Convicted mother seeks new murder trial in son's death

More than 13 years after being convicted and sent to prison for killing her son in an arson fire, Kristine Bunch is hoping a judge will throw out her murder conviction and grant her a new trial.

A judge is expected to make a decision within 30 days following a hearing underway this week in Decatur County Circuit Court.

On June 30, 1995, firefighters were called to Bunch’s Greensburg mobile home to find it fully engulfed in flames. She was standing outside and told crews she tried to get to her son, but the flames were too hot.

The body of three-year-old Tony Bunch was found huddled between the ashes of a burned bed and wall in a bedroom.

Five days after the fire, police arrested Kristine Bunch. She was charged with murder and arson.

This week, the same judge who presided over the case is listening to arguments from the defense and prosecution. The state is being represented by Bill Smith, the same prosecutor who tried the case. The new defense team is from Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions.

Bunch’s lead attorney, Ron Safer, says the group took the case saying it’s one in a series of cases nationwide where the science has changed.

“People thought that things indicated it was arson when in fact those assumptions were flawed and science has proven that those assumptions are wrong,” Safer said during a break from the hearing underway in Decatur County Circuit Court.

The 1996 trial focused in part on burn patterns on the floor of the mobile home. Fire investigators testified that those burn patterns were the result of kerosene poured on the floor and set on fire.

The request for a new trial says the science behind fire investigations has been refined and now doesn’t necessarily point to arson.

“There’s nothing that we’re saying that the government did that was wrong. It’s just they were wrong because the science at the time had not advanced,” said Safer.

Bill Smith, Decatur County’s elected Prosecuting Attorney, says he stands behind the evidence presented in the original trial.

“This is a case where the fire science doesn’t change the evidence and the evidence reaches the same conclusion. The jury was not wrong in this case because they considered far more evidence than what is being considered in this case,” said Smith during a lunch break of the hearing.

Smith believes the defense is not looking at the evidence in its totality.

“They've been very selective in both the evidence and the issues they want to raise and they failed to consider all of the evidence that was presented to the jury,” Smith said about the defense strategy in this hearing.

Safer wants the chance to present new evidence to a new jury. He said, “I would hope that we would be able to get a new trial at which point we could present this evidence, the new evidence, to a jury so they can decide.”

Indiana’s Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 1998.

The day of Bunch’s arrest, her mother, Susan Hubbard, told 24-Hour News 8 that the allegations were false and added to the family’s grief over the loss of the boy.

“She loved him. She adored him. She took him everywhere to show him off. She was so proud of him,” Hubbard said the day her daughter was arrested.

In court Tuesday, Hubbard refused to speak to 24-Hour News 8 referring us to Safer for comment. The defense team also denied our request to interview Bunch about her request for a new trial.

It’s expected the judge could take one month to decide if a new trial should be held.