Amy Bishop, Univ. Alabama Murder Suspect Has a Past … Shot Brother in Massachusetts 24 Years Ago

Amy Bishop, the University of Alabama at Huntsville biology professor who gunned down and murdered three professors Friday afternoon, has a past when it comes to shooting people.

Twenty four years ago Amy Bishop shot and killed her brother in Braintree, Massachusetts. It was reported as an accidental shooting. However, local police chief and the district attorney’s office gave differing accounts today of the 1986 shooting raising questions about the handling of that case. It is disturbing to hear that this was not Bishop’s first shooting and had the first case been handled just a little differently, maybe the “nutty professor” would not have been able to legally access a gun.

According to the current Braintree police chief, Paul H. Frazier, Amy Bishop fatally shot her 18-year-old brother, Seth, on Dec. 6, 1986, but was set free the same day by Braintree Police under orders from then-Police Chief John Polio. In news accounts at the time, Polio called the death an accident that happened when Bishop was learning how to unload a shotgun.

Frazier challenged that account today, saying instead that Bishop shot her brother during an argument and fled on foot with the 12-gauge shotgun before being captured by police, who handcuffed her and took her to the station. The case file, including the report of the incident, disappeared shortly thereafter, he said.

‘‘I don’t want to use the word ‘coverup,’’’ Frazier said. ‘‘I don’t know what the thought process was of the police chief at the time.’’

But the Norfolk County district attorney’s office this evening released a six-page report from its archives that showed State Police investigators reviewed the case with Braintree Police and concluded that Seth Bishop’s death was an accident.

However, the retired police chief has another version of the story and brings into play former DA, now US Representative Democrat William D. Delahunt. It would seem that Democrat William Delahunt has some explaining to do. Now we are learning thta Delahunt may not even run for reelection.  The Scott Brown effect coupled with a dose of much explaining in this triple murder professor case.

At his home in Braintree today, Polio, who is retired, disputed Frazier’s version.

‘‘That’s a joke. That’s got to be a joke. If anybody knows history, I never covered anything up,’’ he said. He said he thought that the Bishop family’s explanation of an accident was murky and that he wanted the district attorney to hold an inquiry.

But just one day after the shooting, Polio told the Globe, ‘‘every indication at this point in time leads us to believe it was an accidental shooting.’’

The district attorney at the time, current US Representative William D. Delahunt, is out of the country and could not be reached for comment.

D.A. Delahunt Cleared Amy Bishop In 1986 Braintree, MA Slaying

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.

UPDATE I: Amy Bishop was a suspect in the attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor in 1993

Are you serious, the biology professor who is alledged to have shot and killed three colleagues on Friday, had accidentally shot her brother 24 years ago was also a suspect in a letter bomb incident. Good grief. It is being reported that Amy Bishop and her husband, James Anderson, were questioned after a package containing two bombs was sent to the Newton home of Dr. Paul Rosenberg, a professor and doctor at Boston’s Children’s Hospital in 1993.

How old is this professor? The next thing we know she will be accused of being one of the gun man on the grassy knoll in the JFK assassination. I an going to have to second the motion from Another Black Conservative and ask the question how could some one with so many brushes with the law not have raised any red flags when gaining employment at a University? Tenure, I am a bit puzzled how she was even employed.