Joe Harker
A man who was sentenced to 300 years behind bars after five people were killed in 2000 has said his confession was coerced by police.
Cleveland 'Christopher' Bynum was arrested in February 2000 after a man and four women had been shot dead in Gary, Indiana.
Two of the women were found shot dead in a baseball park, while the bodies of the other three victims were discovered in a nearby house.
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Police arrested Bynum and he confessed to them that he'd spent the night drinking beer and playing pool before killing three of the five victims.
Bynum later recanted his confession to killing three of the victims, claiming that detectives coerced him, but he was found guilty of all five murders and sentenced to 300 years in prison.
He says police refused to let him call anyone, denied him legal representation, threatened to arrest his fiancé and told him they'd put his child in state custody.
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He also claimed that officers wouldn't give him food or water and didn't permit him to have bathroom breaks.
Bynum's lawyers say they've since amassed a 'mountain of evidence' which they claim prove his innocence, while the Chicago Sun Times reports that there was no forensic evidence linking Bynum to the five murders.
It also reports that the only direct evidence linking Bynum to the crimes is a statement from the then 12-year-old son of one of the victims, who said he heard a man referred to as 'Chris B' speaking.
However, in 2020 he made a deposition saying he 'don't remember saying half this s**t' and claimed that a police officer told him that Bynum had confessed, but according to the Chicago Sun Times that wouldn't be possible since the man behind bars wouldn't be arrested until a day later.
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The case also involves someone else making a confession, as in 2014 a man named Gerald Matthews who was also referred to by the name Chris was shot dead and had arranged for a recording of him confessing to the crimes Bynum was committed for to be sent to the police.
Courts dismissed this supposed confession as not credible since Matthews had arranged for it to be sent to authorities after he died so he wouldn't face consequences.
In 2009 the federal appeals court found that Bynum's lawyer for his trial had given an ineffective defense by not putting him on the stand to tell the jury his confession had been coerced.
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They called the evidence arrayed against him 'skimpy', but upheld the verdict as they judged that his confession would likely not have been thrown out even if he'd testified against it.
Efforts to free Bynum are ongoing and believe they have 'irrefutable evidence' that the man sentenced to 300 years behind bars did not commit the crimes he was convicted of.
UNILAD has contacted Lake County, Indiana prosecutor's office for comment.
