Amy Bishop Killed Brother: Accused University Of Alabama Shooter Shot Brother 20 Years Ago, Police Say

BRAINTREE, Mass. — An Alabama university professor accused of fatally shooting three colleagues at a faculty meeting this week shot her younger brother dead at their home in the Boston suburbs more than 20 years ago, but records of it are missing, police said Saturday.

Amy Bishop shot her teenage brother in the chest in 1986, Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier said at a news conference. Bishop fired at least three shots, hitting her brother in the chest, and then fled with the shotgun before police took her into custody at gunpoint, he said.

Before Bishop, who was 19 at the time, could be booked the police chief back then called officers and told them to release her to her mother, Frazier said. The shooting of the brother, Seth Bishop, an 18-year-old accomplished violinist, was logged that day as a "sudden death" and later considered accidental, but detailed records of the shooting have disappeared, Frazier said.

"The report's gone, removed from the files," he said.

The police chief said Saturday that he planned to meet with the local district attorney over the possibility of launching a criminal investigation into how the case was handled.

The police chief in 1986, John Polio, said Saturday in an interview at his Braintree home that he was astonished at any implication of a coverup. He said he didn't instruct officers to release Bishop and wasn't close to her mother.

"(There's) no coverup, no missing records," Polio said.

A University of Alabama at Huntsville spokesman said Bishop, who's in her 40s, had been denied tenure before she was held Friday in the campus shooting.

As Bishop was being taken to jail in handcuffs she said: "It didn't happen. There's no way."

Attempts by The Associated Press to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. Polio's wife said she believed the Bishop family had moved away.

Comments

[cobraxus]

09:52 PM on 02/19/2010

here's the point nobody seems to mention about the accidental shooting of her brother:guns do not spontaneously discharge.you have to shoot them.a 12-gauge shotgun must be loaded,pumped and then several pounds of pressure must be applied to the trigger.they don't go off by themselves.amy bishop had already "accidentally" fired the weapon once.at that point she should have simply put the gun down and waited until someone with more experience came along.according to police she fired the shotgun once more after killing her brother.I'm sorry but guns don't behave that way by themselves.

[fuOBL]

03:36 PM on 02/16/2010

Poor woman that stupid gun made her do it. Prosecute the gun!

[RightOn5]

11:24 AM on 02/16/2010

She is a left-wing radical extremist who is obsessed with Obama:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?&articleid=1232943&format=&page=1&listingType=Loc#articleFull

[Slapmewhenitsover]

06:04 AM on 02/18/2010

Even if that is true, it has no bearing on anything except your own stupidity for posting such nonsense.

[jojojo]

10:11 AM on 02/16/2010

One thing you can be sure of: since she's female, pretty soon we'll hear from those who will somehow make her a victim.

[lisakaz2]

10:54 AM on 02/16/2010

I hope not, but someone here called her a "poor woman" so you're probably right. And imo you can't be a "poor woman" and be up for tenure.

[overcat]

09:10 PM on 02/15/2010

No real story here, anyone who has lived a little KNOWS that there are people, some of them even (GASP!) women, who are violent psychotics. I had the displeasure of dealing with more than a few severely twisted college professors who were borderline freaks, and (GASP!) some of them were women.

[jojojo]

10:16 AM on 02/16/2010

But...but...women are pure goodness. We all know that! This despite the fact that 40% of 911 domestic violence calls are placed by men who have been attacked by women. Info? Go to menweb.org and batteredmen.com

[jojojo]

04:26 PM on 02/15/2010

If a guy had her past, he'd have been in jail long ago, and this wouldn't have happened.

[lisakaz2]

05:06 PM on 02/15/2010

If a rich guy had her past, he just as well woulda gotten tenure.

[tundramonkey]

06:04 PM on 02/15/2010

Or the vice presidency in a Republican administration.

[BobbyD1948]

06:49 PM on 02/15/2010

Kinda like Ted kennedy was, right?

[b-dob]

10:55 AM on 02/15/2010

The best part is...she's a flaming liberal who was obsessed with Obama. Where's the mention of that?

[dhrama]

11:07 AM on 02/15/2010

How is it relevant, other than to score a cheap political point?

[b-dob]

11:12 AM on 02/15/2010

I guess a psychotic rampager's political views are only relevant if they're conservative.

[Jack78]

12:24 PM on 02/15/2010

A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100215oddball_protrait_emerges_suspects_family_pals_offer_clues/srvc=home&position=0

[TinfoilLatte]

02:26 PM on 02/15/2010

You're serious, aren't you?

Some of you people are unbelievable in trying to politicize this tragedy. I knew it was coming. It has all the milestones....an "elitist" University professor, a "corrupt" education system, an alleged "Leftist" killing people "again," and a way to situate the narrative in the context of your precious "liberals as fascists" meme.

Pretty soon the hard right will be saying that only "Leftists" like guns.

I've got news. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT HER POLITICAL AFFILIATION WAS. All that matters is the motive, which we don't know for sure yet. The family source provides interesting perspective, but it is surely not the reason for the spree.

But if you want to play that game, take a look at actual "right wing" dictators in world history (post ww2), many that had a field day against Communists. Unless, of course, you want to rewrite history and say there were never any right wing dictators ever, that they were all Leftists.

[emperorwang]

08:44 AM on 02/15/2010

it's a shame that the victims were legally unable to protect themselves with deadly force, in the face of deadly force.

a person should always have the right to defend themselves with deadly force in the face of such. this, to me, seems like a natural law, and is in fact enshrined in our constitution, yet today in practice it is denied us so often. I submit that this is tyranny.

[From the Raft]

09:55 AM on 02/15/2010

They should have worn body armor!

[emperorwang]

09:59 AM on 02/15/2010

i will hesitate to fan you, because i can't be sure if you are being serious or sarcastic. this is the internet, after all.

for the record, i support every law abiding citizens right to be armed at all times.

[dhrama]

12:34 PM on 02/15/2010

Incidentally, Timothy McVeigh thought the federal goverment was tyrannical.

You ne0c0n claqueurs crack me up every time.

[emperorwang]

09:19 PM on 02/15/2010

George Washington thought the government was tyrannical once upon a time. Ghandi thought the government was tyrannical. Martin Luther King thought the government was tyrannical. Are you going to compare me and imply that I have an idealogical kinship with every single person who ever thought the government was tyrannical, or just the terrorists? Your above post is a complete waste, means nothing, adds nothing to the debate, just like most of your other posts.

[StrayTalk]

11:18 PM on 02/14/2010

Nothing new here. I know someone whose death by gunshot was quickly ruled a suicide even though there were a lot of questions about the circumstances surrounding his death and the stormy relationship with his wife. There was also a media blackout on the whole situation. We comtacted the newspapers but they had zero interest in following up. (this was in the infancy days of the internet)
I think this has to do with the police looking for quick and easy resolutions to cases where the persons involved aren't "important" people and no outside pressure is on them to get to the actual truth.

[InedaName]

05:35 PM on 02/14/2010

This story just gets curioser and curioser. Apparently Dr. Bishop was a suspect in an attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor in 1993. But get this...

"During a search of Bishop's computer, authorities found a draft of a novel that Bisthop was writing about a female scientist who had killed her brother and was hoping to make amends by hoping to become a great scientist, according to a person who was briefed on the investigation and spoke to the Globe on the condition of anonymity."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/ala_slay_suspec.html

[HawaiiSteve]

06:57 PM on 02/14/2010

Gun control is a complete joke!

[MomfromTexas]

10:57 PM on 02/14/2010

I was getting ready to post this. Obviously, she's a sociopath, who people suspected but could not get enough evidence on to convict. Sad, sad, sad.

[BambooHarvester]

05:30 PM on 02/14/2010

E
V
L

[johnthesavage]

04:59 PM on 02/14/2010

It seems now that Bishop and her husband were prime suspects in a mail-bombing attempt at Harvard in 1993.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/ala_slay_suspec.html

[MamaBird62]

05:13 PM on 02/14/2010

Wow. Interesting. Thanks for the link.

[dhrama]

04:41 PM on 02/14/2010

Guns don't shoot people. People with guns shoot people. Take away the guns, and they're just people who cannot shoot other people. Simple as that.

Dubya has taken away many of the liberties guaranteed in the Constitution. So why not do the same, but for a good purpose this time?

Just abolish the Second Amendment. It's high time for that, and the kind of people who insist on it are exactly the kind of people I would never trust with a gun.

[mackbolan]

04:58 PM on 02/14/2010

you must be young to be that naive....

[HawaiiSteve]

06:49 PM on 02/14/2010

Let me be the first to fan you my friend. You sentiment is admirable, but not in our lifetime! The gun nuts in this country would never stand for it. However, we should keep pushing for more severe licensing requirements for guns, especially handguns which serve only one purpose, taking life. (Yeah, I do know about you handgun hunters, but I don't see anyone hunting with a .38 snubnose)

I live on an island with severe gun restriction. You must attend classes and get a license to own ANY type of gun. You CANNOT get a carry permit, no matter who you are. You know what, we have almost zero gun violence. We had ONE shooting last year, and none for years before that. Our murder rate is expressed in years per murder, not murders per year.

Keep pushing for more gun control, NRA and fellow gun nuts be dam ned.

[MRDMSY]

06:53 PM on 02/15/2010

I agree. Gun restriction/control reforms are the only practical way to go at this point. It's not like we could ever make everyone return all the guns they already own. And you are very lucky to live in Hawaii. I envy you!

[BambooHarvester]

02:32 PM on 02/14/2010

now begins the cover-up of the cover-up

[AndyWright68]

01:13 PM on 02/14/2010

Another "gun free zone"?

Well...that's impossible. It's a "GUN FREE ZONE"!

The only guns these zones are free of are the ones that could provide law-abiding faculty members and students with a chance of defending themselves and stopping nuts like this who ignore the "gun free zone" signs on the doors.

Violating law-abiding Americans their 2nd Amendment right to protect their lives is leaving them sitting ducks in these BS"gun free zones". There is no such thing as a "gun free zone".

They should call them "NO RIGHTS ZONES"

[dhrama]

04:38 PM on 02/14/2010

God deliver us from wannabe vigilantes like you. You'd probably shoot yourself in the foot like you are doing with your comment. That, or worse.

Ideally, you and people like you should just stay away from institutions of learning at all. Stick to your bible instead.

[mackbolan]

04:59 PM on 02/14/2010

project much....

[AndyWright68]

07:34 PM on 02/14/2010

I don't deal in fairy tales. Many people are armed at Universities. It's just sad that none of them are armed legally due to ridiculous gun control laws that violate our second amendment right.

[HawaiiSteve]

11:26 PM on 02/14/2010

Typical gun lover response. "We need more guns, not less." Well my friend, I live on an island where gun ownership is highly restricted; you must take a hunter and gun safety class and get a license before you can own ANY type of gun. Also, there is now way you can obtain a carry permit, no matter who you are. You know what, gun crimes here are measured in years between shootings, not shootings per year! We had one gun crime late last year, and I can't remember how far back before that was the last shooting. Bottom line, I NEVER worry about being robbed at gunpoint or being shot.

On this island, My right to live my life without getting my brains blown out trumps any concern for the Second amendment! Real gun control works!

[jaypet]

05:29 AM on 02/15/2010

first health care, now gun control? I need to move to Hawaii!!!

[AndyWright68]

06:05 AM on 02/15/2010

You do not understand the second amendment and that is sad. You may not be able to carry a concealed weapon but every criminal on your "island" can. And if someday you end up a victim of someone with a gun you will regret being irresponsible and not protecting your life. A natural born right that you have always had and one that our Constitution protects.

Our founding fathers new that the government could not become tyrannical and oppress the people if they guaranteed that the government could not disarm the people. The 2nd Amendment is there to protect us from a government out of control.

Every tyrant run government in history disarmed the people before they committed genocide.. And you will never know how many times someone saved their life or the life of someone else due to them having a gun. Who reports a crime that doesn't happen.

You should look into both sides of an issue before you take a position instead of taking the five monkey approach.