Amy Bishop, Alabama Professor, Newly Charged with Brother's 1986 Murder; Already Accused of Killing 3 Professors
CANTON, Mass. (CBS/AP) After months of speculation and closed door hearings, Amy Bishop, the University of Alabama professor charged with killing three of her fellow professors in February, has been indicted on charges of first degree murder in her brother's 1986 death.
PICTURES: Alabama University Shooting
The Massachusetts shooting was originally ruled an accident, but after Bishop was arrested for the college shootings Braintree investigators decided to reopen the case. Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating ordered an inquest, which was held in April, to investigate whether Bishop intentionally shot her 18-year-old brother, Seth, at their home south of Boston in 1986.
Nineteen witnesses, including Bishop's parents, testified before Quincy District Court Judge Mark Coven during the closed-door inquest.
Bishop's mother, Judith Bishop, was the only eyewitness to the shooting, and backed up Bishop's story, telling police in 1986 that the gun accidentally went off when Amy was trying to unload their father's shotgun.
But Keating said that the district attorney's office didn't get the whole story before they decided to rule the death an accident.
According to Braintree police reports, Bishop said at the time that she took her father's shotgun and loaded it, but couldn't figure out how to get the bullets out. She then went to her brother to ask for help and the gun went off.
PICTURES: Alabama University Shooting
But instead of calling police for help she allegedly fled the house, held workers at an auto dealership at gunpoint in an attempt to commandeer a getaway car, trained the shotgun on police, and refused to drop it when officers tried to arrest her.
But John Kivlan, who was the top assistant prosecutor on the case, says none of that was disclosed in the state police report. If it had been, Kivlan said, it would have definitely triggered a grand jury investigation.
Additionally investigators looked at old crime scene photos from the shooting and discovered a newspaper article about the 1986 killings of actor Patrick Duffy's parents. The clipping, which was in Bishop's bedroom, described how a teenager shot the "Dallas" star's parents with a 12-gauge shotgun and stole a getaway car from an auto dealership.
