RA Prof Slays 3 When Tenure Denied

[Albert Hidel]

More "gold standard" background investigation issues. The bodies aren't even cold yet and we've already learned the Harvard PhD blasted her brother to death with a shotgun, pulled a gun on some guy at a car dealership and on a passing motorist when she fled the murder scene, plus she was a suspect in a pipe bomb incident.

Yet the AUH admins are all wide-eyed and innocent. If it took the news media 15 minutes to find it, do you think the RA gold standard hiring committee might have found it if they had even tried?

You would have thought the Prince Valiant 'do might have tipped off somebody.


Alabama Shooting Suspect Eyed in 1993 Mail Bombing Attempt

...In contrast, Amy Bishop seemed to harbor anger and resentment. Though investigators say they will not re-open the investigation into the 1993 attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor, those who worked with her at the time say it was terrifying.

"We were completely rattled -- it was the time of the Unabomber," former co-worker Sylvia Fluckiger said of the two homemade pipe bombs that were sent to the professor's house. The bombs were later detonated by the bomb squad.

Once again, Bishop was never charged due to lack of evidence. And, authorities, say the motive seemed to be eerily similar to the potential motive in the Alabama rampage -- Bishop was reportedly upset about a negative evaluation she was expecting to get from the targeted professor.

Fluckiger, who worked with Bishop at a research lab, said she remembered Bishop and the professor having a disagreement.

"I just know there was an argument ... that the police questioned her," Fluckiger said. "She had told me they talked to her about those bombs. She had like a grin on her face."

Investigators said that during the investigation into the bombing, they found a novel on her computer that described a scientist who had shot her brother and then sought redemption.

Quincy man recalls Amy Bishop holdup

A former auto-body worker claims Amy Bishop put a gun to his chest and demanded a getaway car just minutes after she shot her brother to death 24 years ago in a controversial case that is now being reviewed.

Tom Pettigrew, 45, told the Herald he was working at the Dave Dinger Ford auto repair shop in South Braintree, near the former Bishop home, when he saw the gun-wielding woman run into the dealership with what he thought was a BB gun.

Pettigrew, of Quincy, who was 22 at the time, recalled telling his co-oworkers: "I'm like, 'Did I just see what I just saw?'"?

Pettigrew said he heard noise coming from where car keys are stored, so he went to investigate.

"I go over to the door and I can sense that she's right near the door," Pettigrew said. "I'm thinking it's a BB gun. I open the door and she's right there and we basically bumped into each other and I got a shotgun right in my chest!"

"And she's like, 'Hands up!' and I'm like, 'Yes ma'am.'"?

Bishop appeared agitated and nervous, Pettigrew said. The University of Alabama professor now accused of killing three colleagues Friday said she needed a car because, "I got into a fight with my husband and he's going to kill me," the worker recalled.

Pettigrew then watched as Bishop walked through the dealership looking at cars, all the while grasping the gun.

By then, police arrived and swarmed the parking lot. One armed officer climbed up on a nearby roof, Pettigrew said, and could have taken her out.

Instead, they arrested her. Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier has said officers on duty claim they were forced by retired former Chief John Polio to let Bishop, whose mother was a member of the police personnel board, go. Polio denies that and said then-District Attorney William Delahunt investigated the case and ruled it an accident.

Pettigrew said police questioned him after the incident but he never heard from them again.

"For the last 23 years, it was just a cool story I could tell my friends," Pettigrew said.

Braintree Mayor Joseph C. Sullivan said yesterday the city, its police department and the Norfolk District Attorney's Office are "conducting a full and thorough review of its municipal and law enforcement records to locate all materials relating to the Dec. 6, 1986, death of Seth Bishop . . . to identify if there were any deficits in its past record-keeping process."

Auto Body Worker: Prof In Alabama Case Held Me Up After Shooting In '86

...Current Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier said in a statement this weekend that Bishop also "allegedly pointed the shotgun at a motor vehicle in an attempt to get the driver to stop." That would appear to refer to a separate incident than the one at the auto body shop.

Here's more from the Frazier statement, quoting Officer Ronald Solimini, who says he wrote the Bishop report that is now missing (via the Boston Globe):

Officer Solimini recalled the incident as follows: He said he remembers that Ms. Bishop fired a round from a pump action shotgun into the wall of her bedroom. She had a fight with her brother and shot him, which caused his death. She fired a third round from the shotgun into the ceiling as she exited the home. She fled down the street with the shotgun in her hand. At one point she allegedly pointed the shotgun at a motor vehicle in an attempt to get the driver to stop. Officer Solimini found her behind a business on Washington Street. Officer Timothy Murphy was able to take control of the suspect at gunpoint and seized the shotgun. Ms. Bishop was subsequently handcuffed and transported to the police station under arrest."

Emphasis ours.

And here, also via the Globe, is the report from the state police concluding -- mainly on the word of Bishop's mother -- that the incident was an accident:

Bishop Report