Old story is similar to Ala. prof's Mass. shooting

[February 26, 2010]  CANTON, Mass. (AP) -- Investigators have discovered that a newspaper on the floor of Alabama university professor Amy Bishop's home when she killed her brother more than 20 years ago described an incident strikingly similar to what she did that day, raising questions about her claim it was an accident.

Norfolk District Attorney William Keating said investigators found the date of the newspaper after enlarging a police photo of the scene. He said the newspaper contained an article about someone killing a relative with a shotgun and stealing a getaway car from a dealership.

Bishop, currently accused of killing three faculty colleagues in an Alabama shooting this month, killed her teenage brother with a shotgun at their suburban Boston home in 1986. She then went to a car dealership body shop and tried to commandeer a car, police said. After her arrest, she told police the shotgun had accidentally discharged.

Keating on Thursday ordered an inquest into the shooting of Bishop's brother, Seth Bishop, saying there are new questions about whether it was the accident investigators concluded at the time.

The handling of the case has been under scrutiny since Amy Bishop was accused of killing three faculty colleagues and wounding three others in a shooting Feb. 12 at the University of Alabama-Huntsville.

Keating said the inquest would allow a judge to subpoena Bishop's parents, who refused to talk with state troopers who went to their home last week, saying they had retained an attorney.

"Had they cooperated and we thought their answers were forthright and truthful," Keating said, "this might not have been necessary."

Bishop's mother was the only other witness to the killing. An attorney for the Bishops, Bryan Stevens, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday.

Judge Mark Coven, presiding judge in Quincy District Court, will conduct the closed-door inquest and report his findings to Keating, who would then decide whether to issue an indictment. The only possible charge that could be filed is murder because the statute of limitations on all other counts, including manslaughter, has expired.

The fact that the only other eyewitness says the shooting was an accident is "a huge burden to overcome," Keating said.

Police reports released by Keating last week said Amy Bishop told police she accidentally fired the shotgun in her bedroom, then went downstairs to ask her brother for help unloading the gun, which her father bought after a break-in.

She said after the gun accidentally went off again, hitting her brother, she fled, believing she dropped it, the reports said. She was arrested at gunpoint. She said she did not remember anything from when she fired the gun the second time until she was at a police station later.

Bishop was released after her mother went to the police station, and police didn't question Bishop or her family for 11 days, among the serious errors Keating said were committed in the 1986 investigation.

Keating said his investigation indicates Bishop was calm and cooperative after she was arrested, contrary to police assertions at the time that she was too hysterical to be questioned.

"The more information we got, the more we looked at reports, the more questions we had," Keating said.

The inquest won't focus on how the investigation was handled, but some of what the judge finds could be used by state police, who are reviewing the original investigation, Keating said.

Seth Bishop's death is among several incidents involving Amy Bishop, a Harvard University-educated neurobiologist, that are being re-examined, including when she and her husband were questioned but never charged in the 1993 attempted mail bombing of a medical researcher who gave her a bad job review. The U.S. attorney in Boston is reviewing its actions in that case.

Bishop also was charged with assault and disorderly conduct after a fight over a child booster seat in a restaurant in 2002. The charges were dismissed after six months' probation.

Bishop 45, is charged with capital murder and attempted murder in the Alabama shooting. Colleagues say she had complained for months about being denied the job protections of tenure.

In Bishop's only public comments since the Alabama shootings, she said they "didn't happen."

A police spokesman in Huntsville, Ala., said it was unclear whether information gathered in a Massachusetts inquest could be used in the capital murder case against Bishop in Alabama.

"It's too bad they didn't do a good investigation up there the first time," Sgt. Mark Roberts said. "If they had in 1986, we might not be where we are today in 2010."

[Associated Press; By JAY LINDSAY]

AP reporter Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala., contributed to this report.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.