An Indiana woman who was convicted in 1996 of murder and arson for allegedly setting a fire that killed her three-year-old, but later had her case overturned, will speak at the University of Illinois Springfield this week.
Kristine Bunch will speak at the UIS Student Ballroom as a guest of the Illinois Innocence Project (IIP) at noon on Wednesday. Bunch spent 17 years in prison until her conviction was reversed in 2012.
Two arson investigators concluded that the fire in the trailer had started in two places and that a liquid accelerant had been used to start the fire at both locations. Bunch was ultimately sentenced to concurrent prison terms of 60 years for murder and 50 years for arson. Attorneys from the Center on Wrongful Convictions later discovered that evidence about the fire being intentionally set had been fabricated.
The IIP has played a significant role in 12 exonerations since its founding as the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project at the university in 2001.
This story appeared in The State Journal-Register on October 20, 2019.
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