours.
Speaker 3: They convicted me.
Speaker 4: I was sentenced to sixty years for murder, fifty years
Speaker 4: for arson and sent to the Indiana Women's PRISM, which
Speaker 4: is a maximum security facility in Indiana. It took probably
Speaker 4: six years before I was able to get an attorney
Speaker 4: to take a look at my case. Once she did,
Speaker 4: she told me she believed I was innocent. We just
Speaker 4: had to fight it. So, being in prison, I didn't
Speaker 4: have a lot of resources. I wrote to innocence networks
Speaker 4: around the country. At that time, Indiana did not have
Speaker 4: an innocence project, so I was writing to projects out
Speaker 4: of state, hoping they would come in and help. It
Speaker 4: took a while, but the Center on Wrongful Convictions at
Speaker 4: Northwestern University.
Speaker 3: Came in that time.
Speaker 4: I had educated myself on fire science, and I knew
Speaker 4: without a doubt that I needed to see the ATF
Speaker 4: report because in that report he had said to my
Speaker 4: jury that it could have been one of three accelerants.
Speaker 4: I knew that if he had really tested it, he
Speaker 4: had narrowed it down to what accelerant it was. So
Speaker 4: I shared all of that with the Nisons Project attorneys.
Speaker 4: The first thing they did was get the ATF file,
Speaker 4: where they discovered the report that had been presented to
Speaker 4: my jury, and then they found an unaltered report that
Speaker 4: said no accelerant had been found in my son's bedroom.
Speaker 1: I was literally dumbfounded when I was reading that that
Speaker 1: there was first an original report written where he had
Speaker 1: done the research and said that there was no accelerant used,
Speaker 1: and he gave that to the two investigators I don't
Speaker 1: remember their names, and then they I don't know what happened,
Speaker 1: but I am assuming there was some times a conversation
Speaker 1: amongst them where they said go.
Speaker 2: Back and redo it.
Speaker 1: And then there was after the original report, then there
Speaker 1: was an official report release where he said there was
Speaker 1: an accelerant used. And the fact that there's these two
Speaker 1: contradicting reports that are out there, and the fact that
Speaker 1: they they met and conferred and came up with something
Speaker 1: that was completely made up is a mind boggling to me.
Speaker 1: The fact that they found that and that those two
Speaker 1: documents existed that were contradictory to each other is then
Speaker 1: that's mind boggling to me. What did you What were
Speaker 1: your thoughts when you found out that they had actually
Speaker 1: altered the report to make it look like there had
Speaker 1: been an accelerant used.
Speaker 3: I mean, at first your first thought is.
Speaker 4: Anger, anger that anybody in a position of power could
Speaker 4: do that to someone anyone. I think that's the hardest
Speaker 4: part about this is people in power can do things
Speaker 4: like this to normal, everyday people. Once that anger subsided,
Speaker 4: I expected to go right back to court and get released.
Speaker 3: It doesn't work like.
Speaker 2: That, right, So what was the next step?
Speaker 1: Once they're the innocent Center's representing you, you come up,
Speaker 1: you have the evidence. Then how long did it take
Speaker 1: to go through the court system until you were eventually exonerated?
Speaker 4: So the attorneys came on in early two thousand and seven.
Speaker 4: I went back to my original judge and prosecutor in
Speaker 4: two thousand and nine, and they presented all the new evidence.
Speaker 4: A lot of that was fire science evidence, because the
Speaker 4: things they had said to convict me were not true.
Speaker 3: You know, there is no.
Speaker 4: Indicator because there's a pattern on the floor that says
Speaker 4: it's arson or an accident.
Speaker 3: That was something that was believed way back when.
Speaker 4: Nowadays we have technology to prove that's not true. So
Speaker 4: all this new evidence was presented and the altered report
Speaker 4: my original judge and prosecutor took almost a year before
Speaker 4: they said none of that information would have made a
Speaker 4: difference to my jury. So then we had to appeal
Speaker 4: the process that was granted. Most people don't realize they
Speaker 4: pick one case out of one hundred to listen to.
Speaker 4: So I was blessed they took my case, they listened
Speaker 4: to it. Usually you get a quick response from the
Speaker 4: appellate court. It took them almost a year before they
Speaker 4: reversed my conviction and remanded me back for a new trial.
Speaker 4: And so I walked out of prison August twenty second
Speaker 4: of twenty twelve. I had been in there seventeen years,
Speaker 4: three weeks and a few days.
Speaker 1: You were in prison for those seventeen years. You know,
Speaker 1: first of all, I can't even imagine. I'm a mother,
Speaker 1: I can't fathom what you went through. Sorry, I'm getting
Speaker 1: emotional about your story, Like I just can't imagine more
Speaker 1: of a personal hell that someone could put me in.
Speaker 1: Then to lose a child, and then to be blamed
Speaker 1: for the death of that child, and then to be incarcerated,
Speaker 1: and then I believe you were pregnant at the time
Speaker 1: when you were incarcerated, is that correct? That's correct, and
Speaker 1: your child was taken away. So now you've lost two children,
Speaker 1: You've been blamed for the murder of your son, and
Speaker 1: you spent seventeen years in prison, and the fact that
Speaker 1: you were so strong to make yourself educated, to learn
Speaker 1: about fire science, to I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 1: anyone could have stayed in the state of mind that
Speaker 1: you were in, to be so powerful and to be
Speaker 1: so I don't even know what the word is but wrong,
Speaker 1: to get through each day and to make yourself I
Speaker 1: read all kinds of things you were involved in, ministry,
Speaker 1: you were involved in. What do you tell me what
Speaker 1: were some of the things that you did in those
Speaker 1: seventeen years?
Speaker 2: You did so many things.
Speaker 4: Yes, so I got an associates and bachelor's degree from
Speaker 4: Ball State University. I am a licensed cosmetologist, a certified paralegal,
Speaker 4: and a certified Vet Tech dog groomer and dog trainer
Speaker 4: because I trained dogs for nine years for physically and
Speaker 4: developmentally handicapped children.
Speaker 1: Do you think were those things that you were doing
Speaker 1: and all those things that you dedicated yourself to in
Speaker 1: the education?
Speaker 2: Is that what helped you get through each day?
Speaker 1: I assume that being able to try to be useful,
Speaker 1: to be educated, to learn all these things, to train dogs,
Speaker 1: to be involved in it. I would assume that those
Speaker 1: things allowed you to wake up every day and to
Speaker 1: continue on and to get through each day.
Speaker 4: Yes, those helped. But when I gave birth to my
Speaker 4: second son, Trent, and today is actually.
Speaker 2: His birthday, Oh that's great.
Speaker 4: My kid brother took him and so I saw him
Speaker 4: as often as he could get him there.
Speaker 3: And when he was younger that was every week.
Speaker 4: As he got older, you know, it went more sporadically
Speaker 4: because he had things to do. But just knowing that
Speaker 4: I had their support, that they were out there pulling
Speaker 4: for me, that was the drive always. With the education,
Speaker 4: it was a matter of I had felt so diminished
Speaker 4: when I went through court that I knew I was
Speaker 4: absolutely going to go in front of that judge again,
Speaker 4: and I wanted to show him what kind of a
Speaker 4: person I am.
Speaker 3: Who I am.
Speaker 4: I wasn't going to let him act like I was
Speaker 4: an an educated twit because I was naive and listened
Speaker 4: to my attorney and didn't say anything.
Speaker 1: Well, And I think it's also important that the listeners
Speaker 1: know that when you went through your first trial in
Speaker 1: June thirtieth of nineteen ninety five, I don't know if
Speaker 1: we said this before, but you were only twenty one
Speaker 1: years old at the time, which sounds like a baby.
Speaker 1: And I can't imagine grieving the loss of your son,
Speaker 1: being blamed for it, and then having to sit through
Speaker 1: court and having an attorney tell you what to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, no one in your position at twenty one
Speaker 1: years old would have been anymore savvy at that time. So,
Speaker 1: I mean it's so young, and so I don't know
Speaker 1: how you can even wrap your brain around what was
Speaker 1: going on at the time.
Speaker 2: You're still processing grief.
Speaker 3: I'm sure, yes, and as a mother, you'll relate to this.
Speaker 3: It's something that doesn't it doesn't leave.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's been thirty years since the fire happened
Speaker 4: and I lost Tony, and there are still times that
Speaker 4: I will wake up and.
Speaker 3: It hits me all over again. Then he's not there.
Speaker 4: Then I'm not going to get to see him, even
Speaker 4: after all this time. It's an ache that will never
Speaker 4: go away.
Speaker 1: Now, what's your relationship with Trent? Like, because I know
Speaker 1: you missed out on was he born while you were
Speaker 1: in prison?
Speaker 2: He was okay?
Speaker 1: And then how does that work? So you're pregnant when
Speaker 1: you're in prison, you give birth and do they just
Speaker 1: come and take the child away?
Speaker 4: Yes, they give it to your whoever's designated to take
Speaker 4: the baby. For some women, you know, it goes right
Speaker 4: into the system and it's placed with foster care. So
Speaker 4: I was lucky that I had family there to take him.
Speaker 4: And then of course I was also scared because I
Speaker 4: don't get to see them put him in their arms
Speaker 4: and know that he's okay and that he's with them.
Speaker 4: So as soon as I was transferred back to the facility,
Speaker 4: my brother came over into the visiting room to let
Speaker 4: me know that they had him and that he was okay.
Speaker 1: Now I know you've also been an advocate for women's
Speaker 1: healthcare in prison, because you went through a lot of things,
Speaker 1: and can you expand on some of the issues that
Speaker 1: you had and some of the healthcare issues.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, So when I came home, I wanted to be
Speaker 4: a mom again. That was, you know, high up on
Speaker 4: my list of dreams that I wanted to have one
Speaker 4: more time. So going in and trying to get pregnant
Speaker 4: and discovering that, you know, I should have been having
Speaker 4: path smears every year. That doesn't happen in prison. I
Speaker 4: received one five weeks after I gave birth, and that
Speaker 4: was it.
Speaker 3: So there were a lot of.
Speaker 4: Things that I hadn't been checked for I had never
Speaker 4: had a mammogram when I came home, and here I am,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get pregnant, and I had to go
Speaker 4: through all these tests, and then I had to figure
Speaker 4: out what viruses had changed in the real world that
Speaker 4: I hadn't been exposed to in prison.
Speaker 3: And so you go through that whole process.
Speaker 4: I went through fertility treatments for four years. At no
Speaker 4: time did I realize that they could take my eggs
Speaker 4: and freeze.
Speaker 3: Them and I could wait a while.
Speaker 4: You know, I was forty when I came home, so
Speaker 4: there's a rush on things. They never told me that
Speaker 4: I didn't have to go through all that I could
Speaker 4: get an egg donor and I could carry a baby.
Speaker 4: So there was nobody there to really tell me what
Speaker 4: my options were. And all the tests they just scared me.
Speaker 4: Because I'd went so long without health care. I thought, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: it's because I'm healthy, and you know, they're not going
Speaker 4: to They're not going to do these things.
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I should have been having those regularly.
Speaker 3: I should have had a mammogram, I.
Speaker 4: Should have been checked up on so to go through
Speaker 4: that whole process, Plus I'm trying to rebuild my life,
Speaker 4: re enter society, connect with my child.
Speaker 3: It was just overwhelming.
Speaker 4: And now that I've went through all of that, you
Speaker 4: know that threw me right into menopause. I used every
Speaker 4: egg that I had, and so trying to figure out.
Speaker 3: What my body needs.
Speaker 4: Because while you're in there, you're not getting the best food,
Speaker 4: You're not getting vitamins, you're not getting minerals. So now
Speaker 4: I have a great doctor and she checks all the time,
Speaker 4: what are my vitamin levels, what are my mineral levels?
Speaker 4: Because as I get older, I don't have anything in reserve.
Speaker 4: I have to keep taking supplements and make sure I
Speaker 4: stay healthy.
Speaker 1: Did you ever end up having another child after leaving prison?
Speaker 3: I did not.
Speaker 2: You did not, So but you do have a good
Speaker 2: relationship with Trent.
Speaker 4: Now we have a good relationship. I mean, it's you
Speaker 4: can't ever go back and make up for that time, right,
Speaker 4: And I think between the two of us, we felt
Speaker 4: a lot of pressure to try to do that.
Speaker 3: We did counseling together.
Speaker 4: And just came to a point of we want to
Speaker 4: get to know each other where we are now. And
Speaker 4: I'm so passionate about wrongful convictions, especially when it involves women.
Speaker 4: I mean, there are less than four hundred women who
Speaker 4: have been exonerated out of almost four thousand on the registry,
Speaker 4: And of those seventy percent, there are cases like mine.
Speaker 4: It was an accident and they made it look like
Speaker 4: a crime, and these women lost loved ones. So I
Speaker 4: knew how vulnerable women were, and I couldn't stop talking
Speaker 4: about that. And for Trent, you know, when he sees me,
Speaker 4: I'm just his mom. When other people see me, I
Speaker 4: am an advocate, I am a justice worker. And so
Speaker 4: for him, he wants to separate himself. He wants to
Speaker 4: just have his relationship with his mom and not be
Speaker 4: involved in all the social justice advocacy.
Speaker 1: Did you ever receive any kind of acknowledgment or apology
Speaker 1: from the investigators ever or prosecutors? Because I was in
Speaker 1: my mind as I'm reading all about your case and
Speaker 1: I'm processing it, I'm thinking to myself that you spent
Speaker 1: what was it, sixteen years in prison, seventeen years in
Speaker 1: prison for something that you did not do, and these
Speaker 1: investigators manipulated information and evidence and then didn't have to
Speaker 1: pay for it, didn't have to apologize, didn't have to
Speaker 1: take accountability, didn't have to do anything. Yet you are
Speaker 1: the one that had to give up seventeen years of
Speaker 1: your life for doing nothing. And it's just I appreciate
Speaker 1: the fact that you have that you're such an advocate,
Speaker 1: that you have taken that because I would be so
Speaker 1: angry and so mad, and I'm sure you are, but
Speaker 1: that you've taken that anger and that and turned it
Speaker 1: into something powerful, and so I appreciate that about you.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you.
Speaker 4: And so no one apologized. Ever, you come out and
Speaker 4: you try to hold somebody accountable. The ATF chemist who
Speaker 4: had falsified the report and testified to that falsified report
Speaker 4: died a couple of months before I was released. So
Speaker 4: there's no way to hold him accountable because I have
Speaker 4: to prove that he changed that report with malicious intent.
Speaker 4: I don't know how you go about proving that somebody
Speaker 4: did something with malicious intent. In my mind, if somebody
Speaker 4: did something wrong, they're supposed to be held accountable, right,
Speaker 4: But we have protections in place, such as immunity, to
Speaker 4: stop people from being held accountable for what they do.
Speaker 1: Now, there was also someone that testified falsely. Was there
Speaker 1: someone involved in the fire department that they managed to
Speaker 1: manipulate into testifying that you had put the chair into
Speaker 1: the hallway in order to block the door so that
Speaker 1: people couldn't save your son, and that was not true
Speaker 1: at all exactly. Now, how did that come out? Did
Speaker 1: he end up admitting that he had lied about that?
Speaker 4: So now, when the attorneys got involved, they asked for
Speaker 4: all the evidence in my case, and I'm one.
Speaker 3: Of the fortunate ones.
Speaker 4: They had all of my evidence intact, one of which
Speaker 4: was a picture of the doorway of his bedroom. And
Speaker 4: so if something burns, it leaves a mark on the floor,
Speaker 4: you can see that it was protected by something. There
Speaker 4: was no protected area in the doorway.
Speaker 3: You could see clear through in there. There was nothing
Speaker 3: ever sitting there.
Speaker 4: So when he was questioned about it afterwards, he said,
Speaker 4: well it was it was smokey and I got confused.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Also, you had a big accomplishment when you were in prison.
Speaker 1: You were the first female inmate to ever take the
Speaker 1: ls lsat at the Indiana State Women's Prison.
Speaker 2: Now was that just part of your case?
Speaker 1: And getting involved and reading and being so educated on
Speaker 1: the fire science and all of that, did that push
Speaker 1: you into saying I want to get into Well, you
Speaker 1: took the LSAT was that with the plan of taking
Speaker 1: the bar exam.
Speaker 4: Eventually, absolutely I wanted to become a lawyer. I thought,
Speaker 4: that's you know, where I can put all this anger,
Speaker 4: all this drive, and I can protect other people. I
Speaker 4: had no clue that I was going to be so
Speaker 4: uncomfortable and have panic attacks going into a courtroom.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 4: It's very easy to tell yourself that you know you're
Speaker 4: over trauma or that you've healed yourself, but when you
Speaker 4: go through something that's so horrific, that sticks with you.
Speaker 3: And the first time.
Speaker 4: I walked into a courtroom after that and I was
Speaker 4: assisting one of the attorneys that took my case, I
Speaker 4: had to leave. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't catch my breath,
Speaker 4: and I was like, you know, this is another dream
Speaker 4: that's going to be taken away from me. And it
Speaker 4: was my lawyers at Northwestern University that set me down
Speaker 4: and said, you can make just as much change in
Speaker 4: the justice system without becoming a lawyer.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: Now when I've been involved with the Innocence Project in
Speaker 1: San Diego for many years now, and I've met a
Speaker 1: lot of people that have been exonerated, and I would
Speaker 1: say a lot of the conversations that we have always
Speaker 1: revolve around what happens once you leave prison, because there's
Speaker 1: such a fight to get out of prison, and that's
Speaker 1: where the focus is, and that's where the stories are,
Speaker 1: and that's what people like to hear about. They like
Speaker 1: to hear how did it happen? How did you end
Speaker 1: up in prison? But then I feel like we don't
Speaker 1: ever talk about that transition of when you leave prison
Speaker 1: to be able to assimilate back into the world. And
Speaker 1: so I've tried to involve myself in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways to be able to learn more about it, to
Speaker 1: help you know, exoneries, you know, transition over into finding
Speaker 1: jobs and getting education and things like that, But what
Speaker 1: was it like for you specifically? So you're exonerated and
Speaker 1: then they say, Okay, now you get to go home,
Speaker 1: but you've been in prison for seventeen years, so you
Speaker 1: get to walk out.
Speaker 2: But then then what do you do?
Speaker 4: Oh Honestly, if it hadn't been for my brother and
Speaker 4: my son, I would have curled up in a room
Speaker 4: somewhere and never came out.
Speaker 3: I was scared.
Speaker 4: The Internet was just coming out when I went into prison,
Speaker 4: So I'd never been on the internet. My mobile phone
Speaker 4: was this big thing that you could get very far
Speaker 4: away from the base. I didn't know how to turn
Speaker 4: on the water in the bathrooms because nobody told me.
Speaker 3: They took the knobs.
Speaker 4: Away while I was in there. So everything was just
Speaker 4: very frightening, and I didn't know am I going to
Speaker 4: the right place and am I asking the right questions?
Speaker 4: And it's also embarrassment. I'm forty years old and I
Speaker 4: don't know how to do the things that people are
Speaker 4: doing now. Most people aren't talking to people anymore. They
Speaker 4: go through a self checkout, or they do things on
Speaker 4: an app. I had no clue what an app was.
Speaker 4: And I'd never had a card, a credit card, or
Speaker 4: a debit card. I barely had a checkbook. So the
Speaker 4: fact that people don't carry cash anymore. Everything's on a
Speaker 4: card or your PayPal, it took a lot to get
Speaker 4: used to.
Speaker 1: Were you able to find work? I know you managed
Speaker 1: to get all this education when you were in prison,
Speaker 1: So was that helpful for you when you were finally exonerated.
Speaker 1: Were you able to find a job and be able
Speaker 1: to support yourself?
Speaker 4: I was. Most people don't realize when you come home.
Speaker 4: If it's been over a certain amount of time, you
Speaker 4: don't get your driver's license right away, so I had
Speaker 4: to have a learner's permit. I wanted a job immediately,
Speaker 4: so I found a gas station that I could walk
Speaker 4: to and I started working there. It was just supposed
Speaker 4: to be part time work until I got my license.
Speaker 4: I think I worked two weeks and they offered me
Speaker 4: a position as an assistant manager. So I started training
Speaker 4: for management. And then when I got my license, I
Speaker 4: just still didn't feel comfortable in Indiana and I wanted
Speaker 4: to change, so I moved to Chicago.
Speaker 3: I got a job at River's.
Speaker 4: Casino as a security guard. They thought I had a
Speaker 4: knack for that after all that time in prison. And
Speaker 4: then I started working at Northwestern University.
Speaker 2: And what are you doing currently?
Speaker 3: Currently?
Speaker 4: I am the director of the Indiana Innocence Project.
Speaker 2: I love that. And what does that entail?
Speaker 1: So do cases come to you directly and you review
Speaker 1: them and decide whether to move forward or not? Or
Speaker 1: what is it that you do?
Speaker 4: So cases come to me directly, we enter them into
Speaker 4: a database. Because people are at different places in the process.
Speaker 4: So if somebody's at the appellate process, then we write
Speaker 4: them back and say, hey, you know, we don't look
Speaker 4: at this until after your appeal is done.
Speaker 3: So here's the paperwork.
Speaker 4: If you don't win on your appeal, go ahead and
Speaker 4: file your PCR so you can have it in and
Speaker 4: stop your habeas time clock. So the way Indiana is
Speaker 4: set up our intech process is about preserving people's rights
Speaker 4: because a lot of times people lose their habeas time
Speaker 4: clock because they just don't know. You need something filed
Speaker 4: in order to stop that process. Right, So we're hoping
Speaker 4: we can stop that process for people, follow them along
Speaker 4: and hopefully do something before their PCR is just kicked out.
Speaker 1: Now, is your case a case that people refer to
Speaker 1: as far as fire science and junk science? Because I know,
Speaker 1: i've I've I've researched other cases that have to do
Speaker 1: with junk science, Like you know, bitemarks are now considered
Speaker 1: junk science, and so how has the fire science progressed
Speaker 1: along that now it's considered junk Scien what they were
Speaker 1: talking about as far as your case?
Speaker 4: Oh yes, my case is one of those that they
Speaker 4: are referring to junk science. But it's also one of
Speaker 4: those cases where they talk about the new evidence that
Speaker 4: was brought in.
Speaker 3: So the big thing with my case.
Speaker 4: On the news side of science was that they had
Speaker 4: said that Tony had died a very horrible, painful death.
Speaker 4: But then we got a forensic toxicologist and she determined
Speaker 4: that he'd actually died of smoke inhalation, So he had
Speaker 4: gotten to a very high carbon monoxide level and by
Speaker 4: the time the fire broke out, he was already gone.
Speaker 4: He was gone when I was.
Speaker 3: Trying to save him, and I didn't know it.
Speaker 4: That doesn't signify an arson, and arson burns very hot
Speaker 4: and very fast and gives off low levels of carbon monoxide.
Speaker 4: But an accidental electrical fire, especially one that starts in
Speaker 4: the ceilings or the wall, they burn very slowly and
Speaker 4: smolder and they give off huge amounts of carbon monoxide.
Speaker 1: And that was determined in your case that it was
Speaker 1: an electrical fire, correct, and you had had electrical issues
Speaker 1: within that home before. Yes, what is it that you
Speaker 1: would hope people take away from your story in your case?
Speaker 1: I know that you are an advocate, I know that
Speaker 1: you talk about it, you put yourself out there. So
Speaker 1: what is your hope that someone listening to you or
Speaker 1: listening to this takes away.
Speaker 4: I think my biggest hope is always that someone will
Speaker 4: reach out and get a lawyer to protect themselves, no
Speaker 4: matter what the circumstances are, because a lot of times
Speaker 4: accidents happen, things happen in day to day life, and
Speaker 4: when the police come in and talk to you, you
Speaker 4: don't know what route they're going to take with a
Speaker 4: questioning what somebody else may have said, how somebody may
Speaker 4: be interpreting the evidence. So I hope that anybody that's
Speaker 4: in that situation would just go ahead and get a
Speaker 4: lawyer and make sure they're protected. It doesn't mean you're guilty,
Speaker 4: it doesn't mean you're not guilty. It means you want
Speaker 4: to protect yourself, right.
Speaker 1: And I assume at the time, when you were twenty
Speaker 1: one and they were questioning you, that you never, in
Speaker 1: your mind initially thought that they were questioning you because
Speaker 1: they considered you a suspect in any way. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure you were openly talking, you didn't think you needed
Speaker 1: an attorney, you didn't know that you should ask for
Speaker 1: an attorney, and then you end up arrested six days later.
Speaker 1: So I can only imagine that your takeaway would be
Speaker 1: to get an attorney immediately and to protect your rights.
Speaker 1: And I also we talk about this a lot on
Speaker 1: the podcast, that asking for an attorney doesn't signify guilt.
Speaker 1: It just means that you're protecting yourself and you're advocating
Speaker 1: for yourself.
Speaker 3: That's correct.
Speaker 4: And most people are afraid that it's going to be
Speaker 4: looked at like they're guilty if they ask for an attorney.
Speaker 3: That's not the case at all.
Speaker 4: They're just watching out for themselves exactly.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you Christine for joining us today.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you being so candid and open about
Speaker 1: your story and about what you went through, and I
Speaker 1: wish you the best of luck and happy birthday to
Speaker 1: your son Trent today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. It was an honor to be
Speaker 3: here with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you guys so much for listening to
Speaker 1: Legally Brunette.
Speaker 2: We appreciate it. As always.
Speaker 1: You can find us anywhere you listen to podcasts, so
Speaker 1: make sure you follow our feed Legally Brunette, and I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say one more thing after speaking to
Speaker 1: Christine Bunch. One of the things that I've always taken
Speaker 1: away and a lot of exonerated persons that I've had
Speaker 1: conversations with have always said that they like to put
Speaker 1: their stories out there, no matter how difficult it is,
Speaker 1: because everyone listening is a potential juror. So I just
Speaker 1: want to leave that thought with you so that someday,
Speaker 1: if you're ever in the position where you're on a jury,
Speaker 1: that you become a little more savvy, You ask more questions,
Speaker 1: you look into the evidence, and you just have an
Speaker 1: open mind about things. So anyway, that's just something to
Speaker 1: throw out there that you guys can think about and
Speaker 1: kind of swirl around in your mind when it comes
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction. So, as always, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: listening to Legally Brunette, and be sure to tell your
Speaker 1: friends and family thank you so much.