How Kristine Bunch Became Exonerated — Transcript

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1. 0:01Well, at first, I wrote hundreds of
2. 0:04letters every week begging somebody to
3. 0:07take my case.
4. 0:08Eventually, a girl that I was nice to
5. 0:10because she was pregnant and I would
6. 0:12bring her cookies. She wrote her lawyer
7. 0:15and asked her to take a look at my case.
8. 0:18Hillary came on, took a look at my case.
9. 0:20She was the first person to say, "I
10. 0:21believe you,
11. 0:23but I don't know how we're going to
12. 0:24prove it."
13. 0:26And I said, "That's okay. If I've got
14. 0:27one person that believes me, we can make
15. 0:30it through."
16. 0:31So, we started out and I started working
17. 0:34in the law library and researching it
18. 0:36and telling her, you know, "This is what
19. 0:38we need."
20. 0:39Uh eventually, you know, people began to
21. 0:42realize that I truly was innocent.
22. 0:45And one of those church volunteers that
23. 0:47came into the prison went to
24. 0:49Northwestern University's Wrongful
25. 0:50Conviction Clinic and asked them to take
26. 0:53my case.
27. 0:55So, you said that lawyer was the only
28. 0:57person
29. 0:58that believed in you.
30. 1:00Besides my family, yes. You lose every
31. 1:03single friend that you have.
32. 1:05Um nobody
33. 1:08nobody wants to stand up for you. My
34. 1:10family,
35. 1:12they stood up for me. They always
36. 1:13believed in me. My baby brother was 17.
37. 1:16He quit school and started working three
38. 1:18jobs and took care of me.
39. 1:20And him and my mother raised my child
40. 1:23when I gave birth.
41. 1:24They made sure I saw him every week.
42. 1:27They were my rocks. Everybody else
43. 1:29disappeared.
44. 1:31They
45. 1:34they kept me encouraged.
46. 1:36And my son,
47. 1:39Trent, kept me motivated to fight.
48. 1:42He was the reason I walked out of that
49. 1:44prison.
50. 1:47I mean, there was times that it was
51. 1:48very, very hard.
52. 1:50And um
53. 1:54I mean, you You when when evidence came
54. 1:56forward in trial that said there was
55. 1:58accelerant found in my child's bedroom
56. 2:01and then 10 years into my incarceration,
57. 2:04I found out that that had been an
58. 2:05altered report and the original report
59. 2:08was in a file that said there was
60. 2:10nothing found in my child's bedroom.
61. 2:12At that moment,
62. 2:14um
63. 2:15I would have fought anybody
64. 2:17because I was so devastated that
65. 2:19somebody would intentionally take my
66. 2:21life,
67. 2:22intentionally
68. 2:24make me look like this person that I
69. 2:26absolutely wasn't.
70. 2:28But in the beginning, it was it was
71. 2:30hard. It was hard to stay strong. It was
72. 2:32hard to keep fighting.