Greensburg, Ind. Woman Wrongfully Accused in Deadly Arson Sues Fire Marshal

GREENSBURG — A former Greensburg woman who spent 17 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of setting a fire that killed her three-year-old son will try today to settle a lawsuit she has filed alleging Indiana State Fire Marshal investigators suppressed evidence that showed the fire was accidental.

In the early morning hours of June 20, 1995, a fire destroyed a mobile home at Lot 60 in the Crestwood Resort in Lake McCoy, about five miles east of Greensburg. The fire injured the home’s adult occupant, Kristine Bunch, and killed her three-year-old son, Anthony.

Three weeks later, Bunch, 21 at the time, was charged with arson and murder. She was convicted the following year and sentenced, on April 1, 1996, to 50 years for murder and 30 years for arson.

Nearly 17 years after the incident, on March 21, 2012, the Indiana Appeals Court ordered a new trial. The court said that advances in science provided for a new evidence analysis that was not available at the time of the trial. The court also said that the state withheld evidence from Bunch’s defense lawyers.

Bunch was released on bond on Aug. 22, 2012. Decatur County Prosecutor Jim Rosenberry asked the court to dismiss the case on Dec. 17, 2012.

In a lawsuit filed March 19, 2014 with the Indianapolis Division of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Bunch alleges that Indiana State Fire Marshal Investigators Bryan Frank and James Skaggs “deliberately suppressed evidence which showed that the fire was not arson, but was in fact accidental.”

In February, Bunch filed a similar lawsuit in the same court against the United States of America, alleging that Frank and Skaggs, with the help of a now-deceased investigator of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, falsified a report that indicated that they found traces of an accelerant in the home’s living room and the boy’s bedroom. An accelerant is a substance that is used to accelerate the spread of a fire. The presence of such a substance would have supported the investigators’ claim that Bunch set the fire.

Bunch’s attorney, John L. Stainthorp, of Chicago, said in February that Bunch hopes her lawsuits bring her vindication and establish how she came to be wrongfully convicted and how it happened that evidence that would have helped her was withheld.

She is seeking to hold liable the people and agencies responsible for her wrongful conviction, Stainthorp said.

Bunch also is seeking $17 million in damages.

A settlement conference in the first case is set for 1:30 p.m. today at the U.S. Courthouse, 46 E. Ohio St., in Indianapolis.

A spokesman for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the fire marshal’s office, has said, “Due to the active court case involving Ms. Bunch, the agency is not providing any comment at this time.”

Bunch, who gave birth to another child while in prison and who earned a college degree while incarcerated, now lives in the Chicago area and works for a university.

Contact: Boris Ladwig 812-663-3111 x7401; [email protected].

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