U of Alabama @ Hunstville shooting 2/12/10-Amy Bishop Anderson Sentenced LWOP

[MuffyBee]

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/22557530/detail.html
Alabama Shooting Suspect Had Killed Brother In Braintree
D.A. Delahunt Cleared Amy Bishop In 1986 Braintree Slaying
POSTED: 3:28 pm EST February 13, 2010
UPDATED: 9:01 am EST February 14, 2010
BRAINTREE, Mass. --
The biology professor accused of gunning down five colleagues and a staff member at the University of Alabama at Huntsville on Friday was released from police custody 23 years ago after she shot and killed her brother in Braintree, police announced Saturday.

Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier said Amy Bishop was detained following the death of her brother on Dec. 6, 1986, then released without being charged because the death was ruled an accidental shooting.

Frazier said Amy Bishop shot her 18-year-old brother, Seth Bishop, in the chest with a 12-gauge shotgun at the family’s home in Braintree, then ran into the street and aimed the gun at a passing vehicle before fleeing from the scene. Amy Bishop, who was 20 at the time, was arrested at gunpoint by Braintree officers.

Bishop was never booked, however, and all local police records of the case have gone missing, with the exception of an entry in the police log noting an accidental shooting, Frazier said.

Braintree Police Department
"The report's gone, removed from the files," he said. "Somebody has it. We don't."

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 Bishop case was handled.

The Massachusetts State Police also filed a six-page report about the shooting, dated March 30, 1987, which was released by the Norfolk District Attorney's office on Saturday.

A story on the shooting in the Quincy Patriot Ledger newspaper quoted Bishop's mother, Judith Bishop, saying the gun accidentally went off into a bedroom wall when her daughter was trying to teach herself to use it in case the home was burglarized. Amy Bishop then asked her brother to help her unload the gun when it went off again, killing him in front of her, Judith Bishop told the newspaper.

Amy Bishop, now 44, faces a capital murder charge in Friday's campus shooting, which left three biology professors dead and another two critically wounded. A university staff member was also hurt.

Braintree officers who remember the 1986 shooting said that former police Chief John Polio dismissed detectives from the case and ordered the department to release Amy Bishop after a telephone conversation with former district attorney William Delahunt, who is currently a U.S. congressman from Massachusetts.

"The police officers here were very upset about that," said Frazier, who was a patrolman at the time and spoke to officers who remembered the incident that day, including one who filed a report on it.

When contacted Saturday, Polio, now 86, said that there was no cover up in Seth Bishop’s death, though there were questions about whether the shooting was an accident.

"I remember Judy Bishop and that she had two children and I know that they got into an argument one day and somehow a shot got involved, or a weapon of some kind, and it went off, according to them by accident. According to the mother and to the daughter, by the daughter," Polio said in a telephone interview with The Patriot Ledger.


Polio told NewsCenter 5 he has no memory of telling officers to go home. He said there was an inquest by Delahunt’s office and that the district attorney found that the shooting did not warrant charges. Polio said he doesn’t know how the records would have gone missing.

"Whatever we had we gave to the DA. An inquiry was conducted and no complaint was issued. So as far as I was concerned, that was the end of it," Polio said in the phone interview. "As far I'm concerned, everything that was done that should have been was done correctly. All reports went to the DA, they called it. When people start making innuendos of a cover up or this or that, it upsets me.”

Before she was hired as an assistant professor by the University of Alabama in 2003, Bishop studied at Harvard University in the Division of Medical Sciences, according to Harvard spokesman David Cameron. Bishop received her PhD in June 1993.

A University of Alabama at Huntsville spokesman told The Associated Press that Bishop had been denied tenure before she was held Friday in the campus shooting.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/22564239/detail.html
Ala. Prof's Family, Friends: No Hint Of Violence
Amy Bishop Seemed Normal Before Shooting, Witnesses Say
POSTED: 7:25 pm EST February 14, 2010

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. --


An Alabama professor accused of shooting six colleagues was vocal in her resentment over being denied tenure and the looming loss of her teaching post, though relatives and students said she had never suggested she might become violent.

Not even Amy Bishop's husband knew she might turn violent, according to the man's father. Everyone from family and friends to her students at the University of Alabama in Huntsville said the intelligent and at times awkward teacher seemed normal in the hours before police say she opened fire in a faculty meeting Friday afternoon, leaving three dead and another three wounded.

Jim Anderson -- the father of Bishop's husband, James Anderson -- told The Associated Press on Sunday his son had no idea Bishop was planning the bloodshed she's accused of.

"He knew nothing. He didn't know anything," the father said. He said that the police had spoken with his son at length and that "they are doing a good job."

Indeed, there were many things Bishop apparently did not reveal to those around her.

In 1986, Bishop shot and killed her 18-year-old brother with a shotgun at their Braintree, Mass., home. She told police at the time that she had been trying to learn how to use the gun, which her father had bought for protection, when it accidentally discharged. In all, three shots were fired: Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier said she shot once into a wall, then shot her brother, then fired a third time into the ceiling.

Authorities released her and said the episode was a tragic accident. She was never charged, though Frazier on Saturday questioned how the investigation was handled.

Some of Bishop's colleagues, including William Setzer, chairman of the department of chemistry, told The Associated Press they did not know about her brother's death.

Police say the gun she's accused of using in the Alabama shooting wasn't registered, and investigators don't know how or where she got it.

Bishop, who has four children, was arrested soon after the shooting and charged with capital murder. Other charges are pending. Her husband was detained and questioned by police but has not been charged.

James Anderson said his wife had an attorney but would not say who it was. He declined further comment to The Associated Press on Sunday. However, he told the Chronicle of Higher Education earlier in the day that he had no idea his wife had a gun -- nor did he know of any threats or plans to carry out the shooting when he dropped her off at the faculty meeting Friday.

Just after the shooting, Anderson told the Chronicle, she called and asked him to pick her up. She never mentioned the shooting, he said.

Even in the days and hours before the shooting, Bishop's friends, colleagues and students said she was acting like the intelligent -- but odd -- professor they knew.

UAH student Andrew Cole was in Bishop's anatomy class Friday morning and said she seemed perfectly normal. Kourtney Lattimore, 19, a sophomore studying nursing who had Bishop for anatomy and physiology courses, said she didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

"She was fine. It was a normal day," Lattimore said.

Bishop had worked closely for three years with Dick Reeves, who had been CEO of BizTech, which had been working with her to market a cell incubator she invented to replace traditional equipment used in live cell cultures. Bishop often mentioned the issue of tenure in their discussions, Reeves said.

"It was important to her," he said.

However, the two had spoken as early as Wednesday, and Reeves said she showed no signs of distress.

Tenure -- a type of job-for-life security afforded academics -- is often a stressful process for anyone up for review, Setzer said. Bishop was up front about the issue, often bringing it up in meetings where the subject wasn't appropriate.

"That was another thing that made her different," Setzer said. "In committee meetings she didn't pretend that it wasn't happening or anything. She was even loud about it: That they denied her tenure and she was appealing it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Some have said the shootings stemmed from Bishop's tenure dispute, though authorities have refused to discuss a motive. Andrea Bennett, a sophomore majoring in nursing and an athlete at UAH, said a coach told her team that Bishop had been denied tenure, which the coach said may have led to the shooting.

Killed were Gopi K. Podila, the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, and professors Adriel Johnson and Maria Ragland Davis. Three people were wounded. Two of them -- Joseph Leahy and staffer Stephanie Monticciolo -- were in critical condition early Sunday. The third, Luis Cruz-Vera, had been released from the hospital.

Sammie Lee Davis, Davis' husband, said in a brief phone interview that he was told a faculty member got angry while discussing tenure at the meeting and started shooting. He said his wife had described Bishop as "not being able to deal with reality" and "not as good as she thought she was."

Bishop was calm as she got into a police car Friday, denying that the shootings occurred. "It didn't happen. There's no way. ... They are still alive."

[MuffyBee]

http://www.necn.com/02/14/10/Amy-Bishop-at-time-of-1993-mail-bomb-inv/landing.html?blockID=180453&feedID=4215
Amy Bishop at time of 1993 mail bomb investigation
(Video Available at Link)
(NECN: John Moroney) - The woman accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville was a suspect in a 1993 attempted mail bombing, according to a report by The Boston Globe.

The report broke the day after it was learned that Bishop fatally shot her brother in Braintree in 1986.

More than fifteen years ago, Bishop worked with Sylvia Fluckiger at Children's Hospital in Boston.

"I thought she was an odd-ball. Maybe socially a little awkward," Fluckiger said.  "I felt she was a little bit sloppy working in the lab. But we were not friends. She came to do her came to her experiments in our lab. I had my stuff to be done. We didn't hang out."

In 1993, Bishop and her husband, James Anderson, were reportedly questioned about a mail bomb that was sent to the Newton home of Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Paul Rosenberg.

Colleagues at Children's Hospital were suspicious at the time, because Bishop was apparently angry at Dr. Rosenberg, although no one knew why.

"The water cooler talk was, if it was, and that was a big if, she probably couldn't have done it but her husband was a thinker. And I'm not accusing anybody of anything, but that's how people talked."

Sylvia and her husband Rudolph worked together at Children's Hospital in the early 1990s.  She was a lab technician, he was a researcher.  Bishop helped Rudolph Fluckiger write a research paper as a medical student.

"I didn't sit and have a meal with her, or sometimes one would get the stare when I'd like to discuss science, as if she wasn't really with it," Fluckiger said.

NECN attempted to reach Dr. Rosenberg, but he was not home on Sunday.

James Anderson told The New York Times that he and his wife were cleared in the mail bomb investigation and were never suspects.

[Anna]

Same story as you must posted, Muffy, just another source.

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


  Alleged Ala. killer was suspect in attempted bombing of Harvard professor


So this is covered by more than one source.  This woman was a one-person crime wave it seems.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/14/alabama.university.shooting/?hpt=T1
Report details '86 shooting involving Alabama professor
February 14, 2010 8:39 p.m. EST

CNN) -- A biology professor charged with killing three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville fatally shot her brother more than 23 years ago, but she and her mother claimed the shooting was accidental, according to documents released Sunday.

Amy Bishop Anderson was 19 when she fatally shot her brother, Seth, on December 6, 1986, in Braintree, Massachusetts, according to a Massachusetts State Police report released Sunday. She was never charged in that shooting.

Anderson was charged this weekend with capital murder in Friday's on-campus shooting deaths of her colleagues. She could face the death penalty.

The state police report in the 1986 shooting, released by the office of U.S. Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Massachusetts, gives an account similar to a Boston Globe story published on December 8, 2008. Delahunt was district attorney at the time; staffers said he was in the Middle East on Sunday and unable to comment on the case.
Earlier this weekend, Braintree police said records from that shooting were missing, and that the department's log indicated the shooting was accidental. However, Police Chief Paul Frazier said he didn't agree with the Globe's account.

The Globe's story stated that Anderson asked her mother how to unload a round from a 12-gauge shotgun and that Anderson -- then known as Amy Bishop -- accidentally shot her brother while she was handling the weapon. The article cited then-Police Chief John Polio as the source.

According to the state police report released Sunday, Braintree police told state police that "indications were that Amy Bishop had been attempting to manipulate the shotgun and had subsequently brought the gun downstairs in an attempt to gain assistance from her mother in disarming the weapon" when it went off, shooting her brother, Seth, in the chest.

But, Frazier said Saturday, "it is a far different story I believe than what was reported back then. I cannot tell you what the thought process was behind our releasing her at the time."

An officer then involved in the case who is still working for the department told him that Anderson shot her brother during an argument, Frazier said.

The officer said Anderson allegedly fired a shot in her bedroom without hitting anyone, argued with her brother, shot him and then fired another round in the home before fleeing, according to Frazier.

Frazier said the teen was arrested after pointing a weapon at a vehicle near the house in an attempt to get the driver to stop, but it drove on. But during the booking process, then-Chief Polio called and told the officers to release her, Frazier said. He said her mother was at the time a member of the Braintree Personnel Board.

In a telephone call with CNN, Polio, now 87 and retired, denied ever calling in the order. He said detectives including lead investigator Capt. Theodore Buker -- who has since died -- had interviewed Anderson and her mother, Judith, who is identified in the state police report as J. Bishop.

Buker told him that the shooting appeared accidental and the two men agreed she should be released to her mother, Polio said. A request was then filed with Delahunt's office to conduct an inquiry, but Delahunt never did so, he said.

The state police report, however, said that Buker met with a state police investigator and determined that "due to the testimony of the members of the Bishop family, and in particular the testimony of J. Bishop, relevant to the facts concerning the death of Seth Bishop that no further investigation ... was warranted," the report concludes. Seth Bishop's death was listed as accidental and the investigation was concluded.

Delahunt spokesman Mark Forest told CNN the state police and medical examiner concluded the death was accidental, and an autopsy was also conducted. "The investigative reports ... did not recommend any further action," he said in an e-mail. Those reports were turned over to state and local authorities, including the district attorney's office, he said.

Anderson's mother witnessed the shooting, the state police report said. Investigators waited 11 days to interview Anderson and her parents because of their "highly emotional state" following the shooting, according to the report.

In the December 17, 1986, interview, Anderson told authorities she "thought it would be a good idea if she learned how to load the shotgun in the house," according to the state police report. The young woman told police she was concerned for her own safety after the family home was broken into, although she previously had been afraid of the gun.

She said she got the gun and loaded shells into it, but was unable to get them out. Anderson said that while she was attempting to unload the weapon on her bed, it went off. She then took it downstairs to ask for help in unloading it. She asked her brother, she said, and he told her to point the gun up instead of carrying it beside her leg. Her brother was walking across the kitchen between her and her mother, she said. She started to raise the gun, and "someone said something to her," she recalled in the report. She turned and the gun went off.

"Amy thought that she had ruined the kitchen but was not aware of the fact that she had struck her brother," the report said. She fled, and told police she thought she had dropped the gun as she ran away. "She cannot recall anything else until she subsequently saw her mother at the police station," the report said.The report does not reference any other shots fired besides the one in Anderson's bedroom and the shot that struck her brother.
 
Anderson's father was not home at the time. He told police he had had a disagreement with his daughter "about a comment she had made" before he left to go shopping. He told police he had bought the shotgun about a year before the shooting, after the house had been broken into, and that he and his son belonged to a rifle club. Anderson was not trained to use the gun, he said.

Anderson's mother said that when her daughter came downstairs and asked for help in unloading the gun, she told her not to point it at anyone, and that her daughter turned and the gun went off. The woman told police she did not hear the shotgun fire earlier in her daughter's bedroom and "believed the house was relatively well soundproofed and that such a discharge would not necessarily be heard on another floor of the house."

Polio acknowledged that an argument had occurred during the shooting and said that the other shots, including one fired into the ceiling, did not appear aimed at anyone. He also recalled that Anderson had fled the scene. But, he said, he could not remember what he had told the newspaper in reference to the case or why details, including the argument, were not reported.

He said Anderson's mother had worked for the personnel board and at one point was assigned to the police department. But he rejected as "laughable" any suggestions that the suspect's mother might have influenced their handling of the case.

"There was no cover-up," Polio said. "Absolutely no cover-up and no missing records. The records were all there when I left. Where they went in the last 22 years and two police chiefs subsequent, I don't know."

Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan announced Sunday an effort to locate all materials associated with the shooting.

"The Braintree Police Department will conduct a thorough audit of all its records to identify if there were deficits in its past recordkeeping process," Sullivan said. "It is important to note that in 1986, police records were created and maintained manually, which complicates their review and retrieval."

The Braintree shooting resurfaced after Harvard-trained Anderson was charged in Friday's shooting in Alabama. Huntsville Police Chief Henry Reyes said Saturday that Anderson was attending a faculty meeting on the third floor of the sciences building Friday afternoon when she brandished a gun and shot six colleagues, killing three.

Anderson, a professor and researcher at the university and a mother of four, was arrested as she was leaving the building, Reyes told reporters Saturday. He said a 9 mm handgun was recovered from the second floor of the building late Friday.

Madison County District Attorney Rob Broussard said officials were considering other charges, including attempted murder. Authorities have not ruled out the possibility of other suspects in connection to the shooting.

Anderson, who is known to students as Dr. Bishop, had been working at the university since 2003, and was up for tenure, according to spokesman Ray Garner. However, authorities wouldn't discuss possible motives or whether the issue of tenure may have played a role in the shooting.

Garner told CNN that the university gives teachers six years to get tenure. Those who do not get it are terminated, he said.

University President David Williams said a prayer service would be held on Sunday. He said the campus would open next week for employees, but that there would be no classes.

Reached at the couple's home, Jim Anderson told CNN that his wife has an attorney whom he would not identify. He described her as a good teacher.

[Anna]

Lots of local coverage here, including a video interview with Dr Cruz-Vera one of the surviving victims.

http://www.whnt.com/news/local/

And Alabama law does require it to be a capital offense if more than one person is killed.  She is facing the death penalty for sure as I don't think it is even optional but is a mandatory requirement of law.

[Anna]

BTW,  Dr Cruz Vera has gone home from the hospital which is the only good news so far.

[MuffyBee]

Thank you for the updates, Anna.  My thoughts and prayers continue for the victims,  their family and friends.  Dr. Cruz Vera may have gone home, but I cannot fathom having sat at a table  where a co worker  fired a 9mm pistol until it jammed or emptied, injuring some and killing others.  I read the survivors blocked the doorway after the shooting, fearing she would come back and shoot some more.     It's horrifying just  thinking about it.   

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hf_Cw1b1x1DmRrdG4hiu4P55yZTgD9DSP1L00
Relatives wonder how Ala. prof in slaying hired

By DESIREE HUNTER and KRISTIN M. HALL (AP) – 18 minutes ago

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Grieving relatives of three professors gunned down at a university faculty meeting questioned why their accused colleague was hired despite a dispute with a former boss who received a pipe bomb and the shooting death of her brother.

Amy Bishop is charged in the three deaths and the wounding of three other professors at a meeting Friday at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She was vocal in her resentment over being denied tenure and the looming loss of her teaching post, though relatives and students said she had never suggested she might become violent.

The outbreak of violence was followed by weekend of revelations that Bishop had a difficult past that she did not discuss with her Alabama colleagues.
<snipped>

[trimmonthelake]

Today Show  02/15/10  http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/35408146#35408146

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/mostpopular/22568991/detail.html
Alleged Shooter's Husband Feels Bad, But 'Standing By' Wife
Woman Accused In Fatal Alabama Shootings

POSTED: 11:25 am EST February 15, 2010
UPDATED: 12:22 pm EST February 15, 2010



Video at link

[Anna]

Thank you for the updates, Anna.  My thoughts and prayers continue for the victims,  their family and friends.  Dr. Cruz Vera may have gone home, but I cannot fathom having sat at a table  where a co worker  fired a 9mm pistol until it jammed or emptied, injuring some and killing others.  I read the survivors blocked the doorway after the shooting, fearing she would come back and shoot some more.     It's horrifying just  thinking about it.  

The reason he was not also killed was that the bullet hit a chair before him.  Otherwise, who knows, he would likely also be dead.

If he is who I think he is, his wife is a physician and I know her and have met him.  But not sure about that and have not asked anybody locally.

This is just such a shock as that campus is normally the picture of tranquility.

[Anna]

Hey, where did my avatar go?

[Anna]

Nevermind--it's back.

Anyway, this is an article about the man she pulled a gun on and tried to steal the car from.  I think he may be on Sheperd Smith's program right now in a few minutes.


http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1232944


Quincy man recalls Amy Bishop holdup


How in the world did she get away with all this?  Her mother on the police personnel board is interesting.

It's not what you know even if you are a genius apparently but who you know.

[Anna]

Classes are cancelled for the whole week.  Tom Pettigrew on Shep Smith discussing the day Amy Bishop pulled the gun on him and tried to steal a car.  He thought she had a BB gun.  Ran into her and it was a shotgun instead.  She held it to his chest and said she got into a fight with her husband and she needed a car to get away from him because he was going to kill her.

Made him and his friend hold their hands up the whole time.  He and friend ran in opposite directions and he ran back in shop.  She left the property and the police arrived and surrounded her.  Uniformed officer came 45 minutes later and interviewed him but he never heard any thing more.  Saw in local paper that it was accidental shooting.  No trial and didn't hear any more all these years.

That's the interview just on Fox.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.examiner.com/x-38158-Cultural-Oddities-Examiner~y2010m2d15-More-charges-for-Amy-Bishop-in-Alabama-university-deadly-shooting-spree
More charges for Amy Bishop in Alabama university shooting

February 15, 8:32 PM
In addition to the charge of capital murder, University of Alabama-Huntsville professor, Amy Bishop stands accused of attempted murder, police records showed Monday, Feb. 15.

Bishop, a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, allegedly opened fire during a faculty meeting, killing three and wounding three other colleagues.

Although police in Huntsville have decline to discuss a motive in the shooting, reports say Bishop became angry about not receiving tenure at the university before firing shots from a concealed 9mm handgun. The incident occurred on the third floor of the the university's Shelby Center Friday, Feb 12.

Sammie Davis, husband of Maria Ragland Davis, said his wife described Bishop as "not able to deal with reality." Maria Ragland Davis died in the attack.

Chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, Gopi K. Podila and Adriel Johnson, were also killed. Josephy Leahy, Luis Cruz-Vera and Stephanie Monticello were injured.

Bishop could face the death penalty if convicted.

In 1986, Bishop discharged a 12 gauge shotgun, shooting her 18-year-old brother to death in their Boston-area home. Bishop was held briefly for questioning and released shortly after. The case was ruled an accident and its files have since been lost.  Bishop's mother allegedly witnessed the shooting.

In an earlier report, police in Boston also questioned Bishop and her husband, Jim Anderson, in a 1993 case involving a letter bomb sent to a Harvard professor. Although Bishop's house was searched after the letter was sent, no charges were filed. Anderson claims the couple has been cleared. The case remains open.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hf_Cw1b1x1DmRrdG4hiu4P55yZTgD9DSTEN00
Husband: Ala. prof went to range before shooting
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The husband of an Alabama college professor accused of shooting her colleagues says the couple went to a shooting range weeks before the killing but he didn't know where she got the gun.

James Anderson told The Associated Press Monday that he did not know how long Amy Bishop had a gun before Friday's attack. He says the family did not own a gun.

Bishop is accused of opening fire at a faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, killing three and wounding three.

Anderson says she was acting like "a normal professor" in the days before the shooting.

He also says he and his wife were cleared in the investigation of a pipe bomb sent to one of her former bosses in Massachusetts in 1993.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Disclosures that an Alabama professor accused of fatally shooting three colleagues was twice questioned by criminal investigators years ago raised concerns Monday of why background checks didn't prevent her hiring at the school in 2003.

University of Alabama in Huntsville officials were meeting privately to review the files concerning Amy Bishop, a Harvard-educated neurobiologist accused of pulling a gun at a Friday faculty meeting and shooting six people, three fatally. Two of the survivors remained in critical condition Monday.

Some victims' relatives questioned why UAH hired her in the first place after the disclosures about her involvement in the two criminal probes. She wasn't charged with a crime in either.

An expert on background checks who's not involved in the case says the lack of charges made it less likely either case would have shown up when prospective employers looked into her past.

Professors who witnessed the shooting said Bishop had been "unusually quiet" during the meeting before pulling out a gun and firing, said professor Leland Cseke (CHEK'-ee). He joined them and other biology department colleagues at a gathering Sunday to mourn the dead and wounded.

While investigators have not commented on a motive, family members of victims said they understood Bishop was angry about the university's decision to deny her tenure, forcing her to look for work elsewhere after this semester.

In a case that Huntsville colleagues weren't aware of, Bishop in 1986 shot and killed her 18-year-old brother with a shotgun at their Braintree, Mass., home. She told police she had been trying to learn how to use the gun, which her father had bought for protection, when it accidentally discharged.

Authorities termed the episode an accident and released her, but current Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier has questioned how the investigation was handled.

On Sunday The Boston Globe reported that Bishop and her husband, James Anderson, were questioned by investigators after a package containing two pipe bombs was sent to one of Bishop's colleagues, Dr. Paul Rosenberg, at Children's Hospital Boston in 1993. Police were alerted and the bomb did not go off. No one was charged.

Huntsville police spokesman Sgt. Mark Roberts said both cases were news to them.

"We found out about both events after the fact," he told The Associated Press.

He said police were checking with law enforcement to confirm details of the pipe bomb probe.

Bishop's father-in-law, Jim Anderson, told The Associated Press that his son and daughter-in-law "were cleared when the evidence proved they had nothing to do with it."

He said ATF conducted the investigation. "They focused on the wrong persons and let the bad guy(s) flee," he said in an e-mail.

Sylvia Fluckiger, a lab technician who worked with Bishop at the time, said Bishop had been in a dispute with Rosenberg shortly before the bombs were discovered, though she didn't know the nature of the disagreement.

"It was common knowledge," she told the AP Sunday.

It was not clear Monday if UAH spoke with Rosenberg when it hired Bishop, an associate professor whose research led to an innovative cell incubator now being developed for market by a private company, Prodigy Biosystems, that employs her husband.

Sammie Lee Davis, whose wife, Maria Ragland Davis, was killed in the shooting, expressed concern that UAH hired someone with a past like Bishop's.

"This is all new to us," he said of her past.

The slain professor's two stepdaughters said they were shocked that Bishop was hired.

"I think they need to do a little more investigation when coming down to hiring teachers and things like that. Maybe looking a little deeper into their past about certain things. This is a lot coming out ... It's a shocker," said Melissa Davis on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Jason Morris, president of EmployeeScreenIQ, a Cleveland, Ohio, company that does background checks for colleges and other large institutions, said it's possible a background check would not have turned up the incidents in Bishop's past, particularly since she wasn't charged.

Part of the problem is that college professors often come to campus with very lofty credentials, like Bishop's degree from Harvard University, Morris said.

"Sometimes they overlook certain characteristics because they've got this great person coming to campus," Morris said.

"It's not a silver bullet," he said of background checks, but a check of weapons records "might have uncovered something."

Police previously said Bishop had no permit for the gun believe used in the shooting, and investigators said they didn't know where she got it. The gun was found in a second-floor restroom, one floor below where the shooting occurred.

Bishop's husband told the Chronicle of Higher Education on Monday that her wife had recently borrowed a handgun and had practiced with it at an indoor gun range. He said she wouldn't tell him who she borrowed it from and was 'very cagey.'

He said she had been worried about "crazy students" since someone had followed her across campus last summer. But he said he warned his wife not to bring the gun to work.

Bishop is charged with one count of capital murder, which can lead to a death sentence in Alabama if convicted, and three counts of attempted murder.

Killed were Gopi K. Podila, the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, and professors Adriel Johnson and Davis. Two of the wounded — professor Joseph Leahy and staffer Stephanie Monticciolo — were in critical condition Monday. The third, Luis Cruz-Vera, had been released from the hospital.

Associated Press Writer Bob Johnson in Montgomery and Stephen Singer in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/ipswich_neighbo.html
Ipswich neighbors recall confrontations with Amy Bishop
February 15, 2010 06:59 PM
By John M. Guilfoil, Globe Staff

IPSWICH -- On Birch Lane, a family neighborhood where there are almost as many curbside basketball hoops as mailboxes, Amy Bishop, her husband, and their four children did not seem to fit in, former neighbors said today.

Bishop, who now stands accused of gunning down three professors at the University of Alabama Huntsville, and her husband, James Anderson, were not always considered friendly neighbors and sometimes had arguments with other families. At least once, Bishop hinted that an ongoing confrontation with neighbors could become violent.

The accounts of longtime neighborhood residents, combined with a stack of police reports provided to the Globe by the Ipswich Police Department, paint a picture of conflict between the Bishop/Anderson family and others in town.
Bishop, who was referred to as Amy Anderson at the time, called 911 regularly during her short time living in this North Shore community. She reported several neighborhood kids to the police for "disturbing the peace" by riding their dirt bikes and motorized scooters in the neighborhood after school. Police repeatedly informed her and her husband that kids are allowed to ride their bikes and scooters during the afternoon hours, especially on their own property.

Bishop called police at least five times about neighborhood children making noise after they got home from school. On July 3, 2001, she complained that the noise from motorized scooters and motor bikes was bothering her. On April 12, 2002, she complained that children were riding dirt bikes in the woods around the neighborhood. On April 27, 2003, she called police again about kids riding bikes in the neighborhood.

On June 25, 2000, during another complaint about kids making noise, Bishop reportedly told police that her dispute with one of the children's parents may "come to blows."

Joey Lafoe, now 18 and a senior at Ipswich High School, was the target of Bishop's police reports several times for riding around on his dirt bike and motorized scooter.

"They used to videotape us driving our dirt bikes, and they used to call the cops on us saying that our dirt bikes kept them up -- at 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon," Lafoe said. "The cops said we could go until 8 o'clock."

He summed the family up in one word:

"Strange," Lafoe said.

Ipswich Police Officer Michael Thomas remembers responding to several 911 calls at the Anderson/Bishop house, calling the family "regular customers."

"I do remember them. Some of their complaints were legitimate, but it just gets to a point there was never enough we could do for them."

Thomas said that the family would get angry with police, especially when they said they were told that police couldn't put a stop to kids playing basketball or riding dirt bikes in the neighborhood because it wasn't illegal.

Bishop once stopped a local ice cream truck from coming into their neighborhood. According to WBZ-1030 radio, she said it because her own kids were lactose intolerant, and she didn't think it was fair that her kids couldn't have ice cream. 

"That's who it was!" Lafoe said. "When we were younger the ice cream truck just stopped coming around. That's strange."

On February 17, 2002, a police report indicates that Bishop called 911 several times and hung up on the dispatcher. No further information was available on that day's incident.

On April 11, 1999, James Anderson called police to report that the couple's daughters, Phaeder and Thea, were missing. He said that the girls were at a friend's house and were supposed to call before they left. Police arrived, and another neighborhood parent quickly came outside and said the girls and other children were over at his house.

But the children were largely kept isolated from the other neighborhood kids.

Lafoe and several others said that it was common knowledge in the neighborhood that the kids weren't allowed to play with the rest of the kids in the neighborhood.

Some neighbors, like Ethel Farmer, who's lived in the neighborhood for 37 years, never knew the Bishop/Anderson family at all because they largely kept to themselves, neighbors said. Farmer said one of the only things she knew about the family was that the kids weren't allowed to play with other kids in the neighborhood.

"I never met them. I never knew their names. I've been here 37 years and never met them. I just found out that they were my neighbors from another neighbor," Farmer said. "I know who Amy Bishop is because of the news, but not because she was a neighbor."

John M. Guilfoil can be reached at jguilfoil@globe.com

[MuffyBee]

http://www.necn.com/02/15/10/Broadside-Police-and-Amy-Bishop/landing.html?blockID=180829&feedID=4215
Broadside: Police and Amy Bishop
(Video Available at Link)
(NECN) - Attorney Wendy Murphy is challenging the police handling of Amy Bishop, the Alabama shooting rampage suspect with a troubled history in Massachusetts.

Bishop is charged in three deaths, and the wounding of three other professors at a meeting Friday at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.


In 1986, Bishop shot and killed her 18-year-old brother in their Braintree, Massachusetts home. That death was ruled accidental. Wendy questions the State Police report which did not include a motive, and omitted Bishop's actions after the fatal shooting.

In 1993 Bishop was questioned after a pipe bomb was delivered to one her colleagues at Children's Hospital. Nobody was ever charged. Wendy says the university could have investigated her past more thoroughly.

[MuffyBee]

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1232943&srvc=home&position=emailed
Oddball’ portrait of Amy Bishop emerges
Suspect’s family, pals offer clues