GUILTY AL - Three dead, 3 injured in shooting at UAH, Amy Bishop charged

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Good post, mo_mom, and welcome.

I think we often put academic success, especially at this level, on a different platform where being an eccentric genius is more accepted. We don't know how "normal" the husband is. Some of his comments have been very odd.

Why exactly shouldn't being an eccentric genius be accepted?
Most people who are eccentric or a little odd don't kill anyone.
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100216...DeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2h1c2JhbmRhbGFwcg--

Husband: Ala. prof went to range before shooting


"An Alabama professor practiced at a shooting range not long before police say she gunned down three colleagues and wounded three others during a faculty meeting, her husband said.

Amy Bishop's husband, James Anderson, said his wife acted normally while they were at the range and none of her behavior in recent days foreshadowed Friday's rampage. Bishop, a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, is accused of shooting six people at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Two survivors remained in critical condition Monday........."


More at link.
 
New doubts about 1986 shooting
Ex-chief sees flaws in investigation of Bishop’s brother’s death


A former Braintree police chief backed away yesterday from his earlier defense of a 1986 decision not to press charges against Amy Bishop, who shot her brother to death that year and then, on Friday, allegedly killed three of her colleagues at the University of Alabama.

John Polio, now 87, said in an interview yesterday that after reading a State Police report compiled in 1986 and released to the public last weekend, he has questions about the quality of the investigation into the death of Seth Bishop, which was declared an accident.


http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...tion_of_1986_shooting_of_amy_bishops_brother/
 
Thanks for the welcome, you guys! I've been an avid reader for a while and looking forward to sharing.

On her kids...the poor things have enough to deal with already (and sounds like they had plenty to deal with before Mom snapped), now add that James Anderson said that their children didn't know about the incident with the brother.

"Anderson said he knew his wife had shot her brother, but that it had been an accident.
"That was laid to rest," he said, adding that his wife didn't talk about the incident very much. He said his four children had not known about it."


Full story from this morning: http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/02/amy_bishops_husband_talks_abou.html

I sure hope those kids have a really, really good therapist.

- Can the case with the brother be reopened? Assuming, of course, that they can find the report?

~mo_mom
 
Her husband now admits she borrowed a gun from someone. In a previous interview he claimed the family didn't own a gun. The two of them have also gone to the shooting range to practice.
"Amy Bishop's husband, James Anderson, told both The Chronicle and The New York Times on Sunday that the family did not own a gun. But in an interview with The Chronicle today, he acknowledged that she had borrowed a gun, though he wasn't sure from whom. "She was very cagey and didn't say," he said."
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/U-of-Wisconsin-at-Milwaukee/21267

BBM --

Sooo - is he trying to diminish any culpability he might have -- or was he afraid of her too?

I can't see my DBF not asking where I suddenly got a gun & when I didn't answer just let it go at that or letting me get away with saying "Oh I just borrowed it from a friend"....he knows who my friends are -- he would want an answer.

Hinky, IMO.
 
BBM --

Sooo - is he trying to diminish any culpability he might have -- or was he afraid of her too?

I can't see my DBF not asking where I suddenly got a gun & when I didn't answer just let it go at that or letting me get away with saying "Oh I just borrowed it from a friend"....he knows who my friends are -- he would want an answer.

Hinky, IMO.

I got the very same impression TM. It seems he was fearful and didn't want to push her buttons too much by asking her where she got the gun.

Geesh I think she was a very ruthless woman who didn't stand for anyone questioning her about anything.

imo
 
Thanks for the welcome, you guys! I've been an avid reader for a while and looking forward to sharing.

On her kids...the poor things have enough to deal with already (and sounds like they had plenty to deal with before Mom snapped), now add that James Anderson said that their children didn't know about the incident with the brother.

"Anderson said he knew his wife had shot her brother, but that it had been an accident.
"That was laid to rest," he said, adding that his wife didn't talk about the incident very much. He said his four children had not known about it."


Full story from this morning: http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/02/amy_bishops_husband_talks_abou.html

I sure hope those kids have a really, really good therapist.

- Can the case with the brother be reopened? Assuming, of course, that they can find the report?

~mo_mom

Welcome!

I really don't think this woman snapped. Her trigger for years seemed to be eradicating anyone that didn't agree with her.

I think she is a full blown sociopath.

Yes, I read where the death of her brother is going to be reopened.

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

She was upset about a lot of things. More troubling signs that were obviously missed.
Gosh - reading that gave me flashbacks. We had some crazy neighbors like that once and if my kids or anyone's kids were playing in the public street they would come outside and videotape them. They would say that no one was allowed to play in front of their house.

True story - one time the kids were playing with some black walnuts that look like big green balls, and they were rolling them down the street, just playing. One rolled into the crazy neighbor's yard and she came out with her camera and started shouting at the kids. I went over to her and told her the street belongs to all the taxpayers, and she didn't own it, and while we were standing there a walnut fell off the tree (act of nature) and rolled downhill and into her yard. She videotaped that, too. :waitasec: I asked her if she was mad at the tree, too? I also told her that I would go get a camera and start videotaping her, and suddenly she stopped and went into the house.

To me people like my neighbor, and this murderous professor are sort of like the Uni-bomber: delusions of grandeur based on what they see as their superior intelligence. As if they are masters of the universe and we are just peasants in their kingdom.

Sociopath is right. :twocents: I feel so sorry for her children. I think a social worker should look into that family for sure.
 
BBM --

Sooo - is he trying to diminish any culpability he might have -- or was he afraid of her too?

I can't see my DBF not asking where I suddenly got a gun & when I didn't answer just let it go at that or letting me get away with saying "Oh I just borrowed it from a friend"....he knows who my friends are -- he would want an answer.

Hinky, IMO.
I'm surprised he lied to the New York Times about the gun, but it could be his wife was lying to him and that he knew she was wiggety-whack.

I think you're right that he's trying to tone down his own involvement so his children won't lose both parents. Time will tell as more details come out.

This is one of the strangest stories in a long time - you can't make this stuff up.
 
EXCERPT:
Accused campus killer Amy Bishop was a devotee of Dungeons & Dragons - just like Michael “Mucko” McDermott, the lone gunman behind the devastating workplace killings at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield in 2000.

Bishop, now a University of Alabama professor, and her husband James Anderson met and fell in love in a Dungeons & Dragons club while biology students at Northeastern University in the early 1980s, and were heavily into the fantasy role-playing board game, a source told the Herald.

“They even acted this crap out,” the source said.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1233150
 
[snipped from pages 2 & 3]

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.

Authorities released her and said the episode was a tragic accident. She was never charged. The Norfolk County district attorney at the time was William Delahunt, now a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts. He was traveling in Israel and could not immediately be reach for comment on the case.

John Kivlan, the former assistant district attorney who reviewed the case, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that there was nothing then to indicate Seth Bishop's death was anything but an accident. He said a joint investigation by state and local police as well as the medical examiner's office all came to that conclusion.

Current Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier questions how the investigation was handled. Frazier said Amy Bishop also fired once into a wall before hitting her brother, then fired a third time into the ceiling.

Bishop's husband, James Anderson, said Monday he had known about her brother being shot, but said "it was an accident. That's all I knew about it."

An auto mechanic who worked at a dealership near Bishop's home in 1986 told The Boston Globe that Bishop ran in after shooting her brother, waved a gun and demanded a getaway car.

Tom Pettigrew, 45, recalled that Bishop said she had had a fight with her husband and he was going to come after her, so she needed to flee. Pettigrew said Braintree police briefly questioned him and several other employees, but authorities never contacted him again.

Kivlan, who is now retired and living in Sarasota, Fla., said he did not recall that element of the case.

"I am not saying it didn't happen, but for whatever reason it wasn't included in his report," Kivlan said. "Even if we knew about that it may not have changed things."


http://www.startribune.com/nation/84465132.html?page=2&c=y

They need to release local LE's report -- not just the state police report.

In another article I read that Bishop had put the gun to the chest of Pettigrew-- why wasn't she charged with that??

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1232944
 
ThoughtFox, you and me both.
Gosh - reading that gave me flashbacks. We had some crazy neighbors like that once...

Ugh, same here - we live in a tight-knit university neighborhood. There was a woman down the street whose husband had passed away, and she had 3-4 kids. Eventually re-married a nutcase. The kids never came out to play after that. He would complain about a neighbor's cat coming in his yard, next thing you knew, neighbor's cat was dead. Complained about another's garage light shining in his house (their bedrooms were on 2nd floor and curtains always closed - no way garage light was affecting them). Next thing you know, garage light is shot out.

We got a puppy, and were very conscientious about not leaving her outside. One Saturday afternoon, puppy barked at a squirrel while I was gardening, so I quickly got her back in. Having been in neighborhoods with barky dogs, I was hypersensitive about not disturbing the neighbors. While sitting on the porch with a neighbor later - he came over and said, "If I ever hear that dog again, I will shoot it." And left. My neighbor and I were stunned. Local PD talked to him about making threats, but he continued to bully the neighborhood.

Others called the police on his weirdness, neighbors tried to talk to the wife to make sure she was OK, but there was nothing they could prove/do. When they finally moved, we were scared to death as we watched him load an armful of hunting rifles into the back of his van. Had NO idea how much firepower he had in that house.

Your video-taping neighbor with the walnut sounds like a real wingnut!
I second the "sociopath." What's frightening is how long they go undetected/suspected.

~mo_mom
 
EXCERPT:
U.S. Rep. and former Norfolk District Attorney William Delahunt yesterday backed off earlier claims he didn’t recall the 1986 shooting death of Amy Bishop’s brother, with a top aide now saying police downplayed the need for further investigation.

Mark Forest, Delahunt’s chief of staff, said both state and local police told the former top prosecutor they believed Amy Bishop, then 20, had accidentally blasted her 18-year-old brother, Seth, with their father’s shotgun.

“They pretty much found the death was accidental and there was no need for further action,” Forest told the Herald.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1233152
 
[snipped from pages 2 & 3]

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.

Authorities released her and said the episode was a tragic accident. She was never charged. The Norfolk County district attorney at the time was William Delahunt, now a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts. He was traveling in Israel and could not immediately be reach for comment on the case.

John Kivlan, the former assistant district attorney who reviewed the case, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that there was nothing then to indicate Seth Bishop's death was anything but an accident. He said a joint investigation by state and local police as well as the medical examiner's office all came to that conclusion.

Current Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier questions how the investigation was handled. Frazier said Amy Bishop also fired once into a wall before hitting her brother, then fired a third time into the ceiling.

Bishop's husband, James Anderson, said Monday he had known about her brother being shot, but said "it was an accident. That's all I knew about it."

An auto mechanic who worked at a dealership near Bishop's home in 1986 told The Boston Globe that Bishop ran in after shooting her brother, waved a gun and demanded a getaway car.

Tom Pettigrew, 45, recalled that Bishop said she had had a fight with her husband and he was going to come after her, so she needed to flee. Pettigrew said Braintree police briefly questioned him and several other employees, but authorities never contacted him again.

Kivlan, who is now retired and living in Sarasota, Fla., said he did not recall that element of the case.

"I am not saying it didn't happen, but for whatever reason it wasn't included in his report," Kivlan said. "Even if we knew about that it may not have changed things."


http://www.startribune.com/nation/84465132.html?page=2&c=y

They need to release local LE's report -- not just the state police report.

In another article I read that Bishop had put the gun to the chest of Pettigrew-- why wasn't she charged with that??

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

I was wondering the same thing when I heard this (bolded by me, blue print). Why wasn't she charged for that?
 
I remember reading about this guy when the Nobel was awarded...thing is, he sounded gracious, humble, and like a decent human being.



"The way she saw it, her life had two roads: Be a tenured professor or drive a bus. Amy Bishop, the troubled neurobiology professor at University of Alabama, Huntsville, accused of shooting three colleagues dead, saw firsthand what happens to academics tossed out of the ivory tower -- a job befitting a high-school dropout.

"That's what happened to one guy that didn't get tenure, and he is driving a courtesy shuttle," James Anderson, Bishop's husband, told The Post yesterday in explaining what may have prompted his wife to murder her colleagues. "


"She feared she'd end up like Douglas Prasher, a brilliant molecular chemist who had to abandon his research in 1994 when his funding dried up.

His colleagues went on to the win the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2008 based on his research. Prasher currently drives the courtesy van for a Huntsville Toyota dealership.

"There is always life after tenure," a shocked Prasher told The Post after learning that his misfortune had become a cautionary tale, even though his problem was with funding, not tenure."



Full article: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/she_feared_being_the_next_scientist_Stc6nhsGHMuUdGve1vFmUL

More about Douglas Prasher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=95545761
 
thanks for the above post.....wish there was some way to find out those other Andersons listed.....

~Always, two of the girls go/went to Lee High School in Huntsville. Thea won a poetry contest in 9th grade in Trellis Magazine. http://trellismagazine.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/young-poets-showcase-2/
"Pink Cakes and White Ponies"

Phaedra was an honorable mention in an essay contest for the Peace Valley foundation http://www.peacevalleyfoundation.or...st-winners-2009&catid=38:hunstville&Itemid=18

If Phaedra was in 9th grade in 2009 and Thea was in 9th grade in 2008, could they be the youngest co-authors of a scientific paper?!

I keep coming back to those poor kids <sigh>...maybe because my daughter is close in age, and wants to be a chemist. What parent commits any kind of action that is going to jeopardize their child's well-being? Oh yeah. There's that sociopath word again...
 
UAH shooting survivor tried to talk Amy Bishop into putting gun down
By Steve Doyle
February 16, 2010, 3:05PM


HUNTSVILLE, AL -- One of the survivors of Friday's deadly shooting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville said she tried to talk Amy Bishop into putting the gun down.

"The first thing I said was, 'Amy, think about my grandson, think about my daughter," Dr. Debra Moriarity, UAH's graduate school dean and a member of the biology faculty, said today. "I said, 'Amy, you know I've helped you, I'll help you again. It's me, it's me."

"Part of my brain thought she'd go, 'Oh, it's Deb, and she'd quit."

But Moriarity said Bishop, an assistant professor, never responded. So Moriarity crawled through the open Shelby Center conference room door into the outer office area.


more here

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/02/uah_shooting_survivor_tried_to.html
 

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