The Case of Kristine Bunch and Obie Anthony (Live from the Innocence Network Conference 2017)

📻 Episode #22
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 May 01, 2017

◆ EPISODE PROFILE

About This Episode

The Case

This special edition of Wrongful Conviction was recorded at the 2017 Innocence Network Conference in San Diego, CA, where 170 exonerees and 750 members of the innocence movement gathered to honor newly freed people and learn about the latest developments in freeing the wrongfully convicted. Part Two features interviews with Kristine Bunch and Obie Anthony. Kristine Bunch was 22 years old and pregnant when she was charged with setting a fire that claimed the life of her three-year-old son, Anthony, on June 30, 1995, in a trailer home they shared in Decatur County, IN. She was sentenced to concurrent prison terms of 60 years for murder and 50 years for arson and languished behind bars for more than 17 years until her exoneration in 2012. Obie Anthony was 19 years old when he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1995. There was no physical evidence connecting him to the murder, and prosecutors relied on the testimony of John Jones, a convicted killer and pimp who ran a house of prostitution near the scene of the crime. He was exonerated in 2011 after serving 17 years in prison. Obie Anthony is the founder and president of Exonerated Nation, a non-profit organization that offers exonerees a variety of support services so that they may successfully transition to life outside of prison and reintegrate back into society. His activism was instrumental in the passage of California AB 672 in October 2015, now known as Obie’s Law, which requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the DMV to provide up to one year of transitional services including job training, housing assistance, and mental health services to all eligible exonerees released from state prison.

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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts

Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.

00:05:33
“Speaker 1: life in the process of losing your son you don't Speaker 1: even know, and your home and you just woke up Speaker 1: and add that type of thing that people most people, Speaker 1: they just wake up. They don't even know what to do. Speaker 1: They stumble arounds looking for the coffee machine. Right. I mean,”

00:21:54
“Speaker 5: we decided that it was up to us to bring Speaker 5: justice to other ex honeries. So we're getting ready to Speaker 5: put in for our non for profit that'll probably go Speaker 5: in a couple of weeks, and our hope is that Speaker 5: we can continue to train and hire other exoneries in”

00:35:35
“Speaker 1: You're out there listening to his voice, but just running Speaker 1: into in the hallways here and stuff. I mean, you Speaker 1: got to smile. That lights up the room. Obi's here Speaker 1: with his wife who looks like a movie star, you Speaker 1: know what I mean, and like it's thank you. Yeah.”

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← #21 Floyd Bledsoe and Cornelius Dupree (Live from the Innocence Network Conference 2017) #23 Johnny Hincapie →

Also on the podcast: #21 Floyd Bledsoe and Cornelius Dupree (Live from the Innocence Network Conference 2017) · #25 Anthony DiPippo · #73 Damien Echols (Live from the Church of Rock and Roll)