Speaker 1: We released the harrowing story of Christine Bunch back in
Speaker 1: August twenty twenty. I had a chance to sit down
Speaker 1: with her in person at the twenty twenty three Innocence
Speaker 1: Network Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. And for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: the Innocence Network Conference is a gathering of the innocence
Speaker 1: community from all over the country and even the world,
Speaker 1: ex hoonneries, advocates, lawyers, and folks like doctor Nicki Ali Jackson,
Speaker 1: who was in large part responsible for getting a compensation
Speaker 1: statute passed in Indiana, an effort to which Christine Bunch
Speaker 1: lent a huge helping hand. Now, last we spoke, Christine
Speaker 1: hadn't even received compensation yet, and she was also working
Speaker 1: with her own organization, Just Is for just Us. So
Speaker 1: much has happened since then, and well, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to let her tell you. What do you up to now, Christine.
Speaker 2: I am still on Speaker's Bureau for the Innocence Project
Speaker 2: in New York, so I travel around doing speaking engagements.
Speaker 2: I am the outreach coordinator for Interrogating Justice, and so
Speaker 2: we're providing vetted resources and information on your legal rights
Speaker 2: to everybody in every stage of the legal system, not
Speaker 2: just the exonerated. And in my spare time, I'm working
Speaker 2: with the Illinois Innocence Project because we are doing police training,
Speaker 2: and that police training just went mandatory and statewide for
Speaker 2: every police academy in Illinois.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a full dance card right there, and
Speaker 1: you do it all with a smile on your face,
Speaker 1: which is incredible. Also, Christine, I'm going to brag about
Speaker 1: you for a second. It was Christine's case that, when
Speaker 1: brought to the attention of the governor, led to the
Speaker 1: signing of a bill that established compensation for exoneries in
Speaker 1: the state of Indiana. So yeah, you have had a
Speaker 1: profound impact on so many people and including me. So
Speaker 1: what else? What do you do for fun? Christine?
Speaker 2: I really love pedicures, especially if they serve cocktails while
Speaker 2: you're getting your pedicure.
Speaker 3: I mean that's boss.
Speaker 2: And tattoos, and of course playing with my dogs because
Speaker 2: I have two beautiful Siberian huskies that make every day perfect.
Speaker 1: What are their names?
Speaker 3: Piper and Paxton?
Speaker 1: Amazing? And how do people find out more about what
Speaker 1: you're doing if they want to support it? Is there
Speaker 1: a website they can go to? Is there a link
Speaker 1: what is there.
Speaker 2: You can go to Interrogating Justice dot org and connect
Speaker 2: with us and find ways that you can help. If
Speaker 2: your justice impacted, come for help. We want to hear
Speaker 2: from you, We want to serve you. We want to
Speaker 2: make transition into and out of the system easier for
Speaker 2: not only the individual but their families as well, because
Speaker 2: families are so impacted. And you can also make yourself
Speaker 2: more aware of what's going on the system by listening
Speaker 2: to the Wrongful Conviction podcast with Jason.
Speaker 1: Flom Ah Yay, thank You. In the summer of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, twenty one year old single mom Christine Bunch
Speaker 1: was living in a train in Greensburg, Indiana, with her
Speaker 1: three year old son Tony. In the early morning hours
Speaker 1: of July thirtieth, an electrical fire began between the roof
Speaker 1: and the ceiling tiles. When the fire caused one of
Speaker 1: the ceiling tiles to fall in Tony's bedroom, a cloud
Speaker 1: of carbon monoxide gas killed the little boy before the
Speaker 1: fire even could. Christine awoke in a carbon monoxide haze,
Speaker 1: desperately trying to save Tony. After failed attempts at extinguishing
Speaker 1: the fire, she ran for help. Then she smashed Tony's
Speaker 1: bedroom window, but it was too late. She was barefoot, homeless,
Speaker 1: and deep in despair. Arson investigator Brian Frank used what
Speaker 1: is widely now known as junk science to point the
Speaker 1: blame for Tony's death squarely at Christine. So six days
Speaker 1: after losing her three year old boy and nearly everything
Speaker 1: she ever had, Christine lost her freedom as well. With
Speaker 1: no potential alibi or eyewitnesses, the state easily sealed Christine's
Speaker 1: fate with the testimony of Brian Frank and ATF forensic
Speaker 1: analyst William Cannard. Christine gave birth to her son, Trent,
Speaker 1: just a few months after being sent to prison, and
Speaker 1: a decade passed before her attorney and a team from
Speaker 1: the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University uncovered an
Speaker 1: egregious Brady violation and blatantly false testimony, bringing Christine after
Speaker 1: seventeen years, one month, and sixteen days behind bars. This
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction with Jason flam Welcome back to wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction with Jason flawm that's me, of course, And today
Speaker 1: you're going to hear a story that's as heartbreaking and
Speaker 1: tragic as it was preventable and it's a remarkable look
Speaker 1: inside the systemic flaw as well as human errors that
Speaker 1: lead to wrongful convictions. And in this particular case, we're
Speaker 1: going to be telling the story and hearing the story
Speaker 1: of one of my absolute favorite human beings, a personal
Speaker 1: hero of mine, who is doing amazing, amazing things in
Speaker 1: the world right now, today and every day. And so
Speaker 1: I am thrilled and honored to have with us on
Speaker 1: the show today, Christine.
Speaker 4: 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 back.
Speaker 5: My pleasure 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 2: Things took a crazy turn when my parents divorced, but
Speaker 2: 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 3: That's correct.
Speaker 2: I was working and going to school, and I had
Speaker 2: 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 5: What happened was Christine and Tony had gone to sleep
Speaker 5: together on a couch in the living room area of
Speaker 5: the trailer. Before Christine woke up, Tony had moved to
Speaker 5: the front room, which was a separate room from the
Speaker 5: living room. Christine awoke to a sound and a small fire.
Speaker 5: She was disoriented, but she saw the small fire and
Speaker 5: she tried to put it out with a pillow and
Speaker 5: couldn't do that, so she tried to smother the fire
Speaker 5: with a blanket and that didn't work either. Carbon monoxide
Speaker 5: is intoxicating. Christine was undoubtedly affected by this carbon monoxide.
Speaker 5: She's trying to put out the fire, she can't find
Speaker 5: the fire extinguisher. She knows where the fire extinguisher is,
Speaker 5: she can't find it. So by that time, the fire
Speaker 5: had grown into a wall between her and Tony and
Speaker 5: she could not get to him. So she frantically went
Speaker 5: out of the trailer, tried to get help, and then
Speaker 5: tried to break the window into the front room so
Speaker 5: that she could get to Tony. But it was too late,
Speaker 5: 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. I came home from school,
Speaker 2: and I got Tony from the babysitter, and we went
Speaker 2: home and we cooked.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 6: I think we watched some TV and did some laundry,
Speaker 6: and we fell asleep.
Speaker 2: I'd read him a story and he wasn't feeling really well,
Speaker 2: and we fell asleep on the couch under the air conditioner,
Speaker 2: and everything just seemed normal.
Speaker 6: You didn't realize that you were going to wake up
Speaker 6: in your whole world would be turned upside down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean your whole world was really destroyed at
Speaker 1: a time when the community and the system should have
Speaker 1: been coming to help you in every conceivable way. Instead,
Speaker 1: you were exposed to and victimized by the worst that
Speaker 1: the system and our society has to offer. And it's
Speaker 1: so important that you're here now because this arson quote
Speaker 1: unquote science that they used in order to frame you
Speaker 1: and wrongfully convict you for a crime that never even
Speaker 1: happened is something that we need to focus on because
Speaker 1: we need awareness among everyone because someday, you, the listener,
Speaker 1: may find yourself on a jury and you may be
Speaker 1: presented with this same sort of junk science.
Speaker 5: So fire investigation was an apprentice art. They were what
Speaker 5: would were arded as common knowledge and industry standards that
Speaker 5: were passed down from generation to generation. Virtually none of
Speaker 5: those conventional wisdom were true, and when tested by scientific principles,
Speaker 5: they were all debunked. Unfortunately, that came too late for Christine.
Speaker 1: And this starts with a fire investigator named Brian Frank.
Speaker 5: So what Frank did was the day of this fire,
Speaker 5: and keep in mind this trailer was completely incinerated. He
Speaker 5: comes into the trailer and just plucks things out of
Speaker 5: thin air. He says, Oh, this, this is a burn
Speaker 5: pattern on the floor. That's evidence of a liquid accelerant
Speaker 5: by gasoline. Ooh, there's a V pattern on the wall.
Speaker 5: That is, fire burns up in a V pattern. And therefore,
Speaker 5: because there are two of these, there were two points
Speaker 5: of origin. A normal accidental fire will have one point
Speaker 5: of origin. Sometimes if a fire is intentionally set, it
Speaker 5: will have two points of origin. Says Oops, here the
Speaker 5: fire burned down. That is a sign of a liquid accelerant.
Speaker 5: For all of these reasons, I conclude this was not
Speaker 5: an accidental fire. This was intentionally set because, as you
Speaker 5: said at the beginning, Jason, unlike many crimes like a
Speaker 5: robbery or a fraud or a murder, the question in
Speaker 5: an arson is was a crime even committed? And upon
Speaker 5: that threshold question rests the lives of hundreds of people,
Speaker 5: including Christine.
Speaker 1: Here's what's at absolutely nuts is that to become a
Speaker 1: licensed arson investigator, one who can testify in court, you
Speaker 1: can take a forty hour correspondence course. It takes fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred hours in some places. To become a manicurist. You
Speaker 1: can't get a barber's license in less than six months.
Speaker 1: The idea that they've been relying on these charlatans, you'd
Speaker 1: be better off consulting with psychics or even just guessing.
Speaker 1: And in Christine's case, there are so many other problems right,
Speaker 1: there's a tunnel vision with holding of a sculpatory evidence,
Speaker 1: there's multiple incompetent investigators who pass themselves off as experts,
Speaker 1: and then it goes downhill from there. So there you
Speaker 1: are outside the house and in minutes, in moments, your
Speaker 1: life has gone from a good life, full of love
Speaker 1: and hope to the worst imaginable scenario.
Speaker 6: You're just in shock, and you don't really believe what
Speaker 6: people are telling you because they kept telling me, no,
Speaker 6: you can't go in and know we couldn't get hit
Speaker 6: him and know.
Speaker 3: He's not alive.
Speaker 6: And of course, as a parent, you don't want to
Speaker 6: believe that.
Speaker 4: People on the outside want to look at it.
Speaker 6: And say, well, if this was done differently, or if
Speaker 6: you had acted this way.
Speaker 4: And I mean, for myself, I have played.
Speaker 3: It over and over and over and over again in
Speaker 3: my mind.
Speaker 6: I still every day that I wake up play it
Speaker 6: over in my mind, and.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to come up with a different scenario.
Speaker 2: When you're in that moment and the terror paralyzes you, you.
Speaker 3: Don't know what you would do.
Speaker 6: So it's easy to stand outside and say this should
Speaker 6: have never happened, and somebody has to be blamed.
Speaker 1: Right, because the alternative is incomprehensible to most people. Why
Speaker 1: innocent baby would be taken from us? Christine? Six days
Speaker 1: in hell? Right? Six days for you between the fire
Speaker 1: and the loss of your child and the time that
Speaker 1: you're arrested. What were those six days?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 1: What were you doing?
Speaker 2: I went with my parents to play a funeral, and
Speaker 2: my mom and dad really went through how the service
Speaker 2: was going to be, and I just remember sitting there
Speaker 2: and crying. And then I told him that I wanted
Speaker 2: a song played something that I, you know, sang with Tony,
Speaker 2: and he said, we can play whatever you want, and.
Speaker 8: Then I had to go get clothes to her to
Speaker 8: a funeral. At that time, I was still walking around
Speaker 8: barefoot because I'd literally lost everything, and everybody was trying to,
Speaker 8: you know, comfort you and give you advice, and it just.
Speaker 4: Doesn't comfort you.
Speaker 2: So you feel more alone than ever because you don't
Speaker 2: want to hurt their feelings, but everything they're saying to
Speaker 2: you doesn't penetrate. The police didn't help because they followed
Speaker 2: me everywhere I went and talked to everybody after I left,
Speaker 2: and they even showed up and my son's funeral and burial.
Speaker 6: They came to me before I even got out of
Speaker 6: the hospital and told me that it was an arson.
Speaker 4: They literally wanted a list.
Speaker 2: Of all my family and friends, anybody that could have
Speaker 2: possibly done it.
Speaker 3: Then they come back to me and say, no, you're
Speaker 3: you're the person. You're under arrest for this.
Speaker 4: And in a small town, once.
Speaker 2: They make or arrest and put a headline on the
Speaker 2: paper in a small community, in that community's mind, 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 2: I was in there from July sixth to October. Mid October,
Speaker 2: I bonded out on a fifty thousand dollars cash bond.
Speaker 2: I tell my son Trent all the time that he's
Speaker 2: the miracle that saved me. But when I got out,
Speaker 2: I certainly didn't care if I lived or died, and
Speaker 2: so I was drinking and doing a lot of self
Speaker 2: medicating because I just didn't want to feel anymore. And
Speaker 2: in the midst of that, I started getting sick and
Speaker 2: 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 5: It began with the prosecutor standing in front of the
Speaker 5: jury and saying, motive is not an element of the crime.
Speaker 5: We don't have to prove motive. People tend not to
Speaker 5: commit crimes for no reason. And of course they investigated
Speaker 5: Christine and her motive for this crime, and they found
Speaker 5: that she was a good, loving, caring, wonderful mother and
Speaker 5: that she and Tony had a beautiful relationship. Everybody said
Speaker 5: that universally, and so they're left with telling the jury, Okay,
Speaker 5: Christine committed this horrific crime for no reason, but we
Speaker 5: don't have to prove motive. Then their case depended one
Speaker 5: hundred percent on this quote unquote expert testimony, because Christine
Speaker 5: didn't set this fire. So of course, nobody saw her
Speaker 5: set the fire, nobody saw her prepare to set the fire,
Speaker 5: nobody heard her talk about setting the fire, nobody afterwards.
Speaker 5: There was no physical evidence, no forensic evidence, nothing. Of course,
Speaker 5: the trailer wasn't insured. She lost all of her possessions,
Speaker 5: She lost, of course, the person who meant most to
Speaker 5: her in the world. So they were left with this
Speaker 5: expert testimony, these absurd fire investigation myths, which should have
Speaker 5: and could have been dispelled by a defense attorney or
Speaker 5: a competent defense expert. But there was something else that
Speaker 5: was critical in this trial that would have been difficult
Speaker 5: for 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 5: They took ten samples from the trailer, from the floor
Speaker 5: of the trailer, from the carpet of the trailer, from
Speaker 5: Christine's nightgown, and they tested it for various accelerants. There
Speaker 5: was no gasoline. There was no inflammatory substance of any
Speaker 5: kind on Christine's nightgown, even though they said that she
Speaker 5: would splash this accelerant all around. But there were two
Speaker 5: positive samples, and those samples, by the way, were given
Speaker 5: to the Durea of alcohol to back on firearms atf
Speaker 5: who federally investigates arson crimes and they have special laboratories,
Speaker 5: and they did gas chromatizeography on these samples, and they
Speaker 5: presented evidence at trial that there were two positive tests
Speaker 5: for what they called a heavy petroleum distillate like jet
Speaker 5: fuel or something else specifically not kerosene, and that was
Speaker 5: found in the living room area and critically in the
Speaker 5: front room, the room where Tony was found. Now, there
Speaker 5: is reason for there to be kerosene in the living
Speaker 5: room because the prior owners of this trailer testified that
Speaker 5: they had a kerosene heater and that they overfilled it
Speaker 5: from time to time. Kerosene does not evaporate, and so
Speaker 5: even from years before, there would be kerosene in the wood.
Speaker 5: But there's no explanation for a heavy petroleum distillate like
Speaker 5: jet fuel. End there is absolutely no innocent explanation for
Speaker 5: there to be a heavy petroleum distolate in the front
Speaker 5: room Tony's bedroom, and that was critical evidence that was
Speaker 5: not refuted by the defense attorney and on the strength
Speaker 5: of that expert testimony of end these critical lab determinations.
Speaker 5: 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 bars?
Speaker 2: I was almost six months pregnant. The only thing they
Speaker 2: don't do to pregnant women is make them wear the
Speaker 2: belly chain and the box because the baby's not a prisoner.
Speaker 3: But with so many pregnant women in there.
Speaker 2: You don't always get soft cuffs for your feet. So
Speaker 2: I've got deep scars on the back of my ankles
Speaker 2: from wearing those metal shackles. And then when I finally
Speaker 2: went into labor, I didn't really know that I was in.
Speaker 3: Labor because I was just having a backache.
Speaker 2: So they took me to the infirmary and couldn't find
Speaker 2: a heartbeat. I lost it. I started, you know, screaming
Speaker 2: at him, and so I was.
Speaker 6: Handcuffed and shackle and taken out into an ambulance, and
Speaker 6: when I got to the hospital, a doctor come in
Speaker 6: and explained that I was having contractions and that's why
Speaker 6: they could hear the heartbeat. They determined that I was
Speaker 6: going to have an emergency see section, so the handcuffs
Speaker 6: and shackles came off and I got a metal cuff
Speaker 6: on my ankle in the log chain. I got about
Speaker 6: thirty six hours with Trent, and.
Speaker 2: Then I was transferred back to the facility and my
Speaker 2: family took him home.
Speaker 1: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
Speaker 1: of Rawful 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, Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison,
Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. The AIG pro Bono program
Speaker 1: provides free legal services and other support to many nonprofit
Speaker 1: organizations and individuals most in need, and recently they announced
Speaker 1: that working to reform the criminal justice system will become
Speaker 1: a key pillar of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has
Speaker 1: long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful pro bono
Speaker 1: legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of our society
Speaker 1: and in support of the public interest, including extensive work
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice area. So the good news is
Speaker 1: that there is actually an equal or greater number of
Speaker 1: heroes in this story than villains Betsy Marx, Hillary po Rix,
Speaker 1: Jamie McAllister, and the other two actual fire scientists, John
Speaker 1: Dehan and John Malouley, plus the electrical engineer Richard Hansen.
Speaker 1: Then Karen Daniel and Jane Raley. Legends in the field
Speaker 1: were on your side. And of course Ron himself, Ron Safer,
Speaker 1: I mean, the fucking cavalry came in on this one, right.
Speaker 1: Can you talk now about the process that led seventeen
Speaker 1: years later to Christine finally coming home.
Speaker 5: Yes, Christine pursued this tirelessly against all odds, found a
Speaker 5: wonderful local attorney, Hillary bo Rix, who believed in Christine
Speaker 5: but really did not have the resources to take on
Speaker 5: the awesome power of the state, and a supporter of
Speaker 5: Christine wrote a letter to Northwestern Center on Wrongful Convictions,
Speaker 5: and Jane Railey, along with Karen Daniel, took Christine's case
Speaker 5: and they disassembled every piece of evidence the state put forward.
Speaker 5: Karen and Jane assembled the world's experts on fire science,
Speaker 5: not the myths of arson investigation, but on fire science,
Speaker 5: to prove first that everything the state said was wrong,
Speaker 5: and then second that Christine was innocent, not beyond a
Speaker 5: reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt. So first they got a
Speaker 5: former ATF agent and he testified that every one of
Speaker 5: the myths that was used by the so called arson
Speaker 5: investigator Brian Frank was wrong. A V pattern does not
Speaker 5: indicate a point of origin. It indicates a point where
Speaker 5: something burned against a wall. Fire burns down not because
Speaker 5: of a liquid accelerant, but because it's seeking oxygen and
Speaker 5: there was a hole in the trailer. So the burn
Speaker 5: patterns that Frank says indicated that there was a liquid
Speaker 5: accelerant have been disproved. Brian Frank said that the fire
Speaker 5: was hotter because a liquid accelerant was used. That is
Speaker 5: a myth. Controlled experiments prove that fire is no hotter. Indeed,
Speaker 5: the heat depends on what is being burnt. So chemistry
Speaker 5: physics disproved every one of the pieces of evidence. But
Speaker 5: there was one more critical thing that Karen Daniel did
Speaker 5: that was pivotal. She subpoened the underlying test data that
Speaker 5: had been used by the ATF Lab and all of
Speaker 5: the documents related to those tests, and what that found
Speaker 5: was stunning. First, she got the actual gas chromatographs, so
Speaker 5: the actual tests and contrary to his testimony, he did
Speaker 5: test against the standard of kerosene, not a heavy distilla,
Speaker 5: but kerosene. Then when you look at those actual tests data,
Speaker 5: you find that yes, there was kerosene in the living
Speaker 5: room where the kerosene heater had been years before. But
Speaker 5: then you look at the sample from Tony's bedroom, the
Speaker 5: sample that convicted Christine, and the test was negative for
Speaker 5: any liquid accelerate, kerosene, heavy petroleum distillate, nothing. What's more,
Speaker 5: in that file, there was a draft report that reflected
Speaker 5: accurately the test results, that is that there had been
Speaker 5: kerosene in the living room and that the sample in
Speaker 5: Tony's bedroom was negative, and then there was a report
Speaker 5: that in handwriting that crossed that out and made that
Speaker 5: test result positive. How that happened, unfortunately, we'll never know
Speaker 5: because by the time we got to the hearing, the
Speaker 5: ATF agent, who has now deceased, was incompetent in an
Speaker 5: assisted living home and could not testify about what happened.
Speaker 5: But what was clear was Christine was convicted based on
Speaker 5: not only faulty but false evidence. So that takes care
Speaker 5: 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 her 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 5: Jamie McAllister, who is an expert in examining the victim's
Speaker 5: chemistry and reverse engineering how a fire must have started,
Speaker 5: testified about how this fire started. Tony died before the
Speaker 5: fire got hot. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning. There
Speaker 5: was no burning in his trachea, no burning in his lungs,
Speaker 5: and so he had stopped breathing before the fire got hot.
Speaker 5: His carboxy hemoglobin rate, which is what we referred to
Speaker 5: as carbon monoxide poisoning. It's when the carbon monoxide bonds
Speaker 5: with your blood. The hemoglobin was eighty percent. Fifty percent
Speaker 5: is lethal. So how did it get that high? Well?
Speaker 5: Jamie McAllister testifies that controlled experiment show that if the
Speaker 5: fire had started out in the open air of the
Speaker 5: living room or the bedroom, it would have produced a
Speaker 5: lot of carbon dioxide to oxygen molecules. Because there's a
Speaker 5: lot of air floating around and very little carbon monoxide
Speaker 5: one oxygen molecule. It would have taken ninety minutes for
Speaker 5: the fire to have produced enough carbon monoxide for Tony
Speaker 5: to have gotten to a carboxy hemoglobin rate approaching eighty percent.
Speaker 5: He would have burned to death long before that, and
Speaker 5: of course his lungs in everything else would have burned.
Speaker 5: That didn't happen. So how did this fire happen? Well,
Speaker 5: as an electrician testified, there were electrical wires that were
Speaker 5: overloaded that ran between the roof and the drop down
Speaker 5: ceiling tiles. There was an electrical fire that started that morning.
Speaker 5: But because there's limited oxygen there, what happens is the
Speaker 5: fire smolders and it produces a lot of carbon monoxide
Speaker 5: up in the ceiling. Now, eventually the fire gets hot
Speaker 5: enough so that one of the ceiling tiles burns and
Speaker 5: drops to the floor. That undoubtedly is what Christine awakens to. Now,
Speaker 5: when that happens, the carbon monoxide fills the Tony's room
Speaker 5: like a balloon that is letting out its air. Physical
Speaker 5: tests and chemical tests prove within minutes he dies of
Speaker 5: carbon monoxide poisoning. That's how this fire had to have happened.
Speaker 5: And thus, not only was there no evidence that Christine
Speaker 5: was guilty of an arson, there was conclusive evidence that
Speaker 5: the fire was an accidental fire that took place in
Speaker 5: the confined area of the ceiling, and that Tony died
Speaker 5: 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 four 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 5: At the argument itself, it was very clear from the
Speaker 5: questioning of the judges that one judge was dead set
Speaker 5: against us. There was nothing I was going to be
Speaker 5: able to say to change his mind. One judge was
Speaker 5: for us, and no matter how incoherently I babbled, he
Speaker 5: was going to vote for us. And so the middle judge,
Speaker 5: the chief judge, held Christine's fate in her hand. Our
Speaker 5: working theory and it made sense was that if the
Speaker 5: court was going to reverse this conviction, they would have
Speaker 5: done it right away because they know she's sitting in jail.
Speaker 5: So we're sitting there understanding that the longer this goes on,
Speaker 5: the more likely it is we lost. As time wore on,
Speaker 5: 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 the sculpatory evidence was
Speaker 1: withheld that quote unquote directly contradicted ATF forensic analyst William
Speaker 1: Kinnard's trial testimony. Christine, how did you find out about
Speaker 1: this momentous decision.
Speaker 2: I got a call to come to the counselor's office
Speaker 2: and my lawyers were on the phone.
Speaker 6: To tell me that they had reversed my conviction and
Speaker 6: remanded for a new trial.
Speaker 2: I started crying, and I asked them if they called
Speaker 2: my son.
Speaker 3: Him to know that I won and I was going.
Speaker 6: To come home, and so they assured me that yes,
Speaker 6: they were calling him, and I ended up. I stayed
Speaker 6: at the counselor's office for like an hour and a
Speaker 6: half because I head back to back calls, and she said,
Speaker 6: you know, she said, we're just gonna make this your day,
Speaker 6: so everybody can call and congratulate you and tell you
Speaker 6: the news.
Speaker 3: And they were just so happy for me.
Speaker 1: Ron, What about you? What's your recollection of that phone call?
Speaker 5: I cared beyond measure about Christine in this case and
Speaker 5: getting her out of jail, and when it ultimately happened,
Speaker 5: it was as if it was happening to my sister.
Speaker 5: Just the most moving experience. Although the reality comes home
Speaker 5: of Okay, she's not out of jail, she gets a
Speaker 5: new trial, she's still sitting in jail. We got to
Speaker 5: 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 2: Well, I mean, when you first walk out, I think
Speaker 2: all you're looking at is the dream finally happened.
Speaker 3: And I have so many possibilities.
Speaker 6: After that initial who wears off, then you're left with
Speaker 6: all of these fears and insecurities. It was great walking
Speaker 6: out and seeing everyone, but then you know, I'm facing
Speaker 6: another murder trial, so we have to start prepared for that.
Speaker 3: And I have.
Speaker 6: You know, my son, who I have to provide a
Speaker 6: home for, and I have to make sure that he
Speaker 6: has everything he needs. He's just sixteen, so I don't
Speaker 6: have a driver's license, I don't have any kind of ID,
Speaker 6: I don't have Renner's history, credit score, all of these things.
Speaker 3: I don't even know where I'm going to get a job.
Speaker 6: After seventeen years, so fear starts to take you over,
Speaker 6: and I think that at first, I was just like,
Speaker 6: I'm not.
Speaker 3: Going to make it. There's no way I'm going to
Speaker 3: be able to make it.
Speaker 6: And that first night, my son was showing me on
Speaker 6: his laptop how to set up a Facebook account, and
Speaker 6: while I'm looking at it, I see that he has
Speaker 6: the appellate court site bookmarked.
Speaker 4: And I said, why do you have that?
Speaker 6: And he looked at me and he said, because I
Speaker 6: checked every day to see if they made a decision and.
Speaker 1: You were come.
Speaker 4: And I started to crying and.
Speaker 2: I said, you know, I said, I've been so worried
Speaker 2: and so unsure, but.
Speaker 4: Hearing that you believed in me and we're.
Speaker 6: Just waiting for me to come home, I can make
Speaker 6: 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 just to even get compensation.
Speaker 1: Can you fill us in on that.
Speaker 3: Yes, So, like everyone, I filed a civil suit.
Speaker 6: Clearly people are protected, so you have to break through
Speaker 6: immunity to try to sue. The issue is the ATF
Speaker 6: chemist is deceased, so I didn't have a lead to
Speaker 6: stand on, and that was ultimately dismissed.
Speaker 4: Compensation.
Speaker 6: I have been working since I've been out, and well,
Speaker 6: I've helped pass new legislation in three different states, working
Speaker 6: with the Innocence Project. This past year, we passed compensation
Speaker 6: in Indiana, and then when my civil suit was dismissed,
Speaker 6: I applied for the compensation. You know, it was I think,
Speaker 6: very surreal to receive a letter from them saying that
Speaker 6: just because my conviction was reversed and I wasn't retried
Speaker 6: did not mean that I was actually innocent. And it really,
Speaker 6: I mean, it hurt my feelings.
Speaker 2: Because I testified before these legislators three separate occasions.
Speaker 4: The senators and representatives.
Speaker 6: That pass this bill used my case to pass this
Speaker 6: compensation bill, and then you're going to basically retry me
Speaker 6: all over again.
Speaker 1: So are they really trying to relitigate this case?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: They are not.
Speaker 2: But as you go through the process, you fill out
Speaker 2: a compensation application and then they review it. So for them,
Speaker 2: they reached out to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor said,
Speaker 2: you know, no, we didn't have evidence at the time
Speaker 2: to retry this, but you know, we aren't going to
Speaker 2: say we made a mistake. They never want to say
Speaker 2: they made a mistake. So I had to reach out
Speaker 2: to everyone I knew, the Center on Wrongful Convictions with
Speaker 2: you know, the amazing Laura and I writer and Steve Drisen,
Speaker 2: Ron Safer and all of them wrote letters and submitted
Speaker 2: the evidence that was used to.
Speaker 6: Exonerate me, in order to show them that I am
Speaker 6: innocent and were of this conversation.
Speaker 3: Twenty five years after the fact.
Speaker 6: 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 2: Just is just like it sounds, because the situation just
Speaker 2: is and then it's for just Us, which means all
Speaker 2: of us exoneries. Justice for just Us was started by
Speaker 2: myself and another exonery that came from the Center on
Speaker 2: Wrongful Convictions and Juana and I just basically wanted to
Speaker 2: address what it was like because when people walk out,
Speaker 2: you don't have a toothbrush, you don't have the basic necessities.
Speaker 2: So j for Jay for short. You know, we're helping
Speaker 2: with boxes.
Speaker 6: If somebody reaches out and says, hey, I need an outfit,
Speaker 6: I need basic hygienes, we put that together. We've helped
Speaker 6: take some axonneries to the Innocence Conference, sent out gas cards,
Speaker 6: cash cards, we've paid rent, we've paid bills, and our
Speaker 6: organization allows healthcare providers to donate services so they can
Speaker 6: get a dental visit or some counseling sessions or a
Speaker 6: physical things that are desperately needed 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: organizations doing this work, and I encourage everyone to support
Speaker 1: just is for just Us. So please every scroll down
Speaker 1: on the episode description and get involved with Justice for
Speaker 1: just Us. And now this is the part of the show,
Speaker 1: of course, that we call closing arguments. So first of all,
Speaker 1: thank you to our phenomenal guest today. The closing argument
Speaker 1: segment works like this, I turn off my microphone, kick
Speaker 1: back on my chair, leave my headphones on. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: close my eyes, and we're going to let each of
Speaker 1: you have the final word on whatever you want to
Speaker 1: talk about. So let's go to Ron first and then
Speaker 1: Christine you can just take us out.
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, thanks so much Jason for telling
Speaker 5: this story, for telling the other stories. It is so
Speaker 5: critically important to raise public awareness of these wrongful convictions.
Speaker 5: We have the best criminal justice system in the world,
Speaker 5: but it is run by human beings, and human beings
Speaker 5: are flawed. They make mistakes, They at times act in
Speaker 5: intentionally maliciously. When that happens, it takes enormous resources to
Speaker 5: get the system back on track, and so few people
Speaker 5: are able to afford those resources or are given those resources.
Speaker 5: So what has to happen is everybody involved in the system, prosecutors, judges,
Speaker 5: jurors have to have an open mind. They have to
Speaker 5: be persons of goodwill. We as citizens have to hold
Speaker 5: them accountable that their jobs are not to get convictions,
Speaker 5: their jobs are to do justice, and we have to
Speaker 5: insist on that. We have to enter that jury box
Speaker 5: as citizens, giving credence to the presumption of innocence that
Speaker 5: our constitution requires. They're not words, they are a critical concept.
Speaker 5: But if we don't pay attention to it, if we
Speaker 5: don't honor it, then wonderful people like Christine will have
Speaker 5: their lives robbed from them, losing decades that nobody can
Speaker 5: give back to them. And so this is a call
Speaker 5: to action. We have to be more active, We have
Speaker 5: to be more responsible. We have to be accountable and
Speaker 5: make sure that everybody in the system is accountable.
Speaker 6: Christine, when I go speak to the community and tell
Speaker 6: them how they can help with j for Jay, or
Speaker 6: how they can help the Innocence Project, or how they
Speaker 6: can step up and make changes within our system, because
Speaker 6: it is a great system.
Speaker 3: It is designed to work.
Speaker 6: And we have to take responsibility and make sure it works.
Speaker 3: So I know that everybody is sitting.
Speaker 6: There saying I don't have money to donate, but everybody
Speaker 6: does have to step up and say I have something.
Speaker 3: To give here.
Speaker 2: I can vote, I can educate myself so that when
Speaker 2: I'm sitting on a jury, I know what I'm listening
Speaker 2: to because the CSI you watch on TV that's not
Speaker 2: always accurate. So really learning about these issues, really raising
Speaker 2: your voice and.
Speaker 3: Saying you know, we need to change some things. That's
Speaker 3: how we make the world better.
Speaker 7: And I encourage all of you to learn about this
Speaker 7: and figure out if you can help by voting, by
Speaker 7: sharing our stories, by talking to an axonary, by just.
Speaker 1: Being there, don't forget to give us a fantastic you
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
Speaker 1: a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and I really
Speaker 1: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
Speaker 1: and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
Speaker 1: Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
Speaker 1: Company Number one