Illinois Innocence Project welcomes woman who’s free thanks to research

Posted on October 23, 2019
Bunch says new technology determined her little boy died of smoke inhalation from a smoldering fire, rather than of burns from a hot arson fire. (Photo courtesy: Pixabay)

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Innocence Project at the U of I Springfield this Wednesday afternoon welcomed an Indianapolis woman who’s a free woman thanks to research and hard work.

Kristine Bunch was a 20-year-old single mom in 1995, when her three-year-old son died in a fire. Thanks in part to an altered ATF report (whose author is dead) and an overworked public defender, an unsympathetic jury convicted her of murder.

“I don’t believe a lot of people in prison are guilty. I believe they have been maneuvered into plea bargaining and false confessions,” Bunch said in an interview. “I think you gravitate toward people who really shouldn’t be there, either, and that’s who you connect with. But it feels like you’re screaming in the dark and nobody’s hearing you.”

Bunch says new technology determined her little boy died of smoke inhalation from a smoldering fire, rather than of burns from a hot arson fire. She’s been out for six years and now runs a wrongful conviction organization in Indianapolis.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]. 

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